12 RANUNCULACE^. 



green with iron. When dried they yield on incineration 16 6 per cent, 

 of ash. 



Uses — In Britain the leaves and small shoots are only used in the 

 fre.sh state, the flowering herb being purchased by the druggist in order 

 to prepare an inspissated juice, — Extractuni Aconiti. This preparation, 

 which is considered rather uncertain in its action, is occasionally pre- 

 scribed for the relief of rheumatism, inflammatory and febrile aflections, 

 neuralgia, and heart diseases. 



RADIX ACONITI INDICA. 



Bish, Bis or B'lhh, Indian Aconite Root, Nepal Aconite. 



Botanical Origin — The poisonous root known in India as Bish, 

 Bis, or Bikh^ is chiefly derived from Aconitum ferox Wallich, a plant 

 growing 3 to 6 feet high and bearing large, dull-blue flowers, native of 

 the temperate and sub-alpine regions of the Himalaya at an eleva- 

 tion of 10,000 to 14,000 feet in Garwhal, Kumaon, Nepal and Sikkim." 

 In the greater part of these districts, other closely allied and equally 

 poisonous species occur, viz. A. uncinatum Ij.,A. htriduni H. f. et Th., 

 A. ixdmatutn Don, and also abundantly A. Napellus L., which last, as 

 already mentioned, grows throughout Europe as well as in Northern 

 Asia and America. The roots of these plants are collected indiscrimin- 

 ately according to Hooker and Thomson'' under the name of Bish 

 or Bikh. 



History — The Sanskrit name of this potent drug, VisJia, signifies 

 simply poison, and Ativisha, a name which it also bears, is equivalent 

 to " su7)imuin venenum." Bish is mentioned by the Persian physician 

 Alhervi'* in the 10th century as well as by Avicenna'^ and many other 

 Arabian writers on medicine, — one of whom, Isa Ben Ali, calls it the 

 most rapid of deadly poisons, and describes the s3'mptoms it produces 

 with tolerable correctness.** 



Upon the extinction of the Arabian school of medicine this virulent 

 drug seems to have fallen into oblivion. It is just named by Acosta 

 (1578) as one of the ingredients of a pill which the Brahmin physicians 

 give in fever and dysentery.' There is also a very strange reference to 

 it as " Bisch " in the Persian Pharmacopoeia of Father Ange, where it 

 is stated * that the root, though most poisonous when fresh, is pei-fectly 

 innocuous when dried, and that it is imported into Persia from India, 

 and mixed with food and condiriients as a restorative ! Ange was 

 aware that it was the root of an aconite. 



^ The Arabic name Bish or Persian Bis is Liber Fiindamentorum Pkarmacolof/iee, i. 



stated by Moodeen Sheriff in his Supple- (Vindob. 1830) 47. Seligmann's edition. 



rrwnt to the PharmacopceUi of India (p. 265) ^ Valgrisi edition, 1564, lib. ii. tract. 2. 



to be a more correct designation than Bikh, it. N. (p. 347). 



which seems to be a corruption of doubtful ^ Ibn Bay tar, Sontheinier's transl. i. 



origin. We find that the Arabian writer (1840) 199. 



Ibn Baytar gives the word as Bixh (not ^ Clusius, Exotica, 289. 



Bikh). ^Pharm. Persica, 1681, p. 17, 319, .358. 



* Figured in Bentley and Trimen, Med. The word hLich is correctly given in Arabic 

 Plants (1877) pt. 27. characters, so that of its identity there can 



^ Flor. Ind. i. (1855)54, 57; and Introd. be no dispute. (Pharm. persica, seeappen- 

 Essay, 3. dix : Angelus.) 



* Abu Mansur Mowafik ben Ali Alherui, 



