Spec. Plant. Willd. i. 1025.

Cl. 5. Ord. 1. Pentandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Solanaceae.

G. 383. Corolla wheel-shaped. Anthers slightly coalescing, opening by two pores at the apex. Berry two-celled.

* Unarmed.

Species 15. S. Dulcamara.1 Woody Nightshade, or Bitter-sweet. Med. Bot. 3d. edit. 240. t. 85. Smithy Flora Brit. 256. Eng. Bot. 565.

Officinal. Dulcamara, Lond. Solani Dulcamarae, caules,

Edin. Dub. The stalks of Bitter-sweet.

Syn. Douce amere (F.), Bittersusstangel (G.), Bitterzoit (Dutch), Bittersode (Dan.), Quesved (Swed.), Psinki Wodne (Pol.), Dulcamara (I.), Amaradulcis (S), Docamarga (Port.), Solotucha Elsterbeeren (Russ.).

This species of solanum is an indigenous shrub, growing in hedges and shaded spots, and flowering in June and July. The root is ligneous : the stem woody, roundish, branched, and climbing sometimes to the height of six or eight feet: the leaves are alternate, on footstalks, entire, smooth, soft, about two inches long and one broad, and of a dull green colour; the lowermost cordate and undivided, and the uppermost halberd-shaped. The flowers are in elegant clusters opposite to the leaves, or terminal, drooping, and having the semblance, but not the structure, of a true cyme: each consisting of a small purplish calyx with blunt segments; a corolla of five, reflected, equally divided, pointed, bright violet-coloured segments, with two green dots at the base, and a longitudinal deeper purple vein through the centre of each segment; and large, erect, almost sessile, lemon-yellow anthers: the berries, which ripen in September and October, are oval, scarlet, very juicy, bitter, and poisonous. 2

The extreme twigs are the parts employed. They should be gathered in autumn, as at that season they are more powerful; depending perhaps on their being less succulent, and containing more of the peculiar secretion on which the virtues of the plant depend. The soil in which the plant grows also affects its medicinal powers. That grown on a high and dry situation is the best.

Qualities. - The fresh twigs have a peculiar odour, but the dried are inodorous. They have a slightly bitter taste, followed by a sweetness not unlike that of liquorice root, depending probably on an uncrystallisable sugar, with a slight degree of acrimony. Boiling water extracts all their active matter. Scheeler found that they contain citric acid. Their medicinal properties depend on an alkaline principle, which was first procured by M. Desfosses of Besancon1, and is contained in the Dulcamara in combination with malic acid: it is termed solanine or solania. It is white, pulverulent, inodorous, and slightly bitter: more soluble in alcohol than in water. It is prepared by precipitating the juice of the berries of the garden night-shade by ammonia; drying this precipitate, and treating it with boiling alcohol. The alkali is deposited as the spirit cools. It is scarcely soluble in water, but very soluble in alcohol and ether. It possesses narcotic properties. Pfaff obtained also another principle, which he termed picroglycion, or bitter-sweet. A tincture of the extract is treated with acetate of lead; and after precipitating any excess of the acetate with sulphuretted hydrogen, the fluid is evaporated, and the residue treated with ether.

The etherial solution spontaneously evaporated yields the solania. (Biltz.)

1 Citocatia of the monastic age.

2 They excite violent vomiting and purgiug.

Medical properties and uses. - Bitter-sweet is diuretic and narcotic. It has been found useful in humoral asthma, dropsy, chronic rheumatism, and in lepra vulgaris and alphos, scabies, and ptyriasis. Willan2 remarks, that it is not applicable for the cure of lepra nigricans: we can assert that it is not of the least use in acute rheumatism; and we believe of as little in fluor albus and suppression of the menses, in which it has been strongly recommended. When given in too large doses at first, it occasions nausea, vomiting, syncope, violent palpitation, and convulsive twitchings in the eyelids, the lips, and the hands. It therefore requires to be begun with small doses; and even when it is more cautiously administered, if these symptoms occur, the dose must be lessened, and some aromatic conjoined. The usual form under which it is used is that of watery infusion or decoction; but it may be also given in substance pulverised. The dose of the powder may be from x. to xxx. grains, taken in a cupful of milk.

Officinal preparation.-Decoctum Dulcamara, L.D.