ROUGH BINDWEED, in botany: A genus of plants belonging to the class of dicotyledons and order of Liliaceae; and in the natural system ranging under the fifth order, Sarmentaceae. The male calyx is hexaphyllous, and there is no corolla; the female calyx is also hexaphyllous, without any corolla; there are three styles, a trilocular berry, and two seeds. There are 18 species; the alpea, excella, zeitanica, saraparilla, china, rotundifolia, laurifolia, tannoides, caduca, bona nox, herbaccea, tetragona, lanceolata, and pseudo china. Of these, the smilax saraparilla, which affords the saraparilla root, is the most valuable. This is well described in the London Medical Journal by Dr. Wright, who, during a long residence in Jamaica, made botany his peculiar study.

"This species (says he) has stems of the thickness of a man's finger: they are jointed, triangular, and beset with crooked spines. The leaves are alternate, smooth and shining on the upper side; on the other side are three nerves or costae, with sundry small crooked spines. The flower is yellow, mixed with red. The fruit is a black berry, containing several brown seeds.

"Saraparilla delights in low moist grounds and near the banks of rivers. The roots run superficially under the surface of the ground. The gatherers have only to loosen the soil a little, and to draw out the long fibres with a wooden hook. In this manner they proceed till the whole root is got out. It is then cleared of the mud, dried, and made into bundles.

"The sensible qualities of saraparilla are mucilaginous and farinaceous, with a slight degree of acrimony. The latter, however, is so slight as not to be perceived by many; and I am apt to believe that its medicinal powers may fairly be ascribed to its demulcent and farinaceous qualities.

"Since the publication of Sir William Fordyce's paper on Saraparilla in the Medical Observations and Inquiries, Vol. I. saraparilla has been in more general use than formerly. The planters in Jamaica supply their estates with great quantities of it; and its exhibition has been attended with very happy consequences in the yaws and venereal affections; as nodes, tophi, and exostoses; pains of the bones, and carious or cancerous ulcers.

"Sir William Fordyce seems to think saraparilla a specific in all stages of lues; but from an attentive and careful observation of its effects in some thousands of cases, I must declare I could place no dependence on saraparilla alone. But if mercury had formerly been tried, or was used along with saraparilla, a cure was soon effected. Where the patients had been reduced by pain, disorder, and mercury, I prescribed a decoction of saraparilla, and a table-spoonful of the powder of the same, twice a day, with the greatest success, in the most deplorable cases of lues, ill-cured yaws, and carious or ill-disposed sores or cancers."

The china, or oriental species of china root, has roundish prickly stalks and red berries, and is a native of China and Japan. The pseudo-china, or occidental species, has roundish smooth stalks and black berries, grows wild in Jamaica and Virginia, and bears the colds of our own climate. These roots have scarce any smell or particular taste; when fresh, they are said to be somewhat acrid, but as brought to us they discover, even when long chewed, no other than a slight unctuousness in the mouth. Boiled in water, they impart a reddish colour, and a kind of vapid softness; the decoction when infusified yields an unctuous, tarinous, almost insipid mass, amounting to upwards of half the weight of the root. They give a gold yellow tincture to rectified spirit, but make no sensible alteration in its taste: on drawing off the spirit from the filtered liquor, there remains an orange-coloured extract, nearly as insipid as that obtained by water, but scarcely in half its quantity.

China root is generally supposed to promote perspiration and urine, and by its soft unctuous quality to blunt acrimonious humours. It was first introduced into Europe about the year 1535, with the character of a specific against venereal disorders: the patient was kept warm, a weak decoction of china root was used for common drink, and a stronger decoction taken twice a day in bed to promote a sweat. Such a regimen is doubtless a good auxiliary to mercurial alternatives: but whatever may be its effects in the warmer climates, it is found in this to be of itself greatly insufficient. At present the china root is very rarely made use of, having for some time given place to tartaric acid, which is supposed to be more effectual. Propper Alpinus informs us, that this root is in great esteem among the Egyptian women for procuring fatness and plumpness.