Sabbatia. American Centaury. Sabatia angularis.
Sabbatia. American Centaury. Centauree Americaine, Fr. Sabbatie, G.—The overground plant of Sabatia (Sabbatia) angularis (L.) Pursh. (Fam. Gentianacecae), an herb found in rich soil throughout the Eastern and Central United States and Ontario. The stems are much branched, distinctly 4-angled, and from 3 to 9 dm. high. The leaves are ovate, 5-nerved, having a heart-shaped clasping base. The flowers are rose-pink and on drying become pinkish-brown. The fruit is a 2-valved capsule, dark brown and covered with a resin. It is more or less used in popular medicine as a tonic and antiperiodic. It is a simple bitter of some activity, and may very well be substituted for the foreign remedies of its class. Rodney H. True found American centaury adulterated with Rhexia mariana, also known as deer grass or meadow beauty. (A. J. P., 1905, 213.) John F. Huneker found in sabbatia a small proportion of erythrocentaurin, C27H24O8, previously discovered by Mehu, a French chemist, in Erythraea Centaurium Pers., of Europe.
In the Southeastern United States, the Sabbatia Elliottii Steud., or Quinine flower, and in the Southwestern United States the Sabbatia campestris Nutt. have been employed like the S. angularis in the North. According to Merck the S. Elliottii contains a glucoside, sabbatin, as its active principle. Of the S. angularis and the S. campestris the whole plant is used, the dose being a drachm (3.9 Gm.), given in the form of fluid-extract or in decoction. Of the quinine flower, the root is employed; dose, of the fluidextract, one fluidrachm (3.75 mils); in intermittent fever to be repeated at short intervals.
