PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

The remarkable record of this drug has been a subject of manycontributions to botanical and therapeutical literature, much of interesteven now remaining unwritten. To this writer its journey from theaborigines to scientific use and therapeutic study appears to parallel thecourse of such drugs as coca, jalap, benzoin, Sassafras, croton tig-lium, etc.

Summary. —To Dr. J. H. Bundy, Colusa, California, 1877, is duethe credit of introducing the bark of Rhamnus Purshiana (CascaraSagrada) to the medical profession.

To "New Preparations," Parke, Davis & Co., of Detroit, Michigan,(1877 and 1878) is due the credit of bringing the drug to the attentionof physicians and pharmacists. The firm of Parke, Davis & Co. in-troduced to the world the preparations of this drug, of which theywere, for some years, the sole manufacturers.

A descriptive treatise that will record some unwritten phases ofits dramatic history, familiär only to those concerned in its intro-duction, should not be lost to posterity. The following, contributedby this writer to the Research Committee of the American Pharrna-ceutical Association (vol. 44, 1896) is a brief summary.

HISTORY AND NAMES OF RHAMNUS PURSHIANA.(CASCARA SAGRADA)

By J. U. Lloyd.

Contribution to the Research Committee of the American Pharma-ceutical Association*

In a paper contributed to "New Preparations,"f October 15, 1877,p. 8, the late Dr. J. H. Bundy, an Eclectic physician of Colusa, Cali-fornia, commended "Cascara Sagrada" as a valuable remedy in thetreatment of constipation. This notice was by means of a brief notethat was part of a paper on Berberis aquifolium, Dr. Bundy promis-mg, however, to give it further attention, as follows:

"It is not my purpose to treat on Cascara Sagrada in this paper,but using it in connection with the Berberis, I simply make mentionof it. In the future I will introduce the drug to the profession."

This, so far as the writer can determine, was the first referenceconcerning this remedy in pharmaceutical or medical print. Agreeablyto promise, in January, 1878,$ Dr. Bundy contributed a paper on thesubject, "Cascara Sagrada," in which he gave the uses of fluid extractof "Cascara Sagrada." Following this came many papers from Dr.Bundy and other physicians, twenty contributions on the subject beingprinted in "New Preparations," 1878, to which Journal, with few ex-ceptions, the subject was confined during 1877 and 1878. Dr. Bundystated in his paper (1878) "A description of the Cascara I am unableto give at this time, but suffice it to say that it is a shrub, and in

*Introductory to a contribution from chemical investigations of Rhamnus Purshiana under-taken by Alfred R. L. Dohme.

fNew Preparations, Detroit, Parke, Davis & Co.JNew Preparations, January, 1878, p. 1.

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