IPECACUANHA 171 



of his physician, Ant. d'Aquin, and of Prang, de La- 

 chaise, confessor to the king, Louis XIV then bought 

 the secret from Helvetius for one thousand louis d'or, 

 and made it public property. Gamier, the merchant, 

 next brought suit in order to obtain his share of profit 

 in the transaction, but was unsuccessful in his effort. 



The remedy having been thus legally established in 

 France, it was introduced into other countries, e. g., by 

 Leibnitz (378a), 1696, and Velentini (656b), 1698, into 

 Germany, and into Holland in 1694 by Fried. Dekker. 



During the first part of the 18th century, ipecacuanha 

 was in frequent use in the various pharmacies of Ger- 

 many, as is evidenced from its being mentioned in 

 several old documents of that period. It is, for example, 

 mentioned in the authoritative drug list of the Silesian 

 town of Strehlen, in 1724. 



However, during the increasing employment of the 

 drug in the latter part of the 18th century, much con- 

 fusion arose as to its botanical origin, insomuch that it 

 became the habit to designate as ipecacuanha any 

 emetic plant, regardless of its botanical source. A long 

 list of such plants is enumerated, for example, in 

 Martius (409). In this manner the characteristics of 

 the plant furnishing true ipecacuanha root became 

 almost forgotten, other plants being substituted for it. 

 Ray, for example, held it to be a species of Paris, and 

 no less an authority than Linnaeus himself thought 

 Viola Ipecacuanha, now known as lonidum Ipecacuanha 

 (684), to be the true ipecacuanha root. 



In 1764, Mutis, a celebrated botanist in Santa Fe de 

 Bogota, sent the younger Linnaeus a Peruvian emetic 

 plant with description, which he thought to be the true 

 ipecacuanha root. Linnaeus fil. (385) accepted the 



