240 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



is identical with Fillcea suaveolens, a tree occurring in 

 Senegambia, and described and named by Guillemin 

 and Perrotet (Index Kewensis, Vol. II, p. 897) . Finally, 

 the much discussed "sassy bark," used under the name 

 of casca or casca bark, as an ordeal poison among the 

 natives on the banks of the Congo River, has also been 

 shown to be identical with Erythrophlceum guineense, 

 Don, (Amer. Journ. Pharm., 1857, p. 114). It will thus 

 be seen that Physostigma is but one of several ordeal 

 poisons. 



PHYTOLACCA (Phytolacca, Poke Root) 



Phytolacca Root is mentioned in the Primary List of the first 

 edition of the U. S. P., in 1820 (2d edition, 1828), Phytolacca 

 Berries being relegated to the Secondary List. Both the root and 

 the berries were official in the New York edition of 1830, but in 

 the Philadelphia edition, 1830, both were demoted to the Second- 

 ary List, a position they occupied in all succeeding Pharmcif 

 copeias until 1880, when they were wholly official, so remaining 

 until 1910, when both were dropped. 



"Poke Root," Phytolacca decandra, is a handsome 

 plant found throughout the temperate regions of North 

 America east of the Mississippi River, thriving in rich 

 bottom lands, fence corners and woody pastures. The 

 American Indians used it, pounded to a pulp, as a poul- 

 tice. The early American settlers applied it in like 

 manner as a poultice to inflammatory conditions of 

 the cow's udder, in the disease known as garget, a cir- 

 cumstance which has given to the plant one of its 

 common names, Garget Plant. Phytolacca crept thence 

 into more extensive use in domestic medicine, a tincture 

 of the plant being next employed. Following this came 

 its introduction into professional practice. In Eclec- 

 ticism it has ever been a valued remedy. To cite 

 American Materia Medica references to phytolacca 



