Only a few species occur in Britain. G. Anιαrellα and G. campestris are small annual species growing on chalky or calcareous hills, and bear, in autumn, somewhat tubular pale purple flowers; the latter is most easily distinguished by having two of the lobes of the calyx larger than the other two, while the former has the parts of the calyx in fives, and equal in size. Some intermediate forms between these two species occur, although rarely, in England; one of these, G. germanica, Willd., has larger flowers of a more blue tint, spreading branches, and a stouter stem. Some of these forms flower in spring. G. Bneumοnanthe, the Calathian violet, is a rather rare perennial species, growing in moist heathy places from Cumberland to Dorsetshire. Its average height is from 6 to 9 inches. It has linear leaves, and a bright blue corolla 1⅜ inches long, marked externally with five greenish bands, is without hairs in its throat, and is found in perfection about the end of August. It is the handsomest of the British species; two varieties of it are known in cultivation, one with spotted and the other with white flowers. G. verna and G. nivalis are small species with brilliant blue flowers and small leaves. The former is a rare and local perennial, occurring, however, in Teesdale and the county of Clare in Ireland in tolerable abundance. It has a tufted habit of growth, and each stem bears only one flower. It is sometimes cultivated as an edging for flower borders. G. nivalis in Britain occurs only on a few of the loftiest Scotch mountains. It differs from the last in being an annual, and having a more isolated habit of growth, and in the stem bearing several flowers. On the Swiss mountains these beautiful little plants are very abundant; and the splendid blue colour of masses of gentian in flower is a sight which, when once seen, can never be forgotten. For ornamental purposes several species are cultivated. The great difficulty of growing them successfully renders them, however, less common than would otherwise be the case; although very hardy when once established, they are very impatient of removal, and rarely flower well until. the third year after planting. Of the ornamental species found in British gardens some of the prettiest are G. acaulis, G. verna, G. pyrenaica, G. bavarica, G. scρtemfida, and G. gelida. Perhaps the handsomest and most easily grown is the first named, often called Gentianella, which produces its large intensely blue flowers early in the spring.

All the species of the genus are remarkable for possessing an intense but pure bitter taste and tonic properties. About forty species are used in medicine in different parts of the world. The name of felwort given to G. Amarella, but occasionally applied to the whole genus, is stated by Dr Prior to be given in allusion to these properties— fel meaning gall, and τvort a plant. In the same way the Chinese call the G. asclepiadea, and the Japanese the G. Bucτgcri, “dragon’s gall plants,” in common with several other very bitter plants whose roots they use in medicine. G. campestris is sometimes in Sweden and other northern countries a substitue for hops.

By far the most important of the species used in medicine is the G. lutea, a large handsome plant 3 or 4 feet high, growing in open grassy places on the Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenees, as well as on some of the mountainous ranges of France and Germany, extending as far east as Bosnia and thβ Danubian principalities. It has large oval strongly-ribbed leaves and dense whorls of conspicuous yellow flowers. Its use in medicine is of very ancient date. Pliny and Dioscorides mention that the plant was noticed by Gentius, a king of the Illyrians, living 180-167 b.c., from whom the name Gentiana is supposed to be derived. During the Middle Ages it was much employed in the cure of disease, and as an ingredient in counter-poisons. In 1552 Tragus mentions the use of the root as a means of dilating wounds.

