2
MATERIA MEDICA
root. Giddiness, headache and dryness or uneasiness in the throat are
the first symptoms of the bad or poisonous effect of this root, and from
idiosyncrasy some patients are apt to feel them in pretty small doses.
Whenever they are felt in the smallest degree, the drug should be
stopped at once for a day or two, and if it is necessary to use it again
after that period, it should be done only in half of its previous dose.
European Drugs , for which, it may be substituted.—For all European
medicines, which are generally employed in diabetes, spermatorrhœa,
and incontinence of urine, and for strychnine and the European aconite
root.
Remarks.—There is no other drug whose varieties are so numerous
as those of the Bish or Bachnág of the bazaar. Some well-known
native medical works describe no less than eighteen varieties of it.
Most of these, however, do not find their way into the bazaars of
Southern India, and I myself did not see more than seven or eight,
including those that had been obtained from distant places. As all the
varieties I have seen are known to grow on the Himalayan Mountains,
and bear a great resemblance to each other, there is no doubt that they
are aconite roots, but, at the same time, there is a sufficient dissimilarity
between most of them to justify the opinion that they are not the
produce of one and the same plant. They are apparently the roots of
several species of Aconitum, including Aconitum ferox. When many of
these roots are examined together, the first difference which attracts
our attention is their size, which is generally very large in some and
very small in others, and they may therefore be divided primarily into
the larger and smaller kinds. The larger kind consists of five or six
varieties, the principal of which are the white (suféd-bachnág), the
reddish-brown (lál-bachnág), the black (kálá-bachnág), and the sweet
(mítházahar). The Nos. of these varieties are 1, 2, 3 and 4, respect-
-ively, in my Collection of Drugs forwarded to the Calcutta Interna--
tional Exhibition, 1883-84.
(a) The white variety (No. 1) is a tuberous root, more or less
conical, varying in length from 2 to 4 inches, and in thickness at
i t s bas e f r om ½ t o 1½ i nches , depr es s ed or f l at t ened i r r egul ar l y, and
wrinkled chiefly in a longitudinal direction. It is deep brown externally,
pale or dull white internally, very hard, inodorous, and, on chewing, its
taste is slightly bitter at first, but is followed after a minute or two by
a more or less acrid and tingling sensation on the tongue, which lasts
from some minutes to several hours. When this root is broken into
pieces, it will not always be found of pure white color, but a portion of
it is often grey or reddish-brown, and the fracture in that portion is
resinous, waxy or shining, but in all other parts, rough and irregular.
The broken parts and prominent portions of most of the Indian aconite
roots are more or less whitened by friction, which leads to the suppo-
-sition of their being white varieties. It is generally the reverse, and
therefore their external appearance is not a correct indication of their
internal condition. In selecting for internal administration, no root
should be considered as a white variety, until it is examined by break--
ing or cutting. The suféd-bachnág is neither imported nor sold sepa-
-rately, but is picked out from the reddish-brown variety whenever it is
required. It is not half as cheap and abundant as the last-named
variety, but I have spoken of it first on account of its greater value as