1 Spec. Plant Willd. iv. 774. Cl. 22. Ord. 6. Dicecia Hexandria. Nat. ord. Smilaceae. G. 1800. Male. Calyx six-leaved. Corolla none. ------------Female. Calyx six-leaved. Cor. none. Styles threa

Berry three-celled. Seeds two. * Stem prickly, angular. Species 9. S. officinalis. Sarsaparilla plant.2 Humboldt, Plant.

Aequinoct. 1. 271. Officinal. Sarza, Lond. Smilacis Sarsaparillae radix,

Edin. Dub. Sarsaparilla root.

Syn. Racine de Salsepareille (F.), Sarsaparille (G.), Sarzaparille (Dutch), Radiche della Salsapariglia (I.), Zarzaparilla (S), Salsaparilha (Port.), Juape-canha (Brazil).

Smilax officinalis is a native of South America, growing on the river Magdalena. The roots are somewhat thicker than a goose-quill, straight, externally brown, internally white, and three or four feet in length. The stems are shrubby, long, slender, scandent, and beset with spines: the leaves alternate, petiolate, oblong oval, pointed, cordate, coriaceous, smooth, with five to seven cortae. The flowers stand three or four together upon a common peduncle; the calyx of the male flower is bell-shaped, coloured, with the segments oblong, spreading, and reflected at their points: the filaments are six, simple, and bearing oblong anthers: the calyx of the female flower is also bell-shaped: the germen ovate, supporting three minute styles, with oblong, reflexed, hairy stigmas : and the fruit a round, three-celled berry, containing two globular seeds. But several species of smilax are gathered under the name of sarsaparilla. The best grows wild on the borders of a lake on the north of the Cerra Unturan, not far from Esmeralda. It is celebrated all over South America by the name of Zarza del Rio Negro.8

The dried root is imported packed in bales. It is known in the London market by the names Lisbon, Jamaica, Honduras, and Vera Cruz Sarza. Humboldt states that nearly 5000 quintals are annually exported from Vera Cruz.4 The

2 Bauhin derives the name from zarsa, which, he says, is the Spanish for red; and parilla, a little vine. The latter part of the derivation is correct; but we are inclined to think the first part must be referred to zarza, a brier or bush : hence Zarzaparilla would imply a bushy little vine.

3 It is purposely smoked in drying it. - Humboldt's Personal Nar. vol. v. p. 378. trans.

4 Polit. Essay, vol. ii. p. 442. Clusius asserts, that Europe received the first sarsaparilla from Iucaton and the island of Puna, opposite Guayaquil.

Lisbon root, which is the produce of Brazil, growing between the sources of the Orinoco and the Rio Nigro, has a reddish or dark brown cuticle; is internally farinaceous, and more free from fibre than the other kinds: the Honduras has a dirty brown, and sometimes greyish cuticle; is more fibrous, and has more ligneous matter than the Lisbon. The Jamaica differs from the others, in having a deep red cuticle of a close texture, and the colour is partially diffused through the ligneous part.1 The Vera Cruz is in long slender twigs, covered with a wrinkled brown cuticle, and has a small woody heart.

Qualities.-This root is inodorous, and has a mucilaginous, very slightly bitter taste. The whole of the efficacious part of the plant resides in the bark, the ligneous part being tasteless, inert, woody fibre. The root when macerated communicates to cold as well as to boiling water, and partially to alcohol and ether, any active matter it possesses. The watery -infusion has a brown colour, reddens litmus paper, and yields a precipitate with infusion of galls, which is again dissolved when the infusion is heated, demonstrating its close affinity to starch. It is precipitated also by lime-water, and solution of nitrate of mercury, and acetate of lead: but it is not af-fected by sulphate of iron, or any other of the metallic oxides. The alcoholic tincture has a yellowish red hue, is rendered turbid by the addition of water, and yields a slightly bitter pungent extract. Ether takes up two parts in ten of the powdered root; and the tincture, which has a golden yellow colour, when evaporated on water, leaves a small portion of reddish yellow insipid resin, and a larger of yellowish extractive dissolved in the water. The root brought from Jamaica yields rather more than two parts for one of extract yielded by the other kinds, and is, therefore, regarded as the best for medicinal use.