The root, which is the part used in medicine, is tough and flexible, scarcely branched, and of a brownish colour and spongy texture. It has a pure bitter taste and faint distinctive odour. On account of its porous nature it has been used in modern surgery, as in the time of Tragus, as a substitute for sponge tents. The root has been several times analysed with varying results, but Kromayer in 1862 first obtained the bitter principle in a state of purity. This substance, to which the bitterness of the root is due, he called gentiopicrin (C 20 H 30 O 12 ). It is a neutral glucoside, crystallizing in colourless needles, and is contained in the fresh root in the proportion of about τ ⅛th per cent., but has not been obtained in a crystalline state from the dried root. It is soluble in water and spirit of wine, but it does not dissolve in ether. It is easily decomposed, dilute mineral acids splitting it up into glucose and gentiοgenin, the latter being an amorphous yellowish-brown neutral substance. It is not precipitated by tannin or subacetate of lead. A solution of caustic potash or soda forms with gentiopicrin a yellow solution, and the tincture of the root to which either of theβe alkalies ha3 been added loses its bitterness in a few days. Gentian root also contains gentianic acid (C 14 H 10 O 5 ), which is inert and tasteless. It forms pale yellow silky crystals, very slightly soluble in water or ether, but soluble in hot strong alcohol and in aqueous alkaline solutions. This substance, which is also called gentianin, gentisin, and gentisic acid, has been shown by Ville to partake of the nature of tannin, giving the reactions of that substance with ferric chloride, gelatin, and albumen. On this account he proposes to change the name to gentiano-tannic acid.

The root also contains 12 to 15 per cent, of an uncrystallizable sugar, of which fact advantage has long been taken in Switzerland and Bavaria, for the production of a bitter cordial spirit called Enzianbranntwein. The use of this spirit, especially in Switzerland, has sometimes been followed by poisonous symptoms, which have been doubtfully attributed to inherent narcotic properties possessed by some species of gentian, the roots of which may have been indiscriminately collected with it; but it is quite possible that it may be due to the contamination of the root with that of Veratrιιrn album, a poisonous plant growing at the same altitude, and having leaves extremely similar in appearance and size to those of G. lutea. Gentian is considered by therapeutists to be one of the most efficient of the simple bitter tonics, that is, of that class of substances which act upon the stomach so as to invigorate digestion and thereby increase the general nutrition, without exerting any direct influence upon any other portion of the body than the alimentary canal. It is used in dyspepsia, chlorosis, anaemia, and various other diseases, in which the tone of the stomach and alimentary canal is deficient, and is sometimes added to purgative medicines to increase and improve their action. In veterinary medicine it is also used as a tonic, and enters into a well-known compound called diapente as a chief ingredient.

See Sowerby, English Botany, 3d edit., vol. vi. p. 74-81; Hemsley, Handbook of Hardy Trees, Shrubs, and Herbaceous Plants, p. 303; Journal of Botany, 1864, p. 65; 1872, p. 166; 1878, p. 265; Pharmacographia, p. 389; Pharmaccιιtical Journal (1), vol. xii. p. 371; (3) vol. iii. p. 42; (3) vol. vi. p. 90; (3) vol. viii. p. 182; Wood and Bache, United States Dispensatory, 14th edit., p. 438; Porter Smith, Chinese Materia Medica, p. 102. (E. Μ. H.)

St. Paul is commonly called the Apostle of the Gentiles, 1 Tim. ii, 7, or Greeks; because he, principally, preached Jesus Christ to them; whereas Peter, and the other Apostles, preached generally to the Jews, and are called Apostles of the circumcision, Gal. ii, 8. The prophets declared very particularly the calling of the Gentiles. Jacob foretold that the Messiah, he who was to be sent, the Shiloh, should gather the Gentiles to himself. Solomon, at the dedication of his temple, prays for “the stranger” who should there entreat God. The Psalmist says, that the Lord would give the Gentiles to the Messiah for his inheritance; that Egypt and Babylon shall know him; that Ethiopia shall hasten to bring him presents; that the kings of Tarshish, and of the isles, the kings of Arabia and Sheba, shall be tributary to him, Psalm ii, 8; lxvii, 4; lxxii, 9, 10. Isaiah abounds with prophecies of the like nature, on which account he has justly been distinguished by the name of “the prophet of the Gentiles.”

