EAXDOLPri. — MANDRAGORA IN FOLK-LORE AND MEDICINE. 527 



A very strong argument for the truth of the statements about the use 

 of the plant as an anaesthetic is to be drawn from certain experiments 

 made a few years ago by the English physician and medical writer, Dr. 

 Benjamin AVard Ricliardson.* Having procured a specimen of man- 

 dragora root from Greece, he made a tincture by four weeks' maceration 

 of it, in fine powder, in alcohol diluted with five times its bulk of water, 

 attempting to re{)roduce as nearly as possil)le the aivcietit wine of man- 

 dragora (/xai'SpuyoptT?/?). This product he found to exhibit "the most 

 active properties — properties faithfully represented by the ancients in 

 their observations." f I give his conclusions in his own words: t 



The wine of mandragora is a general anaesthetic of the most potent quality. 

 The action no doubt depends on the pi'esence of an alkaloid which is like, if 

 not identical with, atropine, and from it an alkaloid could be extracted 

 which might be used medicinally, and which would, I have no doubt, be 

 one of the most active anaesthetics we have yet discovered. From the cir- 

 cumstance that the heart continues to beat after the respiration has ceased § 

 we may infer that as a general anaesthetic the alkaloid might, under 



20. 125 {of enica) : Aiunt verbera subitiiris potum ex vino duritiaru quandam 

 contra sensum induore. 



25.24: Tradat M. A'arro Servium Clodiinn, equitem Romamim, magnitudiiie 

 doloris in podagra coactum veneno crura perunxisse, et postea caruisse seiisu omni 

 aeque quani dolore in ea parte corporis. 



Mention may also be made here of tlie soporific compound for use in surgery 

 described by Theodoric, a famous surgeon of tlie 13th century, in his Cyrurgia, 

 hb. 4, cap. 8. After prescribing tlie measure of the several ingredients (oi)ium, 

 belladonna, hyosc3'amus, mandragora, and others) he says: Haec omnia in ununi 

 commisce in vase aeneo ac deinde in istud mitte spongiam . . . et naribus appo- 

 natur quousque somnum capiat qui incidendus est, et sic fiat cyrurgia. Qua 

 peracta, ut excitetur aliam spongiam in aceto infusam frequenter ad nares ponas. 



Otlier references to the use of anaesthetics in mediaeval and early modern 

 times could probably be collected. 



* These experiments arc fully described in the New York Medical Journal, 47 

 (1888), p. 684 f., and in Dr. Richardson's publication, the Asclepiad, 5 (1888), 

 p. 174 ff. 



t Kobert, Ueber den Zustand der Arzneikunde vor 18 Jahrhundortcn, Halle, 

 1887, p. 21 f., says that he was persuaded to believe in the ancient statements 

 about the use of mandragora as an anaesthetic by certain experiments with 

 hfjoscin, and by the information conveyed to him by the Japanese pharmacologist 

 Takahashi that a solanaceous plant is successfully used in surgery in Japan to-day. 



t Asclepiad, 5 (1888), p. 183. 



§ The experiments were mostly upon small animals, — pigeons, rabbits, and tlie 

 like ; Dr. Richardson also experimented upon human subjects "in doses not sufli- 

 cient to produce actual narcotism." 



