312 
Substitute  for  Alcohol. 
/Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
I       July,  1900. 
and  larger  trunks  is  avoided  as  being  different  in  properties  and 
effects.  In  common  with  the  willow  the  wood  of  the  branches  was, 
and  probably  is  still,  used  for  making  a  charcoal  for  sportsman's  gun- 
powder, and  this  secures  the  peeling  of  the  proper  quality  of  the 
bark  at  the  proper  season.  The  bark  is  carefully  air-dried  and  not 
used  until  seasoned  for  at  least  a  year. 
Buckthorn  was  introduced  into  the  materia  medica  of  this 
country  about  1868-70  by  Dr.  John  P.  Gray,  the  well-known  alien- 
ist, who,  for  so  many  years,  had  charge  of  the  New  York  State 
Lunatic  Asylum  at  Utica,  and  who  was  killed  there  by  the  pistol- 
shot  of  one  of  his  insane  patients. 
Returning  from  a  professional  visit  to  some  of  the  European 
hospitals  for  the  insane,  he  brought  a  bag  containing  a  few  pounds 
of  buckthorn.  Finding  it  rather  inconvenient  to  use  in  decoction 
or  in  substance  by  chewing,  as  was  the  practice  abroad,  he  brought 
the  bag  to  this  writer,  who  advised  the  form  of  a  fluid  extract, 
made  it  into  a  fluid  extract  for  him,  and  soon  after  imported 
from  Hamburg  the  first  considerable  lots  that  are  known  to  have 
come  to  this  country.  By  January,  1872,  the  bark  and  fluid  extract 
were  accessible  in  the  markets  and  by  1880  had  so  increased  in  use 
as  to  be  admitted  to  the  U.S.P. 
From  that  time  to  the  present,  without  special  advertising  or 
effort  and  against  an  active  competition  with  Rhamnus  Purshiana, 
which  has  had  much  special  advertising  and  effort,  it  has  steadily 
increased  in  appreciation  and  use.  For  more  information  in  regard 
to  it  see  Ephemeris,  Vol.  Ill,  No.  2,  pp.  .1045-1052,  1887.  . 
The  bark  of  Rhamnus  Purshiana,  cascara  sagrada,  was  admitted 
to  the  U.S.P.  in  1890.  "Attention  was  first  drawn  to  the  virtues 
of  this  plant  in  1878  by  Bunday,  of  California." — National  Dispen- 
satory, Fifth  Edition,  1894,  p.  1375. 
The  shrub  or  small  tree  is  indigenous  to  the  Western  coast  of 
North  America  and  seems  to  have  been  sometimes  confused  with 
other  varieties  of  Rhamnus.  See  John  W.  Farlow,  M.D.,  for  a 
paper  on  "  Cascara  Sagrada,  and  its  Use  in  the  Treatment  of  Con. 
stipation,"  in  the  Boston  Medical  and  Surgical  Journal  for  October, 
1887,  p.  402.  See  also  papers  in  the  Ephemeris,  Vol.  Ill,  pp. 
984-1243,  1887. 
This  bark,  under  the  name  cascara  sagrada,  or  simply  cascara, 
is  now  a  large  article  of  commerce  here  and  is  exported  in  very 
