SEMEN ET FOLIA DATURÆ ALBÆ. Seeds and Leaves of the Indian or White-flowered Datura. Botanical Origin-Datura alba Nees, a large, spreading annual plant, 2 to 6 feet high, bearing handsome, tubular, white flowers 5 to 6 inches long. The capsules are pendulous, of depressed globular form, rather broader than high, covered with sharp tubercles or thick short spines. They do not open by regular valves as in D. Stramonium, but split in different directions and break up into irregular fragments. D. alba appears to be scarcely distinct from D. fastuosa L. Both are common in India, and are grown in gardens in the south of Europe.1 History The mediæval Arabian physicians were familiar with Datura alba, which is well described by Ibn Baytar under precisely the same Arabic name (Jouz-masal) that it bears at the present day; they were also fully aware of its poisonous properties. 3 Garcia de Orta (1563) observed the plant in India, and has narrated that its flowers or seeds are put into food to intoxicate persons it was designed to rob. It was also described by Christoval Acosta, who in his book on Indian drugs' mentions two other varieties, one of them with yellow flowers, the seeds of either being very poisonous, and often administered with criminal intent, as well as for the cure of disease. Graham says of the plant that it possesses very strong narcotic properties, and has on several occasions been fatally used by Bombay thieves, who have administered it in order to deprive their victims of the power of resistance. 5 The seeds and fresh leaves have a place in the Pharmacopoeia of India, 1868. Description-The seeds of D. alba are very different in appearance from those of D. Stramonium, being of a light yellowish-brown, rather larger size, irregular in shape and somewhat shrivelled. Their form has been likened to the human ear; they are in fact obscurely triangular or flattened-pearshaped, the rounded end being thickened into a sinuous, convoluted, triple ridge, while the centre of the seed is somewhat depressed. The hilum runs from the pointed end nearly half-way up the length of the seed. The testa is marked with minute rugosities, but is not so distinctly pitted as in the seed of the D. Stramonium; it is also more developed, exhibiting in section large intercellular spaces to which are due its spongy texture. The seeds of the two species agree in internal structure as well as in taste; but those of D. alba do not give a fluorescent tincture. The leaves, which are only employed in a fresh state, are 6 to 10 inches in length, with long stalks, ovate, often unequal at the base, acuminate, coarsely dentate with a few spreading teeth. They evolve an offensive odour when handled. Microscopic Structure-The testa is built up of the same tissues as in D. Stramonium, but the thick-walled cells constituting the spongy part are far larger, and distinctly show numerous secondary deposits, making a fine object for the microscope. Chemical Composition-Neither the seeds nor the leaves of D. alba have yet been examined chemically, but there can scarcely be any doubt that their very active properties are due to Daturine, for the preparation of which the former would probably be the best source. Uses The seeds in the form of tincture or extract have been employed in India as a sedative and narcotic, and the fresh leaves, bruised and made into a poultice with flour, as an anodyne application. FOLIA HYOSCYAMI. Henbane Leaves; F. Feuilles de Jusquiame; G. Bilsenkraut. Botanical Origin-Hyoscyamus niger L., a coarse, erect herb, with soft, viscid, hairy foliage of unpleasant odour, pale yellowish flowers elegantly marked with purple veins, and 5-toothed bottle-shaped calyx. It is found throughout Europe from Portugal and Greece to Central Norway and Finland, in Egypt, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Persia, Siberia and Northern India. As a weed of cultivation it now grows also in North America' and Brazil. In Britain it occurs wild, chiefly in waste places near buildings; and is cultivated for medicinal use. Henbane exists under two varieties, known as annual and biennial, but scarcely presenting any other distinctive character. Biennial Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger var. a. biennis) is most esteemed for pharmaceutical preparations. It is raised by seed, the plant producing the first year only a rosette of luxuriant stalked leaves, 12 or more inches in length. In the second, it throws up a flower stem of 2 to 3 feet in height, and the whole plant dies as the fruit matures. Annual Henbane (H. niger var. B. annua, vel agrestis) is a smaller plant, coming to perfection in a single season. It is the usual wild form, but it is also grown by the herbalists.2 History Hyoscyamus, under which name it is probable the nearly allied South European species, H. albus L., was generally intended, was medicinal among the ancients, and particularly commended by Dioscorides. In Europe, henbane has been employed from remote times. Benedictus Crispus, archbishop of Milan, in a work written shortly before A.D. 681, notices it under the name of Hyoscyamus and Symphoniaca. In the 10th century, its virtues were particularly recorded by Macer Floridus' who called it Jusquiamus. 