Hermodactylus is recommended for gout in the writings of Alexander of Tralles, and Paul Egineta (sixth and seventh centuries), and the Arab doctors, Avicenna, Serapion, and Mesué, describe a similar remedy under the name of Surengian. It is also recommended by Ambrose Paré, Sylvius (de la Boe), and other authorities in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; but Tragus (1552) warns his readers against its use for gout, for which he says it is recommended in Arab writings. Grevin (1568) observes "ce poison est ennemy de l'homme en tout et par tout." Lyte, translating Dodoens (1578), says "Medow or wilde saffron is corrupt and venomous, therefore not used in medicine." Gerard declares the roots of "Mede Saffron" to be "very hurtfull to the stomacke."
Evidently some species of colchicum (Planchon thinks C. variegatum, L., but Hanbury does not agree) was used in ancient medicine under the name of Hermodactylus. Linnæus knew hermodactyls brought from India and attributed them to Iris tuberosa. Royle says they are sold in the bazaars of northern India under the name of Surinjan, but he thought they were brought from the shores of the Red Sea via Bombay. And notwithstanding the unfavourable opinions just quoted, Radix Colchici and Hermodactylus appear among the simples of the London Pharmacopœias of 1618 and 1639. They are then omitted, but Colchicum reappears in the edition of 1788. This was in consequence of the strong recommendation of Stoerck of Vienna, a practitioner and medical teacher who had a passion for experimenting with discredited remedies. Stoerck's report, published in 1763, showed that the medicine was a powerful and a dangerous one; but it was a most potent diuretic, and he had administered it with success in dropsical cases in
