RHIZOMA CALAMI AROMATICI. G77 



History — Sweet Flag root has been i'roiii the earliest times a 

 favourite medicine of the natives of India, in which country it is sold 

 in every bazaar. Ainslie^ asserts that it is reckoned so valuable in the 

 bowel complaints of children that there is a penalty incvirred by any 

 druggist who will not open his door in the middle of the night to sell 

 it, if demanded 1 



The descriptions of Acovon, a plant of Colchis, Galatia, Pontus, and 

 Crete, given by Dioscoridcs and Pliny, certainly refer to this drug. We 

 think that the KaXa/xo? apw/jLuriKog of Dioscorides, which he states to 

 grow in India, is the same, though Royle regards it as anAndropogon. 

 The KaAayuo? of Theophrastus and the Calamus of the English Bible - 

 are considered by some authors to refer to the Sweet Flag. 



Celsus in the first century mentioned Calamus Alexandrinus, the 

 drug being probably then brought from India by way of the Red Sea. 

 We know by the testimony of Amatus Lusitanus' that in the 16th 

 century it used to be so imported into Venice. Rheede,* moreover, 

 described and figured Acoriis Calamus as an Indian plant under the 

 name Vacha, which it .still bears on the Malabar Coast. But in the 

 pharmaceutical tariff of the German town of Halberstadt of the year 

 1697, " Calamus aroniaticus verus^Jndianischer Calmus," and "Cala- 

 mus aro-nuiticus nostras" common Calmiis, are quoted at exactly the 

 same price,* and Murray^ states expressly that in his time (1790) 

 Asiatic calamus was still met with in the pharmacies of Continental 

 Europe, but that it had mostly been replacecl by the home-grown drug. 

 At the present time the Calamus avomaticus of commerce is European ; 

 in all essential characters it agrees with that of India, a package of 

 which is now and then offered in the Xondon drucr sales. 



Collection — The London market is supplied from Germany, whither 

 the drug is brought, we believe, from Southern Russia. It is no longer 

 collected in England, — at least in quantity, though it used to be gathered 

 some years ago in Norfolk. 



Description — The rootstock of sweet Hag occurs in somewhat 

 tortuous, subcylindrical or flattened pieces, a few inches long, and from 

 i to 1 inch in greatest diameter. Each piece is obscurely marked on 

 the upper surface with the scars, often hairy, of leaves, and on the under 

 with a zigzag line of little, elevated, dot-like rings, — the scars of roots. 

 The rootstock is usually rough and shrunken, varj^ing in colour from 

 dark brown to orange-brown, breaking easily with a short corky frac- 

 ture, and exhibiting a pale brown spongy interior. The odour is 

 aromatic and agreeable ; the taste, bitterish and pungent. 



The fresh rootstock is brownish-red or greenish, white or reddish 

 within, and of a spongy texture. Its transverse section is tolerably 

 uniform ; a fine line (medullary sheath) separates the outer tissue from 

 the lighter central part, the diameter of which is twice or three times 

 the width of the former. 



Microscopic Structure — The outermost layer is made up of 



* Mat. Med. of Hindoo^tan, Madras, 1S13. * Hortm Malabar, xi. (1692) tab. 48. 49. 



54. 5 Fluckiger.DocunieH^e (quoted page 562), 



2 Exod. XXX. 23 ; Caut. iv. 14 ; Ezek. 78. 



xxvii. 19. — See also page 715, footnote 2. ^Apparatus Medkaminiim, v. 40. 



' /« Diosc. de Mai. Med. Enarrationes, 

 Argent. 1554. 33. 



