HYDRASTIS 165 



a native remedy to the earliest botanical explorers, and 

 to settlers. Its therapeutic qualities were overlooked, 

 however, by Kalm (350), 1772; Cutler (178), 1783, and 

 Schopf (582), 1785; Barton (43) first in a brief note 

 bringing it before the medical profession, 1798. He 

 credits the Cherokee Indians for its uses, and in the 

 third part of his work, 1804, he devotes 'considerable 

 attention to the drug. Rafinesque (535), 1828, states 

 that the Indians employed hydrastis as a stimulant, 

 and that the Cherokees used it for cancer, but that for 

 this purpose better remedies were known to them. The 

 principal use of hydrastis by the Indians, however, and 

 the use which afterwards crept into domestic practice, 

 was as an infusion or wash for skin diseases and for sore 

 or inflamed eyes. It was also employed as a stimulant 

 for indolent ulcers, and as an internal tonic. Hydrastis 

 may be considered typical of the drugs that are em- 

 ployed very extensively by the medical profession, 

 through their empirical introduction, it being recorded 

 that even for gonorrhea the Indians discovered its 

 utility. 



Early authorities on American medicinal plants, such 

 as Barton (43), 1798 and 1804, Hand (298), House Sur- 

 geon, 1820, Rafinesque (535), Elisha Smith (601), 1830, 

 Kost (361), 1851, Sanborn (571), 1835, give to hy- 

 drastis considerable conspicuity, whilst Dunglison's 

 Medical Dictionary (203), 1852, erroneously states that 

 in Kentucky, only, it is used, and then only as an out- 

 ward application for wounds. (See Drugs and Medicines 

 of North America (389), pp. 154-5. This gives the most 

 complete study of hydrastis and its alkaloids extant). 



The voluminous chemistry of the hydrastis alkaloids 

 lies in the province of Dr. Waldbott and Prof. Heyroth. 



