PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

now in use, but which probably yields a product different from thenatural gum (see Manna). Scammony is a gift of the Orient, thebeginning of its use being home medication.

SCILLA

This bulbous plant (Urginea maritima) is broadly distributedin the islands of the Mediterranean and the countries neighboring, inthe south of Spain and Portugal, and in many instances is found farinland, even to an elevation as high as three thousand feet above sealevel. It is one of the most anciently recorded remedies, being men-tioned by Epimenides (294), a Greek writer of the seventh CenturyB. C, who made such use of it that it became known as epimenidea.Theophrastus (633) mentions it, Pliny (514) notes its two varieties,Dioscorides (194) describes the making of vinegar of squills, whilstpreparations of squill with honey were familiär remedies in Arabianmedication. The forms employed by the empiricists of those remotetimes seem not to have been improved upon by the pharmacy even ofthe present day; indeed, attempts to improve the aqueous or acetoussquill simples of ancient home medication by alcoholic extracts andtinctures, have resulted in failure.

SCOPARIUS

This woody shrub, Cytisus scoparius, or common broom, prevailsthroughout Great Britain and Western and temperate Northern Eu-rope, but it seems not to climb to any great height on the mountainsof the Alps. According to Ledebour (375) it is native to the easternside of the Ural Mountains. Scoparius is mentioned in the earliestItalian and German herbals under the name gcnesta, and under thename broom it was used in Anglo-Saxon medicine as well as in theWelsh "Meddygon Myddfai" (507). (See Note, page 1.) The Lon-don Pharmacopeia, 1618, gave it a place, and Gerarde (262) statesthat Henry VIII used it as a remedy "against surfets and diseasesthereof arising." Broom also enjoyed a reputation in other directions,for example, being the emblem of "The Handsome" Geoffrey, or"Plantagenet," Count of Anjou, ancestor of the Plantagenet kings ofEngland, who wore the common broom of his country, the "plantagenista," in his helmet. Scoparius in the Pharmacopeia of the UnitedStates seems, like other established foreign drugs, to have heired itsreputation and obtained its position from past records in medisevalEuropean or Oriental times, instead of from any marked use it hasenjoyed in American medicine.

SCOPOLA

The root of this plant, Scopola carniolica, is now official and maybe substituted for belladonna in the making of the mydriatic alkaloids.Although of recent introduction in scientific pharmacy, it has an inter-esting botanical record, reaching back to Matthioli (414), who namedit Solanum somniferum allerum.

79