CALUMBA 35 



casual observer would take an illustration of one for the 

 other, so closely do they resemble each other in shape 

 of leaf, stem, and general floral appearance. One au- 

 thor, Roxburgh, (559), (Flora Ind., Vol. 3, p. 807), has 

 placed the plant in the genus Menispermum. The 

 genus jateorhiza as now constituted consists of three 

 species, all natives of tropical Africa. It belongs to the 

 natural order menispermacece. The plant which pro- 

 duces the Colombo root of commerce is a herbaceous 

 vine climbing over trees in the forests of eastern tropi- 

 cal Africa in the territory of Mozambique and Quili- 

 mani. The plants vary much in the shape of the leaves 

 and in the amount of hispidity in the stem, and were 

 formerly considered as belonging to two species, Jateo- 

 rhiza calumba and Jateorhiza palmata, but later bota- 

 nists have united them under the former name. 



Calumba (also Columbo) root has long been in use 

 under the name "kalumb" among the African tribes 

 of Mozambique, (Berry), (63), who employed it as a 

 remedy for dysentery and other diseases, and who un- 

 doubtedly brought it to the immediate knowledge of 

 the Portuguese when they obtained possession of that 

 country in 1508. Through the influence of traders, 

 knowledge of the drug was slowly diffused among the 

 Europeans during the sixteenth and seventeenth 

 centuries. 



Our first definite information regarding calumba 

 root, however, dates from the year 1671, when Fran- 

 ciscus Redi, 1626-1697, (538), born at Arezzo and 

 physician to the Duke of Toscana, describing it under 

 the name Calumba, made its medicinal virtues con- 

 spicuous. 



In 1695 the celebrated Leeuwenhoek (376), in his 



