Edin. -BULBUS, SEMINA, Dub

The bulb and the seeds of Meadow-saffron.

Syn Colchique (F.), Zeitloze, Weissen saffron (G.), Tydeloosin (Dutch), Hundeded (Dan.), Tidlbsa (Swed), Colchico Autumnale (I. S.), Rozsiad (Pol.), Colkikon (Dioscor.)

This is an indigenous perennial plant, generally found, in many parts of Europe, growing in moist rich meadow grounds3, and flowering in September. The bulb is solid, egg shaped, and covered with a brown, membranous coat. The leaves, which appear in spring, are radical and spear-shaped, about five inches long, and half an inch broad at the base. They wither away entirely before the end of summer, and are nevertheless preceded by the flower, which appears in autumn without any leaves.1 It is, however, proper to state, that the bulb from whichthe flowers spring is the offset of that from which the leaves have decayed. There is no calyx. The corolla, which is of a pale pinkish lilac colour, springs directly from the bulb, and consists of a tube about five inches long, two thirds of which are sunk in the ground, and a limb divided into six lanceolate keeled segments. The filaments are half the length of the segments of the corolla, subulate, united to the upper part of the tube, and supporting yellow erect anthers. The stigmas are revolute. The fruit is a three-lobed, three-celled capsule, on a thick, short peduncle. The impregnated germen remains under ground, close to the bulb, till the following spring, when it rises in its capsular form above the surface, accompanied by the leaves.

The seeds are ripe about the end of June.

1 The Brazilians call it Inaia-miri.

2 The Edinburgh College has erred in using the word radix instead of cormue. 3 It is very abundant in Essex and Suffolk.

The thick old bulb begins to decay after the flower is perfectly expanded; and the new bulbs, of which there are always two on each old bulb, are perfected in the following June, from which time until the middle of August they may be taken up for medicinal use. The bulbs, when mature, on being cut transversely, yield a milky-looking acrid juice, which produces a beautiful cerulean blue colour, if rubbed with the alcoholic solution of guaiacum. To preserve the virtues of the plant, the bulb, as soon as possible after it is dug up, should be cut into transverse slices, not thicker than one eighth of an inch, and dried by placing the slices on clean white bibulous paper, distinct from one another, without heat, or at a very low temperature. The test of the drug being good and properly dried, is the appearance of the blue colour, on rubbing it with a little distilled vinegar and the alcoholic solution of guaiacum. The slices also should not appear deeply notched or panduriform; as this is the mark of the bulb having begun to empty itself for the nourishment of the young bulbs; and, consequently, to suffer in its medicinal powers, from the chymical change which, at this period, its contents must necessarily undergo for the nourishment of the offsets.

The slices should be preserved in well-stopped bottles.1

1 From this circumstance it is called "naked lady" in some parts of the country.

The seeds of colchicum should be collected in July and August. They are nearly round, in size about one-eighth of an inch, and of a reddish brown colour. Their active properties reside in the testa; they do not spoil by being kept.

Qualities.-The recent bulb of this plant has scarcely any odour, but the little it has is hircine. When it is dug up at a proper season of the year, the taste is bitter, hot, and acrid, occasioning a warm sensation in the stomach, even when taken in a small quantity. At other seasons, however, and in some soils and situations, it possesses very little acrimony, and thence the contradictory opinions which authors have given of it. Its acrimony is said to reside in veratria, which can be separated from the other principles; this is the opinion of MM. Pelletier and Caventou, who discovered it in 1819, but Hesse and Geiger assert that it is a different alkaloid, which they have named colchicia.2 It is procured in slender acicular crystals, is inodorous, has a bitter biting taste, but is less acrid than veratria, from which it differs in being soluble in water, and forming crystallizable salts with acids. The other components of the bulb are the following: a fatty matter, malic acid, a yellow colouring matter, gum, starch, inulin in great abundance, and lignin. Vinegar and wine are the best menstrua for extracting the active qualities of the bulb.

A deposit forms in the wine, which Sir E. Home says is extremely acrid, exciting nausea and griping, and ought to be removed, as its removal does not alter the virtues of the medicine.3 The seeds contain colchicia, and yield it up to wine, vinegar, and alcohol.

Medical properties and uses.-Meadow-saffron possesses diuretic, purgative, and narcotic properties. It is the hermo dactylon of the ancients. On the Continent, where it was recommended to notice by Baron Stoerck, it is a favourite remedy in dropsy, particularly hydrothorax, and in humoral asthma. But as it does not differ in its mode of action from squill, and is more uncertain in its operation, it has not been much used in that complaint in this country. In gout, rheumatism, and other diseases of excitement, however, its efficacy has been fully ascertained; and, in allaying the pain of gout, it may be almost said to possess a specific property, It operates on the bowels chiefly, stimulating the orifice of the common gall duct in the duodenum, so as to produce copious bilious evacuations; and acting on the nerves, it diminishes the action of the arterial system. The petals of the flower, and the seed, possess the same medicinal properties as the bulb. In the seed the veratria exists in the testa or husk, and consequently the seeds should not be bruised in preparing the wine or tincture with them.

When Golchicum is overdosed it operates as a powerful poison; causing severe diarrhoea, and the most dangerous collapse.

1 Horses eat the flowers of colchicum with impunity; it acts as a poison to all other quadrupeds.

2 To obtain colchicia, digest seeds of colchicum in boiling alcohol, and precipitate with magnesia. Dry the precipitate, and boil it with fresh alcohol: the colchicia is obtained by evaporation. Geiger.

3 Phil. Trans. 1817,' part ii.

The dose in substance is from grs. iij. to grs. ix. of the dried bulb : and of the saturated vinous infusions, made by macerating jss. of the dried bulb, or j. of the dried petals, or of the seed, in f xij. of white wine, from xx. to lx. may be taken whenever the patient is in pain.

Officinal preparations.-Acetum Colchici, L. Oxymel Colchici, D. Syrupus Colchici autumnalis, E. Vinum Colchici, L. Tinctura Seminum Colchici, D.