RADIX SENEG.E. 77 



founded tx)getlier as H. inebrians Vahl) afford a fatty oil which the 

 natives use in cutaneous diseases.* 



POLYGALE^. 



RADIX SENEGA. 



Radix Senekce; SeTiega or SeTieka Root; F. Racine de Polygala de 

 Virginie ; G. Senegawurzel. 



Botanical Origin — Polygala Senega L., a perennial plant with 

 slender ascending stems 6 to 12 inches high, and spikes of duU white 

 flowers resembling in form those of the Common Milkwort of Britain. 

 It is found iu British America as far north as the river Saskatchewan, 

 and in the United States from New England to Wisconsin, Kentucky, 

 Tennessee, Virginia and the upper parts of North Carolina, as well as 

 in Georgia and Texas, not in the Rocky Mountains. 



The plant, which frequents rocky open woods and plains, has become 

 somewhat scarce in the Atlantic states, and as a drug is now chiefly 

 collected in the west, the plant growing profusely in Iowa and Min- 

 nesota, west of New York. 



History — The employment of this root among the Seneca Indians 

 as a remedy for the bite of the rattle-snake attracted the notice of 

 Tennent, a Scoteh physician in Virginia ; and from the good efi*ects he 

 witnessed he concluded that it might be administered with advantage 

 in pleurisy and peripneumonia. The result of numerous trials made in 

 the years 1734- and 1735 proved the utility of the drug in these com- 

 plaints, and Tennent communicated his observations to the celebrated 

 Dr. Mead of London in the form of an epistle, afterwards published to- 

 gether with an engraving of the plant, then called the Seneca Rattle- 

 snake Root.^ Tennent's practice was te administer the root in 

 powder or as a strong decoction, or more often infused in wine. The 

 new drug was favourably received in Europe, and its virtues discussed 

 in numerous theses and dissertations, one written in 1749 being by 

 Linnseus.^ 



Description — Senega root is developed at its upper end into a 

 knotty crown, in old roots as much as an inch in diameter, from which 

 spring the numerous wiry aerial stems, beset at the base with scaly 

 rudimentary leaves often of a purplish hue. Below the crown is a 

 simple tap-root ^ to ^^ of an inch thick, of contorted or somewhat 

 spiral form, which usually soon divides into 2 or 3 spreading branches 

 and smaller filiform rootlets. 



The bark is light yellowish-grey, translucent, horny, shrivelled, 

 knotted and partially annulated. Very frequently a keel-shaped ridge 

 occurs, running like a shrunken sinew through the principal root ; it 

 has no connexion with the wood, but originates in a one-sided develop- 

 ment of the liber-tissue. The bark encloses a pure, white woody column 



1 Waring, Pharm. of India, 1868. 27. Virginia, &c., Edinb. 1738. 



- Tennent (John), Epistle to Dr. Richard ^ Amaenitates Academicae, ii 126. 



Mead concerning the epidemical diseases of 



