BISH AND ATIS. ' Jol 
and he at once (in Journ. As. Soc. Bengal, xviii 1849, p. 738) pointed out that “ prob- 
ably Bikh is yielded by various Aconites,” mentioning so far as Sikkim. is concerned, 
particularly A. palmatum and an “undescribed congener.” I explain under А. palmatum 
that the roots which J. D. Hooker had in view when speaking of this species were 
actually those of A. spicatum, the principal source of Nepal Aconite, and were erro- 
neously connected with flowering specimens of A. palmatum. The “undescribed con- 
gener” was no doubt A. luridum, the name of which appears for the first time in 
Hookers Himalayan Journal (1854), ii., р. 108, as that of a plant “whose root is said to 
be as virulent as A. feroz and А. Napellus?” Hooker's rich Sikkim collections were not 
then critically worked out, but he and Thomson had already paid sufficient attention 
to the Himalayan Aconites to enable the author of the Himalayan Journal to add (l. с.) 
this footnote:—‘‘The result of Dr. Thomsons and my examination of the Hima- 
Jayan aconites (of which there are seven species) is that the one generally known as 
A. feroz and which supplies a great deal of the celebrated poison is the common 
A. Napellus of Europe." Thus another species which had not been mentioned before 
in connection with Bikh was introduced into the discussion of this poison. This view 
that A. Napellus was one of the sources of the celebrated Bikh poison was still more 
emphasized in the Flora Indica by Hooker and Thomson (1855) Introd. i, pp. 3 and 4; 
i, p. 58. Soon afterwards the import into England of Nepal Aconite for medical purposes 
began, leading almost immediately to the discovery of pseudaconitine, a new alkaloid of 
a somewhat different chemical and physiological character as compared with the active 
principle of the Europeau А. Napellus, and to the discrimination of the English pre- 
psration as English Aconitine. This was, however, evidently more a coincidence than a 
consequence of Hooker and Thomson’s statement referred to above, as Headland had 
already previously pointed out that "the native root (i^, the European А. Napellus) 
contains а much less and more variable quantity of the alkaloid than the Himalayan 
Aconitum feroz, во named on account of its highly poisonous properties" and that 
“it will be most economica! to employ the Indian root;” (Headland in Royle 
Manual Mat. Med. & Therap., 2nd ed., 1853, p. 289 and footnote). Still, ever since, A. 
Napellus has stood in nearly all the Indian Pharmacopceas and publications on economie 
products of India as one of the sources of Bikh, and repeated attempts have been made 
until quite lately to supplant the European product by preparations from Indian 
drugs supposed to be derived, in part at least, from а plant identical with the 
European А. .Vapelius. Тһе views expressed by Hooker and Thomson іп Flora 
` Indica were repeated in Hooker f., Flora of British India, i. (1872), p. 27. They cannot 
be maintained any longer, as recent investigations into the chemistry of the Indian 
Aconites, and my own examination of a great mass of herbarium material many 
times richer than that which was at the disposal of the authors of the Flora 
Indica, эз well as histological studies concerning the root-tubers of the Indian 
Aconites, have convinced me that the European Aconitum Napellus does not occur in 
India, either in its typical form or in what we might be justified in calling varie- 
ties of it. I need not dwell here on the very extensive literature of the Indian 
Aconites which has since grown up. It consists to a great extent of repetitions, 
compilations, and suggestions often far from judicious. Abundant references to it will 
be found: in the literature and synonymy of the species described in the special part. 
In 1889 Watt gave an admirable and exhaustive summary of all that was, up to 
that date, known about the Indian Aconites. It is a faithful reflexion of the 