1 It had become naturalized in North America prior to 1672, as we find it mentioned by Josselyn in his New England's Rarities discovered (Lond. 1672) among the plants "sprung up since the English planted and kept cattle in New England." 2 Pharm. Journ. i. (1860) 414. 3 S. de Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, Napoli, i. (1852) 74. 84. De Viribus Herbarum, edited by Choulant, Lips. 1832. 108. Frequent mention is made of it in the Anglo-Saxon works on medicine of the 11th century,' in which it is called Henbell, and sometimes Belene, the latter word perhaps traceable in Biλivovvria, which Dioscorides gives as the Gallic designation of the plant. In the 13th century henbane was also used by the Welsh "Physicians of Myddvai." 2 The word Hennibone, with the Latin and French synonyms. Jusquiamus and Chenille, occurs in a vocabulary of the 13th century; and Hennebane in a Latin and English vocabulary of the 15th century. In the Arbolayre, a printed French herbal of the 15th century, we find the plant described as Hanibane or Hanebane with the following explanation-" Elle est aultrement appeler cassilago et aultrement simphoniaca. La semence proprement a nom jusquiame ou hanebane, et herbe a nom cassilago. Both Hyoscyamus and Jusquiamus are from the Greek 'Yookúaμos, i.e. Hog-bean. Though a remedy undeniably potent, henbane in the first half of the last century had fallen into disuse. It was omitted from the London pharmacopoeias of 1746 and 1788, and restored only in 1809. Its re-introduction into medicine was chiefly due to the experiments and recommendations of Störck." During the middle ages the seeds and roots of henbane were also much used. Description-The stems of henbane, whether of the annual or biennial form, are clothed with soft, viscid, hairy leaves, of which the upper constitute the large, sessile, coarsely-toothed bracts of the unilateral flower-spike. The middle leaves are more toothed and subamplexicaul. The lower leaves are stalked, ovate-oblong, coarsely dentate, and of large size. The stems, leaves, and calyces of henbane are thickly beset with long, soft, jointed hairs; the last joint of many of these hairs exudes a viscid substance occasioning the fresh plant to feel clammy to the touch. In the cultivated plant, the hairiness diminishes. After drying, the broad light-coloured midrib becomes very conspicuous, while the rest of the leaf shrinks much and acquires a greyish green hue. The drug derived from the flowering plant as found in commerce is usually much broken. The foetid, narcotic odour of the fresh leaves is greatly diminished by drying. The fresh plant has but little taste. Dried henbane is sold under three forms, which are not however generally distinguished by druggists. These are 1. Annual plant, foliage and Green tops. 2. Biennial plant, leaves of the first year. 3. Biennial plant, foliage and green tops. The third form is always regarded as the best, but no attempt has been made to determine with accuracy the relative merits of the three sorts. Chemical Composition-Hyoscyamine, the most important among the constituents of henbane, was obtained in an impure state by Geiger and Hesse in 1833. Höhn in 1871 first isolated it from the seeds, 1 Leechdoms etc. of Early England, iii. (1866) 313. 2 Lib. iv. c. 69. (ed. Sprengel). 3 Wright, Volume of Vocabularies, 1857. 141. 265. See p. 148, note 3, also Brunet, Manuel du Libraire, i. (1860) 377. 5 See p. 459, note 5. which are far richer in it than the leaves.' The seeds are deprived of the fatty oil (26 per cent.) and treated with spirit of wine containing sulphuric acid, which takes out the hyoscyamine in the form of sulphate. The alcohol is then evaporated and tannic acid added; the precipitate thus obtained is mixed with lime and exhausted with alcohol. The hyoscyamine is again converted into a sulphate, the aqueous solution of which is then precipitated with carbonate of sodium, and the alkaloid dissolved by means of ether. After the evaporation of the ether, hyoscyamine remains as an oily liquid which after some time concretes into wart-like tufted crystals, soluble in benzol, chloroform, ether, as well as in water. Höhn and Reichardt assign to hyoscyamine the formula C15H2303. The seeds yield of it only 0·05 per cent. Hyoscyamine is easily decomposed by caustic alkalis. By boiling with baryta in aqueous solution, it is split into Hyoscine, CH'N, and Hyoscinic