PHARMACOPC:IAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
veer’s use of scutellaria as a remedy in the cure of rabies gave him 
great notoriety and introduced the drug to Thacher (631), whose dis- 
sertation on “Hydrophobia and Its Cure” involved the remedies em- 
ployed in that disease, as well as substances other than scutellaria com- 
mended therein. Scutellaria has thus a record both as a secret cure 
and as a professional remedy in the treatment of this dreadful disease, 
the latter, however, being altogether based upon the domestic use of 
the drug. According to Schépf (582), 1785, the plant was used as 
a home remedy in the cure of fevers. 
SENEGA 
Senega, the root of a small North American plant (Polygala 
senega), enjoyed very early a reputation as one of the new remedies 
produced by America. The Seneca Indians of New York State em- 
ployed it as a remedy for the bite of the rattlesnake, which led to 
its notoriety in the hands of Tennent, a Scotch physician in Virginia, 
who also administered it for coughs. Under the name senega, or rat- 
tlesnake root, it came to the attention of Dr. Mead, of London, and 
through his efforts and those of others (even Linnzus [385] writing 
a dissertation on it) senega root came into great demand. In domestic 
American medicine it has been continually used as an expectorant, the 
usual form being that of a syrup. 
SENNA 
Senna leaves are from two species of cassia, one of which is native 
to Nubia and other sections of Africa, while the other abounds in 
Yemen and Southern Arabia as well as in some parts of India, where 
it is cultivated for medicinal use. The cultivated plant, originally the 
roduct of Arabian seed, furnishes the leaves known in commerce as 
innevelly senna. ‘The drug was introduced into Western Europe by 
the Arabians, and in this connection it may be stated that, notwith- 
standing its present abundance in some parts of Africa, according to 
Isaac Judeus (336a), a native of Egypt, who lived about 850-900 
A. D., senna was brought from Mecca to Egypt. In early Arabian 
medicine the pods of the senna were preferred to the leaves. Its price 
in France, 1542, was about that of pepper or ginger. This writer 
found senna in the Orient, carried in shops selling foods and pro- 
visions, as well as in the Oriental bazaars, it being everywhere a fa- 
miliar domestic cathartic. Its native use introduced the drug to medi- 
cine and antedates historical record. 
SERPENTARIA 
Aristolochia serpentaria is a perennial herb found in woodlands 
of the temperate parts of the United States, especially in the Allegheny 
and Cumberland Mountains, although it seldom prevails abundantly. 
It is by some believed to have been first mentioned in 1636, by 
Thomas Johnson, an apothecary of London, who issued an edition of 
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