338 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



TRITICUM (Couch Grass) 



Introduced into Pharmacopeia in 1880. Official thereafter, 

 through 1910. 



Couch grass, Agropyron repens, is a weed widely dif- 

 fused throughout Europe, northern Asia, the Caspian 

 region, North and South America, even to Patagonia 

 and Terra del Fuega. The ancients were naturally 

 familiar with this grass with a creeping root-stalk, but 

 it is impossible to determine the species valued by them. 

 Dioscorides (194) ascribes to the decoction a value in 

 calculus and suppression of urine. This use of triticum 

 is corroborated by Pliny and again by the writings of 

 Oribasius (479a) of the third century. Practically all 

 the medieval herbals figure triticum, as in Dodonseus 

 (195). As a domestic remedy it has ever been in com- 

 mon use, and in the form of a decoction is yet much 

 employed in mucous discharges from the bladder and 

 in other affections of the urinary organs. 



ULMUS (Elm Bark, Slippery Elm) 

 Official in every edition, from 1820 to 1910. 



"Slippery elm," Ulmus fulva, is the inner bark of a 

 middle-sized tree found abundantly in the natural 

 woodlands of the Central and Eastern United States, 

 from Canada to the south. The Indians and early 

 settlers of North America valued it highly as a poultice. 

 In certain skin diseases they used it as an external ap- 

 plication, and also as a soothing drink in fevers. In 

 bowel affections they employed a cold decoction. 

 Schopf (582), 1787, refers to it as "salve bark." An 

 infusion made by digesting this inner bark, shredded, 

 in cold water has, after the teaching of the Indians, 

 ever maintained a high reputation in domestic North 

 American medicine in fevers, and especially in diar- 



