SCOPOLA 299 



SCOPARIUS (Broom) 



Introduced into the U. S. P. in 1840, but in this and the suc- 

 ceeding edition, (1850), it occupied a place in the Secondary List. 

 It was transferred to the Primary List in I860, and was official 

 thereafter. Dropped from 1910 edition. 



This woody shrub, Cytisus Scoparius, or common 

 broom, prevails throughout Great Britain and western 

 and temperate Northern Europe, but it seems not to 

 climb to any great height on the mountains of the Alps. 

 According to Ledebour (375) it is native to the eastern 

 side of the Ural Mountains. Scoparius is mentioned in 

 the earliest Italian and German herbals under the name 

 genista, and under the name broom it was used in Anglo- 

 Saxon medicine as well as in the Welsh "Meddygon 

 Myddfai" (507). The London Pharmacopeia, 1618, 

 gave a place to scoparius, and Gerarde (262) states 

 that Henry VIII used it as a remedy "against surfets 

 and diseases thereof arising." Broom also enjoyed a 

 reputation in other directions, being the emblem of 

 "The Handsome" Geoffrey, or "Plantagenet" Count 

 of Anjou, ancestor of the Plantagenet kings of England, 

 who wore the common broom of his country, the 

 "planta genista," in his helmet. In the Pharmacopeia 

 of the United States, scoparius seems, like other estab- 

 lished foreign drugs, to have heired its reputation and 

 obtained its position from past records in medieval 

 European or Oriental times, and not from any marked 

 use it has enjoyed in American medicine. 



SCOPOLA (Scopola) 



Scopola enjoyed but a brief season of pharmacopeial favor. 

 It was introduced in the 1900 edition, along with its alkaloid, 

 Scppolamine Hydrobrpmide. The latter was retained in the 1910 

 edition, but the drug itself was dropped. 



The root of Scopola carniolica is now official, and in 

 the making of the mydriatic alkaloids, it may be sub- 



