TUBER CHINiE. 713 



great was the reputation of the new drug, that the small quantities 

 first brought to ilalacca were sold at the rate of 10 crowns per ganta, 

 a weight of 24 ounces. 



Possibly the drag found its way to Europe even before that year, 

 for we find a careful description of it in the posthumous works ^ of 

 Valerius Cordus and Walther Ryff"' states in 1548 that the root was 

 brought a few years ago to Venice. 



The reported good effects of China root on the Emperor Charles V. 

 who was sufibring from gout, acquired for the drug a great celebrity in 

 Europe, and several works * were written in praise of its virtues. But 

 though its powers were soon found to have been greatly over-i-ated, 

 it still retained some reputation as a sudorific and alterative, and 

 was much used at the end of the 17th century in the same way 

 as sarsaparilla. It still retains a place in some modern pharma- 

 copoeias. 



Description — The plant produces stout fibrous roots, here and 

 there thickened into large tubers, which when dried become the drug 

 China root. These tubers, as found in the market, are of irregularly 

 cylindrical form, usually a little flattened, sometimes producing short 

 knobby branches. They are from about 4 to 6 or more inches in 

 length, and 1 to 2 inches in thickness, covered with a rusty -coloured, 

 rather shining bark, which in some specimens is smooth and in others 

 more or less wrinkled. They have no distinct traces of rudimentary 

 leaves, which however are perceptible on those of some allied species. 

 Some still retain portions of the cord-like woody runners on which 

 they grew ; the bases of a few roots Qan also be observed. The tubere 

 mostly show marks of having been trimmed with a knife. 



China root is inodorous and almost insipid. A transverse section 

 exhibits the interior as a dense granular substance of a pale fawn 

 colour. 



Microscopic Structure — The outermost cortical layer is made up 

 of brown, thick-walled cells, tangentially extended. They enclose 

 numerous tufts of needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate, and reddish 

 brown masses of resin. The bark is at once succeeded by the inner 

 parenchyme which contrasts strongly with it, consisting of large, thin- 

 walled, porous cells which are completely gorged with starch, but here 

 and there contain colouring matter and bundles of crystals. The starch 

 granules are large (up to 50 mkm.), spherical, often flattened and angular 

 from mutual pressure. Like those of colchicum, they exhibit a radiate 

 hilum : very frequently they have burst and run together, probably in 

 consequence of the tubers having been scalded. The vascular bundles 

 scattered through the parenchyme, contain usually two large scalariform 

 or reticulated vessels, a string of delicate thin-walled parenchyme, and 

 elegant wood-cells with distinct incrusting layers and linear pores. 



Chemical Composition — The drug is not known to contain any 

 substance to which its supposed medicinal virtues can be referred. We 



^ Edit, by Conrad Gesner, foL 212 of the Vesaliiis, Epistola rationem, modumque pro 



work quoted in the Appendix. pinandi radicis Chymae [sic !] decocti, quo 



* .... Bericht der Natur .... der Wurtzel nuper invictis-nmiiit Carolus V. imperator 



China, Wiirzburg, 1548. 4°. ti-niei est, Venet, 1546. 



^ The earliest of which is by Andreas 



