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PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

STRAMONIUM

Datura stramonium is now found throughout most parts of thetemperate civilized world. It was found in America, where the set-tlers near Jamestown, Virginia, used it as a pot herb, the resultingdeaths so advertising it as to create the common name, still in use,Jamestown or Jimson weed. De Candolle (186) decided that stra-monium was indigenous to the Old World, probably bordering the Cas-pian Sea, but not of India nor yet of Europe at the time of the clas-sical period. The herb has been a pain-relieving favorite in domesticAmerican medicine, in the form of a poultice or ointment made fromthe pulp of the bruised green leaves, to ease the pains of bites andstings of insects. The dried leaf is also smoked, for the relief ofasthma. The domestic use of stramonium in these directions led theearly American physician to its employment both internally and ex-ternally. (See Hyoscyamus.)

STROPHANTHUS

The genus Strophanthus, which produces this drug, is chieflyAfrican, belonging to the apocynacese and the tribe echitideae of thisorder, distinguished from the other tribes of the order chiefly fromhaving the anthers united after the manner of the asclepiadacese. In-dex Kewensis mentions seventeen species, Bentham and Hookereighteen species, Pax (495) twenty-five species, and the genus is beingrapidly augmented as the flora of Africa becomes better known. Plantsof the genus have usually woody stems, emitting a milky juice whenwounded, and are generally twining vines. The seed of commerce isprobably collected from various species indiscriminately, which havebeen classified and differentiated by Pax (495), Planchon (512), Hart-wich (304), Holmes (322), Blondel (80), and others. Space willpermit us to mention only the two species which are acknowledged tobe the principal source of the drug.

Strophanthus hispidus, D. C, was one of four species describedby De Candolle as early as 1802, and is the species to which the drugwas first ascribed. Its habitat is Senegambia and Guinea and otherparts of Western Africa. The stem is a twining, milky shrub, withopposite hirsute leaves. (Hence the name hispidus, Latin for bristly,hairy.) The seed, which bears a slender style terminating in a plumosepappus consisting of long hairs,* is the part used in medicine.

As stated before, the genus strophanthus was established by DeCandolle as far back as the year 1802. It was not until the earlysixties, however, that the drug came to the general notice of Euro-peans as being one of the arrow poisons used among the African nativetribes, there being two kinds of arrow poisons derived from thissource. A poison was prepared on the west coast of Africa (Sene-gambia, Guinea, and Gaboon) called inee or onaye, which is derived

* Hartwich calls special attention to the fact that the hairs of strophanthus seed arevery sensitive to moisture, spreading horizontally in dry air, and becoming erect in moistatmosphere. He suggests that the pappus would thus make an hygrometer sufficientlysensitive for practical purposes.

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