204 
VERATRUM  VIRIDE, 
tice)  consisted  only  of  bad  ether  and  good  alcohol,  and  was 
doubtless  made  where  it  was  sold,  for  the  house  that  sold  it  "  did 
not  know  where  it  was  made." 
TJ.  S.  Naval  Laboratory,  New  York,  March,  1857. 
ON  VERATRUM  VIRIDE. 
By  Joseph  G.  Richardson,  of  Philadelphia. 
{An  Inaugural  Essay  presented  to  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Pharmacy.) 
The  subject  of  the  Veratrum  viride,  or  American  hellebore, 
appears  to  have  attracted  considerable  attention  in  the  pharma- 
ceutical world  about  twenty  years  since,  when  the  Journal  of 
Pharmacy  contained  several  articles  giving  the  results  of  experi- 
ments on  this  plant.  In  the  October  number  for  the  year  1835 
(Vol.  I.  second  series),  is  an  able  paper  by  Dr.  Charles  Osgood,  of 
Providence,  R.  L,  who  seems  to  have  been  one  of  the  first  to  call 
particular  attention  to  the  drug ;  by  preparing  a  decoction  of 
the  root,  precipitating  by  ammonia,  boiling  this  precipitate  with 
animal  charcoal,  and  evaporating  the  solution,  he  obtained  a 
white,  inodorous  and  very  acrid  powder,  which  he  considered  to 
be  the  active  principle  of  the  plant.  He  states,  however,  that  in 
drying  this  substance  at  about  the  temperature  of  120°  F.  the 
greater  part  of  it  was  volatilized  and  lost,  thereby  preventing  his 
intended  examination  of  its  properties,  and  he  was  subsequently 
prevented  by  professional  engagements  from  repeating  his  ex- 
periment. Fortunately,  however,  these  duties  did  not  interfere 
with  his  making  extended  observations  on  the  therapeutical  vir- 
tues, which  he  found  to  be  of  considerable  importance,  although 
differing  in  some  respects  from  those  of  the  white  hellebore ;  and 
from  this  dissimilarity  in  its  effects  upon  the  human  system,  as 
well  as  from  the  volatility  of  the  principle  which  he  obtained  in 
his  first  experiment,  he  concluded  that  the  plant  did  not  contain 
veratria. 
In  the  ninth  volume  of  the  Journal  a  paper  by  Thomas  A. 
Mitchell  is  presented,  giving  a  proximate  analysis  of  this  plant, 
in  which  he  mentions  having  obtained  an  active  principle  in  the 
form  of  a  white  powder,  but  in  such  small  amount  as  to  preclude 
a  chemical  examination  of  its  properties. 
But  the  most  accurate  investigation  of  the  Veratrum  viride  as 
