368

Materia Mkdha.

part ir-

Qualities. — This root is inodorous, and has a mucilaginous,very slightly bitter taste. It communicates to boiling water,and partially to alcohol and ether, any active matter it pos-sesses. The watery infusion has a brown colour, reddens lit-mus paper, and yields a precipitate with infusion of galls, whichis again dissolved when the infusion is heated. It is precipi-tated also by lime-water, and solution of nitrate of mercury,and superacetate of lead, but is not affected by sulphate ofiron, or any other of the metallic oxides. The alcoholic tinc-ture has a yellowish red hue, is rendered turbid by the additionof water, and yields an extract slightly bitter, and pungent.Ether takes up two parts in ten of the powdered root; and thetincture, which has a golden yellow colour, when evaporatedon water, leaves a small portion of reddish yellow insipid resin,and a larger of yellowish extractive dissolved in the water.

Medical properties and tises. —Sarsaparilla is demulcent, andsaid to be diuretic. It was brought to Europe about the year1530, and introduced as a medicine of great efficacy in the cureof lues venerea; but fell into disrepute and was little used, tiilit was again brought into esteem by Dr. William Hunter andSirWm. Fordyce, about themiddle of the last century; not how-ever as a remedy fitted to cure syphilis, but of much efficacy inrendering a mercurial course more certain, and after the use ofmercury. 1 Experience, however, has not verified the enco-miums bestowed on it; and the extensive observations of Mr.Pearson have fixed the degree of benefit which is to be expect-ed from this root in syphilitic complaints. " The contagiousmatter, and the mineral specific, may," he observes, " jointlyproduce in certain habits of body a new series of 'symptoms,which, strictly speaking, are not venereal; which cannot becured by mercury; and which are sometimes more to be dread-ed than the simple and natural effects of the venereal virus.Some of the most formidable of these appearances may be re-moved by sarsaparilla, the venereal virus still remaining in thesystem; and, when the force of the poison has been com-pletely subdued by mercury, the same vegetable is also capableof freeing the patient from what may be called the sequelae ofa mercurial course." 3 Sarsaparilla is also recommended inscrofula, elephantiasis, or cutaneous affections resembling it,and chronic rheumatism; but its efficacy is doubtful. Thedose of the powdered root is from 9j. to 5j. given three or fourtimes a day.

' Medical Observations and Enquiries, vol. i.

i The sympfoms slluded to, are nocturnal pa ins in the limbs, painful enlargement* cdthe knee and elbow joints, membranous nodes, and cutaneous ulcerations, arising afte: *full course of mercury.

j Pearson n; Remedies fir L".?< Venerea, It,