Acid, CHO3. The former is a volatile oily liquid of a narcotic odour and alkaline reaction. By keeping it over sulphuric acid it crystallizes and also yields crystallized salts; hyoscine may be closely allied to conine, CHIN. Hyoscinic acid, a crystallizable substance having an odour resembling that of empyreumatic benzoic acid.2 It melts, according to Höhn, at 105°; tropic acid (see p. 457), melting at 118°, agrees so very nearly with hyoscinic acid that further researches will probably prove these acids to be identical. Another process for extracting hyoscyamine is due (1875) to Thibaut. He removes by bisulphide of carbon the fatty oil from the powdered seeds, and exhausts them with alcohol slightly acidulated by tartaric acid. The alcohol being distilled off, the author precipitates the alkaloid by means of a solution containing 6 per cent. of iodide of potassium and 3 per cent. iodine. By decomposing the precipitate with sulphurous acid, hydroiodic acid and sulphate of hyoscyamine are formed. The latter is dried up at 35° with magnesia and the hyoscyamine extracted by alcohol or chloroform. The crystals melt at 90°. Thibaut found the alkaloid thus prepared from seeds differing from that yielded by the leaves, the latter having a somewhat strong odour. Attfield has pointed out that extract of henbane is rich in nitrate of potassium and other inorganic salts. In the leaves, the amount of nitrate is, according to Thorey, largest before flowering, and the same observation applies to hyoscyamine. Uses-Henbane in the form of tincture or extract is administered as a sedative, anodyne or hypnotic. The impropriety of giving it in conjunction with free potash or soda, which render it perfectly inert, has been demonstrated by the experiments of Garrod. Hyoscyamine, like atropine, powerfully dilates the pupil of the eye. Substitutes-Hyoscyamus albus L., a more slender plant than H. 1 From the experiments of Schoonbroodt (1868), there is reason to believe that the active principle of henbane can be more easily extracted from the fresh than from the dried plant. 2 I have had the opportunity of examining the above substances as prepared by the said chemists.-F. A. F. July 1871. 5 Pharm. Journ. xvii. (1858) 462; xviii. (1859) 174. niger L., with stalked leaves and bracts, a native of the Mediterranean region, is sometimes used in the south of Europe as medicinal henbane. H. insanus Stocks, a plant of Beluchistan, is mentioned in the Pharmacopoeia of India as of considerable virulence, and sometimes used for smoking. FOLIA TABACI. Herba Nicotiana; Tobacco; F. Tabac; G. Tabakblätter. Botanical Origin-Nicotiana Tabacum L.-The common Tobacco plant is a native of the New World, though not now known in a wild state. Its cultivation is carried on in most temperate and sub-tropical countries. History-It is stated by C. Ph. von Martius' that the practice of smoking tobacco has been widely diffused from time immemorial among the natives of South America, as well as among the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi as far north as the plant can be cultivated. The Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco when they landed in Cuba in 1492, and on their return introduced it into Europe for the sake of its medicinal properties. The custom of inhaling the smoke of the herb was learnt from the Indians, and by the end of the 16th century had become generally known throughout Spain and Portugal, whence it passed into the rest of Europe, and into Turkey, Egypt, and India, notwithstanding that it was opposed by the severest enactments both of Christian and Mahommedan governments. It is commonly believed that the practice of smoking tobacco was much promoted in England, as well as in the north of Europe generally, by the example of Sir Walter Raleigh and his companions. Tobacco was introduced into China, probably by way of Japan or Manila, during the 16th or 17th century, but its use was prohibited by the emperors both of the Ming and Tsing dynasties. It is now cultivated in most of the provinces, and is universally employed.2 The first tolerably exact description of the tobacco plant is that given by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, governor of St. Domingo, in his Historia general de las Indias,3 printed at Seville in 1535. In this work, the plant is said to be smoked through a branched tube of the shape of the letter Y, which the natives call Tabaco. It was not until the middle of the 16th century that growing tobacco was seen in Europe,-first at Lisbon, whence the French ambassador, Jean Nicot, sent seeds to France in 1560 as those of a valuable medicinal plant, which was even then diffused throughout Portugal.* Monardes, writing in 1571, speaks of tobacco as brought to Spain a few years previously, and valued for its beauty and for its medicinal |