SEMEN SABADILL^. 



697 



drug may be prepared by exhausting it with alcohol and precipitating 

 with boiling acidulated water, repeating the process in order to entirely 

 eliminate the alkaloids. It is a dark brown mass, yielding about a 

 fourth of its weight to ether. Scattergood obtained it to the extent of 

 4| per cent. By exhausting the drug successively with ether, absolute 

 alcohol and spirit of wine, we extracted from it not less than 31 per 

 cent, of a soft resinoid mass. Worthington pointed out the presence of 

 gallic acid and of sugar. 



Uses — Veratrum viride has of late been much recommended as a 

 cardiac, arteral and nervous sedative. It is stated to lower the pulse, 

 the respiration and heat of the body, not to be narcotic, and rarely to 

 occasion purging;^ but to what principle these effects are due has not 

 yet been ascertained. By some observei-s, as Bigelow,^ Y4e^ Schroff,* 

 and Oulmont,^ it is alleged to have the same medicinal powers as the 

 European Veratrum alhuni. 



SEMEN SABADILLiE. 



Fi^uctus SabadUlce; Cebadilla, C^vadUla; F. C^vadille; G. Sabadillsa- 



men, Ldusesamen. 



Botanical Origin — Asagrcea ojfficinaHs Lindley (Veratrum offi,- 

 cinale Schlecht., Sabadilla offi.ciiiam.m Brandt, Schcenocauloii offixiinale 

 A. Gray). — A bulbous plant, growing in Mexico, in grassy places on the 

 eastern declivities of the volcanic range of the Cofre de Perote, and 

 Orizaba, near Teosolo, Huatusco and »Zacuapan, down to the sea-shore, 

 also in Guatemala, Cebadilla is (or was) cultivated near Vera Cruz, 

 Alvarado and Tlacatalpan in the Gulf of Mexico. 



Another form of Asagrcea, first noticed by Berg,** but of late more 

 particularly by Ernst of Caracas, who thinks it may constitute a distinct 

 species, is found in plenty on grassy slopes, 3,500 to 4,000 feet above 

 the sea-level, in the neighbourhood of Caracas, and southward in the 

 hilly regions bordering the valley of the Tuj'.'^ It differs chiefly in 

 having broader and more carinate leaves.^ Of late years it has furnished 

 large quantities of seed, which, freed from their capsules, have been 

 shipped from La Guaira to Hamburg. 



History — Cebadilla was first described in 1517 by Monardes, who 

 states that it is used by the Indians of New Spain as a caustic and 



^ Cutter, Lancet, Jan. 4, Aug. 16, 1862; 

 Pharm. Jouiii. iv. (1863) 134. 



' American Medical Botany, ii. (1819) 

 121-136. 



=* Coursd'Hist. Nat. Pharm. i. (1828) 319. 



^ Medizinische Jahrbiicher, xix. (Vienna, 

 1863) 129-148. 



* Buchner's Repertorium fur Pharmacie, 

 xviii. (1868) 50; also Wiggers and Huse- 

 mann's Jahresberichf, xviii. 1868. 505. 



® Berg u. vSchmidt, Offiz. Gewdchse, i. 

 (1858) tab. ix. e. "Sabadilla officinanim." 



' Ernst, communication to the Linnean 

 Society of London, 15 Dec, 1870. 



* Veratrum Sabadilla Hetzius is stated 



by Lindley {Flora Medica, p. 586) to be a 

 native of Mexico and the West Indian 

 Islands, and to furnish a portion of the 

 cebadiUa seeds of commerce. The plant is 

 unknown to us : we have searched for it in 

 vain in the herbaria of Kew and the British 

 Museum. It is not mentioned as West 

 Indian by Grisebach (Flor. of Brit. W. J. 

 Islands, 1864 ; Cat. Plant. Cubensium, 

 1866). The figure by Descourtilz {Flor. 

 mid. des Antilles, iii. 1827. t. 1859) who had 

 the plant growing at St. Domingo, shows it 

 to resemble Veratrum. album L., and there- 

 fore to be very diflferent from Asayraa. 



