regular than the others. The segments, which are trifid, are finally cut into 2 to 5 strap-shaped pointed lobes. The leaves are usually glabrous, and are deeply impressed on their upper side by veins which run with but few branchings to the tip of every lobe. The uppermost leaves are more simple than the lower, and gradually pass into the bracts of the beautiful raceme of dull-blue helmet-shaped flowers which crowns the stem. The leaves have when bruised a herby smell; their taste is at first mawkish but afterwards persistently burning. Chemical Composition-The leaves contain aconitine in small proportion and also aconitic acid, the latter in combination with lime. Aconitic Acid, C6H6O6, discovered by Peschier in 1820 in somewhat considerable quantity in the leaves of aconite, occurs also in those of larkspur, and is identical with the Equisetic Acid of Braconnot and the Citridic Acid of Baup.1 Schoonbroodt (1867) on treating the extract with a mixture of alcohol and ether, obtained acicular crystals, which he thought were the so-called Aconella of Smith. He further found that the distillate of the plant was devoid of odour, but was acid, and had a burning taste. By saturation with an alkali he obtained from it a crystalline substance, soluble in water, and having a very acrid taste. Experiments made about the same time by Groves, a careful observer, led to opposite results. He distilled on different occasions both fresh herb and fresh roots, and obtained a neutral distillate, smelling and tasting strongly of the plant, but entirely devoid of acridity. Hence he concluded that A. Napellus contains no volatile acrid principle. In an extract of aconite that has been long kept, the microscope reveals crystals of aconitate of calcium, as well as of sal ammoniac. The leaves contain a small proportion of sugar, and a tannin striking green with iron. When dried they yield on incineration 16.6 per cent. of ash. Uses In Britain the leaves and small shoots are only used in the fresh state, the flowering herb being purchased by the druggist in order to prepare an inspissated juice,-Extractum Aconiti. This preparation, which is considered rather uncertain in its action, is occasionally prescribed for the relief of rheumatism, inflammatory and febrile affections, neuralgia, and heart diseases. RADIX ACONITI INDICA. Bish, Bis or Bikh, Indian Aconite Root, Nepal Aconite. Botanical Origin-The poisonous root known in India as Bish, Bis, or Bikh is chiefly derived from Aconitun ferox Wallich, a plant growing 3 to 6 feet high and bearing large, dull-blue flowers, native of 1 Gmelin, Chemistry xi. (1857) 402. 2 Wittstein's Vierteljahresschrift, xviii. (1869) 82. 3 Pharm. Journ. viii. (1867) 118. 4 The Arabic name Bish or Persian Bis is stated by Moodeen Sheriff in his Supple ment to the Pharmacopoeia of India (p. 265) to be more a correct designation than Bikh, which seems to be a corruption of doubtful origin. We find that the Arabian writer Ibn Baytar gives the word as Bish (not Bikh). the temperate and sub-alpine regions of the Himalaya at an elevation of 10,000 to 14,000 feet in Garwhal, Kumaon, Nepal and Sikkim. In the greater part of these districts, other closely allied and equally poisonous species occur, viz. A. uncinatum L., A. luridum H. f. et Th., A. palmatum Don, and also abundantly A. Napellus L., which last, as already mentioned, grows throughout Europe as well as in Northern Asia and America. The roots of these plants are collected indiscriminately according to Hooker and Thomson 1 under the name of Bish or Bikh. History The ancient Sanskrit name of this potent drug, Visha, signifies simply poison, and Ativisha, a name which it also bears, is equivalent to summum venenum." Bish is mentioned by the Persian physician Alhervi 2 in the 10th century as well as by Avicenna3 and many other Arabian writers on medicine, one of whom, Isa Ben Ali, calls it the most rapid of deadly poisons, and describes the symptoms it produces with tolerable correctness.* Upon the extinction of the Arabian school of medicine this virulent drug seems to have fallen into oblivion. It is just named by Acosta (1578) as one of the ingredients of a pill which the Brahmin physicians give in fever and dysentery.5 There is also a very strange reference to it as Bisch" in the Persian Pharmacopoeia of Father Ange, where it is stated that the root though most poisonous when fresh, is perfectly innocuous when dried, and that it is imported into Persia from India, and mixed with food and condiments as a restorative! Ange was aware that it was the root of an aconite. The poisonous properties of Bish were particularly noticed by Hamilton (late Buchanan) who passed several months in Nepal in 1802-3 but nothing was known of the plant until it was gathered by Wallich and a description of it as A. ferox communicated by Seringe to the Société de physique de Genève in 1822.8 Wallich himself afterwards gave a lengthened account of it in his Planta Asiatica Rariores (1830).9 Description-Balfour whose figure of A. ferox is the only one that to our knowledge has been published,10 describes the plant from a specimen that flowered in the Botanical Garden of Edinburgh as-" having 2-3 fasciculated, fusiform, attenuated tubers, some of the recent ones being nearly 5 inches long, and 1 inches in circumference, dark-brown externally, white within, sending off sparse, longish branching fibres." Aconite root has of late been imported into London from India in considerable quantity, and been offered by the wholesale druggists as Nepal Aconite. It is of very uniform appearance, and seems derived from a single species, which we suppose to be A. ferox. The drug consists 1 Flor. Ind. i. (1855) 54, 57; and Introd. Essay, 3. 