Dalechamps1 repeated this statement in 1586, at which period and for long afterwards, Cocculus Indicus used to reach Europe from Alexandria and other parts of the Levant. Gerarde, who gives a very good figure of it, says it is well known in England (1597) as Cocculus Indicus, otherwise Cocci vel Cocculæ Orientales, and that it is used for destroying vermin and poisoning fish. In 1635 it was subject to an import duty of 2s. per lb., as Cocculus India. The use of Cocculus Indicus in medicine was advocated by Battista Codronchi, a celebrated Italian physician of the 16th century, in a tractate entitled De Baccis Orientalibus.4 The word Cocculus is derived from the Italian coccola, signifying a small, berry-like fruit.5 Mattioli remarks that as the berries when first brought from the East to Italy had no special name, they got to be called Coccole di Levante.6 Description-The female flower of Anamirta has normally 5 ovaries placed on a short gynophore. The latter, as it grows, becomes raised into a stalk about an inch long, articulated at the summit with shorter stalks, each supporting a drupe, which is a matured ovary. The purple drupes thus produced are 1 to 3 in number, of gibbous ovoid form, with the persistent stigma on the straight side, and in a line with the shorter stalk or carpodium. They grow in a pendulous panicle, a foot or more in length. These fruits removed from their stalks and dried have the aspect of little round berries, and constitute the Cocculus Indicus of commerce. As met with in the market they are shortly ovoid or subreniform, to of an inch long, with a blackish, wrinkled surface, and an obscure ridge running round the back. The shorter stalk, when present, supports the fruit very obliquely. The pericarp, consisting of a wrinkled skin covering a thin woody endocarp, encloses a single reniform seed, into which the endocarp deeply intrudes. In transverse section the seed has a horse-shoe form; it consists chiefly of albumen, enclosing a pair of large, diverging lanceolate cotyledons, with a short terete radicle. The seed is bitter and oily, the pericarp tasteless. The drug is preferred when of dark colour, free from stalks, and fresh, with the seeds well preserved. Microscopic Structure-The woody endocarp is built up of a peculiar sclerenchymatous tissue, consisting of branched, somewhat elongated cells. They are densely packed, and run in various directions, showing but small cavities. The parenchyme of the seed is loaded with crystallized fatty matter. Chemical Composition-Picrotoxin, C12H1405, a crystallizable substance occurring in the seed to the extent of to 1 per cent., was observed by Boullay, as early as 1812, and is the source of the poisonous property of the drug. Picrotoxin does not neutralize acids. It dissolves in water and in alkalis; the solution in the latter reduces cupric oxide like the sugars, but to a much smaller extent than glucose. The alka1 Hist. Gen. Plant. 1586. 1722. Herball, Lond. 1636. 1548-49. The Rates of Marchandizes, Lond. 1635. It forms part of his work De Christiana ac tuta medendi ratione, Ferrariæ, 1591. Frutto d'alcuni alberi, e d'alcune piante, o erbe salvatiche, come cipresso, ginepro, alloro, pugnitopo, e lentischio, e simili.Lat. bacca; Gr. áкpódрva.-Vocabolario degli Accademici della Crusca. line solution is not precipitated by chloride of ammonium. The aqueous solution of picrotoxin is not altered by any metallic salt, or by tannin, iodic acid, iodohydrargyrate or bichromate of potassium-in fact by none of the reagents which affect the alkaloids. It may thus be easily distinguished from the bitter poisonous alkaloids, although in its behaviour with concentrated sulphuric acid and bichromate of potassium it somewhat resembles strychnine, as shown in 1867 by Köhler. Pelletier and Couerbe (1833) obtained from the pericarp of Cocculus Indicus two crystallizable, tasteless, non-poisonous substances, having the same composition, and termed respectively Menispermine and Paramenispermine. These bodies, as well as the very doubtful amorphous Hypopicrotoxic Acid of the same chemists, require re-examination. The fat of the seed which amounts to about half its weight, is used in India for industrial purposes. Its acid constituent, formerly regarded as a peculiar substance under the name of Stearophanic or Anamirtic Acid, was found by Heintz to be identical with stearic acid. Commerce - Cocculus Indicus is imported from Bombay and Madras, but we have no statistics showing to what extent. The stock in the dock warehouses of London on 1st of December, 1873, was 1168 packages, against 2010 packages on the same day of the previous year. The drug is mostly shipped to the continent, the consumption in Great Britain being very small. Uses In British medicine Cocculus Indicus is only employed as an ingredient of an ointment for the destruction of pediculi. It has been discarded from the British Pharmacopeia, but has a place in that of India. GULANCHA. Caulis et radix Tinospora. Botanical Origin-Tinospora cordifolia Miers (Cocculus cordifolius DC.), a lofty climbing shrub found throughout tropical India from Kumaon to Assam and Burma, and from Concan to Ceylon and the Carnatic. It is called in Hindustani