PHARMACOPGIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
BALSAMUM TOLUTANUM 
This South American and West Indian drug (obtained from Tolui- 
fera balsamum), was in use by the natives on the discovery of those 
countries, being to-day collected after the native manner, as is also 
Balsam of Peru. Monardes (447) in his treatise, 1574, on West 
Indian productions, describes the Indian method of incising the bark 
and affixing shells of black wax to receive the balsam, in a district near 
Cartagena called Tolu, from which it takes its name.* He adds that 
it was much esteemed by the Indians, and later by the Spaniards, who 
transported it to Spain. Clusius (153) received, 1581, a specimen 
from Morgan, an apothecary to Queen Elizabeth. ‘The price list of 
the city of Frankfort, Germany, 1669, gives it a place, while in 1646 
it was noticed in the records of the city of Basle. Notwithstanding 
that Monardes (447) figured a broken pod and leaflet, and Humboldt 
and Bonpland (331) saw the tree in New Granada (1799), it was re- 
served for Weir (1863), a plant collector to the Royal Horticultural 
Society, London, to obtain the first good specimens of the pods and 
leaves, Guerin, 1868, first obtaining the flowers. ‘Thus a complete 
description of a drug known for centuries was finally authoritatively 
established. The introduction of Balsam of Tolu into medicine and 
pharmacy followed the track (as is true of all other natural drugs of 
the Pharmacopeia), of its empirical record. 
BELLADONNAE RADIX ET FOLIA 
The plant Atropa belladonna is native to Southern Europe, ex- 
tending thence to the Crimea, Caucasia, and the northern parts of Asia 
Minor. About 1504 a book appeared in Paris titled the Grand Herbier, 
which carried the first authentic notice of belladonna, although the 
term “solatrum furiale,”’ used by Saladinus of Ascoli (570), about 
1450, is presumed to refer to it. Its effects, internally, were subjects of 
treatises by Amoreaux (20a), Paris, 1760; Daries (184), Leipsic, 
1776; Minch (453), Gottingen, 1783 and 1785, and subsequently by 
all who wrote comprehensively on medicine. In toxicology, the Ger- 
man botanist, Leonard Fuchs, (251) figured the plant as Solanum 
somniferum, 1542, fully identifying its poisonous properties, and J. M. 
Faber, Augsburg, 1677 (231a), wrote on its poisonous action. But 
the people in the plant’s habitat have always been aware that all parts, 
even to the berries, were poisonous. In the eye, so far as we can lo- 
cate its record, the first study concerning its local effect is that of Him 
(317a) of Paris, 1802, although country people in the habitat of bella- 
donna, from all time, know that it possesses the power of dilating the 
pupil. In “regular medicine” belladonna has a more recent introduc- 
tion, due to the commendation of the well-known pharmacist, Mr, Peter 
Squire ( 611), of London, who about 1860 commended it as the basis of 
a useful liniment, for the relief of neuralgic pains. The drug is now 
used chiefly in the making of the alkaloid atropine, and in the prepara- 
* This reminds one : method, in Asia lecti ; 
plant in the half shell of the clam 7” = 45! Minor, of collecting the juice of byenary -f 
8 
