PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
tablished. Its Italian name, gelsomino, possibly led Eclectic authors 
to use the name gelseminum instead of gelsemium, a term found in 
early Eclectic literature and but recently displaced. In this connection 
it may be said that Professor Scudder invariably used the word gel- 
seminum.* 
Medical History.—Barton and his co-laborers did not mention gel- 
semium, but Rafinesque (535), 1830, gave it a place, stating that 
“root and flowers} are narcotic, their effluvia may cause stupor, tincture 
of the root is used for rheumatism in frictions,’ a statement taken 
almost literally from Elliott’s (227) Botany of South Carolina and 
Georgia, 1821. The medical record (King) (356) had its origin 
through the mistake of a servant of a Southern planter who was af- 
flicted with fever. This servant by error gave his master a decoction 
of gelsemium root instead of the garden plant intended. Immediate 
loss of muscular power and great depression followed, all control of 
the limbs was lost, the eyelids drooped and could not be voluntarily 
opened. Death seemed imminent. But the effects finally wore away 
and the man recovered, free from fever, which did not recur. An 
' observing physician took this experience as a text and prepared from 
gelsemium a remedy which he called the “Electrical febrifuge.” which 
attained some popularity. Finally the name of the drug concerned 
was given to the profession. ‘This statement is found in the first edi- 
tion of King’s American Eclectic Dispensatory, 1852, which work ac- 
tually presented gelsemium to the world of medicine, although, as will 
be shown later, the plant had a recorded position much earlier. King’s 
article on gelsemium was copied in substance by the United States Dis- 
pensatory, 1854, none of the preceding nine editions of that work hav- 
ing mentioned the drug. But the fact is that Porcher (520) com- 
mended gelsemium in his report to the American Medical Association, 
1849, and, concerning its restricted local use in gonorrhea and rheu- 
matism, referred to Frost’s Elements of Materia Medica ( 250) (South 
Carolina) as well as to several local journal articles. 
For a long time following 1852 (at which date King’s American © 
Dispensatory appeared) gelsemium remained an almost exclusive rem- 
edy of the Eclectic school, but in 1860 it attained a position in the 
United States Pharmacopeia, although not until 1880 did that work 
give place to any preparation of gelsemium. At present the drug is 
in much favor with many physicians of all schools, but is generally 
classed as one of the Eclectic remedies, being one of the most important 
in Eclectic therapy. 
GENTIANA 
Gentian (Gentiana lutea) is indigenous to the mountainous parts 
of Middle and Southern Europe, being found in the air the 
Islands of Sardinia and Corsica, the Alps, and elsewhere. It is not, 
however, found in the British Islands. It is mentioned by both Pliny 
*In an English botanical work in the Lloyd Library, which I can not now | 
Ls st a , locate, a long 
~~ ey ge = hel at = words. If memory serves me correctly, the decision 
pet A the. statement has been made and possibly established that honey from the flowers of 
42 
