SPECIES OF ACONITE 



ACONITUM 

 HETEROPHYLLUM 



Atia 



Recent 



described by Briihl and more recently monographed and beautifully illustrated 

 i Siapt t.t" Ki-\v. Simultaneously extensive local investigations into the 

 Indian prmliu -limi and utilisation of the Commercial Aconites have been 

 i .,n, in. -i. -.I during the past ten years or so by the Director-General of Botanical 

 . aii.l l,y tli<' Jit-porter on Economic Products to the Government of 

 India (nhly supported by numerous correspondents and contributors). It 

 was a fortunate circumstance also that the co-operation of Prof. W. R. 

 ihinM.m of tlio Imperial Institute, London, was at the sumo time secured. 

 Thi researches which ho and hi3 collaborators have made, into the cheini<-al 

 i "inpo itinii of the various roots, supplied by the Indian authorities (as far 

 ihlo in a parallel series with the botanical samples sent to Kew), may 

 l< truly spoken of as having revolutionised our knowledge of the chemistry 

 and medicinal properties of the Indian Aconites. \Cf. Cash and Dunstan, 

 Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. Lond., 1898, cxc., 239; cxcv., 39-97; also Proc., 1901, 

 68, 384-9 ; Imp. Inst. Tech. Repts., 1903, pt. ii. ( 40-91 ; Dunstan and Andrews, 

 Trans. Chem. Soc., 1905, 87, 1620-50 ; also Dunstan and Henry, Ixxxvii.. 

 1650-56.] 



The area of Indian distribution may be described as extending from Afghani- 

 stan, Baluchistan, Hazara, Kashmir, Kumaon, Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan to 

 the mountains of Assam, Manipur, and Burma. But on the mountains of Distribution. 

 Central, Western, and Southern India no representative of the genus occurs. 

 Wlulo these interesting plants are thus confined to the lofty mountainous tracts 

 that skirt the geographical frontier of India, few drugs are more frequently 

 present or more generally understood by the rural drug-dealers so far as such 

 knowledge goes than are certain forms of the genus Aconltmn. In fact it 

 might be said that the Aconites are very much more extensively used in India 

 than in Europe and America. But perhaps the most poisonous forms are more 

 largely employed in India as animal poisons if one might not say as criminal 

 poisons than in medical practice. This circumstance thus enhances the 

 interest and value of the recent researches. For example, the Hemp Drugs 

 Commission in their Report (1893-4, 157) mention that aconite is often mixed 

 as an adulterant with Indian hemp in the preparation used as a beverage. 

 The particular species so employed is not stated, and the circumstance is men- 

 tioned as being of interest in cases of poisoning from bhang indulgence. For 

 these and such-like reasons it has been recognised for some years past as an 

 imperative necessity to be able readily and with certainty to distinguish at 

 least the chief qualities of Indian aconites. In other words it has been thought 

 that all that was needed to develop a regular and satisfactory trade in Indian 

 aconite (and to be able to control and supervise such traffic if need be) was 

 definite knowledge of the chief forms that exist and the regions from which 

 these are severally derived. 



The inquiry recently conducted has resulted in the establishment of four 

 forms, or rather groups of forms, of aconite, as being extensively traded in all 

 over India, and to some extent regularly exported to foreign countries. But Commerce. 

 above all, the discovery that not one root but many constitute the Nepal Aconite 

 of commerce is a conclusion of the greatest practical value, which is heightened 

 in its significance when it is added that very possibly none of the roots sold as 

 such are derived from the true A. ferox, Wall,, of botanists, which in works on 

 Materia Medica has hitherto alone been spoken of as the Nepal Aconite plant. 

 The four forms may be expressed commercially as follows : 



I. Non-Poisonous forms, the active principles of which are 

 either Atisine or Palmatisim. The Aconites that may be placed in this 

 position are : 



A. heterophyllum, Wall. ; Stapf, I.e. 151-4 ; FL Br. Ind., i., 29 ; 

 Royle, lUust. Him. Bot., 1834, 56, t. 13; The Bower Manuscript (Hoernle, 

 transl.), many passages. A common plant on the sub-alpine and 

 occasionally alpine Himalaya from the Indus to Kumaon. 



This is the atis, ativika, patis, etc. (Sanskrit ativisha, which might be rendered 

 " antidote"), but in the more eastern section of its area it receives the name 

 nirbisi a name more correctly indicative of A. intinmtntn. Atis root, if of 

 good quality, should break with a short starchy fracture and present a uniform 

 milky white surface. The fresh fully grown root is about I to 1 inches long, 



19 



D.E.P., 

 i., 81-4. 

 Atis. 



