248 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



the latter spice was the first kind of pepper known to 

 the ancient Persians and Arabs, through whose hands it 

 first reached Europe. Their earlier writers describe 

 the plant as a shrub like the Pomegranate (P. chaba?) . 

 The moderns apply the name Filfil (Pilpil, Pers.) to all 

 kinds of pepper. Black pepper is called in Sanskrit 

 Maricha, which means a 'pungent berry.' The word 

 is derived from Marichi, 'a particle of light or fire/ 

 and appears to have been first applied to the aromatic 

 berries known as Kakkola; it now signifies black and 

 red pepper, and in the vernacular forms of Mirach or 

 Mirchai, is a household word in India." 



PODOPHYLLUM (Mandrake, Mayapple) 

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



This handsome plant, Podophyllum peltatum, known 

 also as mandrake, or mayapple, is one of the most 

 attractive features of the early spring in North America, 

 resisting with remarkable efficiency the aggressive in- 

 roads of the agriculturalist. It was used by the North 

 American Indians, the Cherokees employing the fresh 

 juice of the root for deafness, and the Wyandottes as a 

 drastic cathartic. Use of the juice in deafness has 

 never been investigated. The once-celebrated "Indian 

 Doctor," Peter Smith (605) and others of early date, 

 employed the root as an escharotic, in which direction 

 it came into early veterinary practice. American physi- 

 cians and writers on medicine have generally praised 

 its qualities as a purgative, its active cathartic nature 

 having been known from the days of the Indians. The 

 vegetable substitute for the once popular antimonial 

 plaster used so freely by physicians during the period 

 of vesication popularity was the "Compound Tar 



