The national dispensatory : containing the natural history, chemistry, pharmacy, actions, and uses of medicines. Including those recognized in the pharmacopoeias of the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, with numerous references to the French codex / by Alfred Stillé, John M. Maisch, Charles Caspari, and Henry C.C. Maisch.

  • Stillé, Alfred, 1813-1900.
Date:
1894
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The national dispensatory : containing the natural history, chemistry, pharmacy, actions, and uses of medicines. Including those recognized in the pharmacopoeias of the United States, Great Britain, and Germany, with numerous references to the French codex / by Alfred Stillé, John M. Maisch, Charles Caspari, and Henry C.C. Maisch. 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.

    15/1956
    NATIONAL DISPENSATORY. ABRUS.—Abrus. Indian Liquorice, Wild Liquorice, E. ; Liane re'glisse, Reglisse indienne, Fr.; Indisches Siissholz, G. The root and seeds of Abrus precatorius, L'uini. Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, 77. Nat. Ord.—Leguininosae, Papilionaceae, Vicieae. Origin.—This is a twining shrub indigenous to India, where it is known as gunja, goontc/i, orgurginja, and now naturalized in all tropical countries. The leaves are abrupt- ly pinnate, and have from 20 to 30 linear or oblong, obtuse, entire, smooth, and pale- green leaflets, about 15 Mm. (| inch) long, and having a sweet liquorice-like taste. The rose-colored flowers are clustered in one-sided long-stalked racemes, and the oblong-rhom- boidal, short-beaked legumes contain from 4 to 6 seeds. Description.—Radix abri. The root is seen in commerce in more or less twisted pieces, varying in length, and about 5 to 20 Mm. (-|—| inch) thick. It has a thin, pale reddish-brown bark, containing near the middle layer a circular zone of sclerenchyma- cells, and in the inner layer strong bast-fibres, which are scattered without regularity through the liber parenchyma. The wood is yellowish, porous, breaks with a short fibrons fracture, and is composed of circles of wood-fibres containing rather large ducts and alter- nating with circles of parenchyma, the whole radially traversed by medullary rays, some of which are narrow, others much broader. The root has a slight not agreeable odor and a bitterish, mucilaginous taste, with a somewhat acrid and sweetish after-taste resembling that of liquorice root. Semen abri ; Prayer-beads, Jumble-beads, Crab's eyes, E.; Pois d'Amerique, Fr.; Paternoster-Erbsen, G. The seeds are globular-ovate, about 5 Mm. (\ inch) long, scarlet-red, glossy, and have a black spot surrounding the grayish hiluni; the testa is hard, and encloses a whitish fleshy embryo consisting of plano-convex cotyledons and an accumbent radicle. The seeds are inodorous and have a slight bean-like taste. They have been introduced under their Brazilian name, jequiriti or guequiri. Composition.—Berzelius ascertained that the leaves and branches contain a princi- ple closely resembling glycyrrhizin. The same principle is also present in the root, which in addition contains sugar; but nothing is known of the remaining constituents. Prof. Warden (1882) isolated from the seeds crystalline abric acid, which is slightly soluble in cold water and contains nitrogen. An alkaloid, most likely a decomposition product, was obtained by Rigaud and Dusart (1883), and fixed oil with cholesterin and lecythin by Heckel and Schlagdenhauffen (1886). The physiological properties of the seeds were shown by Warden and Waddell (1884) to be due to abrin, a mixture of protein compounds which are rendered inactive by moist heat. This is probably identical with the jequiritin of Bruylants and Vinneman (1885), and consists mainly of a paraglobulin and an albu- mose, of which the former is soluble in a 15 per cent, solution of sodium chloride, and is coagulated at 80° C., while the latter is not coagulated by heat, but with nitric acid yields a precipitate redissolved on heating and reappearing on cooling. Allied Drug.—Cassia Absus, Limit, has oval-oblong, flat, glossy-black seeds, which are used in Eastern countries in purulent conjunctivitis and as an application to sores. Action and Uses.—In the Punjab sharpened cones of a dried paste made from abrus-seeds are thrust into cattle to poison them (Amer. Jour. Pharm., May, 1885, p. 242). Warden and Waddell of Calcutta declare that poisonous symptoms are