PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

he named Quassia amara. The drug was brought to the notice of themedical profession by Linnens' lectures on materia medica, as wellas through a dissertation written under his direction, in 1763 (385), byone of his pupils, Carolus M. Blom. Be it known, however, thatmore than a little questioning exists as to the exact plant employed bythe slave Quassi. As pointed out by Dr. Wright, the leaves picturedin the Finnsean Dissertation belonged to another species than theQuassia amara, an error corrected by the younger Linnseus.

In this connection it may be stated that Philippe Fermin, a Frenchphysician and traveler in Surinam, spelled the name of the slave Coissi,questioning somewhat the fact of his having discovered the uses ofthe remedy, which Fermin states had been used in Surinam as earlyas 1714. In this connection it may be noted that, according to Murray,a spiee dealer of Amsterdam, Albert Seba, is said to have had in hiscollection a speeimen of a bark of a tree named quasci as early as 1730.Be this as it may, the drug known as quassia under the empirical in-troduetion given by the natives of Dutch Guiana became known toEuropean civilization, and in 1788 became official in the Fondon Phar-macopeia. Concerning the origin of the drug, the German Pharmaco-peia, 1872, demanded that it be the wood of Quassia amara. In thesecond edition, 1882, the Picrccna excelsa was admitted concurrentlytherewith, the latter being the official quassia of the present Pharma-copeia of the United States.

QUERCUS

The bark of the oak, Quercus alba, is strongly astringent andhas ever been used in domestic mediane where an astringent materialis applicable, as for example, in dysentery, hemorrhages, etc. In theform of a poultice, a decoction, and as a tineture it has a domestic rec-ord, probably in common with other species of oak in all countries.The medical profession has added little, if anything, to the domesticuses of the drug, as recorded by Rafinesque (535), Porcher (520),Cutler (178), and the early American dispensatories and works onmateria medica.

QUILLAJA

Soapbark, Quillaja saponaria, named by Molina (444), in 1782,in his "Ffistory of Chili," is the bark of a South American tree, havingsimilar qualities to other soap weeds or barks, derived from variousplants and trees, and used by the natives of different countries as aSubstitute for soap, or rather as a material for purposes similar to thoseof soap. Among the first contributions to the literature of saponariais that of Henry, Jr., and Boutron Charlarch Amer. Jour. of Pharm.,1841, xii, p. 209, in which the now well-known acrid, frothing qualitiesof the drug are mentioned, the Statement being that the name originatedfrom the Chilean term quilloan, meaning, to zvash. In the AmericanMedical Intelligencer, Sept. 15, 1840, Dr. Ruschenberger, of the UnitedStates Navy (Am. Jour. Phar., 1841, p. 211), contributes an articleon this bark, which, according to his observations in Chili, 1827, was

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