Gulancha. History The virtues of this plant which appear to have been long familiar to the Hindu physicians, attracted the attention of Europeans in India at the early part of the present century. According to a paper published at Calcutta in 1827,2 the parts used are the stem, leaves, and root, which are given in decoction, infusion, or a sort of extract called pálo, in a variety of diseases attended with slight febrile symptoms. O'Shaughnessy declares the plant to be one of the most valuable in India, and that it has proved a very useful tonic. Similar favourable testimony is borne by Waring. Gulancha was admitted to the Bengal Pharmacopoeia of 1844, and to the Pharmacopoeia of India of 1868. Description-The stems are perennial, twining and succulent, running over the highest trees and throwing out roots many yards in length which descend like slender cords to the earth. They have a thick corky bark marked with little prominent tubercles. 1 Fleming, Catal. of Indian Med. Plants and Drugs, Calcutta, 1810. 27. 2 On the native drng called Gulancha by Ram Comol Shen.-Trans. of Med. and As found in the bazaars the drug occurs as short transverse segments of a cylindrical woody stem from of an inch up to 2 inches in diameter. They exhibit a shrunken appearance, especially those derived from the younger stems, and are covered with a smooth, translucent, shrivelled bark which becomes dull and rugose with age. Many of the pieces are marked with warty prominences and the scars of adventitious roots. The outer layer which is easily detached covers a shrunken parenchyme. The transverse section of the stem shows it to be divided by about 12 to 14 medullary rays into the same number of wedge-shaped woody bundles having very large vessels, but no concentric structure. The drug is inodorous but has a very bitter taste. The root is stated by O'Shaughnessy1 to be large, soft and spongy. Microscopic Structure-The suberous coat consists of alternating layers of flat corky cells and sclerenchyme, sometimes of a yellow colour. The structure of the central part reminds one of that of Cissampelos Pareira (p. 28), like which it is not divided into concentric zones. The woody rays which are sometimes intersected by parenchyme, are surrounded by a loose circle of arched bundles of liber tissue. Chemical Composition-No analysis worthy of the name has been made of this drug, and the nature of its bitter principle is wholly unknown. We have had no material at our disposal sufficient for chemical examination. Uses-Gulancha is reputed to be tonic, antiperiodic and diuretic. According to Waring it is useful in mild forms of intermittent fever, in debility after fevers and other exhausting diseases, in secondary syphilitic affections and chronic rheumatism. Substitute-Tinospora crispa Miers, an allied species occurring in Silhet, Pegu, Java, Sumatra, and the Philippines, possesses similar properties, and is highly esteemed in the Indian Archipelago as a febrifuge BERBERIDEÆ. CORTEX BERBERIDIS INDICUS. Indian Barberry Bark. Botanical Origin-This drug is allowed in the Pharmacopoeia of India to be taken indifferently from three Indian species of Berberis 3 which are the following: 1. Berberis aristata DC., a variable species occurring in the temperate regions of the Himalaya at 6000 to 10,000 feet elevation, also found in the Nilghiri mountains and Ceylon. 2. B. Lycium Royle, an erect, rigid shrub found in dry, hot situations of the western part of the Himalaya range at 3000 to 9000 feet above the sea-level. 3. B. asiatica Roxb.-This species has a wider distribution than the last, being found in the dry valleys of Bhotan and Nepal whence it 1 Bengal Dispensatory, 1842. 198. Pharm. of India, 1868. 9. 3 For remarks on the Indian species of Berberis, see Hooker and Thomson's Flora D stretches westward along the Himalaya to Garwhal, and occurs again in Affghanistan. History The medical practitioners of ancient Greece and Italy made use of a substance called Lycium (XÚKLOV) of which the best kind was brought from India. It was regarded as a remedy of great value in restraining inflammatory and other discharges; but of all the uses to which it was applied the most important was the treatment of various forms of ophthalmic inflammation. Lycium is mentioned by Dioscorides, Pliny, Celsus, Galen, and Scribonius Largus; by such later Greek writers as Paulus Ægineta, Etius, and Oribasius, as well as by the Arabian physicians. The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea who probably lived in the 1st century, enumerates λúktov as one of the exports of Barbarike at the mouth of the Indus, and also names it along with Bdellium and Costus among the commodities brought to Barygaza :and further, lycium is mentioned among the Indian drugs on which duty was levied at the Roman custom house of Alexandria about A.D. 176-180.1 An interesting proof of the esteem in which it was held is afforded. by some singular little vases or jars of which a few specimens are preserved in collections of Greek antiquities.2 These vases were made to contain lycium, and in them it was probably sold; for an inscription on the vessel not only gives the name of the drug but also that of a person who, we may presume, was either the seller or the inventor of the composition. Thus we have the Lycium of Jason, of Musæus, and of Heracleus. The vases bearing the name of Jason were found at Tarentum, and there is reason to believe that that marked Heracleus was from the same locality. Whether it was so or not, we know that a certain Heraclides of Tarentum is mentioned by Celsus on account of his method of treating certain diseases of the eye; and that Galen gives formulæ for ophthalmic medicines * 4 on the authority of the same person. 