PHARMACOPCIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
The remarkable record of this drug has been a subject of many 
contributions to botanical and therapeutical literature, much of interest 
even now remaining unwritten. To this writer its journey from the 
aborigines to scientific use and therapeutic study appears to parallel the 
course of such drugs as coca, jalap, benzoin, sassafras, croton tig- 
lium, etc. 
Summary.—To Dr. J. H. Bundy, Colusa, California, 1877, is due 
the credit of introducing the bark of Rhamnus Purshiana (Cascara 
Sagrada) to the medical profession. 
To “New Preparations,” Parke, Davis & Co., of Detroit, Michigan, 
(1877 and 1878) is due the credit of bringing the drug to the attention 
of physicians and pharmacists. The firm of Parke, Davis & Co. in- 
troduced to the world the preparations of this drug, of which they 
were, for some years, the sole manufacturers. 
A descriptive treatise that will record some unwritten phases of 
its dramatic history, familiar only to those concerned in its intro- 
duction, should not be lost to posterity. The following, contributed 
by this writer to the Research Committee of the American Pharma- 
ceutical Association (vol. 44, 1896) is a brief summary. 
HISTORY AND NAMES OF RHAMNUS PURSHIANA. 
(CASCARA SAGRADA) 
By J. U. Luoyp. 
Contribution to the Research Committee of the American Pharma- 
ceutical Association.* 
In a paper contributed to “New Preparations,”+ October 15, 1877, 
p. 8, the late Dr. J. H. Bundy, an Eclectic physician of Colusa, Cali- 
fornia, commended “Cascara Sagrada” as a valuable remedy in the 
treatment of constipation. This notice was by means of a brief note 
that was part of a paper on Berberis aquifolium, Dr. Bundy promis- 
ing, however, to give it further attention, as follows: 
“Tt is not my purpose to treat on Cascara Sagrada in this paper, 
but using it in connection with the Berberis, I simply make mention 
of it. In the future I will introduce the drug to the profession.” 
This, so far as the writer can determine, was the first reference 
concerning this remedy in pharmaceutical or medical print. Agreeably 
to promise, in January, 1878, Dr. Bundy contributed a paper on the 
subject, “Cascara Sagrada,” in which he gave the uses of fluid extract 
of “Cascara Sagrada.” Following this came many papers from Dr. 
Bundy and other physicians, twenty contributions on the subject being 
printed in “New Preparations,” 1878, to which journal, with few ex- 
ceptions, the subject was confined during 1877 and 1878. Dr. Bundy 
stated in his paper (1878) “A description of the Cascara I am unable 
to give at this time, but suffice it to say that it is a shrub, and in 
#Introductory to a contribution from chemical investigations of Rhamnus Purshiana, under- 
taken by Alfred R. L. Dohme. E 
ew Preparations, Detroit, Parke, Davis & Co. 
tN ew Preparations, January, 1878, p. 1. 
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