NOTES ON CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 



259 



heang ' 



for producing insensibility to the pain of a surgical operation. 1860-62. 



According to Dr. Christison, 1 they are also the basis of an ex- 



tract used to poison the arrows employed for killing game. 2 Dr. C., 



who examined some of this extract, reported that it had evidently 



been prepared with care and skill, and that a minute portion of 



it, applied to the tongue or lips, occasioned an intense sensation 



of numbness and tingling. 



This aconite root is said to be produced in the province of 

 Chekiang; I refer it to Aconitum Japonicum, Thunb. upon the 

 authority of MM. Hoffmann and Schultes, 3 but it is highly 

 probable the Chinese name is ri'ot restricted to a single 

 species. 4 



P3 /^ 'tT Tsing-muh-Jieang ; Eoot of Aristolechia sp. ? 

 Tatarinov, Catal Med. Sinens., p. 12. 



A grey, brittle root, of the thickness of a goose quill, whitish 

 and farinaceous internally. It has a slightly aromatic taste, 

 with but little smell : referred to an Aristolochia in Tatarinov's 

 Catalogue. 



$tf nj" Che-moo ; Rhizome of Anemarrhena asphodeloides, Che-moo. 

 Bunge (Liliacecr) ; Tatarinov, Catal. Med. Sinens., p. 16 ; Pun- 

 tsaou, Fig. 97. 



A rhizome, the size of the little finger (Fig. 15), occurring in 

 pieces often four inches long ; the upper side is flattened, or 

 even somewhat channelled, beset with coarse, appressed, ascend- 

 ing, rufous, or yellowish hairs, which pass into scales at the 

 once growing extremity, where also the remains of a stem rising 

 at a right angle from the rhizome sometimes occur: The under 

 side is convex, and covered with thick radical fibres, or more 

 usually with their scars. The drug has but little taste and smell : 



1 On a New Poison from the Interior of China, Edinb. Medical Journ. 

 April, 1859, p. 869. 



2 T. T. Cooper mentions that the Lu-tsn tribes in South-western China 

 use arrows dipped with a poison of aconite. Travels of a Pioneer of 

 Commerce, 1871, p. 310. 



3 Journ. Asiatique, Oct., No?., 1852, p 271. 



4 Maximowicz enumerates nine species of Aconitum as occurring in the 

 region of the Amoor, four in the neighbourhood of Pekin, and three in 

 Mongolia. Primitice Florce Amurensis, St. Petersburg, 1859. 



s 2 



