270 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



tains of this province, rhubarb (reobarbe) is found in 

 great abundance. And merchants buy it, and carry it 

 all over the world.' 



"The risk and expense of the enormous land-transport 

 over almost the whole breadth of Asia, caused rhubarb 

 in ancient times to be one of the very costly drugs. 

 Thus at Alexandria in 1497, it was valued at twelve 

 times the price of benzoin. In France, in 1542, it was 

 worth ten times as much as cinnamon, or more than 

 four times the price of saffron. At Ulm, in 1596, it was 

 more costly than opium. A German price-list of the 

 magistrate of Schweinfurt, of 1614, shows Radix Rha 

 Barbari to be six times as dear as fine myrrh, and more 

 than twice the price of opium. An official English list 

 giving the price of drugs in 1657, quotes opium as 6s. 

 per lb., scammony 12s., and rhubarb 16s." (Fliickiger 

 and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, pp. 493, 4 and 6.) 



"Riwas (the plant Ri in the Zend language), was 

 known to the ancient Persians, and the same name is 

 still applied to a species of Rheum in the province of 

 Gilan in Persia. Aitchison found R. Ribes, Gronov., 

 on the Paropamisus range, to be known to the peas- 

 antry as Rewash, Rewand and Chukri; he states that 

 the flowering branches are eaten, and the root used in 

 coloring leather. In the Hari-rud Valley he found R. 

 tataricum, Linn., to be known as Rewash-i-dewana, 

 'fool's rhubarb,' the fruit and root being used as a pur- 

 gative. Ibn Sina notices both the plant Ribas (Riwas, 

 Pers.) and the drug Rawand, the first an acid plant, and 

 the second evidently Chinese rhubarb. Mesue, early 

 in the llth century, distinguishes between Chinese and 

 Khorasan rhubarb, and Haji Zein-el-attar, writing in 

 1368, says : 'I consider Rewand to be the same as Ribas. 



