104 COMMERCIAL BOTANY. 



the Cedron is contained in "The History of the 

 Buccaneers," published in London in 1699, where its 

 use as an antidote for snake bites is referred to. The 

 method of using it is as follows : — When a person is bitten, 

 a small portion of the seed, mixed with water, is applied to 

 the wound, and about two grains scraped into brandy, or 

 even into water, is given internally. This treatment is 

 said to be an almost certain cure for the bites of the most 

 venomous snakes, scorpions, centipedes, and other noxious 

 animals. The seeds have an intensely bitter taste, and are 

 said to have proved valuable in cases of intermittent fever. 

 The seeds were introduced to Kew in 1846, and first 

 brought to notice as a remedy in 1850, and again as a 

 febrifuge and cure for toothache in 1884. 



Strophanthus. — There are but few drugs of recent 

 introduction that have attracted so much attention chemi- 

 cally and physiologically as the active principle of the 

 seeds of the several African species of Strophanthus. 



In 1870 Professor Eraser first pointed out, in a paper 

 read before the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the powerful 

 action of Strophanthus hispidus upon the heart, and stated, 

 as the result of his experiments, that " it acted in a power- 

 ful and direct manner upon the cardiac muscular fibre, 

 greatly prolonging the contraction of those fibres, rendering 

 it continuous, and only to be overcome when relaxation 

 occurs as a natural consequence of post-mortem decom- 

 position." For some time after the publication of this 

 paper little or nothing was heard of Strophanthus, till in 

 1877 it formed the subject of a paper by Messrs. E. Hardy 

 and N. Gallois in the Bulletin de Thei-apeutiqiie et Chirur- 

 gicale. In 1885 it was again brought forward by Professor 

 Eraser at the British Medical Association meeting held at 

 Cardiff, and the paper was published in tlie British Medical 

 Journal for November 14th, 1885. The publication of this 

 paper naturally resulted in the attention of the whole 



