Page:Botanic drugs, their materia medica, pharmacology, and therapeutics (1917).djvu/18

 dred of them, but in no classified form. His work stood for long, and the Greeks added but little to it; but the Arabians, more especially Ebn Baithar, added camphor, senna, nux vomica, and other drugs. Aëtius finally classified the materia medica.

The seventh century A. D. gave to medicine the works of Paulus Aegineta. 2 His writings are a wonderful record, commenting literally upon hundreds of botanic remedies, among which may be noted aconite, aloes, bryonia, belladonna, colchicum, cannabis, colocynth, elaterium, gentian, hyoscyamus, lactucarium, male fern, nux vomica, opium, pulsatilla, ricinus, rhubarb, squill, senna, triticum, thyme, valerian, and a host of familiar plants, as well as many long since forgotten ones.

But it is of passing interest to note that he described many again brought to notice in the centuries-later writings of Hahnemann, of Homeopathic fame, and of Scudder, the principal writer of the Eclectic School. Among these botanic drugs may be noted boletus, agnus castus, populus nigra, urtica dioica, sambucus, plantago, asclepias, carduus benedictus, helleborus niger, avena, gnaphalium, eupatorium, senecio, eryngium, bursa pastoris, iris, equisetum, juglans, cistus, corallium, allium, coniuin, corydalis, xanthium, oenanthe, polygonatum, rhus, achillea, solanum, symphytum, hypericum, chelidonium, berberis, anacardium, and a host of others. In fact, from Aegineta and the medieval European writers Hahnemann took the greater part of his remedies, accepting their nomenclature and much of their data.

2 "The Seven Books of Paulus Aegineta," translated into English by the Sydenham Society at the hand of Francis Adams, 1847.