Gentian, in medicine, the root of the plant gentiana lutea, growing wild in the mountainous portions of Europe, and imported into the United States from Germany. Some other species are also used for medicinal purposes.

Gentiana lutea.

One of these, known as the blue gentian (G. Catesbai), is found in the grassy swamps of the Carolinas, and so closely resembles in its properties the officinal gentian, that it is used at the south, and is introduced into the catalogue of the United States pharmacopoeia. Its flowers are blue; those of the foreign gentian are yellow, which is also the color of the powdered root. Both have at first a sweetish taste, followed by intense bitterness; and both yield their medicinal qualities to water and alcohol. Its bitter principle, called gentiopicrine, is soluble in water and alcoliol, and is neither an acid nor an alkaloid, but ranks as a glucoside. The Swiss and Tyrolese macerate the plant in cold water, and the sugar it contains causing it to ferment on standing, they distil from it a spirituous liquor, bitter and , unpleasant, but much used by them. As a tonic it has been used from remote times, and the name is said to have been given to it from Gentius, a king of Illyria. It is found as an ingredient in many of the ancient receipts transmitted from the Greeks and Romans. Its effects closely resemble those of the other pure bitters, such as quassia and Colombo. In small doses and in suitable cases it increases the appetite, and invigorates digestion.

In large doses, or in cases to which it is not adapted, it is liable to disagree with the stomach, exciting nausea and irritating the bowels, and cannot therefore be administered without due reference to the condition of these organs. It is given in powder, in extract, infusion, tincture, or sirup. The powder has been used as an external application to ulcers. In convalescence from fevers and acute diseases, when there is little appetite and a feeble digestion, gentian often increases the former and aids the latter. It is not well borne when there is any irritation or inflammation of the mucous membrane of the stomach. The tincture contains a large proportion of alcohol, and its physiological and therapeutical value is affected by this ingredient, whose presence should not be forgotten by those who take or administer it. A craving for ardent spirits may be engendered by the long continued use of tincture of gentian and similar tinctures.-Besides the native gentian mentioned above, there are several others found in the Atlantic states, among the most conspicuous of which is the closed gentian, G. An-drewsii; the inflated club-shaped blue corolla of this species never opens at the mouth.

One of the most beautiful of all wild flowers is the fringed gentian, G. crinita, a much-branched annual or biennial species found in low grounds in autumn; the corolla is about two inches long, the tube and its elegantly fringed lobes of a deep sky-blue. The alpine gentians, G. acan-lis, G. verna, G. Pyrenaica, and others, which are among the gems of European flower gardens, are rarely seen in this country, as our soils become too dry in summer to suit their alpine nature.

Gentiana Andrevvsii.