RADIX RHEI. 493 



History^ — The Chinese appear to have been acquainted with the 

 properties of rhubarb from a period long anterior to the Christian era, 

 for the drug is treated of in the herbal called Pen-king, which is 

 attributed to the Emperor Shen-nung, the father of Chinese agriculture 

 and medicine, who reigned about 2700 B.C. The drug is named there 

 Huang-liang, yellow, excellent, and Ta-huang, the great yellow.- The 

 latter name also occurs in the great Geography of China, where it is 

 stated that rhubarb w^as a tribute of the province Si-ning-fu, eastward 

 of Lake Kuku Nor,^ from about the 7th to the 10th centuries of 

 our era. 



As regards Western Asia and Europe, we find a root called pu 

 or p^ov, mentioned by Dioscorides as brought from beyond the Bos- 

 phorus. The same drug is alluded to in the fourth centuiy by Ammianus 

 Marcellinus,* who states that it takes its name from the river Rha (the 

 modern Volga), on whose banks it grows. Pliny describes a root termed 

 Rhaconia, which when pounded yielded a colour like that of wine but 

 inclining to saffron, and was brought from beyond Pontus. 



The drug thus described is usually regarded as rhubarb, or at least 

 as the root of some species of RheuTn, but whether produced in the 

 regions of the Euxine (Pontus), or merely received thence from remoter 

 countries, is a question that cannot be solved. 



It is however certain that the naxne Bad ixpontica ox Rha ijonticurti, 

 used by Scribonius Largus * and Celsus,*' was applied in allusion to 

 the region whence the drug was received. Lassen has shown that 

 trading caravans from Shensi in Northern China arrived at Bokhara as 

 early as the year 114 B.C. Goods thus transported might reach Europe 

 either by way of the Black Sea, or by conveyance down the Indus to 

 the ancient port of Barbarike. Vincent suggests '' that the rha imported 

 b)'^ the first route would naturally be termed rha-'ponticum, while that 

 brought by the second might be called rha-harhariim. 



We are not prepared to accept this plausible hypothesis. It receives 

 no support from the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea 

 {circa a.d. 64), whose list of the exports of Barbarike ^ does not include 

 rhubarb ; nor is rhubarb named among the articles on which duty was 

 levied at the Roman custom-house of Alexandria (a.d. 176-180).* 



The terms Rheum harharum vel barharicum or Reu barbaruTii 

 occur in the writings of Alexander Trallianus ^° about the middle of the 

 6th century, and in those of Benedictus Crispus," archbi.shop of Milan, 

 and Isidore ^^ of Seville, who both flourished in the 7th century. Among 

 the Arabian writers on medicine, the younger Mesue, in the early part 

 of the 11th century, mentions the rhubarb of China as superior to the 



*For further particulars see Fliickiger, ^ Ibid., op. cit. ii. 390. 



Pharm. J.\i. (1876)861; also Proc.Amerk. ^ Ibid., op. cit. ii. 686. 



Pharm. A»soc. 1876. 130, with fig. show- *» Lib. viii. c. 3 (Haller's edition), 



ing Rheum officinale grown in a poor soil. n Migne, Patrologice Cicrsus, Ixxxix. 374. 



-Bretschneider, Chinese Botanical Works, ^ Migne. op. cit., Ixxxii. 628. The expla- 



Foochow, 1870. 2. nation given by Isidore is this : — " Reubar- 



^ Fluckiger, I.e. baruvi, sive Reuponticum : illud quod trans 



* Scriptores Historice Romanes latlni ve- Danubium in solo barbarico ; istud quod 

 teres, ii. (1743) 511 (Amm. Marc. xxii. c. 8.) circa Pontum colligitur, nominatum est. 



^i>e Compositione Medicamentorum, c. Reu autem radix dicitur. Reubarbantm 



167. ergo, quasi radix barbara. Reuponticum 



* De Medicina. lib. v. c. 23. quasi radix pontica." But Isidore was fond 

 ^ Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of of such derivations. 



ihe Ancients, ii. (1807) 389. 



