ON HOME-GROWN PODOPHYLLUM AND JALAP. 
463 
catharsis is seldom manifested before nine hours. It appears to act chiefly on 
the upper part of the small intestine, and is apt to occasion unpleasant nausea 
and depression. 
Committee's Experiments on Healthy Men. 
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The evidence as to the supposed cholagogue action of podophyllum is, it 
seems to me, very inconclusive, notwithstanding that’ Dr. Ramskill is “ almost 
tempted to say that there is no real cholagogue known in medicine except 
podophyllinand some extravagant theorists, starting from this fancied 
analogy to mercury in one respect, have conceived that the parallel was com¬ 
plete between them, and that patients might with advantage undergo a course 
of “vegetable calomel” instead of the “ pernicious mineral.” 
No sufficient number of cases have, as yet, been adduced to warrant such a 
conclusion, and we may reject it as a gratuitous hypothesis destitute of any 
therapeutical value. 
There is no class of local remedies respecting which it is more difficult to gain 
satisfactory information than cholagogues; and when we consider that the 
possession of this specific property by any medicine, except perhaps mercurials, 
is at best doubtful, we shall be slow in ascribing such a special direction to the 
action of podophyllum. Possibly, as Dr. Wood suggests, if the bile be so 
thick and viscid that it cannot escape with facility, a secretory stimulant like 
the May-apple will so dilute the bile that it will readily flow, and thus give the 
stools a highly bilious appearance, although there has been no real increase in 
the hepatic secretion, or its assumed cholagogue virtues may owe their explana¬ 
tion to the compression exerted on the gall-bladder, and the consequent expul¬ 
sion of its contents during the operation of any active purge. 
Passing now from podophyllum, I shall very shortly refer to the result of the 
analysis of the jalap plant which has been cultivated in the Botanic Gardens 
for several years past, growing against a wall with a southern aspect. The 
“station ” of the Exngonium purga is on the high ground in the neighbourhood 
of Vera Cruz, at an altitude of 6000-7000 feet, and the mean annual tempe¬ 
rature of these elevated slopes is about 66°-68° F. The town of Xalapa marks, 
as it were, the transition of the tropical vegetation of the plains into a highland 
flora. 
The jalap plant naturally affects a warm and very moist climate, and prefers 
the shady woods on the eastern slopes of the Mexican Andes, where there is a 
deep, rich vegetable soil. If these conditions could be fulfilled at home or 
abroad, the cultivation of jalap might probably be attempted with success, an 
object to be more especially desired of late years, as the present supply of jalap 
is uncertain, the quality of the drug variable, and other roots, are not unfre- 
