434 GENTIANEiE. 



(1823) asserts that the drug yields a little essential oil. The experi- 

 ments of Bureau^ show that spigelia acts on rabbits and other animals 

 as a narcotico-acrid poison. 



Uses — Spigelia has long been reputed a most efficient medicine for 

 the expulsion of Ascaris lumbricoides, but according to Stille,- its real 

 value for this purpose has probably been over-estimated. This author 

 speaks of it as possessing alterative and tonic properties. In England, it 

 is rarely prescribed by the regular practitioner, but is used as a household 

 medicine in some districts. It is much employed in the United States. 



GENTIANE^. 



RADIX GENTIANS. 



Gentian Root; F, Racine de Gentiane; G. Enzianwurzel. 



Botanical Origin — Gentiana lutea L., a handsome perennial herb, 

 growing 3 feet high, indigenous to open grassy places on the mountains 

 of Middle and Southern Europe. It occurs in Portugal, Spain, the 

 Pyrenees, in the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, in the Apennines, the 

 mountains of Auvergne, the Jura, the Vosges, the Black Forest, and 

 throughout the chain of the Alps as far as Bosnia and the Danubian 

 Principalities. Among the mountains of Germany, it is found on the 

 Suabian Alps near Wiirzburg, and here and there in Thuringia, but not 

 further north, nor does it occur in the British Islands. 



History — The name Gentiana is said to be derived from Gentius, a 

 king of the Illyrians, living B.C. 180-167, by whom, according to both 

 Pliny and Dioscorides, the plant was noticed. Whether the species 

 thus named was Gentiana Intea is doubtful. During the middle ages, 

 gentian was commonly employed for the cure of disease, and as an 

 antidote to poison. Tragus in 1552 mentions it as a means of diluting 

 wounds, an application which has been resorted to in modern medical 

 practice. 



Description — The plant has a cylindrical, fleshy, simple root, of 

 pale colour, occasionally almost as much as 4 feet in length by li inches 

 in thickness, producing 1 to 4 aerial stems. 



The dried root of commerce is in irregular, contorted pieces, several 

 inches in length, and |- to 1 inch in thickness; the pieces are much 

 wrinkled longitudinally, and marked transversely, especially in their 

 upper portion, with numerous rings. Very often they are split 

 to facilitate drying. They are of a yellowish brown; internally of a 

 more orange tint, spongy, with a peculiar, disagreeable, heavy odour, 

 and intensely bitter taste. The crown of the root, which is somewhat 

 thickened, is clothed with the scaly bases of leaves. The root is tough 

 and flexible, — brittle only immediately after drying. We found it to 

 lose in weight about 18 per cent, by complete drying in a water-bath; 

 it regained 16 per cent, by being afterwards exposed to the air. 



^ De la famille des Loganiac4es, 1856. ^ Therapeutics and Materia Medico, 



130. Philadelphia, ii. (1868) 651. 



