SANGUINARIA 283 



employed sanguinaria in these directions, while its 

 efficacy in coughs and colds established it as a constit- 

 uent of home-made compounds such as syrups and 

 tinctures. To the Eclectic school of medicine is to be 

 credited the professional use of this drug and its alka- 

 loidal constituents, although its sensible qualities and 

 domestic uses had been well established previous to 

 the systematic efforts made by physicians of this 

 section in medicine. Sanguinaria was mentioned by 

 Barton (43), Cutler (178), Thacher (631), Schopf 

 (582), Bigelow (69), and other early investigators, 

 whose recorded statements demonstrate the method of 

 its introduction, as above described. In 1803, William 

 Downey took this drug for the subject of the Thesis 

 submitted by him to the University of Pennsylvania 

 for his degree of Doctor of Medicine, dedicating his 

 "Experimental Inquiry" to the celebrated investigator 

 of American botanical products, Professor Benjamin 

 Smith Barton, M. D., of the University of Pennsyl- 

 vania. This publication was illustrated by an excellent 

 frontispiece drawing of the plant, including flower, 

 rhizome and immature fruit, no more characteristic 

 being now in print. Dr. Downey made an analysts of 

 the root according to methods then prevalent, deciding 

 that "The principle of activity resides chiefly in the 

 gum." His investigations were made before the dis- 

 covery of alkaloids, and although he produced the 

 nitrate of sanguinarine, he failed to purify it, merely 

 stating that when nitric acid was added to the decoc- 

 tion of the root, "a precipitate instantly took place." 

 Possibly there is no earlier description of the formation 

 of an alkaloidal salt, surely not of an American drug. 

 Dr. Downey's physiological experiments, performed 



