PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

Brief, in which Dr. I, J. M. Goss, then of Marietta, Georgia, statesthat he had been induced to use the remedy and considered it a satis-factory one. After this introduction the drug carae repeatedly to theattention of practitioners of medicine. Manufacturing pharmacistsgave it especial attention, and at the present time it is one of the mostimportant remedial productions of the South. Thus the experimenta-tion of the people, following its apparent effect on animals, was fol-lowed in turn by the investigations of the medical profession, andthe remedy was finally introduced to the pages of the Pharmacopeia.In our opinion the volatile oil and its decomposition products are ofexceeding interest and will yet be a prolific source of detailed research.

SABINA

Sabina (Juniperus sabina) is native to the mountainous portionsof Austria, Switzerland, and some parts of France, being also foundin the Pyrenees, Italy, the Caucasus, and other countries in regionsfar above the sea level. It is also found in the northern parts of NorthAmerica. Sabina was used in veterinary medicine, as mentioned byMarcus Porcius Cato (132), a Roman author, 200 B. C. It was alsoknown to Dioscorides (194) and Pliny (514). The early domesticleech-books, before the Norman Conquest, gave it a place. Charle-magne ordered that it should be cultivated on the imperial farm.Macer Floridus (397), in the tenth Century, commended the use ofSabina in wounds and ulcers.

SACCHARUM

The sugar-cane (Saccharum officinarum) is cultivated in alltropical countries, such as India, China, Mexico, the West Indies, etc.Its native land is probably India, or the Indo-Chinese countries andislands. As made from the cane, sugar has been known from timeimmemorial. It is mentioned by such early writers as Theophrastus(633), Herodotus (314a), and others, who knew raw sugar as honeyof canes, and in the early Christian era sugar became well known underthe name saccharon. Dioscorides (194), A. D. JJ, describes it as ob-tained from India and Arabia Felix, stating that it resembled salt inbrittleness. Pliny (514) mentions it under the name saccharum, andan unknown writer, A. D. 54-68, mentions it as an article of importto the ports of the Red Sea opposite Aden (see Burton for descriptionof that country, "First Footprints" (113), etc.), but it is doubtfulwhether it was brought from the eastern or western parts of India.It is mentioned by Abu Zayd al Hasan (240), A. D. 850, as producedon the Persian Gulf, and A. D. 950 Moses of Chorene states that itwas then manufactured in quantities. Sugar was introduced into medi-cine in the tenth and eleventh centuries by Rhazes (a physician of Bag-dad and Persia, who died about A. D. 923), Haly Abbas (295), andothers ; but it had ever been employed, as it is still employed, in domesticmedicine for the purpose of disguising unpleasant materials and forsweetening acrid substances. Burton (113) found crude sugar an

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