15+2 
History and Habitat.—Berberis was well known to the ancients as a medicine, 
a dietetic for the sick, and a dye. As a drug it was steeped in beer and given 
to patients suffering from jaundice, as well as to check hemorrhages; as a food 
preparation for the sick, the berries were made into a confection, and used as a 
refrigerant in fevers and burning gastric ailments ; those not sick used the bruised 
leaves in a manner similar to sorrel as a sauce for meats ; as a dye, the roots were 
steeped with strong ash-lye, and used to give the hair a yellow color. The 
same preparation is now sometimes used to dye wool, while by using alum, in place 
of the ash-lye, it makes a good as well as a beautiful dye for linen fabrics. A jelly 
made of the berries is still used in lieu of tamarinds as a pleasant refrigerant, as 
so also is a confection. Its popular use as a remedy—barberry bark and cider— 
was held in all forms of abdominal inflammation, but especially those accompanied 
with hepatic derangement and jaundice. : 
Berberis vulgaris is indigenous to Great Britain and other parts of Europe, | 
and is becoming quite thoroughly naturalized here, especially in the Eastern States, 
blossoming from May to June. It is cultivated in many parts of the country 
as an ornamental bush, on account of its beautiful berries. Our own species, 2. 
Canadensis, Pursh., is a shrub about three feet high, with /ess bristly teeth to the 
leaves, a few-flowered raceme, petals notched at the apex, and oval berries. In 
Berberis proper, upon the summer shoots may be seen a perfect instance of 
gradation, in all forms, from the leaf as described above, to a fully-developed 
spine, a fine instance of vegetable morphology. The leaves of the barberry 
are at times, especially in Europe, infested with a peculiar blight; Aecidium Ber- 
beridis (Microspheria Berberidis ; Lysiphe Berberides) a member of the coniomy- 
cetous fungi; order, uredinei. It consists in its full-grown condition of little cups 
filled with a reddish or brownish powder (spores), formed by a bulging upward 
and bursting of the epidermis of the leaf, by the parasite developed within. This 
blight caused much fear at one time in Europe, upon the supposition that it was 
communicated to grain, which however was very probably false. 
Berberis, like many other excellent remedies, has been dismissed this year 
(1882) from the U. S. Ph. In the Eclectic Materica Medica it is still: retained, 
though not in an officinal preparation. es 
PART USED AND PREPARATION.—The fresh bark of the root. This is 
coarsely powdered and weighed. Then after adding two parts by weight of alcohol 
the whole is put into a well-stoppered bottle and allowed to stand eight days ina _ 
dark, cool ‘place, shaking the contents twice a day; the tincture is then strained and 
filtered. Thus prepared, it has a deep orange-brown color by transmitted light ; 
and stains the neck of the’ bottle yellow. It has an extremely bitter taste, and a 
slight acid reaction. : 
CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS.—Berberin, C,, H,, NO, This alkaloid was 
first discovered in 1824, in the bark of Geoffroya inermis,* two years afterward in 
the bark of Xanthoxylum lava Herculis,t in 1851 in the root of Hydrastis 
Canadensis, | and in 1835 in the bark of Berberis vulgaris ;§ yet, it is only lately 
* Jamaicin. + Xanthropicrit. t Hydrastin, % Berberin, 
t 