11 2 Abu Mansur Mowafik ben Ali Alherui, Liber Fundamentorum Pharmacologia, i. (1830) 47. Seligmann's edition. 3 Valgrisi edition, 1564. lib. ii. tract. 2. it. N. (p. 347.) 4 Ibn Baytar, Sontheimer's transl. i. (1840) 199. 5 Clusius, Exotica, 289. 6 Pharm. Persica, 1681. p. 358, also 17 and 319. The word bisch is correctly given in Arabic characters, so that of its identity there can be no dispute. 7 Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, Edin. 1819, 98. 8 Musée Helvétique d'Hist. Nat. Berne, i. (1823) 160. 9 Yet strange to say confused the plant with A. Napellus, an Indian form of which he figured as A. ferox! 10 Edinb. New Phil. Journ. xlvii. (1849) 366, pl. 5. 11 The first importation was in 1869, when ten bags containing 1000 lb., said to be part of a much larger quantity actually in London, were offered for sale by a drugbroker. of simple tuberous roots of an elongated conical form, 3 to 4 inches long, and to 1 inches in greatest diameter. Very often the roots have been broken in being dug up and are wanting in the lower extremity: some are nearly as broad at one end as at the other. They are mostly flattened and not quite cylindrical, often arched, much shrivelled chiefly in a longitudinal direction, and marked rather sparsely with the scars of rootlets. The aerial stem has been closely cut away, and is represented only by a few short scaly rudiments.1 The roots are of a blackish brown, the prominent portions being often whitened by friction. In their normal state they are white and farinaceous within, but as they are dried by fire-heat and often even scorched, their interior is generally horny, translucent, and extremely compact and hard. The largest root we have met with weighed 555 grains. 3 In the Indian bazaars, Bish is found in another form, the tuberous. roots having been steeped in cow's urine to preserve them from insects.2 These roots which in our specimen are mostly plump and cylindrical, are flexible and moist when fresh, but become hard and brittle by keeping. They are externally of very dark colour, black and horny within, with an offensive odour resembling that of hyraceum or castor. Immersed in water, though only for a few moments, they afford a deep brown solution. Such a drug is wholly unfit for use in medicine, though not unsuitable perhaps for the poisoning of wild beasts, a purpose to which it is often applied in India.* Microscopic Structure-Most of the roots fail to display any characteristic structure by reason of the heat to which they have been subjected. A living root sent to us from the Botanical Garden of Edinburgh exhibited the thin brownish layer which encloses the central part in A. Napellus, replaced by a zone of stone cells, a feature discernible in the imported root. Chemical Composition-The chemical constituents of Indian aconite have been noticed in the previous article. Uses-The drug has been imported and used as a source of aconitine. It is commonly believed to be much more potent than the aconite root of Europe. RADIX ACONITI HETEROPHYLLI. Atis or Atees. Botanical Origin-Aconitum heterophyllum Wallich, a plant of 1 to 3 feet high with a raceme of large flowers of a dull yellow veined with purple, or altogether blue, and reniform or cordate, obscurely 1 There is a rude woodcut of the root in Pharm. Journ. i. (1871) 434. 2 A specimen of ordinary Bish in my possession for two or three years became much infested by a minute and active insect of the geuus Psocus.-D. H. 3 Obligingly sent to me in 1867 by Messrs. Rogers and Co. of Bombay, who say it is the only kind there procurable.-D. H. According to Moodeen Sheriff (Supplement to Pharm. of India, pp. 25-32, 265) there are several kinds of aconite root found in the Indian bazaars, some of them highly poisonous, others innocuous. The first or poisonous aconites he groups under the head Aconitum ferox, while the second, of which there are three varieties mostly known by the Arabic name Jadvár (Persian Zadvár), he refers to undetermined species of Aconitum. The surest and safest names in most parts of India for the poisonous aconite roots are Bish (Arabic); Bis (Persian); Singyá-bis, Mitha-zahar, Bachhnág (Hindustani); Vashanávi (Tamil); Vasa-nábhi (Malyalim). 