History of the vegetable drugs of the Pharmacopoeia of the United States / by John Uri Lloyd ; with portraits of Charles Rice and Joseph P. Remington.

  • John Uri Lloyd
Date:
1911
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: History of the vegetable drugs of the Pharmacopoeia of the United States / by John Uri Lloyd ; with portraits of Charles Rice and Joseph P. Remington. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    Pharmacopceial Vegetable Drugs. ACACIA Acacia has been an article of commerce since the most remote 'records of historical antiquity. Representations of the Acacia tree, Itogether with heaps of gum, were pictured in the reign of Ramses III of Egypt. Acacia was exported from the Gulf of Aden, seventeen hundred years before Christ. Mention of the gum is of frequent occurrence in Egyptian inscriptions, where it is referred to as the Gum of Canaan. Theophrastus (633), in the third and fourth centuries be- fore Christ, described it, as also did Dioscorides (194) and Pliny (514), under the name “Egyptian Gum.” It has been employed in the arts from all time and in domestic medicine and commerce, as well as by the Arabian physicians and those of the renowned school of Salerno. During the Middle Ages it was obtained from Egypt and Turkey, be- ing an article of commerce in the bazaars of Constantinople, A. D. 1340. The drug was distributed through Europe from Venice, as early as A. D. 1521. Among the most interesting and instructive recent contributions to the subject are the reports of the Wellcome Research Laboratory, Kartoum (678), 1904. ACONITUM Aconite, Aconitum napellus, was familiar to the ancients as a poisonous plant, and was used by the ancient Chinese as well as by the hill tribes of India. In a work published for the Welsh MSS. Society, 1861, entitled “The Physicians of Myddvai,” (507), aconite was designated as a plant that every physician should grow.* In 1763, Stork (617), of Vienna, introduced the drug to medical prac- tice, from which date it crept into the practice of the dominant school. Aconite has ever been a Homeopathic favorite. ALOE (ALOE SUCCOTRINA.) The genus aloe comprises a large family of succulent-leaved plants native to tropical countries. Most of the species have showy * Physicians of Myddvai. The domestic physician of Rhys Gryg, prince of South Wales, who died 1233, made a collection of recipes used in medicine at that date in his country. He was assisted by his three sons, the collection being a valuable historical record concerning re- medial agents and methods of that date. Of these, two compilations have been issued, the two appearing together, 1861, with a translation by John Pughe (470 pp/. The original manuscript is in the British Museum. [See page 761 Pharmacographia.]