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RADIX SPIGELIiE. 433 



very hard, and difficult to split. The whole seed swells considerably 

 by prolonged digestion in warm water, and has then a heavy, earthy 

 smell. The beans are intensely bitter and highly poisonous. 



Microscopic Structure — The hairs of the epidermis are of an 

 analogous structure, but more simple than in nux vomica. The albumen 

 and cotyledons agree in structural features with those of the same parts 

 in nux vomica. 



Chemical Composition — Strychnine exists to the extent of about 

 1"5 per cent. ; the seeds also contain 05 per cent, of brucine. Dried 

 over sulphuric acid and burnt with soda-lime, it yielded us an average 

 of r78 per cent, of nitrogen, which would answer to about 10 per cent, 

 of albuminoid matter. 



Commerce — We have no information as to the collection of the 

 drug. The seeds are met with irregularly in English trade, being 

 sometimes very abundant, at others scarcely obtainable. 



Uses — The same as those of nux vomica. When procurable at a 

 moderate price, the seeds are valued for the manufacture of strychnine. 



RADIX SPIGELI.^. 



Radix Spigelice Marilandicm ; Indian Pink Boot, Carolina Pink 



Root, Spigelia} 



' Botanical Origin — Spigelia marilandica L., an herbaceous plant 

 ' about a foot high, indigenous in the woods of North America, from 

 Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and southward. According to Wood and 

 Bache, it is collected chiefly in the Western and South-western States. 



History — The anthelminthic properties of the root, discovered by the 

 Indians, were brought to notice in Europe about the year 1754 by 

 J Linning, Garden, and Chalmers, physicians of Charleston, South Carolina. 

 '.The drug was admitted to the London Pharmacopoeia in 1788. 



Description — Pink root has a near resemblance to serpentary, con- 



■ sisting of a short, knotty, dark brown rhizome emitting slender wiry 

 roots. It is quite wanting in the peculiar odour of the latter drug, or 

 jindeed in any aroma; in taste it is slightly bitter and acrid. Sometimes 

 ,the entire plant with its quadrangular stems a foot high is imported. 

 jit has opposite leaves about 3 inches long, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, 

 iacuminate, smooth or pubescent. 



I Microscopic Structure — The transverse section of the rhizome, 

 ■■febout j% of an inch in diameter, shows a small woody zone enclosing a 

 ^■arge pith of elliptic outline, consisting of thin-walled cells. Usually 

 ^^^he central tissue is decayed. In the roots, the middle cortical layer 



predominates ; it swells in water, after which its large cells display fine 



spiral markings. The nucleus-sheath observable in serpentary is 



Vanting in spigelia. 



i Chemical Composition — Not satisfactorily known: the vessels of 



' oie wood contain resin, the parenchyme starch; in the cortical part of 



the rhizome some tannic matters occur, but not in the roots. Feneulle 



^ Fink Boot is sometimes erroneously latinized in price-lists, "Hadix caryophylli." 



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