OBSERVATIONS ON PODOPHYLLUM PELTATUM. 165 
ART, LI. — OBSERVATIONS ON PODOPHYLLUM PELTATUM. 
By John R. Lewis. 
(An Inaugural Essay.) 
The subject of this essay is among the most interesting of 
our indigenous Materia Medica, and has long attracted the 
attention of medical men for its active and efficient power 
as a cathartic ; and were it not for the presence of a foreign 
drug in our market, possessed of similar and more active 
powers, there is little doubt but that the root of Podophyl- 
lum would attain a more prominent reputation as a purga- 
tive than it at present enjoys. 
Its adoption in the United States Pharmacopoeia, and the 
formula for the extract of it which there exists, are acknow- 
ledgements of its merits not to be disputed. Its chemical 
history has hitherto been but little examined into. Several 
years since Mr. Wm. Hodgson, Jr., of this city, in some 
experiments on this plant published in the American Jour- 
nal of Pharmacy, describes a peculiar bitter principle 
existing in its root, which he obtained by boiling the drug 
with quick lime in water, and other subsequent treatment, 
but which he did not succeed in obtaining in a state of 
purity, 
In the investigations detailed in the following pages, I 
have pursued the path pointed out by Mr. Hodgson as well 
as followed such indications as my own experience has 
suggested; which have thrown some light on the chemical 
relations of the Podophyllum, and shown a striking analogy 
between it and Jalap. 
BOTANICAL HISTORY. 
Podophyllum Peltatum. 
Common names. — May Apple, Mandrake, Wild Lemon. 
Sexual System. — Polyandria, Monogynia. 
Natural Order. — Ranunculi, Jussieu. 
15* 
