378 VALERIANACEtE. 



Valerian was anciently called in English Setwall, a name properly 

 applied to Zedoary; and the root was so much valued for its medicinal 

 virtues, that as Gerarde ^ (1567) remarks, the poorer classes in the north 

 of England esteemed " no broths, jooUage, or physicall meats " to be 

 worth anything without it. Its odour, now considered intolerable, was 

 not so regarded in the 16th century, when it was absolutely the custom 

 to lay the root among clothes as a perfume ^ in the same way as those 

 of Valeriana celtica L. and the Himalayan valerians are still used 

 in the East. 



Some of the names applied to valerian in Northern and Central 

 Europe are remarkable. Thus in Scandinavia we find Velandsrot, 

 Velamsrot, Vandelrot (Swedish); Vendelrod, Venderod, Vendingsrdd 

 (Norwegian) ; and Velandsurt (Danish) — names all signifying Vandels 

 root.^ Valerian is also called in Danish Danmarks grces. Among the 

 German-speaking population of Switzerland, a similar word to the last, 

 namely Tannniark, is applied to valerian. The JDenemarcha mentioned 

 by St. Hildegard,* about A.D. 1160, is the same. These names seem to 

 point to some connexion with Northern Europe which we are wholly 

 unable to explain. 



Pentz, a pharmaceutical assistant at Pyrmont, was the first, in 1829, 

 to draw attention to the acid reaction of the distilled water of valerian. 

 Another German assistant, Grote, at Verden, showed in 1831 that the 

 acidity was by no means due to acetic acid, but to a peculiar kind of 

 acid. The latter was identified in 1843 by Dumas with the acid arti- 

 ficially obtained from amylic alcohol and that extracted in 1817 by 

 Chevreul from the fat of dolphins. 



Description — The valerian root of the shops consists of an upright 

 rhizome of the thickness of the little finger, emitting a few short hori- 

 zontal branches, besides numerous slender rootlets.^ The rhizome is 

 naturally very short, and is rendered still more so by the practice of 

 cutting it in order to facilitate drying. The rootlets, which are gene- 

 rally 3 to 4 inches long, attain ^V of an inch in diameter, tapering 

 and dividing into slender fibres towards their extremities. They are 

 shrivelled, very brittle, and, as well as the rhizome, of a dull, earthy 

 brown. When broken transversely, they display a dark epidermis, 

 forming part of a thick white bark which surrounds a slender woody 

 column. The interior of the rhizome is compact, firm and horny, but 

 when old becomes hollow, a portion of the tissue remaining however in 

 the form of transverse septa. 



The drug has a peculiar, somewhat terebinthinous and camphor-like 

 odour, and a bitterish, aromatic taste. The root when just taken from 

 the ground has no distinctive smell, but acquires its characteristic odour 

 as it dries. 



Microscopic Structure'' — In the rhizome as well as in the rootlets, 

 the cortical part is separated from the central column by a dark cambial 



^ HerbaU, 1636. 1078. erian root are well explained in Irmisch, 



2 Turner's Herhall, part 3 (1568) 76 ; Beitrag zur Naturgeschichte der dnheimi- 

 Langham, Garden of Health, 1633. 598. schen Valeriana- Arten, Halle, 1854, 44 



3 H. Jenssen - Tusch, Nordiske Plan- pages, 4°, 4 plates. 



tenavne, Kjobenhavn, 1867. 258. * The structure of the rhizomes and root 



* Physica, Argent. 1533. 62. of the different species of valerian has been 



^ The morphological peculiarities of val- discussed by Joannes Chatin in his Etudes 



