466 
Pink-Root. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\    October,  1910. 
A  CONTRIBUTION  TO  THE  HISTORY  OF 
"  PINK-ROOT."  * 
By  M.  I.  WlLBERT. 
Spigelia  marilandica  illustrates,  as  well  perhaps  as  any  drug 
now  used,  the  interesting  comedy  of  errors  that  may  be  developed 
by  following  up  the  history  of  the  origin  and  uses  of  a  drug  that 
has  passed  through  the  vagaries  incident  to  its  empiric  use  in  medi- 
cine. 
Much  of  the  confusion  concerning  this  particular  drug,  and  its 
adulterant,  has  been  unravelled  by  W.  W.  Stockberger  in  his  com- 
prehensive and  scholarly  monograph  on  "  Pink-root  and  its  Sub- 
stitutes," published  in  part  as  Bulletin  100  of  the  Bureau  of  Plant 
Industry  and  in  full  in  the  Pharmaceutical  Review  for  1907,  also 
as  a  separate  by  the  Pharmaceutical  Review  Publishing  Co.,  Mil- 
waukee, 1907. 
Stockberger,  however,  leaves  two  rather  interesting  questions 
unanswered,  at  least  directly :  ( 1 )  Who  was  the  first  to  recognize 
the  then  common  adulterant  of  spigelia  as  Phlox  Carolina?  (2) 
What  was  the  nature  of  the  second  "  pink-root  "  frequently  referred 
to  as  having  been  in  use  in  this  country  during  the  earlier  decades 
of  the  nineteenth  century? 
I  believe  that  the  direct  answer  to  the  first  question  is  to  be 
found  in  one  of  the  very  few  references  that  Stockberger  appears 
to  have  overlooked  in  the  compiling  of  his  admittedly  compre- 
hensive bibliography  of  the  literature  on  "  pink-root." 
The  first  edition  of  the  National  Dispensatory  (1879)  m  tne 
monograph  on  spigelia,  evidently  written  by  Maisch,  says : 
"  Spigelia  is  sometimes  met  with  as  an  admixture  of  serpentaria, 
and  is  not  infrequently  found  mixed  with  some  few  roots  of  several 
plants,  doubtless  from  careless  collection.  A  few  years  ago  a 
very  different  root  was  seen  in  the  market,  which  Dr.  A.  W.  Miller 
(1875)  ascertained  to  have  been  derived  from  Phlox  Carolina, 
Lin.,  which  plant  is  known  in  some  parts  as  Carolina  pink.  This 
root  is  lighter  in  color,  the  rootlets  are  straight  or  but  slightly 
curved,  and  their  cortical  portion  is  easily  removed,  exposing  a 
straw  colored  ligneous  thread." 
*  Presented  at  the  Historical  Section,  A.  Ph.  A.,  1909. 
