Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Flückiger, Friedrich A. (Friedrich August), 1828-1894.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. 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.

    35/732 (page 11)
    sliovved it to be identical with narcotinc. So lixr as we know, it has not been met with by any other chemist; Groves/ in particular, was unable to find it. The other constituents of aconite root are but imperfectly known. In the preparation of the alkaloids, a dark green mixture of resin and fat is obtained ; it is much more abundant in European than in Nepal aconite (Groves). The root contains Mannite, as proved by T. and H. Smith (1850), together with cane sugar, and another sugar which reduces cupric oxide even in the cold. Tannin is absent, or is limited to the corky coat. The absence of a volatile alkaloid in the root, as stated at page 12, was proved by Groves in 1866. Uses—Prescribed in the form of tincture as an anodyne liniment; occasionally given internally in rheumatism. Adulteration and Substitution—Aconite root, though offered in abundance in the market, is by no means always obtained of good quality. Collected in the mountainous parts of Europe by peasants occupied in the pasturing of sheep and cattle, it is often dug up without due regard to the proper season or even to the proper species,—a care- lessness not surprising when regard is had to the miserable price which the drug realizes in the market.^ One of the species not unfrequent in the Alps, of which the roots are doubtless sometimes collected, is A. Storckeanum Eeichenb. In this plant the tuberous roots are developed to the number of three or four, and have an anatomical structure slightly different from that of A. Napellus? A, vcoriegatum L., A. Cammarum Jacq., and A. panicula- tum Lam. are blue-flowered species having tuberous roots resembling those of A. Napellus, but according to Schroff somewhat less active. The yellow-flowered A. Antlwra L. and A. Lycodonum L. produce roots which cannot be confounded with those of A. Nopellus L. FOLIA ACONITI. Herba Aconili; Aconite Leaves; E. Feuilles d'Aconit; G., Eisenhvt- kraut, Stur'nihutkraut. Botanical Origin—Aconitum Najpellus L., see preceding article. History—Aconite herb was introduced into medicine in 1762 by Storck of Vienna; and was admitted into the London Pharmacopoeia in 1788. Description—The plant produces a stiff, upright, herbaceous, simple stem, 3 to 4 feet high, clothed as to its upper half with spread- ing, dark green leaves, which are paler on their under side. The leaves are from 3 to 5 or more inches in length, nearly half consisting of the channelled petiole. The blade, which has a roundish outline, is divided down to the petiole into three principal segments, of which the lateral are subdivided into two or even three, the lowest being smaller and less ^ Pharm. Journ. viii. (1867) 123. per lb., and a pound we find, contains fully ^ Thus the continental druggists are able 150 roots ! to offer it in quantity as low as id. to 5d. ^ See figure in Berg's Atlas zur pharm. Waarenkunde (1865) fig. 24.