PHARMACOPG:IAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
due time its botanical name will be known.” He neglected, however, 
to concern himself further in the matter. 
In the fall of 1878, Dr. C. H. Adair, of Colusa, California, a 
partner of Dr. Bundy, sent the writer specimens of the bark and bo- 
tanical specimens of the tree yielding it. These, on identification by 
Mr. Curtis G. Lloyd, proved to be Rhamnus Purshiana. This fact 
was announced in a paper on “Some Specimens of Western Plants,” 
presented to the American Pharmaceutical Association held at the 
meeting in Atlanta, Ga., November, 1878, (Proceedings, 1879, p. 707) 
and completed the drug’s history. 
Names.—Dr. Bundy supplied the drug under the Spanish name 
“Cascara Sagrada,” a name said to have been in local use through- 
out some sections of California, which soon came to be the com- 
mon name of the drug, and will surely dominate all others as long as 
the drug is in use. The anglicised name “Sacred Bark” has also been 
applied to the drug, and the Scriptural term Chittim bark was also 
employed in early days in some parts of California, but these last 
names are now obsolete. 
RHEUM 
Rhubarb (Rheum officinale, etc.) is a gift of the Chinese, who 
have used it in domestic practice from all times, as noted in the herbal 
Pen-king, probably the production of the Emperor Shen-nung, the 
“father of Chinese agriculture and medicine,” about 2700 B. C. As 
exported from its home in China, it has been respectively known as 
Russian, Turkish, and Chinese rhubarb, in accordance with the country 
through which it reaches the market from its native land. As a ca- 
thartic and a laxative this drug is sold in large amounts, having been 
accepted as a household remedy in syrups and tincture forms the world 
throughout. It is a gift of empiricism to the medical profession. 
RHUS GLABRA 
Sumach, Rhus glabra, is found in most of the temperate parts of 
the United States, to which it is indigenous. The North American In- 
dians used the powdered seeds to treat piles and as an application to 
wounds, the juice of the fresh fruit being used as an application to 
warts and in skin diseases like tetter. In domestic medication, follow- 
ing the Indians, the roots were used by the settlers for rheumatism, in 
alcoholic tincture, as well as in infusion. In domestic medicine the ber- 
ries were also employed in a decoction, as a gargle in quinsy, ulceration 
of the mouth and throat, and, following the Indian use of the drug, as a 
wash for ringworm, tetter, and offensive ulcers. These well-known 
uses of the American plant, so ornamental after the frost strikes its 
leaves in the fall, led to its introduction into professional medicine. 
In Turkey the berries of sumach are used (so this writer was in. 
formed) in starting their popular curd food. 
7O 
