PHARMACOPCIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
CIMICIFUGA (MACROTYS) 
Cimicifuga is abundantly distributed in rich woodlands over the 
greater portion of the United States east of the Mississippi River, ex- 
cept in New England and the extreme South. It is also found in Mis- 
souri and Arkansas. Cimicifuga was observed by the earliest European 
travelers in America, being carried to England in 1732, and first de- 
scribed by Plukenet (514a) in 1696. All pre-Linnzan writers classed 
the plant with actza, mostly under Tournefort’s (649) name, Christo- 
pheriana. Linnzus (385) gave it the name Actza racemosa, under 
which it was classed until Pursh (528) referred it to the genus cimi- 
cifuga. Rafinesque (535), 1808, by reason of the fact that the fruit 
of the plant does not accord with that of either actea or cimicifuga, 
proposed the name Macrotys acteoides, changing the name in 1828 to 
Botrophia serpentaria. Eaton (211) in the fourth edition of his 
Manual followed Rafinesque, calling the plant Macrotys serpentaria. 
Cimicifuga was highly valued by the Indians, who employed de- 
coctions of the drug for diseases of women, for debility, to promote 
perspiration, as a gargle for sore throat, and especially for rheumatism. 
These uses by the Indians introduced the drug to early “Domestic” 
American medicine, and it was consequently given much attention by 
the earliest writers, e. g., Schoepf (582), 1785; Barton (43), 1801; 
Peter Smith (605), 1812; Bigelow (69), 1822; Garden (256a), 1823; 
Ewell (230), 1827; Rafinesque (535), 1828; and Tonga and Durand’s 
(222) addition to Edwards’ and Vavasseur’s Materia Medica, 1829. 
None of these authorities, however, added anything not given by the 
Indian, so far as the field of action of the drug is concerned, excepting 
perhaps the statement of Howard (329), 1832, who was an enthusiast 
in favor of macrotys in the treatment of smallpox, a claim supported 
forty years after by Dr. G. H. Norris, 1872, in a paper read before the 
Alabama State Medical Association. He reported that during an epi- 
demic of smallpox in Huntsville, Ala., families using macrotys as a 
tea were absolutely free from smallpox, and that in those same families 
vaccination had no effect whatever, so long as the use of macrotys was 
continued. (See Lloyd Brothers’ Drug Treatise No. XIII, Macrotys.) 
CINCHONA 
Tradition states that the medicinal qualities of cinchona (Cinchona 
calisaya) were known to the aborigines of South America from the 
earliest times. Arrot (Philosophical Transactions, xl, 1737-8, p. 48) 
states that the qualities and uses of the bark of cinchona were known 
to the Indians before the days of the Spanish conquest. Others de- 
clare that the Peruvians distrusted the drug, considering it dangerous; 
Markham (406) asserting that the native doctors did not employ it. 
Preceding 1739, a Jesuit missionary, however, was cured of fever by 
the bark, administered to him by an Indian; a like incident being re- 
corded concerning the Spanish corregidor of Loxa, in 1630. In 1638, 
the wife of the Viceroy of Peru, the fourth Count of Chinchon, being 
attacked by a fever, was cured with the powdered bark, which being 
commended by her, gave to it the name, “The Countess’ Powder,” or 
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