The true history of Gentili and of his principal writings has only been ascertained quite recently, in consequence of a revived appreciation of the services which he rendered to international law. The movement to do him honour, which originated four or five years since, has in spreading through Europe encountered two curious cross-currents of opinion,—one the ultra-Catholic, which three centuries ago ordered his name to be erased from all public documents and placed his works in the Index·, another the narrowly-Dutcb, which is, it seems, needlessly careful of the supremacy of Grotius. Preceding writers had dealt with various international questions, but they dealt with them singly, and with a servile submission to the decisions of the church. It was left to Gentili to grasp as a whole the relations of states one to another, to distinguish international questions from questions with which they are more, or less intimately connected, and to attempt their solution by principles entirely independent of the authority of Rome. He uses, without yielding to them implicit deference, the reasonings of the civil and even the canon law, but he proclaims as his real guide the Jus Haturce, the highest common sense of mankind, by which historical precedents are to be criticized, and, if necessary, set aside.

His faults are not few. His style is prolix, obscure, and to the modern reader pedantic enough; but a comparison of his greatest work with what had been written upon the same subject by, for instance, Belli, or Soto, or even Ayala, will show that he greatly improved upon his predecessors, not only by the fulness with which he has worked out points of detail, but also by clearly separating the law of war from martial law, and by placing the subject once for all upon a non-theological basis. If, on the other hand, the same work be compared with De Jure Belli et Pacis of Grotius, it is at once evident that the later writer is indebted to the earlier, not only for a large portion of his illustrative erudition, but also for all that is commendable in the method and arrangement of the treatise.

The following is probably a complete list of the writings of Gentili, with the places and dates of their first publication :— Be Juris interpretibus diαlοgi sex, Lond., 1582; Lectionum et epist. quae ad pus civile pertinent libri ires, Lond., 1583-4: Be divers, temp, appellationibus, Hanau, 1584; Be Legationibus libri tres, Lond., 1585; Legal, comitiorum Oxon. actio, Lond., 1585-6; Be nascendi tempore disputatio, Witteb., 1586; Disputationum decas prima, Lond., 1587; Conditiornim liber singularis, Lond., 1587; Be Jure Belli comm. prima, Lond., 1588; secunda, ib., 1588 -9; ferh'α, 1589; Be injustitia bellica Romanorum, Oxon., 1590; Be Armis Romanis, &c., Hanau, 1599; Be ludis scenicis epist. duce, Middleburg, 1599; Be actoribus et de abusu mendacii, Hanau, 1599; Lectiones Virgilianae, Hanau, 1600; Be nuptiis libri septem, 1601; Ad 1 Maccab. et de linguarum mistura, Lond., 1604; In tit. si quis principi, et ad leg. Jul. maiest., Hanau, 1604; In tit. de Malef. ct Math., ct de Prof, ct Med., Hanau, 1604; Be latin, vet. Bibl., Hanau, 1604; Be libro Pyano, Oxon., 1604; Laudes Acad. Penis, ct 0xon., Hanau, 1605; Be unione Anglioe et Scotioe, Lond., 1605; Disputationes tres, de libris jur. can., de libris jur. civ., de latinitate vet. vcrs., Hanau, 1605; Regales disput. tres, depot, regis absoluta, de unione regnorum, de vi civium, Lond., 1605; Hispanicae advocationis libri duo, Hanau, 1613; In tit. de verb, signif., Hanau, 1614; Be legatis in test., Amsterd., 1661. An edition of the Opera Omnia, commenced at Naples in 1770, was cut short by the death of the publisher, Gravier, after the second volume. Of his numerous unpublished writings, Gentili complained that four volumes were lost “pessimo pontificiorum facinore,” meaning probably that they were left behind in his flight to Carniola.

Authorities.— Several tracts by the Abate Benigni in Colucci, Antichità Picene, 1790; a Dissertation by W. Reiger annexed to the Program of the Groningen Gymnasium for 1867; an Inaugural Lecture delivered in 1874 by T. E. Holland, and the preface to a new edition of the Jus Belli, 1877, by the same; works by Valdarnini and Foglietti, 1875; Speranza and De Giorgi, 1876; Fiorini (a translation of the Jus Belli, with essay), 1877; A. Saffi, 1878. See also E. Comba, in the Rivista Christiana, 1876-7; and Sir T. Twiss, in the Law Review, 1878.