_Radix Chinæ_; _China Root_; F. _Squine_; G. _Chinawurzel_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Smilax China_ L., a woody, thorny, climbing
shrub, is commonly said to afford this drug. The plant is a native
of Japan, the Loochoo islands, Formosa, China, Cochin China, also of
Eastern India, as Kasia, Assam, Sikkim, Nepal. The chief authority for
attributing the China root to this plant is Kämpfer, who saw the latter
in Japan and figured it.[2652]
_S. glabra_ Roxb. and _S. lanceæfolia_ Roxb., natives of India and
Southern China, have tubers which, according to Roxburgh, cannot be
distinguished from the China root of medicine, though the plants are
perfectly distinct in appearance from _S. China_. Dr. Hance,[2653] of
Whampoa, received a living specimen of China root, which proved to be
that of _S. glabra_. The three above-named species all grow in the
island of Hongkong.
[2650] See Christophson, in Dragendorff’s _Jahresbericht_, 1874. 155.
[2651] _Elements of Mat. Med._ ii. (1850) 1168.
[2652] “_Sankira_,” p. 783 in the first work quoted in the Appendix;
another fig. will be found in Nees von Esenbeck’s _Plantæ medicinales_,
Düsseldorf, 1828.
[2653] Trimen’s _Journ. of Bot._ i. (1872) 102.—_S. glabra_ and _S.
lanceæfolia_ have been figured by Seemann in his _Botany of the
Herald_, 1852-57, tabb. 99-100. _S. China_ is well represented in
the Kew Herbarium, where we have examined specimens from Nagasaki,
Hakodadi, and Yokohama; from Loochoo, Corea, Formosa, Ningpo; and
Indian ones from Khasia, Assam, and Nepal.
=History=—The use of this drug as a remedy for syphilis was made known
to the Portuguese at Goa by Chinese traders about A.D. 1535. Garcia de
Orta, who makes this statement, further narrates that so great was the
reputation of the new drug, that the small quantities first brought to
Malacca were sold at the rate of 10 crowns per _ganta_, a weight of 24
ounces.
Possibly the drug found its way to Europe even before that year, for
we find a careful description of it in the posthumous works[2654] of
Valerius Cordus and Walther Ryff[2655] states in 1548 that the root was
brought a few years ago to Venice.
The reported good effects of China root on the Emperor Charles V. who
was suffering from gout, acquired for the drug a great celebrity in
Europe, and several works[2656] were written in praise of its virtues.
But though its powers were soon found to have been greatly overrated,
it still retained some reputation as a sudorific and alterative,
and was much used at the end of the 17th century in the same way as
sarsaparilla. It still retains a place in some modern pharmacopœias.
[2654] Edit. by Conrad Gesner, fol. 212 of the work quoted in the
Appendix.
[2655] ... _Bericht der Natur ... der Wurtzel China_, Würzburg, 1548.
4°.
[2656] The earliest of which is by Andreas Vesalius, _Epistola
rationem, modumque pro pinandi radicis_ Chymae (sic!) _decocti, quo
nuper invictissimus Carolus V. imperator usus est_, Venet., 1546.
=Description=—The plant produces stout fibrous roots, here and there
thickened into large tubers, which when dried become the drug China
root. These tubers, as found in the market, are of irregularly
cylindrical form, usually a little flattened, sometimes producing short
knobby branches. They are from about 4 to 6 or more inches in length,
and 1 to 2 inches in thickness, covered with a rusty-coloured, rather
shining bark, which in some specimens is smooth and in others more or
less wrinkled. They have no distinct traces of rudimentary leaves,
which however are perceptible on those of some allied species. Some
still retain portions of the cord-like woody runners on which they
grew; the bases of a few roots can also be observed. The tubers mostly
show marks of having been trimmed with a knife.
China root is inodorous and almost insipid. A transverse section
exhibits the interior as a dense granular substance of a pale fawn
colour.
=Microscopic Structure=—The outermost cortical layer is made up of
brown, thick-walled cells, tangentially-extended. They enclose numerous
tufts of needle-shaped crystals of calcium oxalate, and reddish-brown
masses of resin. The bark is at once succeeded by the inner parenchyme
which contrasts strongly with it, consisting of large, thin-walled,
porous cells which are completely gorged with starch, but here and
there contain colouring matter and bundles of crystals. The starch
granules are large (up to 50 mkm.), spherical, often flattened and
angular from mutual pressure. Like those of colchicum, they exhibit
a radiate hilum: very frequently they have burst and run together,
probably in consequence of the tubers having been scalded. The vascular
bundles scattered through the parenchyme, contain usually two large
scalariform or reticulated vessels, a string of delicate thin-walled
parenchyme, and elegant wood-cells with distinct incrusting layers and
linear pores.
=Chemical Composition=—The drug is not known to contain any substance
to which its supposed medicinal virtues can be referred. We have
endeavoured to obtain from it _Parillin_, the crystalline principle of
sarsaparilla, but without success.
=Commerce=—China root is imported into Europe from the South of
China—usually from Canton. The quantity shipped from that port in
1872, was only 384 peculs (51,200 lb.); while the same year there was
shipped from Hankow, the great trading city of the Yangtsze, no less
than 10,258 peculs (1,367,733 lb.), all to Chinese ports. For the
year 1874, these figures were: Hankow 9393 peculs, valued at 53,194
taels (one tael about 5_s._ 10_d._), Kewkiang 3627 peculs, Ningpo 2905
peculs,[2657] and for 1877 Hankow 12,075 peculs, Kewkiang 3942 peculs.
=Uses=—Notwithstanding the high opinion formerly entertained of the
virtues of China root, it has in England fallen into complete disuse.
In China and India it is still held in great esteem for the relief
of rheumatic and syphilitic complaints, and as an aphrodisiac and
demulcent. Polak asserts that the tubers of _Smilax_ are consumed as
food by Turcomans and Mongols.[2658]
=Substitutes=—Several American species of _Smilax_ furnish a nearly
allied drug, which at various times has been brought into commerce as
_Radix Chinæ occidentalis_. It was already known to the authors of the
16th century; we met with it in 1872, and before, in the London market,
as an importation from Puntas Arenas, the port of Costa Rica on the
Pacific coast.
Of the exact species it is difficult to speak with certainty: but
_S. Pseudo-China_ L. and _S. tamnoides_ L. growing in the United
States from New Jersey southwards; _S. Balbisiana_ Knth., a plant
common in all the West Indian Islands; and _S. Japicanga_ Griseb.,
_S. syringoides_ Griseb. and _S. Brasiliensis_ Spreng., are reputed
to afford large tuberous rhizomes which in their several localities
replace the China root of Asia, and are employed in a similar
manner.[2659]
[2657] _Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports in China for 1872_, pp.
34, 154, and the same for 1874.
[2658] See p. 324, note 2.—We quote this statement with reserve,
knowing that both Chinese and Europeans sometimes confound China
root with the singular fungoid production termed _Pachyma Cocos_.
The first is called in Chinese _Tu-fuh-ling_,—the second _Fuh-ling_
or _Pe-fuh-ling_.—See Hanbury, _Pharm. Journ._ iii. (1862) 421; and
_Science Papers_, 202. 267.—F. Porter Smith, _Mat. Med. and Nat.
Hist. of China_, 1871. 198; Dragendorff, _Volksmedicin Turkestans_ in
Buchner’s _Repertorium_, xxii. (1873) 135.
[2659] De Candolle’s monograph, quoted at p. 705, note 4, may be
consulted on the above species.