CORTEX BERBERIDIS IXDICUS. 35 



3. B. asiatica Roxb. — This species has a wider distribution than the 

 last, being found in the dry valleys of Bhotan and Nepal whence it 

 stretches westward along the Himalaya to Garwhal, and occurs again in 

 Afl'ghanistan. 



History — The medical practitioners of ancient Greece and Italy 

 mide use of a substance called Lyduvi (Kvkiov) of which the best kind 

 was brought from India. It was regarded as a remedy of great value 

 in restraining inflammatory and other discharges ; but of all the uses 

 to which it was applied the most important was the treatment of 

 various forms of ophthalmic inflammation. 



Lycium is mentioned by Dioscorides, Pliny, Celsus, Galen, and 

 Scribonius Largus; by such later Greek writers as Paulus ^gineta, 

 iEtius, and Oribasius, as well as by the Arabian physicians. 



The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea who probably 

 lived in the 1st century, enumerates \vkiov as one of the exports of 

 Barbarike at the mouth of the Indus, and also names it along with 

 Bdellium and Costus among the commodities brought to Barygaza : — 

 and further, lycium is mentioned among the Indian drugs on which 

 duty was levied at the Roman custom house of Alexandi-ia about a.d. 

 176—180.' 



An interesting proof of the esteem in which it was held is afibrded 

 by some singular little vases or jars of which a few specimens are pre- 

 served in collections of Greek antiquities." These vases were made to 

 contain lycium, and in them it was probably sold ; for an inscription on 

 the vessel not only gives the name of the drug but also that of a person 

 who, we may presume, was either the seller or the inventor of the 

 composition. Thus we have the Lycium of Jason, of Musceus, and of 

 Heracleus. The vases bearing the name of Jason were found at Taren- 

 tum, and there is reason to believe that that marked Heracleus was 

 from the same locality. Whether it was so or not, we know that a 

 certain Heraclides of Tarentum is mentioned by Celsus^ on account of 

 his method of treating cei-tain diseases of the eye; and that Galen gives 

 formulae for ophthalmic medicines* on the authority of the same 

 pereon. 



Innumerable conjectures were put forth during at least three centuries 

 as to the origin and nature of lycium, and especiaUy of that highly 

 esteemed kind that was brought from India. 



In the year 1833, Royle" communicated to the Linnean Society of 

 London a paper proving that the Indian Lycium of the ancients was 

 identical with an extract prepared from the wood or root of several 

 species of Berheris growing in Northern India, and that this extract, 

 well known in the bazaars as Ritsot or Bxisot, was in common use among 

 the natives in various forms of eye disease.* ITiis substance attracted 



^ Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of ^ Lib. vii. c. 7. — See also Cselins Aure- 



the Ancients »;i tfie Indian Ocean, ii. (1807) lianus, De morbi,s chronicis (HaUer's ed. ) lib. 



390, 410, 734 i. c. 4, lib. iii. c. 8. 



2 Figures of these vessels were published * Cataplasmata lippientium quibus usus est 



by Dr. J. Y. Simpson in an interesting paper Heraclides Tarentinus — Galen, De Camp, 



entitled Xotes on some ancient Greek medical Med. sec. locos, lib. iv. (p. 153 in Venice 



vases for containing Lycium, of which we edit, of 1625). 



have made free use. — See {Edinh. ) Monthly * On the Lycium of Dioscorides. — Linn. 



Journal of Med. Science, xvi. (1853) 24, also Trajis. xvii. (1837) 83. 



iPkarm. Journ. xiii. (1854) 413. " It is interesting to find that two of the 



