The West American Scientist. 



Vol. X. No. 6. 



September, /poo. 



Whole No. 93. 



Established 1884. 



THE WEST AMERICAN SCIENTIST. 



Price 10c a copy; $1 a year; $10 for life. 



Charles Russell Orcutt, Editor, 



Number 365 Twenty-first Street, 



San Diego, California, U. S. A. 



MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



In the Mission days of California, 

 the Jesuite and Franciscan fathers and 

 the early settlers found it necessary to 

 rely upon their own resources and to 

 become proficient in many trades and 

 professions which in a more advanced 

 stage of civilization are relegated to 

 specialists. Medicine and surgery were 

 sciences which naturally demanded 

 the attention of every one, especially 

 of the fathers who were virtually en- 

 trusted with both the spiritual and 

 physical welfare of these primitive 

 communities. At times, doubtless 

 their limited stock of simple remedies 

 ran low, and with the slow means of 

 communication with . other communi- 

 ties, and with Mexico and Spain, 

 whence they drew their earlier sup- 

 plies, they gladly availed themselves 

 of the traditional knowledge of the 

 virtues of native plants which ob- 

 tained among the Indian population 

 around them. 



Among the Californian aborigines, as 

 among most tribes of Indians, there 

 existed so-called' medicine men or 

 doctors, who, by practicing on the su- 

 ctions of their fellows, and with 

 ihc aid of their traditional knowledge 

 Of the virtues of certain plants — hand- 

 <d down from generation to generation 

 >' medicine men — followed with great- 

 er less success the healing art. 

 Local remedies, however, are known 

 and user] every where in all climes and 



among all conditions of people, and 

 unquestionably the simple formulae, 

 comprised of harmless vegetable in- 

 gredients, as practiced among a norm- 

 ally healthful rural community, are 

 more successful in the average cases, 

 than the complicated combinations of 

 poisons administered by the old 

 school physician. 



Rhamnus purshiana DC. — Among the 

 native remedial agents most extensive- 

 ly employed in California is this 

 species, which is found only in limited 

 quantity in Southern California. Prof. 

 H. C. Ford records it from the Santa 

 Ynez mountains, and Mrs. R. F. Bing- 

 ham notes it among the "Medicinal 

 plants growing wild in Santa Barbara 

 and vicinity" (vide Bull. S. B. Soc. Nat. 

 Hist., i. 2, pp. 30-34). Dr. H. H. Rus- 

 by (Druggists' Bull. IV. 334), calls at- 

 tention to the difficulty of positively 

 identifying and distinguishing this 

 species from its near relative, R. cali- 

 fornica, in its southern habitat, where 

 the two are usually associated to- 

 gether and recommends that this im- 

 portant drug, Cascara Sagrada as it is 

 called, should be collected only in 

 northern California or Oregon to avoid 

 all risks of obtaining spurious bark. 



Rhamnus tomentella Bth. — This 

 shrub or small tree, evidently restricted 

 in its distribution to the mountains of 

 San Bernardino (Parish) and San 

 Diego counties and of northern Baja 

 California, is popularly known as the 

 wild coffee bush, or Yerba loso. Dr. 

 Rusby does not consider this to possess 

 any useful properties — at le£st no 

 virtues worthy of comparison with R. 

 Purshiana. Its large black berries are 

 sweet to the taste, but poisonous or at 

 least unwholesome, as children some- 

 times find to their cost. The seeds are 



