16 _ RANUNCULACEE. 
diarrhoea, and removes corrupt bile and cold humours and the a 
diseases arising from them. 2 
The early English physicians‘in India appear to have been : 
chiefly impressed with its antiperiodic and tonic action in a 
fevers, and the drug has until quite a recent date been much _ 
administered as an antiperiodic in doses of about 30 grains — * 
every four or six hours. The discovery that the active prin- — 
ciple, Atisine, is only presentin very small quantities in Atis, — 
seems to have brought the drug into discredit, and the 
European demand for it hds much fallen off. The evidence 
collected by Dr. G. Wati for his Dictionary of the. Economic 
Products of India indicates that Atis is now. considered an 
indifferent antiperiodic by medical men. Dr. M. Sheriff con- 
siders that the ordinary doses are only useful as a tonic, and 
that two drams or more shouldbe given as an antiperiodic. — 
Probably the native estimate of the drug, as given above from q 
the Makhzan, is not far from the truth, v7z., that it is tonic 
and digestive and often useful in dyspepsia with diarrhea. 
Description. —The drug, as sent into commerce, may be 
- divided into two portions, grey and white ; the grey shrivelled. 
tubers, which are larger and longer than the white, are the 
mother roots, and are often separated and sold at a lower — 
price. The young daughter-tubers should be quite plump, _ 4 
externally of a pale ash colonr, slightly scarred from the abra- — 
sion of rootlets, from } to 2 inches long, obconical, or almost — 
ovoid, with a thin tap-like extremity, which is sometimes : 
double, or has a tendency to divide; at the summit thereisa _ 
scaly leaf-bud. Atfs should break with a short starchy frac- 3 
ture, presenting a white surface, near the circumference of — 4 
which several vascular bundles are observable with the naked ~ 4 
eye; it should taste purely bitter, and have no particular edour. — 
Microscopic structure.—The tubers consist of a delicate : 
cellular parenchyme filled with starch, in which are to be — 
observed about four vascular bundles, which, in the young ee 
tuber, are near the centre, but subsequently are removed | 
towards the circumference, The —— a of lig 