5-lobed, radical leaves. It grows at elevations of 8000 to 13,000 feet in the temperate regions of the Western Himalaya, as in Simla, Kumaon and Kashmír. History--We have not met with any ancient account of this drug, which however is stated by O'Shaughnessy1 to have been long celebrated in Indian medicine as a tonic and aphrodisiac. It has recently attracted some attention on account of its powers as an antiperiodic in fevers, and has been extensively prescribed by European physicians in India. Description-The tuberous roots of A. heterophyllum are ovoid, oblong, and downward-tapering or obconical; they vary in length from to 1 inches and in diameter from to of an inch, and weigh from 5 to 45 grains. They are of a light ash colour, wrinkled and marked with scars of rootlets, and have scaly rudiments of leaves at the summit. Internally they are pure white and farinaceous. A transverse section shows a homogeneous tissue with 4 to 7 yellowish vascular bundles. In a longitudinal section these bundles are seen to traverse the root from the scar of the stem to the opposite pointed end, here and there giving off a rootlet. The taste of the root is simply bitter with no acridity. Microscopic Structure-The tissue is formed of large angular thin-walled cells loaded with starch which is either in the form of isolated or compound granules. The vascular bundles contain numerous spiroid vessels which seen in transverse section appear arranged so as to form about four rays. The outer coat of the root is made up of about six rows of compressed, tabular cells with faintly brownish walls. Chemical Composition-The root contains a well-defined alkaloid. of intensely bitter taste recently discovered by Broughton,2 who assigns to it the formula C46H74N2O5, obtained from concurrent analyses of a platinum salt. The absence in the drug of aconitine has been proved by medical experience.3 Uses The drug is stated to have proved a valuable remedy in intermittent and other paroxysmal fevers. In ordinary intermittents it may be given in powder in 20-grain doses. As a simple tonic the dose is 5 to 10 grains thrice a day. Substitutes-The native name Atís is applied in India to several other drugs, one of which is an inert tasteless root commonly referred to Asparagus sarmentosus L. In Kunawar the tubers of Aconitum Napellus L. are dug up and eaten as a tonic, the name atís being applied to them as well as to those of A. heterophyllum.+ RADIX CIMICIFUGÆ. Radix Actææ racemose; Black Snake-root, Black Cohosh, Bugbane. Botanical Origin-Cimicifuga racemosa Elliott (Actœa racemosa L.), a perennial herb 3 to 8 feet high, abundant in rich woods in Canada and the United States, extending southward to Florida. It much 1 Bengal Dispensatory, 1842. 167. Information communicated by Mr. B. in private letter, 10 Oct. 1873. 3 Pharm. of India, 1868. 4. 434. 4 Hooker and Thomson (on the authority of Munro) Flor. Ind. 1855. 58. resembles Actœa spicata L., a plant widely spread over the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America, occurring also in Britain; but it differs in having an elongated raceme of 3 to 8 inches in length and dry dehiscent capsules. A. spicata has a short raceme and juicy berries, usually red. History The plant was first made known by Plukenet in 1696 as Christophoriana Canadensis racemosa. It was recommended in 1743 by Colden1 and named in 1749 by Linnæus in his Materia Medica as Actoa racemis longissimis. In 1823 it was introduced into medical practice in America by Garden; it began to be used in England about the year 1860.2 Description-The drug consists of a very short, knotty, branching rhizome, an inch or more thick, having, in one direction, the remains of several stout aerial stems, and in the other, numerous brittle, wiry roots, to of an inch in diameter, emitting rootlets still smaller. The rhizome is of somewhat flattened cylindrical form, distinctly marked at intervals with the scars of fallen leaves. A transverse section exhibits in the centre a horny whitish pith, round which are a number of rather coarse, irregular woody rays, and outside them a hard, thickish bark. The larger roots when broken display a thick cortical layer, the space within which contains converging wedges of open woody tissue 3 to 5 in number forming a star or cross, a beautiful and characteristic structure easily observed with a lens. The drug is of a dark blackish brown; it has a bitter, rather acrid and astringent taste, and a heavy narcotic smell. Microscopic Structure-The most striking character is afforded by the rootlets, which on a transverse section display a central woody column, traversed usually by 4 wide medullary rays and often enclosing a pith. The woody column is surrounded by a parenchymatous layer separated from the cortical portion by one row of densely packed small cells constituting a boundary analogous to the nucleus-sheath (kernscheide) met with in many roots of monocotyledons, as for instance in sarsaparilla. The parenchyme of cimicifuga root contains small starch granules. The structure of the drug is, on the whole, the same as that of the closely allied European Actœa spicata L. 3 Chemical Composition-Tilghmann in 1834 analysed the drug, obtaining from it gum, sugar, resin, starch and tannic acid, but no peculiar principle. 4 Conard extracted from it a neutral crystalline substance of intensely acrid taste, soluble in dilute alcohol, chloroform, or ether, but not in benzol, oil of turpentine, or bisulphide of carbon. The composition of this body has not been ascertained. The same chemist showed the drug not to afford a volatile principle, even in its fresh state. The American practitioners called Eclectics prepare with Black Snakeroot in the same manner as they prepare podophyllin, an impure resin which they term Cimicifugin or Macrotin. The drug yields according to Parrish, 33 per cent of this substance, which is sold in the form of scales or as a dark brown powder. 1 Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal. 1743. 131. 4 Am. Journ. of Pharm. xliii. (1871) 151; Pharm. Journ. April 29, 1871. 866. |