POMEGRANATE BARK. 171 



curative results is also a remarkable tonic, acting for a long time 

 after the cure (!). 



Methods with pomegranate bark. 



Dioscorides (b.c 50), and after him Celsus and Pliny, mention 

 the Radix Punicee Granat. as a vermifuge. In the Middle Ages 

 the bark was neglected as a vermifuge, although Michael Hero 

 (1553) and Ad. Lonicerus (1G09) make mention of it. In the 

 East Indies, however, its fame in this respect has remained the 

 same from time immemorial, and from thence it was brought 

 into Europe by the English physician, Buchanan, and has since 

 always maintained its celebrity. Amongst the Germans, 

 Bremser refers to Buchanan's method ; Flemming, in 1810, pub- 

 lished the first observations. On the introduction of the remedy, 

 Breton in England, Gomez in Portugal, and Merat, the trans- 

 lator of Gomez, in France, did good service. Seeger, who 

 deserves credit for the statistics of this medicine, states that of 419 

 cases treated with it up to 1852, 371 are reported as complete 

 cures, 24 as doubtful, and 24 as unsuccessful. I could conside- 

 rably increase the number of successful cases, partly by my own 

 observations, and partly by those made by others according to 

 my method, but Seeger's statements are quite sufficient here. 



The pomegranate tree (Punica granatum) grows in the East 

 and West Indies, in the South of Europe, especially in Spain, 

 and in our greenhouses. It grows to a height of 16 — 20 feet, 

 and has beautiful red flowers. The bark of the roots is collected 

 in the spring, before flowering, and dried in the shade. It forms 

 tubular or rolled pieces, 2 — &" long, \ — V" broad, and |-— 1"' 

 thick, with externally uneven, wrinkled tubercles, and a grayish- 

 yellow spotted epidermis, a yellowish parenchyma, and a fibrous 

 greyish-brownish-yellow inner layer, which is here and there 

 dingy green, and to which pale-yellow alburnum often adheres. 

 The rest will be found in every Materia Medica. Attempts have 

 been made for a long time to find the active principle of this 

 bark in some particular alkaloid. But all experiments have been 

 in vain. Latour de Trie's granatine was only mannite. Tannic 

 acid ; and, amongst others, gallic acid, giving a green colour with 

 iron, are the principal constituents'; and with these are resins and 

 a body resembling piperine (Landerer), the existence of which, 

 however, is not yet determined with certainty. 



In my opinion, besides the adulteration of the commercial 



