NUR VOMICA  , a poisonous

drug, consisting of the seed of Sirychnos Nux-Vomica, a tree belonging to the natural order Loganiaceae, indigenous to most parts of India, and found also in Burma, Siam, Cochin China and northern Australia . The tree is of moderate size, with a short, thick, often crooked, stem, and ovate entire leaves, marked with three to five veins radiating from the base of the leaf . The flowers are small, greenish-white and tubular, and are arranged in terminal corymbs . The fruit is of the size of a small orange, and has a thin hard shell, enclosing a bitter, gelatinous white pulp, in which from i to 5 seeds are vertically embedded . The seed is disk-shaped, rather less than 1 in. in diameter, and about f in. in thickness, slightly depressed towards the centre, and in some varieties furnished with an acute keel-like ridge at the margin . The external surface of the seed is of a greyish-green colour and satiny appearance, due to a coating of appressed silky hairs . The interior of the seed consists chiefly of horny albumen, which is easily divided along its outer edge into halves by a fissure, in which lies the embryo . The latter is about in. long, and has a pair of heart-shaped membranous cotyledons . The chief constituents of the seeds are the alkaloids strychnine (q.v.) and brucine, the former averaging about o•4%, and the latter about half this amount . The seeds also contain an acid, strychnic or igasuric acid; a glucoside, loganin; sugar and fat . The dose of the seeds is s to 4 grains . The British Pharmacopoeia contains three preparations of nux vomica .

The liquid

extract is standardized to contain 1.5% of strychnine; the extract is standardized to contain 5%; and the tincture, which is the most widely used, is standardized to contain o•25% . The pharmacology of nux vomica is practically that of strychnine . The tincture is chiefly used in cases of atonic dyspepsia, and is superior to all other bitter tonics, in that it is antiseptic and has a more powerful action upon the movements of the gastric wall . The extract is of great value in the treatment of simple constipation .