8 RANUNCULACE.E. 



essential ingredients is the fatty oil of stavesacre seeds extracted bj^ 

 ether. It is plain that such a preparation would contain delphinine. 

 Delphinine itself has been used externally in neuralgic affections. 

 Stavesacre seeds are largely consumed for destroying the pediculi that 

 infest cattle. 



RADIX ACONITI. 



Tuber Aconiti ; Aconite Root^; F. Racine cV Aeon it; G. EisenhutknoUen, 



Sturmhutknollen. 



Botanical Origin — Aconitum Napellus L. — This widely-diffused 

 and most variable species grows chiefly in the mountainous districts 

 of the temperate parts of the northern hemisphere. 



It is of frequent occurrence throughout the chain of the Alps up 

 to more than 6500 feet, the Pyrenees, the mountains of Germany and 

 Austria, and is also found in Denmark and Sweden. It has become 

 naturalized in a few spots in the west of England and in South Wales. 

 Eastward it grows throughout the whole of Siberia, extending to the 

 mountain ranges of the Pacific coast of North America. It occurs in 

 company with other species on the Himalaya at 10,000 to 16,000 feet 

 above the sea-level. 



The plant is cultivated for medicinal use, and also for ornament. 

 The Abb^ Armand David^ saw in northern Sz-chuen (Setchuan) fields 

 planted with Aconite (A. Napellus ?). 



History — The 'Akovitou of the Greeks and the Aconitum of the 

 Romans are held to refer to the genus under notice, if not precisely to 

 A. Napellus. The ancients were well awdre of the poisonous properties 

 of the aconites, though the plants were not more exactly distinguished 

 until the close of the middle ages. The Greek name is supposed to refer 

 to the same source as that of Conium. (See article on Fructus Conii.) 



Aconite has been widely employed as an arrow-poison. It was used 

 by the ancient Chinese,^ and is still in requisition among the less 

 civilized of the hill tribes of India. Something of the same kind was 

 in vogue among the aborigines of ancient Gaul.^ Aconite was pointed 

 out in the thirteenth century, in " The Physicians of Myddvai," * as one 

 of the plants which every physician is to grow. 



Storck of Vienna introduced aconite into regular practice about the 

 year 1762"; the root and the herb occur in the German pharmaceutical 

 tariff of the seventeenth century. 



Description — The herbaceous annual stem of aconite starts from 

 an elongated conical tuberous root 2 to 4 inches long and sometimes 

 as much as an inch in thickness. This root tapers off in a long tail, 

 while numerous branching rootlets spring from its sides. If dug up in 

 the summer it will be found that a second and younger root (occasion- 

 ally a third) is attached to it near its summit by a very short branch 



1 We use the worrl root as most in ac- •• Pliny, lib. xxvii. c. 16, also xxv. 25. 



cordance with the teaching of English "^ The Physicians of Myddvai ; Meddy- 



botanists. rjon Myddfai. Published for the Welsh 



'^Journal de man tromkme voyage en MSS. Society. Llandovery, 1861. 282, 



Chine, i. (Paris 1875) 367. 457. 



' F. Porter Smith, Mat. Med. and Nat. ' De Stramonio, Hyoscyamo et Aconito, 



Histof China, Sha.ngha.i, 1871. 2,3. Vindob. 1762. 



