Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Friedrich August Flückiger
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    rhizome of Coptis abounds, is quickly dissolved by water. If the yellow solution obtained by macerating it in water is duly concentrated, nitric acid will produce an abundant heavy precipitate of minute yellow crystals, which if redissolved in a little boiling water will separate again in stellate groups. Solution of iodine also precipitates a cold infusion of the root. These reactions as well as the bitterness.of the drug are due to a large proportion of Berherine, as proved by J. D. Perrins.^ The rhizome yielded not less than 8|- per cent., which is more than has been met with in any other of the numerous plants containing that alkaloid. As pure berberine is scarcely dissolved by water, it must be combined in Coptis with an acid forming a soluble salt. Further researches are requisite to determine the nature of this acid. In some plants berberine is accompanied by a second basic principle : whether in the present instance such is the case, has not been ascertained. Uses—The drug has been introduced into the Pharmacopoeia of India as a pure, bitter tonic. Substitutes—Thalictrum foliolosum DC, a tall plant common at Mussooree and throughout the temperate Himalaya at 5000—8000 feet, as well as on the Khasia Hills, affords a yellow root which is exported from Kumaon under the name Momiri. From the description in the Pliarmacopceia of India, it would appear to much resemble the Mishmi Tita, and it is not impossible that some of the observations made under the head History (p. 3j may apply to Thalictrum as well as to Coptis. In the United States the rhizome of Coptis trifolia Salisb., a small herb indigenous to the United States and Arctic America, and also found in European and Asiatic Kussia, is employed for the same purposes as the Indian drug. It has been recently shown to contain berberine and another crystalline principle.^ SEMEN STAPHISAGRIiE. Stavesacre ; F. Staphisaigre; Gr. StephansJcorner, Ldusesamen Botanical Origin—Delphinium Staphisagria, L.^ a stoul erect, biennial herb growing 3 to 4 feet high with palmate, 5- to 9-lobed leaves, which as well as the rest of the plant are softly pubescent. It is a native of Italy, Greece, the Greek Islands and Asia Minor growing in waste and shady places; it is now also found throughout the greater part of the Mediterranean regions and in the Canary Islands, but whether in all instances truly indigenous is questionable. History—Stavesacre was well known to the ancients. It is the arypoTepT] crra4n<i of Meander in the 2nd century B.C.,^ the aracjiU arypCa of Dioscorides,* the Stap)hisagria or Hcrha pedicularia of Scribonius Largus,^ the Astaphis agria or Staphis of Pliny.^ The last- named author mentions the use of the powdered seeds for destroying vermin on the head and other parts of the body. 1 Journ. of CJiem. Soc. xv. (1862) 339. * JDe Mat. Med. lib. iv. c. 153. ^ Gross in Am. Jov/rn. of Pharm. May ^ De Compositione Medicamentorum, c. 1873. 193. 166. ■' 0. Schneider, JVicandrea, lips. 1856. ^ Lib. xxiii. c. 13. 271.