390 COMPOSITE. 



form or alcohol yield the original substance. Yet as to santonin, 

 Sestini and Cannizzaro (1876) have shown, that its dilute alcoholic 

 solution, on long exposure to sunlight, affords a compound ether of 

 photosantonic acid, namely C^'H^OXC'H')-. 



Wormseed contains, in addition to the above described bodies, 

 resin, sugar, waxy fat, salts of calcium and potassium, and malic 

 acid ; when carefully selected and dried, it yielded us 6 '5 per cent, 

 of ash, rich in silica. 



Commerce — Ludwig of St. Petersburg has stated that the imports 

 of wormseed into that city were about as follows: — In 1862, 7400 

 cwt.; in 1863, 10,500 cwt.; in 1864, 11,400 cwt. The drug was brought 

 from the Kirghiz steppes by Semipalatinsk and by Orenburg. 



Uses — The drug is employed exclusively for its anthelminthic pro- 

 perties, partly in the form of santonin. It proves of special efficacy for 

 the dislod^ement of Ascaris lumhricoides. 



RADIX ARNICiE. 

 Rhizoma Arnicce, Arnica Root; F. Racine d'Aimica; G. Amicaivurzel. 



Botanical Origin — Ai^iica montana L., a perennial plant growing 

 in meadows throughout the northern and central regions of the 

 northern hemisphere, but not reaching the British Islands. In western 

 and central Europe it is an inhabitant of the mountains, but in colder 

 countries it grows in the plains. 



In high latitudes, as in Arctic Asia and America, a peculiar form of 

 the plant distinguished by narrow, almost linear leaves has been named 

 A. angustifolia Vahl; but numerous transitional forms prove its 

 identity with the ordinary A. montana of Europe. 



History — The older botanists as Matthiolus, Gesner, Camerarius, 

 Tabernsemontanus, and Clusius were acquainted with Arnica and had 

 some knowledge of its medicinal powers, which appear to have been 

 expressly recommended, towards the end of the 16th century, by Franz 

 Joel, professor of Greifswald, Germany.^ All pai'ts of the plant were 

 no doubt popular remedies in Germany at an early period, but Arnica 

 was only introduced into regular medicine on the recommendation of 

 Johann Michael Fehr of Schweinfurt and of several other physicians.^ 

 But for enthusiastic laudation of the new remedy, all these writers fall 

 far short of Collin of Vienna, who imagined that in Arnica he had 

 found a European plant possessing all the virtues of Peruvian Bark.^ 

 In his hands fevers and agues gave way under its use, and more than 

 1000 patients in the Pazman Hospital were alleged to have been cured 

 of intermittents by an electuary of the flowers, between 1771 and 1774! 

 Such happy results were not obtained by other physicians. 



Arnica (herha, jlos, radix) had a place in the London Pharmacopoeia 



* Sprengel, Oeschickte der Arzneyhunde, ^ Heinrich Joseph Collin, Heilhrdfte 



iv. (1827) 546. des Wolverley, Breslau, 1777 (translation); 



2 Fehr, De Arnica lapsorum panacea, also Arnicce, in fehrihtis el aliis morbis 



in Ephemerid. nat. cur. Dec. 1, (1678. 1679) putridis vires, — in the Anni Meilici of 



No. 2. p. 22 (" HBVLS eat in radice, /oliis et Storck and Collin, ed. nov., Amstel., iii. 



dorihi8").—G. A. de la Marche, Dissertatio, (1779) 133. 

 Halae Magdeburg, 1744. 



