EUPATORIUM 137 



as shown in current pharmaceutical and therapeutical 

 literature. 



EUPATORIUM 

 (Eupatorium, Thoroughwort, "Boneset.") 



Rejected from 1910 U. S. P. Official in every other edition, 

 from 1820. 



Eupatorium perfoliatum, boneset or thoroughwort, 

 is indigenous to the temperate regions of the Eastern 

 United States. In the form of an infusion or tea, it was 

 very popular with the settlers, by whom it was em- 

 ployed "in every well-regulated household." As a 

 bitter tonic, its uses became known to the early mem- 

 bers of the American medical profession, its praises 

 being handed therefrom to physicians of the present 

 day. In this connection it may be stated that over one 

 hundred years before there was in print an American 

 materia medica, eupatorium was a favorite remedy in 

 the practice of American physicians. The first work in 

 Covers touching American medicinal plants, Schopf, 

 1785 (582), gave it a setting. This was followed 

 (1789) by Professor B. S. Barton (43), of the University 

 of Pennsylvania, in his Collections of American Remedial 

 Agents. Medical authorities such as Thacher, Bigelow, 

 Chapman, Rafinesque and Zollickoffer pronounced the 

 highest encomiums on the value of eupatorium. Its 

 principal field of usefulness was in colds and influenza, 

 Dr. Anderson, of New York, issuing in 1814 a special 

 treatise on the subject of this drug and its uses. So 

 good an authority as Dr. Hosack testified to its value 

 in intermittents, but its chief application was as an in- 

 fluenza remedy. Let us quote from the celebrated 

 botanical explorer, Pursh (528), concerning its early 

 record in that direction: 



