126 FLORA HOMCEOPATHICA. 



is probable that the species of Rheum from which the officinal 

 Rhubarb is made has never been described. €€ The genus 

 Rheum, to which Rhubarb is unanimously referred by botanists 

 and pharmacologists, comprises numerous species, very widely 

 diffused over the Asiatic continent; for it is met with as far west 

 as the Caspian shores, as far east as within the Chinese wall, 

 south on the Himalaya mountains which bound Upper India, 

 and north along the Altai range, and towards Lake Baikal. 

 The extent of country from which Rhubarb of one kind or 

 another is actually collected, though somewhat more limited 

 than this, nevertheless reaches from Ludak, in 77|° east 

 longitude, to the Chinese province of Shen-si, 29° further 

 east; and from the Sue-chan mountains, in north latitude 

 26°, upon the south-western confines of China Proper, 

 nearly to the frontier of Siberia, 24° northward. Further 

 it would appear, from recent inquiries, that the best qualities of 

 commercial Rhubarb are, in all probability, produced five or six 

 hundred miles north of the British territories of Assam, in the 

 very heart of Thibet" ( Christison, Disp., p. 780). " My travels," 

 says Sievers, "as well as acquaintance with the Buchanans, 

 have satisfied me that as yet nobody, that is, no scientific person, 

 has seen the True Rhubarb plant ; all that is said of it by the 

 Jesuits is miserable, confused stuff; all the seeds procured 

 under the name of True Rhubarb are false ; all the plantations, 

 from those of the Knight Murray down to the flower-pot of a 

 private individual, will never yield True Rhubarb. Until 

 further determination, I hereby declare all the descriptions in 



(2> 



Disp 



Medicine 



The Root from the different species. That which is called the 

 China Rhubarb is used for homoeopathic purposes. According 

 to Pereira (op. cit.), there are six kinds of Rhubarb of commerce, 

 viz., Russian, Dutch trimmed, Chinese, Himalayan, English, and 

 French. 