3 Innumerable conjectures were put forth during at least three centuries as to the origin and nature of lycium, and especially of that highly esteemed kind that was brought from India. In the year 1833, Royle 5 communicated to the Linnean Society of London a paper proving that the Indian Lycium of the ancients was identical with an extract prepared from the wood or root of several species of Berberis growing in Northern India, and that this extract, well known in the bazaars as Rusot or Rasot, was in common use among the natives in various forms of eye disease. This substance attracted considerable notice in India, and though its efficacy per se seemed 1 Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, ii. (1807) 890, 410, 734. 2 Figures of these vessels were published by Dr. J. Y. Simpson in an interesting paper entitled Notes on some ancient Greek medical vases for containing Lycium, of which we have made free use.-See (Edinb.) Monthly Journal of Med. Science, xvi. (1853) 24, also Pharm. Journ. xiii. (1854) 413. 3 Lib. vii. c. 7.-See also Cælius Aurelianus, De morbis chronicis (Haller's ed.) lib. i c. 4, lib. iii. c. 8. 6 4 Cataplasmata lippientium quibus usus est Heraclides Tarentinus.-Galen, De Comp. Med. sec. locos, lib. iv. (p. 153 in Venice edit. of 1625). 5 On the Lycium of Dioscorides. -Linn. Trans. xvii. (1837) 83. It is interesting to find that two of the names for lycium given by Ibn Baytar in the 13th century are precisely those under which rusot is met with in the Indian bazaars at the present day. 7 The natives apply it in combination with alum and opium. questionable, it was administered with benefit as a tonic and febrifuge.1 But the rusot of the natives being often badly prepared or adulterated, the bark of the root has of late been used in its place, and in consequence of its acknowledged efficacy has been admitted to the Pharmacopoeia of India. Description-In B. asiatica (the only species we have examined) the roots which are thick and woody, and internally of a bright yellow, are covered with a thin, brittle bark. The bark has a light-brown corky layer, beneath which it appears of a darker and greenish-yellow hue, and composed of coarse fibres running longitudinally. The inner surface has a glistening appearance by reason of fine longitudinal striæ. The bark is inodorous and very bitter. Chemical Composition-Solly 2 pointed out in 1843 that the rootbark of the Ceylon barberry [B. aristata] contains the same yellow colouring matter as the barberry of Europe. L. W. Stewart extracted Berberine in abundance from the barberry of the Nilghiri Hills and Northern India, and presented specimens of it to one of us in 1865. The root-bark of Berberis vulgaris L. was found by Polex (1836) to contain another alkaloid named Oxyacanthine, which forms with acids colourless crystallizable salts of bitter taste.* Uses The root-bark of the Indian barberries administered as a tincture has been found extremely useful in India in the treatment of fevers of all types. It has also been given with advantage in diarrhoea and dyspepsia, and as a tonic for general debility. RHIZOMA PODOPHYLLI. Radix podophylli; Podophyllum Root. Botanical Origin-Podophyllum peltatum L., a perennial herb growing in moist shady situations throughout the eastern side of the North American continent from Hudson's Bay to New Orleans and Florida. The stem about a foot high, bears a large, solitary, white flower, rising from between two leaves of the size of the hand composed of 5 to 7 wedge-shaped divisions, somewhat lobed and toothed at the apex. The yellowish pulpy fruit of the size of a pigeon's egg is slightly acid and is sometimes eaten under the name of May Apple. The leaves partake of the active properties of the root. History-The virtues of the rhizome as an anthelmintic and emetic have been long known to the Indians of North America. The plant was figured in 1731 by Catesby 5 who remarks that its root is an excellent emetic. Its cathartic properties were noticed by Barton in 17986 and have been commented upon by many subsequent writers. In 1820, podophyllum was introduced into the United States Pharmacopoeia, and in 1864 into the British Pharmacopoeia. Hodgson published in 1832 in the Journal of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy the first chemical observations on the rhizome, which now furnishes one of the most 1 O'Shaughnessy, Bengal Dispensatory (1842) 203-205. 2 Journ. of R. Asiat. Soc. vii. (1843) 74. 3 Pharm. Journ. vii. (1866) 303. Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 197. 5 Nat. Hist. of Carolina, i. tab. 24. 6 Collections for an Essay on Mat. Med. of U. S. Philad. 1798. 31. 7 Vol. iii. 273. |