PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

wonderful New World, sarsaparilla enjoyed a marvellous reputation,whieh evidently was not interfered with by the fact that it returnedgreat profits to the dealers. A little work issued in its behalf by Giro-lamo Cardano (123), of Milan, 1559, advocates it most strongly inthe direction of the diseases mentioned. It found its way into phar-maceutical stores, where it made an eventful record as a new remedyfrom the New World. In domestic medicine from the time of its in-troduction a decoction has been "authoritatively" considered service-able as a "blood purifier." It is not necessary to State that in theform of a sweetened decoction syrup of sarsaparilla has through sev-eral decades enjoyed continual conspicuity in the pharmacopeia.

SASSAFRAS

Sassafras is indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, occurring inFlorida, Virginia, and as far north as Canada. It is found as far westas Kansas, but is there very scarce. Its occurrence in Brazil is recordedby Piso, 1658 (511). Sassafras was in medicinal use among the na-tives of Florida long before Ponce de Leon in 1512 set foot on the soilof this peninsula. It is generally stated and believed that the Spaniardsin 1538, which is the date of De Soto's invasion of Florida, were thefirst Europeans to obtain knowledge of this drug; yet we can find norecord of such a discovery in at least two narratives of this expedi-tion that are accessible to us. On the other hand, there seemed to besufficient evidence of the fact that the Spaniards gained a knowledge ofSassafras and its medicinal virtues through the French Huguenot emi-grants, who under their unfortunate leaders, Jean Ribault and ReneLaudonniere, occupied Florida between the years 1562 änd 1564.

To the Spanish physician, Nicolaus Monardes (447), of Sevilla,in 1574, is to be credited the first detailed description of Sassafras andits healing virtues, his information being gained, however, not fromany actual experience in the Sassafras lands but from personal consul-tation with travelers and from the government records at his com-mand (239). From Clusius' (153) Version of Monardes, 1593 (447),it is learned that the drug was imported from Florida into Spain someyears previous to 1574, that the Spaniards in Florida, when overtakenby fevers and other diseases consequent to miasma and unwholesomedrinking water, were advised by the few remaining Frenchmen to usethis drug, which was called by the French Sassafras (for reasons un-known to Monardes) and "pavame" by the Indians from whom theFrench obtained their information. Monardes (in Clusius' version)adds that Sassafras grows in Florida in maritime places, such as areneither too dry nor too moist, being especially plentiful near the har-bors of St. Helena and St. Matthews, where they form whole woods,which exhale such a fragrance (not true in the experience of thiswriter) that the Spaniards who first landed believed the tree to be thesame as the cinnamon tree of Ceylon.

The Illustration given by Monardes of the Sassafras tree has beenwidely copied in the herbals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries,among which we name Dalechamps (1586) (181), Joh. Bauhinus

75