Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Flückiger, Friedrich A. (Friedrich August), 1828-1894.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, through the Medical Heritage Library. The original may be consulted at the Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Harvard Medical School.

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    According to the same authority the hellebores ditler extremely in their medicinal activity. The most potent is H. orientalis Lam.; then follow H. viridis L. and H. fcetidiis L. (natives of Britain), and H. 23iirpurascens Waldst. et Kit., a Hungarian species, while H. niger is the weakest of all.-^ Description—Black Hellebore produces a knotty, fleshy, brittle rhizome which creeps and branches slowly, forming in the course of years an entangled, interlacing mass, throwing out an abundance of stout, straight roots. Both rhizome and roots are of a blackish brown, but the younger roots are of lighter tint and are covered with a short woolly tomentum. In commerce the rhizome is found with the roots more or less broken off and detached. It is in very knotty irregular pieces, 1 to 2 or 3 inches long and about ^ to ^ of an inch in diameter, internally whitish and of a horny texture. If cut transversely (especially after macera- tion), it shows a circle of white woody wedges 8 to 12 in number, surrounded by a thick bark. The roots are unbranched, scarcely yV of an inch in diameter. The younger when broken across exhibit a thick bark encircling a simple woody cord; in the older this cord tends to divide into converging wedges which present a stellate appearance, though not so distinctly as in Actcea. The drug when cut or broken has a slight odour like that of senega. Its taste is bitterish and slightly acrid. Microscopic Structure—The cortical part both of the rhizome and the rootlets exhibits no distinct medullary rays. In the rootlets the woody centre is comparatively small and enclosed by a narrow zone somewhat as in sarsaparilla. A distinct pith occurs in the rhizome but not always in the rootlets, their woody column forming one solid bundle or being divided into several. The tissue contains small starch granules and drops of fatty oil. Chemical Composition—The earlier investigations of Black Hellebore by Gmelin, and Feneulle and Capron, and of Eiegel indicated only the presence of the more usual constituents of plants. Bastick on the other hand in 1852 obtained from the root a peculiar, non-volatile, crystalline, chemically-indifferent substance which he named Hellcborin. It is stated to have a bitter taste and to produce in addition a tingling sensation on the tongue ; to be slightly soluble in water, more so in ether, and to dissolve freely in alcohol. Marm^ and A. Husemann extracted helleborin (1864) by treating with hot water the green fatty matter which is dissolved out of the root by boiling alcohol. After recrystallization from alcohol, it is obtainable in shining, colourless needles, having the composition Q36jj42Q(i^ It is stated to be highly narcotic. Helleborin appears to be more abundant in H. viridis (especially in the older roots) than in H. niger, and yet to be obtainable only to the extent of 0-4 per mille. When it is boiled with dilute sulphuric acid, or still better with solution of zinc chloride, it is converted into sugar and Helleboresin, C^^H^^O'*. Marm(i and Husemann succeeded in isolating other crystallized principles from the leaves and roots of H. niger and H. viridis, by precipitation with phospho-molybdic acid. They obtained firstly a ' Between7>i4rpMrrt,9Cf;yis and w((5f«r, Schroff Boissier holds to be simply H. orientalis places U. ponticus A. Br., a plant which ,Lam.