662

ELEMENTS OF MATERIA MEDICA.

According to Mr. Pope , the cortex yields five times as much extract asthe meditullium.

Jamaica sarsaparilla is not the produce of the island whose name dbears, but, as I am informed, of the Mosquito shore on the eastern coastof Honduras and of St. Juan , from whence it is brought to England byway of Jamaica. Occasionally it is brought from Guatemala .

In the collection of Materia Medica at Apothecaries’ Hall, London , I sa sample of sarsaparilla grown in Jamaica . Its colour is pale cinnamonbrown. Internally it is mealy. Jamaica sarsaparilla is perhaps the rootof Smilax officinalis.

2. Brazilian Sarsaparilla .- Lisbon, Portugal , or Rio Negro Sarsa-parilla ( Radix Sarzee braziliensis). This is usually exported fro' 11Maranham . It is brought over unfolded, tied in cylindrical bundles{sarsaparilla longa) of from three to five feet long, and about a foot indiameter. It is free from chump. It has fewer longitudinal wrinklesthan the Jamaica kind, fewer radicles, especially at one end; lias areddish-brown colour, and abounds in amylaceous matter, both in thecortex and pith. Its decoction is much paler coloured than the Jamah' avariety.

Martius (Reise, Bd. iii. S. 1280) says it is the produce of Srniia^siphilitica, and is gathered all the year round. After being drie 1over a fire, the roots are tied up in bundles with a flexible stemcalled Timbotitica; and to prevent them being worm-eaten, they arepreserved in the gables of the houses, where they are exposed to smoke-Dr. Hancock (Trans. Med.-Bot. Soc. 1829) has denied that the “ Rio Negr®Sarsa is the produce of S. siphilitica, because he found no auxiliaryspines on a portion of stem adhering to the roots, and Dr. LindleyMedica, p. 597) has admitted the correctness of the inference. But unhwe know the extent of stem examined, we are not authorised, I concei'' e ’to adopt Dr. Hancock’s conclusion; for in the same bale of apparent!)the same kind of sarsaparilla, we frequently find portions of st en ’(not exceeding three or four inches in length), some of which ha) cprickles, others are without them, and there is not the least ground f° rpresuming them to have been procured from different species. Profess 0 ^Guibourt, who has described (Hist, des Drog. i. 578) a second kind 0Caraccas sarsaparilla as devoid of prickles, tells me he has since B» elwith them in other samples of the same kind of sarsaparilla. ,

3. Lima Sarsaparilla (Radix Sarzee de Lima). — Originally import^from Lima, but is now frequently brought from Valparaiso, and soin^times from Costa Rica . I know of one importation of 99,000 1from the latter place. It has a close resemblance to Jamaica saI ^‘\.parilla, for which I am told it is extensively sold, but it yields a sm^vquantity of extract. It is imported folded ( sarsaparilla rotunda) 11bundles of about three feet long, and nine inches in diameter, with 11attached chump contained in the interior of the bundle. Its colourbrown or grayish brown. Occasionally a few roots are found in a h aof good Lima sarsaparilla, which, as well as their rhizome and stem, alight clay-coloured. The stems are square, and prickly; the pri c ,.are few and small, except in the clay-coloured variety. It is proh al) *the produce of Smilax officinalis.

Occasionally a knobby root, (rhizome ?) like the radix Chinee, u’hh ‘