PHARMACOPCGIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
where Brazilian plants and their uses are considered, the following 
passage occurs: 
“Igpecaya or pigaya is profitable for the bloudie fluxe. The stalke 
is a quarter long and the roots of another or more, it hath only four 
or five leaves, it smelleth much wheresoever it is, but the smell is 
strong and terrible.” 
The subsequent description of its medicinal virtues bears further 
evidence that we have here a plant at least closely related to official 
ipecacuanha. According to a printed note at the head of that chapter, 
the author is believed to be a Jesuit by the name of Manoel Tristaon . 
(651a), who probably wrote the treatise in the year 1601. 
The first definite information we have of ipecacuanha dates from 
the publication of a work by Piso and Marcgraf (511), called “His- 
toria Naturalis Brasilie,” Amsterdam, 1648, chapter Ixiv being en- 
titled “De Ipecacuanha ejusque Facultatibus.”” Two species are de- 
scribed, a white and a brown species, the latter evidently being the true 
ipecacuanha plant. An illustration of the plant is added, which Mérat 
considers quite a creditable reproduction of the true ipecacuanha. The 
entire chapter was reprinted, with French translation, by Mérat (422), 
and inserted in his “Dictionnaire,” as a testimony of the extreme ex- 
actness of the description given by Piso (511). 
The root first came to Europe in 1672 through the agency of Le 
Gras (422), who sought to introduce it into medical practice. Keep- 
ing a stock supply in the care of an apothecary by the name of Claque- 
nelle in Paris, he associated himself with J. A. Helvetius (309), a 
physician of German descent, who had graduated under the medical 
Faculty at Reims. However, the venture was at first a failure, owing 
to the employment of too large doses. 
In 1680 a merchant by the name of Garnier in Paris, well ac- 
quainted with the medicinal virtues of the root, sent for a supply, ob- 
taining 150 pounds from Spain. Through this gentleman, directly or 
indirectly, Helvetius (309) secured a new lot of the drug, which he 
skillfully managed to exploit by extensively advertising it as “radix 
-anti-dysenterica,” the origin of which, however, he kept a secret. 
Finally the fame of the remedy came to the notice of Minister Colbert, 
who ordered that the remedy be given an official trial in the Paris 
municipal hospital. 
In 1688 Helvetius (309) obtained the sole license for the sale of 
the drug, which proved to be an efficient, or at least popular, remedy 
among the members of an aristocratic patronage, including no less a 
personage than the dauphin. King Louis the XIV then bought the se- 
cret from Helvetius for one thousand louis d’or, and made the remedv 
public property. He was induced to do so by the combined influences 
of his physician, Ant. d’Aquin, and of Franc. de Lachaise, confessor to 
the king. Garnier, the merchant, however, brought suit in order to 
obtain his share of profit in the transaction, but was unsuccessful in 
his efforts. 
After the use of the drug had thus been established in France, the 
‘edy was introduced into other countries, e. g., by Leibnitz (378a) 
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