129 HISTORY OF 
confusion in which he found the knowledge concerning this subject. He was, of 
course, perfectly aware of it, and he says in his Dictionary of the Economic Pro- 
ducts of India, i, p. 85: “Of the other species (i.e. the Indian Aconites with the 
exception of A. heterophyllum), some are poisonous, others not, and even some of the 
varieties of one species are pvisonous, while other varieties are not. The poisonous 
forms have never been accurately identified, and the result is, that of a given weight 
of the root sold ia our druggists’ shops, a certain percentage frequently contains no 
aconitia whalever: indeed, an entire consignment may be perfectly inert,” and on 
p. 56: “In the Admiralty Manual of Scientifie Inquiry (and republished in Hanbury's 
Science Papers, 187) occurs the following significant interrogation, which, strange to 
say, remains unanswered: * Aconite root has been imported in considerable quantities 
from India, Іп what district is it collected, aud from what species of Aconitum? 
This admission of want of definite information regerding the source of Indian Асо- 
nite was made in 1871 by Professor Oliver and the late distinguished scholar and 
pharmacologist, Daniel Hanbury, and it has still to be answered before we can be 
said to possess any trustworthy data upon which to base a definite and accurate know- 
lelge of what may be justly called India’s most valuable indigenous drug.” Impress- 
ed by the importance of the case, he suggested to the Government of India an 
organised enquiry into the matter. A few passages from this communication con- 
taining the essential points which would have to be determined are reprinted in the 
first volume of his Dictionary on рр. 85 and 86. They go to. the root of the 
matter and show an admirable grasp of the essential; and so far as his recommenda- 
tions have been acted upon, they have been of great help in elucidating some of the 
most obscure points, With a view to contributing himself to the solution of the 
problem, Watt has collected since 1893 personally, and with the assistance of several 
Forest officers and others, specimens of Indian Aconite, An almost complete set of 
his collections went to Calcutta, waere, Mr. Brühl of the Bengal Educational Service 
had already at an early date taken up the study of those Aconites which he consid- 
ered most intimately connected which A. feror, and of which a very large material 
had accumulated in the herbarium of the Botanic Gardens, mainly from King’s 
Sikkim Collectors. The results of Brühl's studies appeared in Part II of the fifth volume 
of these Annals in 1896, forming part of a paper on rare Indian plants, which may 
be characterised as an example of extreme synthesis. Тһе tendency to generalise and 
explain the diversities observable in a polyinorphous group by the assumption of a high 
degree of plasticity and instability was carried so far that not only were six or seven 
species, as I understand them, merged in A. feroz proper, but also such marked types 
аз А. palmatum and А. moschatum were reduced to su -species of A. feroz. In general, 
where the species are so intricately related and so difficult to discriminat 
case in Aconitum, an excess in the direction of synthesis becomes much m 
fatal than an excess in the opposite direction. In dealing with practical questions it 
is often necessary to fix on small units of classification and to define them accurately, 
- it pes only to confusion if they are lost in a plethora of vaguely characterised 
varieties or in the complicated Lierarehy of a ‘speculative system of species, sub- 
species, varieties, sub-varieties, ete. Conflicts were therefore inevitable. They appeared 
es the results of the Investigation whien Dunstan undertook (see Agric. Ledger) into 
the chemical properties of certain Aconites which came under Brühls A. feroz, in 
Goris’ paper De ја structure des Aconites et de son utilisation pour 
е as-is the 
la - determination 
