218 PHARMACOPEIA!, DRUGS 



duction as a stimulant. This writer learned early, 

 during his services in prescription pharmacies, that 

 when tincture of musk was prescribed, the patient was 

 expected to die. 



MYRISTICA (Nutmeg) 

 Official in each edition, from 1820 to 1910. 



The tree yielding nutmeg, Myristica fragrans, is 

 native to New Guinea and islands of the Malay Archi- 

 pelago, from whence it has been introduced to Sumatra, 

 Brazil, the West Indies, and other countries favorable 

 to its cultivation. It has been asserted that the nut- 

 meg was not known to the ancients, but von Martius 

 (409), Flora Brasiliensis, 1860, contends that it was 

 mentioned in the "Comedies" of Plautus, about two 

 centuries B. C. The nutmeg has been an article of 

 import and export from Aden, Arabia, since the middle 

 of the 12th century, and by the end of that century 

 both nutmeg and mace had reached Northern Europe. 

 Nutmeg came naturally into domestic culinary use, 

 being classed with mace, cloves, calamus, etc. It nat- 

 urally appealed as an aromatic in cordials, elixirs and 

 syrups of early European pharmacy, and is yet a useful 

 and pleasant constituent of many domestic compounds. 

 Its use in legalized medicine, also, has been chiefly in 

 the direction of a flavor to other substances, and fol- 

 lowed in its application similar empirical preparations. 



MACE. In connection with nutmeg, attention may 

 be properly drawn to mace. The quaint description 

 found in Motherby's (451b) Medical Dictionary, 1775, 

 answers our purpose as well as would a more modern 

 article. It is as follows: 



"Mads. (Mace.) It is the middle bark of nutmegs. 



