RADIX ACONITI INDICA. 13 



The poisonous properties of Bish were particularly noticed by 

 Hamilton (late Buchanan) ^ who passed several mouths in Nepal in 

 lS()2-3: but nothing was known of the plant until it was gathered 

 by Wallich and a description of it as A. ferox communicated by Seringe 

 to the Socidt^ de physique de Geneve in 1822." Wallich himself 

 afterwards gave a lengthened account of it in his Plantce Asiaticce 

 Rariores (18:30).' 



Description — Balfour, who also figures A. ferox,* describes the 

 jjlant from a specimen that flowered in the Botiinical Garden of Edin- 

 burgh as — " havinor 2 — 3 fasciculated, fusiform, attenuated tubers, 

 some of the recent ones being nearly 5 jnches long, and Ih inches m 

 circumference, dark brown externally, white within, sending oft' sparse, 

 longish branching fibres." 



Aconite root has of late been imported into London from India in 

 considerable quantity, and been offered by the wholesale druggists as 

 Xe2)al Aconite.^ It is of very uniform appearance, and seems derived 

 from a single species, which we suppose to be A. ferox. The drug 

 consists of simple tuberous roots of an elongated conical form, 3 to 4 

 inches long, and | to 1| inches in greatest diameter. Very often the 

 roots have been broken in being dug up and are wanting in the lower 

 extremity : some are nearly as broad at one end as at the other. They 

 are mostly flattened and not quite cylindrical, often arched, much 

 shrivelled chiefly in a longitudinal direction, and marked rather sparsely 

 with the scars of rootlets. The aerial stem has been closely cut away, 

 and is represented only by a few short scaly rudiments.® 



The roots are of a blackish brown, the ])rominent portions being 

 often whitened by friction. In their normal state they are white and 

 farinaceous within, but as they are dried by fire-heat and often even 

 scorched, their interior is generally horny, translucent, and extremely 

 compact and hard. The largest root we have met with weighed 555 

 grains. 



In the Indian Bazaars, Bish is found in another form, the tuberous 

 roots having been steeped in cow's urine to preserve them from insects.^ 

 These roots which in our specimen* are mostly plump and cylindrical, 

 are flexible and moist when fresh, but become hard and brittle by keep- 

 ing. They are externally of very dark colour, black and horny within, 

 with an oflfensive odour resembling that of hyraceum or castor. Im- 

 mersed in water, though only for a few moments, they afford a deep 

 brown solution. Such a drug is wholly unfit for use in medicine, 

 though not unsuitable, perhaps, for the poisoning of wild beasts, a 

 purpose to which it is often applied in India." 



1 Account of the Kingdom of JiTepal, Edin. Loudon, were offered for sale bv a driig- 



1819,98. broker. 



- Mns6e HeMtique d'Hist. Nat. Berne, i. « There is a rude -vvoodcut of the root in 

 (1823) 160. P/tarm. Journ. i. (1871) 434. 



- Yet strange to say confused the plant ^ ^ specimen of ordinary Blih in my pos- 

 with A. Napellus, an Indian form of which session for two or three years became much 

 he figured as A. ferox ! infested by a minute and active insect of 



^ Eilinb. New Phil. Journ. xlvii. (1849) the genus P.>ocm.«.—D. H. 



366, pi. 5. 8 Obligingly sent to me in 1867 by Messrs. 



The first importation was in 1869, when Rogers & Co. of Bombay, who say it is the 



ten bags containing 1,000 lbs., said to be only kind there procurable.— D. H. 



part of a much larger quantity actually in » According to Moodeen Sheriff (SuppU- 



