ON  RHATANY  ROOT. 
541 
ever,  that  the  bark  has  not  been  a  regular  article  of  trade,  but 
merely  introduced  as  an  experiment. 
As  regards  the  root  proper,  which  in  its  native  country  is  used 
for  the  same  purposes  as  with  us,  we  cannot,  like  many  writers 
on  Materia  Medica,  draw  a  distinction  between  the  structure  of 
the  principal  and  secondary  roots.  From  the  root-stock  issue  a 
number  of  roots,  which  shoot  in  different  directions,  but  with  a 
tendency  to  assume  very  soon  a  more  horizontal  course  ;  they 
are  undulating,  cylindrical,  and,  as  before  remarked,  exceedingly 
variable  in  length,  according  to  age  and  locality.  The  roots  of 
the  stumpy  sort  of  rhatany  never  equal  in  length  those  of  the 
so-called  long  sort, — a  natural  consequence  of  the  greater  care 
bestowed  in  the  collection  and  packing  of  the  latter. 
It  appears  that  upon  the  spot,  neither  the  young  nor  the  old 
plants  are  specially  chosen  for  obtaining  the  long  roots.  The 
roots  required  in  this  state  are  extracted  from  the  ground  with 
some  care  ;  each  bunch  while  fresh  is  separately  doubled  in  two, 
like  sarsaparilla,  and  then,  after  awhile,  again  bent  in  two,  a 
bundle  being  thus  formed,  round  which  a  long  root  is  twisted  a 
few  times.  This  rather  careful  plan  of  packing  obviates  the  un- 
avoidable splitting  off  of  the  bark  and  the  breaking  and  bruising 
of  the  roots  that  is  noticeable  in  the  stumpy  form  of  the  drug. 
The  length  of  these  small  bundles  varies  according  to  the  strength 
and  the  number  and  length  of  the  roots  of  the  shrub.  I  have 
seen  them  from  seven  to  fourteen  inches  long,  and  weighing  from 
three  to  ten  ounces.  A  stem  lj  inches  thick,  and  three  inches 
high,  with  three  roots  measuring  respectively  twenty-six,  twenty- 
nine,  and  fifty-nine  inches  in  length,  and  three-quarters  of  an 
inch  at  the  thickest  part,  had  been  formed  into  a  bundle  ten 
inches  long,  which  was  tied  together  by  the  ends  of  their  longest 
root,  which  ends  branched  off  at  a  distance  of  fifty  inches  from 
the  stem. 
When  one  can  examine  large  quantities  of  Payta  and  Savanilla 
Rhatany,  it  is  certainly  no  difficult  task  to  distinguish  the  one 
from  the  other ;  but  it  is  somewhat  less  easy  to  discover  single 
pieces  of  the  latter  when  mixed  with  Peruvian  Rhatany.  I 
think  it  therefore  not  superfluous  to  give  a  description  of  the  new 
Rhatany,  especially  since  the  most  copious  works  on  Materia 
Medica,  as  Thomson,  and  even  Pereira,  in  his  new  edition,  are 
