216 Euphorbia Ipecacuanha. 
cine by Professor Hewson, my brother, Dr. John Rhea Barton,* of the 
Pennsylvania hospital, and others, all embolden me to declare. Pre- 
viously to the experiments instituted by myself, and, at my request, 
by Dr. Hewson and others, little more was known of the American 
Tpecacuanha, than that it was possessed of emetic properties. The 
dose in which it operated, had not been ascertained, and indeed all 
who wrote of it, merely mentioned it as an emetic. The earliest 
printed notice of this plant that I can find is in the work of Dr. 
Puihn,t published at Leipsic in the year 1785. He simply notices 
it thus : “ Euphorbia Ipecacuanhe Americ septentrionalis in- 
cole ut emetico utuntur.’ And Shoepf (who seems only to have 
seen the variety with lanceolate leaves) remarks, that this plant is 
called “ Ipecacuanha,” and observes, “ A nonnullis, precipue incolis 
Borealibus temere ad vomitum ciendum interne usurpatur. Clayt’’,t 
The late Professor Barton seems not to have known more of the 
Euphorbia than what he learned from Shoepf. He says in his Col- 
lections, “it is employed as an emetic by some of the country 
people. I do not know the dose. I suppose it is small, for it be- 
* The trials of the medicine made by my brother, on the patients of the hospital, 
were instituted with a design of making this plant the subject of his Inaugural Dis- 
sertation. This intention was however abandoned, in consequence of learning that an. 
other gentleman had chosen the same subject. 
} “ Materia Venenaria Regni Vegetabilis,” p. 99. 
+ Mat. Med. Am. p. 74. 
