454 
The  Apocynaceas  in  Materia  Medica. 
(  Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
\  September,  1894. 
so  very  rich  in  toxic  substances,  may,  in  some  species,  become  a  real 
food.  Other  plants  assume  the  properties  of  simple  bitters,  astring- 
ents or  febrifuges,  while  the  latex  of  others  is  a  powerful  purga- 
tive. It  is  not  the  less  certain  that  the  general  properties  of  the 
Apocynaceae  are  a  remarkable  homogeneity,  and  that  the  immense 
majority  of  the  species  are  suspected  plants.  Wherefore,  it  is  even 
supposed  these  poisons  are  as  terrible  as  the  Strychnos,  their  neigh- 
bors. In  these  the  action  is  purely  irritant,  corrosive,  drastic,  or 
emeto-cathartic ;  in  others,  exist  principles,  sometimes  isolated 
already,  more  frequently  yet  unknown,  and  which  act  energetically 
upon  the  heart  or  upon  the  nerve  system.  Many  of  this  class  are 
glucosides  and  joined  more  or  less  with  the  group  Digitalines.  Their 
localization  is  various;  sometimes  in  the  whole  plant,  at  other  times 
in  the  seed,  the  pericarp,  the  bark,  the  wood,  etc.  It  happens  even> 
rarely  it  is  true,  that  the  latex  and  the  fruit,  for  example,  have  prop- 
erties entirely  different. 
FRUITS  AND  SEEDS. 
Those  treated  are  here  classified  as  follows : 
(1)  The  fruits  with  a  dry  pericarp  (Strophanthus,  Holarrhena, 
Wrightia).    It  is  here  the  seeds  that  we  employ  in  medicine. 
(2)  The  fruits  with  a  fleshy  pericarp.  The  poisonous  ones  (Tan- 
ghina,  Cerbera,  etc.),  the  more  frequently,  especially  in  their  kernel. 
The  others,  to  the  contrary,  are  aliments  (divers,  Carissa,  Melodinus, 
etc.),  nearly  always  in  the  pericarp. 
Fruits  with  a  Dry  Pericarp. — We  distinguish  in  these  fruits  : 
the  group  Strophanthus,  of  which  the  medicinal  species  are  African ; 
and  those  of  the  Holarrhena  and  Wrightia  employed  almost  only  in 
India. 
THE  STROPHANTHUS. 
From  the  Greek  strophos  cord,  anthos  a  flower.  The  enrolled 
aspect  of  the  lobes  of  the  corolla,  which  in  certain  species  are 
twisted  before  the  florescence  like  a  bit  of  cord  with  five  elements, 
is  the  character  upon  which  the  name  of  the  genus  was  founded  by 
A.  P.  DeCaudolle,  in  1802.  The  genus  then  contained  but  four 
species.  In  the  recent  monograph  on  this  genus  by  M.  Franchet, 
1894,  he  describes  thirty-five  species,  and  lays  aside  as  insufficiently 
known  botanically  Strophanthus  minor  and  S.  asper,  but  these  are 
important  in  materia  medica.    The  memoirs  of  Alph.  DeCandolle 
