PHARMACOPCZIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
Caucasus, Persia, throughout Asia Minor, Northern India, and even 
in Siberia. It has been naturalized in North America and Brazil, and 
in England is a common weed. Dioscorides (194) mentions it among 
medicinal plants, and under the name Henbane it has been employed in 
domestic medicine throughout Europe from the remotest times. Anglo- 
Saxon works gn medicine in the eleventh century give it a place. Dur- 
ing the Middle Ages the seeds and roots were much used. Its re- 
employment and introduction to modern regular medicine, after it had 
fallen into disuse, came through the efforts of Stérck (617). Its quali- 
ties were well known to the Arabians, as is witnessed in numerous ref- 
erences thereto in the “Arabian Nights” (88), of which the following 
is a sample: 
“Presently he filled a cresset with firewood, on which he strewed powdered 
henbane, and lighting it, went round about the tent with it till the smoke entered 
the nostrils of the guards, and they all fell asleep, drowned by the drug.” 
(88) History of Gharib and his Brother Ajib, Vol. VII, p. 7. 
Had Herodotus not said tree, it might have been accepted that the 
volatile intoxicant mentioned by him referred to this drug. Indeed, 
the presumption would not have disturbed an author who made errors 
more pronounced than the distinction between an herb and a tree, and 
who qualified his statement by “it is said.” However, as shown in our 
article on Matico, that plant was originally described as “Soldier’s Herb 
or Tree.” 
“Moreover it is said that other trees have been discovered by them which 
yield fruit of such a kind that when they have assembled together in com- 
panies in the same place and lighted a fire, they sit round in a circle and throw 
some of it into the fire, and they smell the fruit which is thrown on, as it burns, 
and are intoxicated by the scent as the Hellenes are with wine, and when 
more of the fruit is thrown on they become more intoxicated, until at last 
they rise up to dance and begin to sing.” Herodotus (Macaulay), Book I, 
p. 99. 
In this connection, through tradition probably, its uses in the same 
manner came to popular uses. The grandmother of the writer, afflicted 
with asthma, found her greatest relief in smoking stramonium leaves 
mixed with small amounts of henbane leaves. This was an heirloom of 
primitive medication transplanted to the Western American wilderness. 
IPECACUANHA 
The beginning of the history of ipecacuanha root and the first 
study of its virtues is clouded in mystery and fable. It is stated that 
the South American Indians were acquainted with the medicinal prop- 
erties of the plant, having gained their experience from observing 
the habits of animals (409).* A vague yet probably the first source 
of information on the subject of ipecacuanha root is found in a work 
published in London in 1625, named “The Pilgrimes,” by Samuel Pur- 
chas (527), which in five volumes gives an account of many travels 
and the natural history of foreign countries. In Vol. IV, page 1311, 
_*This fable has a parallel in the quaint description given by Clusius concerning the 
_ discovery of the healing virtues of nux vomica bark in cases of 
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