PHARMACOPGIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
NUX VOMICA 
This drug is the fruit of a tree (Strychnos nux-vomica) indig- 
enous to most parts of India, especially the coast districts, and is 
thought to have been introduced into medicine by the Arabians. The 
natives of India did not, however, value it, probably because of its ex- 
ceedingly energetic nature. Although the Hindoos of the present time 
employ it extensively, it is probable that they were not acquainted with 
it before its introduction into Germany, in the sixteenth century. Its 
European employment was originally as a drug-shop poison, for the 
purpose of killing animals and destructive birds, such as crows; it 
was not until after the days of Parkinson (492), 1640, that its employ- 
ment in medicine began. The Pharmacopeia values nux preparations 
by the amount of strychnine present, the Eclectics by quality, strych- 
nine being subordinated so as not to dominate the product unduly. 
OPIUM 
The discovery of the medical qualities of opium is lost in times 
gone by. Theophrastus (633), the third century B. C., mentions it. 
The poppy producing opium is (from a remote period) native to Asia 
Minor and Central Asia. The early use of the decoction of the poppy 
head, as well as the early use of opium, the product of the poppy, Papa- 
ver somniferum, antedates, as has been said, professional medication 
and crept into home use as well as professional use at a very early 
period. The Welsh physicians of the seventeenth century used a wine 
of poppy heads to produce sleep, and prepared pills from the juice of 
the poppy. Syrup of poppy was given a position in the first pharma- 
copeia, of the London College, 1618. Dioscorides (194) distinguishes 
between the juice of the poppy capsule, and an extract from the entire 
plant. Inasmuch as he describes how the capsule should be incised 
and the juice collected, it is evident that he plainly refers to opium. 
Pliny (514) also devotes considerable space to this drug. Celsus 
(136), in the first century, mentions it, and during the period of the 
Roman Empire it was known as a product of Asia Minor. It is sup- 
posed that the prohibition of wine by Mohammed led to the spreading 
of the use of opium in some parts of Asia, the drug being then an 
import from Aden or Cambay. The Mohammedans introduced opium 
into India, it being first mentioned as a product of that country by 
Barbosa (39), who visited Calicut in 1511, its port of export then 
being Aden or Cambay. The German traveler Kampfer (349), who 
visited Persia in 1685, describes the various kinds of opium then pro- 
duced, stating that it was customary to mix the drug with various 
aromatics, such as nutmeg, cardamon, cinnamon, and mace, and even 
with ambergris. It was also sometimes colored red with cannabis in- 
dica, and was sometimes mixed with the strongly narcotic seeds of 
stramonium. This writer could find no instance of the Turkish people 
of the present using opium in any form (388c). A description in 
brief detail only of the many kinds of opium and the different qualities 
of opium, as well as its sophisticants and adulterants, is herein un- 
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