PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
ROSA GALLICA 
The rose, in some form of its many varieties, is indigenous to 
the warmer parts of Europe, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, and other 
countries. Its use in medicine as well as in perfumes dates from the 
earliest times. The Rosa gallica is said to have been introduced into 
France by the Count of Champagne on his return from the Crusades 
in 1241. In the study of attar of roses made by the writer on the 
bottom lands beneath Mt. Olympus in Turkey, the roses planted in 
rows appeared much like raspberry fields, the roses being of a rather 
insignificant appearance, but very fragrant. The use of the rose in 
confection form, in pharmacopeial medicine, once very popular, has, 
with the exception of its employment in blue mass (Massa hydrar- 
gium), become nearly obsolete. In the “Arabian Nights” (88), rose 
water is often referred to, and in Turkish home life it is employed as 
a refreshing perfume after bathing. 
RUBUS 
Blackberry, Rubus villosus, grows abundantly in most parts of 
the United States. The roots of the various species as well as varieties 
or rubus are more or less astringent and have been used in do- 
mestic medicine from the days of America’s first settlement. The 
Cherokee Indians (Rafinesque [535]), chewed the root of this plant 
and swallowed the saliva for a cough, probably its astringency being 
helpful to the throat membranes. They also used a poultice of it for 
piles, in which direction its mild astringency seems rationally to adapt 
it. A syrup of blackberry root has been a great favorite in some 
sections of the country as a remedy for dysentery. This use of the 
drug in domestic medication, in which it has always been valued in 
America, led finally to its employment by the members of the medical 
profession. The juice of the blackberry fruit, spiced and mixed with 
whisky, is and has ever been a valued carminative drink in Kentucky 
and other parts of the Southern United States, and founded the phar- 
macopeial blackberry cordial. 
SABAL 
Saw palmetto, Serenoa serrulata, Sabal serrulata. The berry 
of the saw palmetto, practically unknown in medicine before 1879, 
came rapidly into conspicuity, both in pharmacy and in medicine, after 
that date. It had been observed by the settlers of the South that ani- 
mals feeding on the matured fruit “grew very sleek and fat,” a fact 
that was ascribed to the therapeutic qualities of the berries, reasoning 
from which they prepared a decoction of the fruit for domestic medi- _ 
cation. In 1877, Dr. Reed, of the Southern United States, in an ar- 
ticle entitled “A New Remedy,” in the Medical Brief, St. Louis (417), 
stated that several persons in his neighborhood were using a prepara- 
tion of the berry, giving instances of its use in various directions. This 
article was reproduced in New Preparations (467), July, 1879, and was 
followed in the same publication by another article from the Medical 
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