PHARMACOPCIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
an early date to the settlers, the physicians, and the botanists. It was 
described by Barton (43), Schdpf (582), and other authorities, but 
was never extensively used by the American schools of medicine, either 
the Botanic or the Eclectic. As a domestic remedy it was customary, 
half a century ago, to use a mixture of pink root and senna, to which 
were added a few pieces of manna, a home decoction being given to 
children and others afflicted with worms. In our opinion this. home 
treatment consumed most of the drug of commerce, which, since the 
discovery of santonica, has come to be of minor importance. In 
the days of this writer’s experience as a prescription clerk in Cincin- 
nati (1865-1880) the mixture was in continual domestic demand as 
“pink and senna.” 
STAPHISAGRIA 
Delphinium staphisagria, a native of waste places of Italy, the 
Greek islands, and Asia Minor, is now generally distributed through- 
out the Mediterranean countries and the adjacent islands, e. g., the 
Canaries. It was known to the ancients, being mentioned by Nicander 
(581), Dioscorides (194), Pliny (514), and others, the last-named 
author stating that the powdered seeds were used for destroying 
vermin of the head and body, in which direction it is still popular. 
Throughout the Middle Ages the drug continued in use, according to 
Pietro Crescenzio (172), of the thirteenth century. The seeds were 
collected in Italy, where the plant is still cultivated, being still in de- 
mand in domestic medicine as an insecticide. 
STILLINGIA 
Stillingia sylvatica is native to the pine barrens of the Southern 
States of North America, and in the form of an infusion or decoction 
of the green drug has been used in domestic medicine as a purgative 
and alterative, creeping thence to the attention of physicians of the 
Southern States. It was also employed empirically in cutaneous dis- 
eases, and as a constituent of various “blood purifiers” used commonly 
by the people of the South. A once popular remedy, Wayne’s Panacea, 
was asserted by Rafinesque (535) to depend for its qualities upon 
stillingia, which Dr. John King (356-357) in his American Dispensa- 
tory most positively controverted. Inasmuch as Peter Smith (605), 
the “Indian Herb Doctor,’ neglects stillingia in his Dispensa- 
tory, while Rafinesque (535) gives it brief mention in his Medical 
Equivalents, it is evident that the drug came to the general attention 
of the medical profession by reason of the use made of it by the set- 
tlers, about the date of the first edition of King’s American Dispensa- 
tory, 1852. Since that period until the early 60’s it was a .conspicu- 
ous constituent of the popular American “blood purifiers, _and in the 
form of compound syrup of stillingia was used alike in empirical medi- 
cation and by the profession. 
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