RADIX RHEI. 495 



while Kiachta and the opposite Chinese town of ^Faimatchin became the 

 staple depots of rhubarb. 



The root was subjected to special control as early as 1687-1697 by 

 the Russian Government, who finally monopolized the trade about 1704. 

 Caravans fitted out by the Crown alone broui^ht the drug to Moscow, 

 until 1762, when the caravan-trade was for a while thrown open. It 

 was not until this period that the export of rhubarb became consider- 

 able, although the stringent regulations, established in 173G, were still 

 maintained. The surveillance of rhubarb was exercised at Kiachta in a 

 special court or office called the Brake,^ under instructions from the 

 Russian Minister of War, by an apothecary appointed for six years, the 

 object being to remove from the rhubarb brought for inspection all 

 inferior or spurious pieces, and to improve the selected drug by trim- 

 ming, paring and boring. It was then carefully dried, and packed in 

 chests, which were sown up in linen, and rendered impervious to wet 

 by being pitched and then covered with hide. The drug was dis- 

 patched, but only in quantities of 1000 jnuls (40,000 lb.), once a year 

 by way of Lake Baikal and Irkutsk to Sloscow, whence it was trans- 

 mitted to St. Petersburg, to be there delivered to the Crown apothe- 

 caries and in part to be sold to druggists. 



We are indebted for these accounts chiefly to Calau,' an apothecary 

 appointed to supervise the examination of rhubarb, and who resided a 

 long time at Kiachta An exact account of the remarkable policy of 

 the Russian Government in relation to that drug was also given by Von 

 Schroders ^ in 1864. 



So long as China kept all her ports closed to foreign commerce 

 except Canton in the extreme south, a large supply of fine rhubarb 

 found its way to Europe by way of Russia. But the unpleasant 

 accompaniments of the Russian supervision, which was exercised with 

 unsparing severity,* and the extreme tediousness of the land-transport, 

 made the Chinese very i-eady to accept an easier outlet for their goods. 

 Accordingly we find that the opening of a number of ports in the 

 north of China exerted a very depressing influence on the trade of 

 Kiachta, which was augmented by the rebellion that raged in the 

 interior of China for some j^ears from 1852. 



On these accounts Russia in 1855 removed certain restrictions on 

 the trade, though without abandoning the Rhubarb Office. She with- 

 drew in 1860 the custom-house to Irkutsk, and declared Kiachta a free 

 port, while by the treaty with China of November 1860, she insisted on 

 that country abandoning all restrictions on trade. 



But the over-land rhubarb trade had already been destroyed : the 

 Chinese, tempted by the increased demand occasioned by the new 

 trading-ports, became less careful in the collection and curing of the 

 root, while the Russians insisted with the greatest strictness on the 

 drug being of the accustomed quality. Hence it happened that from 

 1860 hardly any rhubarb was delivered at Kiachta, either for the 



' From the German word Bracle, the ^ Canstatt's Jahresberkht for 1864, i. 



name applied to pereous appointed for the 35-42. 



examination of merchandize brought to the * Thus in 1860 the Russians compelled 



ports of the Baltic. the Chinese to burn 6000 lb. of rhubarb, 



2 Ganger's Rep. fur Phann. und CliemU, on the pretext that it was too sinall ! 

 1842, 452-457; Phann. Journ. ii. (1843) 658. 



