144 
SELECTED ARTICLES. 
considered whether advantage might not be derived from the 
stated publication of authentic lists of the price of genuine 
drugs, and the announcement from authority of recently ob- 
served adulterations. But these and various other subsidiary 
measures will be better left for that ulterior inquiry which it 
is hoped will be instituted upon the whole question. 
Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ. for April, 1S3S. 
ART. XXV.—ON THE IDENTITY OF THE BARK OF THE 
STRYCHNOS NUX VOMICA WITH THE FALSE ANGUS- 
TURA OF WRITERS ON MATERIA MEDICA. By W. B. 
O'Shaughnessy, M. D., Professor of Chemistry, Medical College, 
Calcutta. 
Few medicinal barks have ever attracted more attention 
than that generally termed the false Angustura. Introduced 
into Europe originally as the bark of the Galipea febrifuga, 
its poisonous properties soon denoted a different source. The 
Brucea ferruginea and anti-dysentericaweve next suspected, 
and this erroneous idea continued to be entertained so long, 
that on an alkaloid being discovered in the bark, in 1S22, it 
was named Brucine, in conformity with the supposed origin 
of the bark. In 1823, however, it was ascertained that the 
bark in question arrived in Europe exclusively from South 
America, and not from the shores of the Red Sea, where the 
Brucea ferruginea, or vooginoos, is indigenous. 
The question has continued at issue, from 1S25 to the pre- 
sent period. In 1828 was published M. Fee's admirable 
work on the Natural History of Remedies; and this author, 
whose elaborate research is quite unsurpassed, describes the 
false angustura as " Arbor ignota, habitat in America meri- 
dionali." Dr. Duncan, in the last edition Edinburgh Dis- 
pensatory, 1830, says the tree from which the false angustura 
