PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
PRUNUS VIRGINIANA 
The Prunus virginiana (wild black cherry), found throughout 
the eastern parts of the United States, has been widely used in do- 
mestic medicine since the days of the Indian, being perhaps more 
highly valued in this direction than by members of the profession, al- 
though it has been recognized in the Pharmacopeia since the first edi- 
tion of this work, 1820. No more popular bark of a native tree, ex- 
cepting sassafras, is known to home medication. It has a place in all 
works on early American domestic medication. 
PYRETHRUM 
Pellitory, or Spanish chamomile (Anacyclus pyrethrum), is a 
widely-distributed plant known in different countries under different 
names. According to Pliny (514) it was the herb used by the Magians 
under the name parthenium against intermittent fevers, and according 
to Dioscorides (194) it is the plant that, under the name anthemis, 
was used in the same manner. It is mentioned in the “Arabian Nights” 
(88) under the name wkhowan. It is found throughout European 
Turkey, and according to Forskal southward to the mountains of 
Yemen, where it is called meniat. According to De Candolle (122) 
its introduction into Britain was perhaps before the coming of the Ro- 
mans. The European colonists carried it, according to Josselyn (345) 
to Northeast America before 1669, where it is to be found both under 
cultivation and, having escaped therefrom, as a wild plant. Once a 
popular remedy in agues, its use is now practically discontinued, even 
in domestic medicine. Physicians as a rule neglect it, but it is em- 
ployed by them in a few exceptional instances. 
QUASSIA 
Quassia amara takes its name from a slave of Surinam, named 
Quassi (see article Quassia Amara, J. U. Lloyd, Western Druggist, 
Chicago, Jan., 1897), who used the plant as a secret remedy, with great 
success, in the treatment of malignant fevers common to his locality 
and climate. Daniel Rolander, a Swede, became interested in the drug, 
and “in consequence of a valuable consideration” purchased from the 
slave Quassi a knowledge of the drug composing his remedy. Ro- 
lander returned to Stockholm in 1756, when he introduced the drug to” 
Europe. In 1760 (or according to another reference, 1761) Carol. 
Gust. Dahlberg, an officer of the Dutch army and an eminent botanist, 
a pupil of Linnzus (385), returned to Sweden from Surinam, where 
he too had become acquainted with the slave Quassi, and through kind- 
ness to him had so gained his affection that he revealed not only the 
composition of his secret remedy, but even showed to him the tree 
from which the drug was derived. Dahlberg procured specimens of 
the root, flowers, and leaves of the tree, preserving them in alcohol, 
and presented them to Linnzeus, who named the wood Lignum quassie, 
in honor of the slave, and established a new genus for the plant, which 
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