M. Galileo-Pallota has separated from it an alkaloid substance, in which he supposes the virtue of the root resides, and has named it parillina. This salt is white, pulverulent, light, permanent in the air, austere, slightly astringent, nauseous, and having a peculiar odour. It is insoluble in cold, but very soluble in hot water; slightly soluble in cold alcohol, but very soluble in hot. It reddens turmeric paper, fuses at 212°, and is decomposed at a higher temperature; forms a sulphate with diluted sulphuric acid, but is decomposed by the strong acid. It forms neutral salts with the

1 The Smilax aspera and excelsa, which is described by Theophrastus, and grows in the woods and on the hills of the Bosphorus, is used in the Levant, in decoctions, as a substitute for sarsaparilla.-Hort. Trans, vol. vi other acids.1 Thubeuf analysed Sarza and obtained 1. a crystallized principle, the parillina of Pallotta; 2. colouring matter; 3. resin; 4. starch; 5. lignin; 6. a fixed oil; 7. wax; 8. hydrochlorate and nitrate of potassa. The smi-lacin of Folchi, and the parillinic acid of Bakta are the same as the crystalline principle of Thubeuf; but it is doubtful whether this can be regarded as the active principle of Sarza.

Medical properties and uses. - Sarsaparilla is demulcent, and said to be diuretic. It was brought to Europe about the year 1563, and introduced as a medicine of great efficacy in the cure of lues venerea; but it fell into disrepute, and was little used, till it was again brought into esteem by Dr. William Hunter and Sir William Fordyce, about the middle of the last century; not, however, as a remedy fitted to cure syphylis2, but of much efficacy in rendering a mercurial course more certain, and after the use of mercury.3 Experience, however, has not verified the encomiums bestowed on it; and the extensive observations of Mr. Pearson have fixed the degree of benefit which is to be expected from this root in syphilitic complaints. "The contagious matter, and the mineral specific, may," he observes, "jointly produce, in certain habits of body, a new series of symptoms, which, strictly speaking, are not venereal4; which cannot be cured by mercury, and which are sometimes more to be dreaded than the simple and natural effects of the venereal virus.

Some of the most formidable of these appearances may be removed by sarsaparilla, the venereal virus still remaining in the system; and when the force of the poison has been completely subdued by mercury, the same vegetable is also capable of freeing the patient from what may be called the sequelae of a mercurial course." 5 Sarsaparilla is also recommended in scrofula, elephantiasis or cutaneous affections resembling it, and chronic rheumatism; but its efficacy is doubtful. From experiment made upon himself, M. Pallota considers that parillin is a powerful debilitating medicine, diminishing the vital energy in proportion to the dose.

Journal, of Science, xviii. p. 164.

2 The celebrated Mutis, in a letter to the younger Linnaeus, says, "Scarcely any Lues Venerea resists my method of administering a drink of this medicine." (Correspondence of Linnaeus, vol. ii. p. 549.) But we must recollect that syphilitic complaints are as benign as they are common, both among the whites and the mixed castes, in South America; and as they yield to this remedy, the quantity of sarsaparilla employed in the Spanish colonies is very considerable. See Humboldt's Pers. Nar. vol. v. p. 379.

3 Medical Observations and Enquiries, vol. i.

4 The symptoms alluded to are nocturnal pains in the limbs, painful enlargements of the knee and elbow joints, membranous nodes, and cutaneous ulcerations, arising after a full course of mercury.

5 Pearson on Remedies for Lues Venerea, p. 24.

The dose of the powdered root is from Э j. to 3j., given three or four times a day. Of the parillin from grs. ii. to xiii. may be given for a dose.

Officinal preparations. - Decoctum Sarzae, L. Decoctum Sarsaparillae, E. D. Decoctum Sarsaparillae compositum, D. Extractum Sarzae, L. Eztractum Sarsaparillae fluidum, D. Infusum Sarsaparillae compositum, D.