PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

an early date to the settlers, the physicians, and the botanists. It wasdescribed by Barton (43), Schöpf (582), and other authorities, butwas never extensively used by the American schools of medicine, eitherthe Botanic or the Eclectic. As a domestic remedy it was customary,half a Century ago, to use a mixture of pink root and senna, to whichwere added a few pieces of manna, a home decoction being given tochildren and others afflicted with worms. In our opinion this hometreatment consumed most of the drug of commerce, which, since thediscovery of santonica, has come to be of minor importance. Inthe days of this writer's experience as a prescription clerk in Cincin-nati (1865-1880) the mixture was in continual domestic demand as"pink and senna."

STAPHISAGRIA

Delphinium staphisagria, a native of waste places of Italy, theGreek islands, and Asia Minor, is now generally distributed through-out the Mediterranean countries and the adjacent islands, e. g., theCanaries. It was known to the ancients, being mentioned by Nicander(581), Dioscorides (194), Pliny (514), and others, the last-namedauthor stating that the powdered seeds were used for destroyingvermin of the head and body, in which directum it is still populär.Throughout the Middle Ages the drug continued in use, according toPietro Crescenzio (172), of the thirteenth Century. The seeds werecollected in Italy, where the plant is still cultivated, being still in de-mand in domestic medicine as an insecticide.

STILLINGIA

Stillingia sylvatica is native to the pine barrens of the SouthernStates of North America, and in the form of an infusion or decoctionof the green drug has been used in domestic medicine as a purgativeand aiterative, creeping thence to the attention of physicians of theSouthern States. It was also employed empirically in cutaneous dis-eases, and as a constituent of various "blood purifiers" used commonlyby the people of the South. A once populär remedy, Wayne's Panacea,was asserted by Rafmesque (535) to depend for its qualities uponstillingia, which Dr. John King (356-357) in his American Dispensa-tory most positively controverted. Inasmuch as Peter Smith (605),the "Indian Herb Doctor," neglects stillingia in his Dispensa-tory, while Rafinesque (535) gives it brief mention in his MedicalEquivalents, it is evident that the drug came to the general attentionof the medical profession by reason of the use made of it by the set-tlers, about the date of the first edition of King's American Dispensa-tory, 1852. Since that period until the early ob's it was a conspicu-ous constituent of the populär American "blood purifiers," and in theform of Compound syrup of stillingia was used alike in empirical medi-cation and by the profession.

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