PHARMACOPCIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
(514) and Dioscorides (194), its name being derived from Gentius, 
a king of Illyria, B. C. 180. Throughout the Middle Ages gentian 
was used as a domestic medicine and to antidote poisons, and in recent 
times it has been commended as an antidote or substitute for tobacco. 
_ Tragus (650) employed the root A. D. 1552 for the purpose of dilating 
wounds. 
GERANIUM 
Cranesbill, Geranium maculatum, is found native to the lowlands 
and open woods throughout the temperate Eastern United States. Be- 
ing one of the astringent domestic remedies used in the form of in- 
fusion or decoction in diarrhea, dysentery, sore mouth, and similar 
diseases, it thus came to the attention of physicians, whose use of it 
finally led to its place in the pharmacopeia. In Eclectic medication 
geranium is much valued, the drug occupying a well-established position 
in all the publications of that school of physicians. 
GLYCYRRHIZA 
Licorice, the dried rhizome and root of glycyrrhiza, is mentioned 
by Oribasius (479a) and Marcellus (404) in the fourth century, and 
by Paulus Aégineta (494) in the seventh. It was known in the time 
of Dioscorides (194), and was commonly known in Europe during the 
Middle Ages. Its price in England, in the day of Henry III, was 
equal to that of grains of paradise. It was one of the articles paying 
duty to aid in the repairing of London Bridge in the day of Edward I, 
1305. Saladinus (570), in the fifteenth century, mentioned it as an 
Italian medicine, and it was commonly known in the city of Frankfort 
in 1450. Mattioli (414), 1574, states that the juice, in the form of 
pastilles, was brought every year from Apulia. Indeed, the record of 
this substance is to the effect that it has been an article of domestic 
use, as a “sweet wood” for chewing, as a constituent of medic- 
inal pastes, and in the form of a common water extract, since the 
earliest times. It is found in large quantities in the localities where 
it is cultivated, in Sicily, Italy, and Spain, while in moderately recent 
years we have seen immense amounts of licorice roots annually col- 
lected in the valleys of the Hermes and the Kayster, where probably 
it has grown wild from all times. 
GOSSYPII CORTEX 
Cotton Root Bark, Gossypii radicis cortex, is used as a stimulant 
and emmenagogue, the decoction being considered, in the days of 
American slavery, capable of producing abortion. It was thus intro- 
duced empirically by the Negroes, and came from thence into the hands 
of the profession, being first employed by physicians of the Southern 
United States. Following this introduction, Wallace Brothers, of 
Statesville, S. C., at the request of the writer (Eclectic M edical Journal, 
February, 1876, p. 70), forwarded to him a barrel of fresh cotton root 
bark, preserved in alcohol. This was made into a fluid extract, and 
distributed to American practicing physicians, with a request that the 
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