ACONITUM 



POISONOUS ACONITES CONTAIN! Mi INDACONiTK CHASMANTHUM 



Medicinal Aconite 



i. \<fjirffii*. Linn." but it would seem that north and weet of Cawnpore 

 thin is tho bikh of the Indian drug shops, whereas south and east bikh would be 

 . . ( i/ii in. The whiie-bikh root is easily recognised : when dry it is brittle and 

 \\ hit.- in section, has a farinaceous structure in some respects like that of bikhma, 

 I. nt it is <li>tinctly poisonous and must, therefore, bo carefully distinguished. 

 It is usually about 2 or 3 inches long, broadest at its immediate extremity, and 

 ^r.ulually and uniformly tapered to a long sharp point below. It is nearly 

 always perfectly straight and the cuticle is of a chestnut-brown colour, smooth, 

 tluni^h at the same time irregularly contracted into exceptionally large foldn. 

 In transverse microscopic section its roots are seen to have an interrupted ring 

 of large cambium strands. These are either irregularly horseshoe-shaped or 

 elliptical and arranged round the pith, which frequently becomes cavernous. 

 Occasionally also a few single cambium bundles are seen scattered throughout 

 tin- fvindamontal tissue. 



I understand that Prof. Dunstan has found, on analysis of a sample of 

 \rhite-bikh from Dudatoli, that daughter tubers contain nearly 1 per cent, and 

 the mother tubers 4 per cent, of pseudacom'tine. 



The plant which Briihl named as uar. poium-nixi! was supplied by Mr. J. S. C. 

 Davis of Almora. When received by me the samples bore the names phutkia Almora 

 (fatkia), and gobaria names which recall some of those reported by Duthie as Aconite, 

 given in Garhwal. Becently Davis has obligingly furnished further material, 

 as also a translation of a report which he had received from the political Peshkor 

 at Garbyang. It would seem that at Garbyang, aconite root is designated 

 mitha but that there are two forms, (a) fatkia and (6) gobaria. The former is 

 a smaller and less poisonous plant than the latter. The roots furnished were 

 found to have a white farinaceous structure with a single irregular ring of 

 cambium strands. 



IV. Poisonous Aconites that contain indaconite. This may be 

 accepted as a series that corresponds botanically with the most 

 valuable medicinal aconite of Europe and America viz. A. Napellus. 

 Stapf has shown that the true A. Xapellns nowhere exists in India. 

 The world's supply of medicinal aconite is, in fact, derived mainly . 

 from the cultivated plant, and comes very largely from Germany. 

 But there are one or possibly two indigenous aconites met with in the 

 extreme western division of the Himalaya and adjacent hills of the 

 Pan jab that seem worthy of a place in this section : 



A. chasmanthum, Stapf, I.e. 142-4 ; A. Napellus, var. spicatum, 

 Duthie, Rec. Bot. Surv. Ind., i., No. 3, 37 (in part) ; A. Napellus, 

 Stewart, Pb. PL, 1-2; Dunstan, Agri. Ledg., 1897, No. 19, 377; 

 A. Napellus, var. Mans, Goris, in Bull. Sc. Pharm., 1901, iii., 112 ; 

 A. hians, Watt, Agri. Ledg., 1902, No. 3, 101 ; also dissectum, Watt, 

 I.e. 100 (in part) ; Dunstan and Andrews, Contrib. to Knowledge of 

 Aconite Alkaloids, Trans. Chem. Soc., 1905, 1620-36. 



This very beautiful species occurs on the sub-alpine and alpine Himalaya Kashmir and 

 from Chitral to Kashmir, and also on the mountains of Hazara, between altitudes 

 of 7,000 and 12,000 feet. It is the mohri of Hazara ; tilia, kachang, dudhia, piun 

 of the Himalaya, and ban-bal-nag of Kashmir. According to Dunstan and Andrews 

 its roots contain indaconitine, an alkaloid which represents a compound inter- 

 mediate between aconitine and pseudacom'tine. Cash and Dunstan (Proc. Roy. 

 Soc., 1905, 468) have pointed out that its physiological action differs in degree 

 only, and not in kind, from the two alkaloids just named. Samples have 

 been furnished by Indian chemists and druggists as " True Aconitum 

 Napellus." One contributor sent it under the name of mitha zaher. Davies 

 (Trade Report) alludes to 20 seers of mitha tilia as annually exported from 

 Peshawar to Kabul. Moodeen Sheriff mentions the circumstance that a very 

 small and highly poisonous root is sold in Northern India but never seen in tho 

 south. It differs from that of A.. \ajteiitiM by being smaller, shorter but com- 

 paratively thicker. The tubers are seen in cross-section to have the cambium 

 continuous, forming a more or less sinuous or star-shaped ring. The remains 



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