number, flat, lanceolate, erect, and sheathing ; and there is no stem. Propagation is by the formation of conns from the parent bulb, and by seeds. The latter are numerous, round, reddish-brown, and of the size of black mustard- seeds. The bulb of the meadow-saffron attains its full size in June or early in July. A smaller bulb is then formed from the old one, close to its root ; and this in September and October produces the crocus-like flowers. In the succeeding January or February it sends up its leaves, together with the ovary, which perfects its seeds during the summer. The young corm, at first about the diameter of the flower-stalk, grows continuously, till in the following July it attains the size of a small apricot, The parent bulb remains attached to the new one, and keeps its form and size till April in the third year of its existence, after which it decays. In some cases a single conn produces several new plants during its second spring by giving rise
to immature corms.Colchicum owes its medicinal properties to an alkaloid, named colchicine, which is present in all parts of the plant. It was discovered by Pelletier and Caventon, and was identified as distinct from veratrine by Geiger and Hesse in 1833. According to Oberlin, colchicine is a complex body, containing a crystallizable neutral sub stance, colchiceine. Hiibler assigns to colchicine the formula C l7 H 19 lSrO 5 , and considers it to be isomeric with colchiceine (Arch, tier Pharm., torn. cxi. 194; Journ. de Pharm. et de Chim.,tom. ii. 490, 4th ser). It is an intensely bitter body, soluble in alcohol and water, but insoluble in ether, and is a powerful poison, small quantities causing violent vomiting and purging ; tannin, which precipitates it from solution, has been recommended as an antidote for it. Colchicine is present in smaller quantity in the seeds than in the bulbs ; and in the latter, according to Stolze, it is more abundant in spring than in autumn ; Shroff, however, states that the corms for medicinal use should be collected after or during the time of flowering. The preparations of colchicum employed as medicine are the extract, made by macerating dried shreds of the bulbs in sherry or acetic acid, the expressed juice of the bulbs, purified and concentrated by heating, straining, and evaporation at a temperature below 160 Fahr., and an alcoholic tincture of the seeds. Whether swallowed or injected into the veins colchicum acts as an irritant of the stomach and intestines and a nervine sedative ; small doses stimulate the secreting and excreting functions, but when continued they impair the appetite, and much disturb the stomach. Large quantitiea produce vomiting, profuse perspiration, heat in the abdomen, considerable reduction of the rate of the pulse, and dysenteric symptoms, and may cause death from exhaustion.
Colchicum was known to the Greeks under the name of Kokx<-n6t>, from Koxis, or Colchis, a country in which the plant grew ; and it is described by Dioscorides as a poison. In the 17th century the corrns were worn by some of the German peasantry as a charm against the plague. The drug was little used till 1763, when Baron Storck of Vienna introduced it for the treatment of dropsy. In febrile diseases it was first extensively employed by Mr Haden. As a specific for gout colchicum was early employed by the Arabs ; .and the preparation known as eau medicinale, much resorted to in the last century for the cure of gout, owes its therapeutic virtues to colchicum ; but general attention was first directed by Sir Everard Home to the use of the drug in gout. Full doses are apt to provoke sickness and diarrhoea, but give immediate relief from the sufferings caused by arthritic disease; whereas small quantities are not effectual for several days. According to Dr A. B, Garrod, the beneficial effects of colchicum are not explicable either by its purgative properties, or by its sedative influence on the vascular system ; nor is there evidence that it produces any of its effects by causing an increase in the elimination of urea and uric acid by the kidneys. Dr Graves considers that colchicum operates in gout by lessening the formation of uric acid in the system.
Colchicum may often be employed in acute rheumatism, in the treatment of bronchitis, asthma, eruptions of the skin, and of dyspepsia in gouty patients ; also as a cholagogue instead of mer curials. The "hermodactyl" of ancient writers is supposed to be the same as the modern drag of that name, which consists of the conns of a species of colchicum.
See Christison, Treatise on Poisons, 4th ed., pp. 381-6(1845); FlUckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, p. 636 (1874); Garrod, Gout and Rheumatic Qout, 3d ed. chap. xi. (1876) ; English Botany, ed. J. T. Boswell Syme, 3d ed., vol. ix. p. 225 (1869) ; Balfour, Class Book of Botany, 3d ed., p. 931 (1871). On Colchicine, see Watts s Chemical Dictionary, voL i. ; Wurtz, Dictionnaire de Chimie, t. ii.
COLCHIS, in ancient geography, a nearly triangular district of Asia Minor, at the eastern extremity of the Black Sea, was bounded on the N. by the Caucasus, which separated it from Asiatic Sarmatia, E. by Iberia and the Montes Moschici, S. by Armenia and part of Pontus> and W. by the Euxine. The ancient district is represented by the modern province of Mingrelia, and part of Abasia. The name of Colchis is first found applied to this country by the Greek poets ^Eschylus and Pindar. It was celebrated in Greek mythology as the destination of the Argonauts, the residence of Medea, and the special domain of sorcery. At a remote period it seems to have been incorporated with the Persian empire, though the inhabi tants ultimately erected their territory into an independent state ; and in k this condition it was found by Alexander the Great, when he invaded Persia. From this time till the era of the Mithridatic wars nothing is known of the history of Colchis. At the time of the Roman invasion it seems to have paid a nominal homage to Mithridates, and to have been ruled over by Machares, the second son of that monarch. On the defeat of Mithridates by Pompey, it became a Roman province. After the death of Pompey, Pharnaces, the son of Mithridates, rose in rebellion against the Roman yoke, subdued Colchis and Armenia, and made head, though but for a short time, against the Roman arms. After this Colchis was incorporated with Pontus, and the Colchians are not again alluded to in ancient history till the 6th century, when, along with the Abasci, they joined Chosroes I., king of Persia, in his war against Justinian. Colchis was inhabited by a number of tribes whose settle ments lay chiefly along the shore of the Black Sea. The chief of these were the Lazi, Moschi, Apsidse, Abasci, Sagadae, Suani, and Coraxi. These tribes differed so completely in language and appearance from the surrounding nations, that the ancients themselves originated varioua theories to account for the phenomenon. Herodotus, for example, believed them to have sprung from the relics of the army of Sesostris, and thus identified them with tho Egyptians. Though this theory was not generally adopted by the ancients, it has been defended, but not with complete success, by some modern writers. From the first-named of these tribes, the Lazi, the country was latterly known as Terra Lazica.
COLDSTREAM, a town of Scotland, in Berwickshire, 15 miles west of Berwick, on the north bank of the Tweed, there crossed by a bridge of five arches. It is situated on the principal thoroughfare between England and Scotland, and in the neighbourhood of the ford by which the Scotch and English armies were wont to cross the river in olden times. In the period before the Reformation it was the seat of a priory famous in history as the place where the Papal legate, in the reign of Henry VIII., published a bull against the printing of the Scriptures ; and in the present century, by a curious irony of fate, the very site of tho building was occupied by an establishment under Dr Adam Thomson for the production of Bibles at a low rate. Cold- stream, like Gretna Green, was formerly celebrated for its irregular marriages. The regiment of Foot Guards known as the " Coldstream Guards " was so named from General Monk having set out with it from the town on his march into England in 1659. Population in 1871, 2619.
