PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

from Strophanthus hispidus, D. C. This is on the authority of Hen-delot, who observed the plant yielding this poison in Senegambia atthe River Nunez (246). A specimen of this arrow poison was sentto Europe and investigated by Pelikan in 1865. (Comptes Rendus,1865, vol. 60, p. 1209.)

On the east coast of Africa the kombe or gombe poison was inuse in the Manganj ah tribe, located near Lake Nyassa on the banksof the River Shire, a tributary of the Zambesi River. Consul Kirk inZanzibar, in 1861, established that this poison originated from a stro-phanthus species, and forwarded specimens to Professor Sharpey inEngland for the purpose of investigation (246). Subsequently, in1865, Livingstone's famous reports brought the kombe poison to amore general notice among the Europeans (387).

This species of strophanthus was at first considered identical withS. hispidus, D. C, but the plant was shown by Oliver in 1885 t0 ^ edistinct from the latter, and justified the establishing of a new species,Strophanthus kombe.

The physiological features of the drug as a powerful cardiac wererecognized by the first investigators (Sharpey, 1862; Pelikan, 1865;Fräser, 1871). Livingstone reports the Observation of Consul Kirkthat the poison remarkably reduced the pulse, but the drug was notauthoritatively recognized by the medical profession until about theyear 1885. In this connection it is interesting to note that in Somali-land, Africa, the native, in order to estabüsh the virulence of thepoison, scrapes the skin from his own arm until the blood flows, whenhe applies the poison to the lower end of the Woody pool and watchesthe coagulating effect, from below upward. To the firm of Burroughs,Wellcome & Co., London (677-678), is largely due the position thatStrophanthus occupies in the medical lore of the present day, this be-ing due chiefty to the efforts of Mr. Henry S. Wellcome, through hisfriend, Henry M. Stanley, the African explorer.

STYRAX

Styrax is the product of a tree native to the southwestern partof Asia Minor and the adjacent islands. According to Krinos, ofAthens, 1862, the earliest allusions to styrax were made by Aetius (6)and Paulus ZEgineta (494), 1567. The early Arabian physicians wereacquainted with styrax and its methods of production. The RussianAbbott of Tver, 1113-15, describes the tree as found by him in histravels through Asia Minor. Styrax reached China as early at leastas 1368 by means of Arabian caravans, but it is now shipped to Chinaby way of the Red Sea and India. Its use in medicine is restrictedmainly to an external application in skin diseases, combined withother substances. It has, however, been recommended for internal use.and in former times it was a constituent of empiricäl Compounds de-signed for internal medication. (Not official in the eighth revision

u. s. p.) n - ;

"-«5