808

ELEMENTS OF MATERIA MEDICA.

great centaury, but smaller and redder, odourless, loose or spong) > ^,somewhat smooth internally.” Pliny {Hist. Nat. lib. xxvii. cap- .’ed. Valp.) gives a similar account of it, under the name of Rhacorna- j.comes, lie says, from the countries beyond Pontus, resembles the bcostus, is odourless, and has a hot, astringent taste. Prosper Alp 11 aS{He Rhapontico, 1012) was of opinion that the Rha of Dioscorides the root of Rheum Rhaponticum, which Alpiuus obtained from Thi' aC ^in 1608 A. D., and cultivated at Pavia. The later Greek writerssupposed to have been acquainted with our rhubarb. Alexander ^Tralles (lib. viii. cap. 3) is the first who speaks of it. He used 1 aweakness of the liver and dysentery. Paulus vEgiueta seems to n ,a . gdistinction between Rha and Rheon. For, he says, that, in the tlU jpdand vomiting of pregnant women, we may give “ the blood-wort, b 01in water, for drink; and likewise dill, and the Pontic root, called R“ jthe dialect of that country ” (Adams’s Transl. of the Med.

Paulus , bk. i. ch. 1). In noticing the practice of the ancients, he s ‘- j-“ Alvine discharges they promoted by giving turpentine to the extei' _an olive, when going to rest; or, when they wished to purge more e , ctually, by adding a little rhubarb ” [Rheon] {Ibid. ch. 43). This lSfirst notice of the purgative proper.ies of rhubarb. ,

In one of the Arabian authors (Mesue , the younger) we find 1 'kinds of rhubarb mentioned :—The Indian, said to be the best; thebarian ; and the Turkish , which is the worst of all. g,a

Botany. Gen. Char. — Calyx petaloid, six-parted, withering, ^f^l.about nine, inserted into the base of the calyx. Styles three, refe-Stigmas peltate, entire. Achenium three-cornered, winged, " 1 !J 1withered calyx at the base. Embryo in the centre of the m bl(Lindley). .

Se^ r ®

It is not yet ascertained what species of Rheum yields the officinal rhubarb. be,species, now cultivated in this country, have been at different times declare j tepartially or wholly, the source of it. Formerly Rheum Rhaponticum was supPyield it (Alston, Mat. Med. vol. i. p. 502). . a „d to

In 1732, R. undulatum was sent from Russia to the Messrs. Jussieu at Par 15 ’ »sRand of Chelsea, as the true rhubarb. This is the species which Linnaeus descr vS ici al1R. Rhabarbarum (Ibid.) About 1750, at the desire of Kauw Boerhaave, first P' 1 -, , r jnto the Emperor of Russia , the senate commissioned a Tartarian merchant, a a ^ i)( j e drhubarb, to procure them some seeds of the genuine plant. This he did, or P 1 ®to do; and, on sowing them, two species of Rheum were obtained; namely, 111 g f tl> elatum and the palmatum (Murray, App. Med. vol. iv. p. 363). In 1762, seel J 8 pet efS 'latter species were received by Dr. Hope, of Edinburgh , from Dr. Mounsev, *burgh: they were sown, and the plants cultivated with success (Hope, P^*^ reej invol. 55, for the year 1765, p. 200). The root of this species being found to pal-many of its characters, with that of genuine rhubarb, led to the belief that ‘ doU btSmatum was the true species. The inquiries of Pallas, however, raised som e u]ia c-about the correctness of this opinion ; for the Bucharians declared thenisely es u ud• • ’ • 1 •' ' ■■ having ^,; t b

best’

the

quainted with the leaves of the palmatum, and described the true plant as havileaves, with a few incisions only at the margin. This description agreed „

Rheum compactum, the roots of which were declared, by Millar, who culmg osS »ckplant, to be as good as foreign rhubarb (Murray, 365-6). Georgi says, that a g#)).pointed out to him the leaves of the R. undulatum as the true species (Ibid-, r ^yO,These accounts were not satisfactory to the Russians ; and in consequent 1 ®’. 1 lV jtb ®Sievers, an apothecary, went to Siberia , under the auspices of Catherine 1 th eview of settling the question ; but, after four years of persevering attempts to r ■ (() \>ecountry where the true rhubarb grew, or even to obtain the seeds, he wassatisfied with negative results only. “My travels,” says he, “ as well as mylance with the Bucharians, have satisfied me that as yet nobody—that is, no . g pjjst-person—has seen the true rhubarb plant. All that is said of it, by the Jesuits ,