152 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



(520), commended gelsemium in his report to the 

 American Medical Association, 1849, referring to 

 Frost's Elements of Material Medico, (250), South Car- 

 olina, as well as to several local journal articles. 



For a long time following 1852, when King's Amer- 

 ican Dispensatory appeared, gelsemium remained an 

 almost exclusive remedy of physicians of the Eclectic 

 school, but hi 1860 it attained a position in the United 

 States Pharmacopeia, although not until 1880 did that 

 work give place to any preparation of gelsemium. At 

 present the drug is in much favor with physicians 

 generally. 1 



GENTIANA (Gentian) 



Official in all editions of U. S. P., from 1820 to 1910. 



Gentian, Gentiana lutea, is indigenous to the moun- 

 tainous parts of Middle and Southern Europe, being 

 found hi the Pyrenees, the Islands of Sardinia and Cor- 

 sica, the Alps, and elsewhere. It is not, however, found 

 in the British Islands. Gentian is mentioned by both 

 Pliny (514) and Dioscorides (194), its name being 

 derived from Gentius, a king of Illyria, B. C. 180. 

 Throughout the Middle Ages gentian was used as a 

 domestic medicine and as an antidote to poisons, and in 

 recent times it has been commended as an antidote or 

 substitute for tobacco. In 1865 a very popular "To- 

 bacco Antidote," twenty-five cents for a two ounce 

 package, was found by this writer to be a mixture of 



1 In this connection it may be stated that Gelsemium has often been presented by such 

 journal contributors as Dre. John Scott, Isaac Ott, E. A. Anderson, G. S. Courtright, W. C. 

 Hull, and many others. Professor Roberts Bartholow gave it great attention in his Maleria 

 Medico., and also in journal contributions in both Europe and America. Professor T. J. 

 Wormley gave its alkaloid chemical consideration, while Drs. Ringer and Murrell in the 

 London Lancet, 1875-76-78, made admirable researches. The American interest in Gel- 

 semium, outside the Eclectic school, notwithstanding the clinical evidence of the authorities 

 we have mentioned, and others who might be named, is founded on the work of Bartholow, 

 Wormley, Ringer and Murrell. Professor L. E. Sayre of the University of Kansas has made 

 the most recent study of its alkaloids. 



