RK SAH ~s ~ \ -_" _ ee ae * v < PHARMACOGRAPHIA.\ A HISTORY OF fie PRENCULE AL: DRUGS OF VEGETABLE ORIGIN, MET WITH IN GREAT BRITAIN AND BRITISH INDIA. BY FRIEDRICH A. FLUCKIGER, PHIL. DR., PROFESSOR IN THE UNIVERSITY TRASSBURG, AND ‘DANIEL HANBURY, FRS, t FELLOW OF THE LINNEAN 48S°CHEMICAL SOCIETIES OF LONDON. eae SECOND EDITION. London: MACMILLAN. AND CO. PREFACE. PHARMACOGRAPHIA, the word which gives the title to this book, indicates the nature of the work to which it has been prefixed. The term means simply a writing about drugs; and it has been selected not without due consideration, as in itself distinctive, easily quoted, and intelligible in many languages. Pharmacographia, in its widest sense, embodies and expresses the joint intention of the authors. It was their desire, not only to write upon the general subject, and to utilize the thoughts of others; but that the book which they decided to produce together should contain observations that no one else had written down. It is in fact a record of personal researches on the principal drugs derived from the vegetable kingdom, together with such results of an important character as have been obtained by the numerous workers on Materia Medica in Europe, India, and America. Unlike most of their predecessors in Great Britain during this cen- tury, the authors have not included in their programme either Phar- macy or Therapeutics ; nor have they attempted to give their work that diversity of scope which would render it independent of collateral publications on Botany and Chemistry. While thus restricting the field of their inquiry, the authors have endeavoured to discuss with fuller detail many points of interest which are embraced in the special studies of the pharmacist ; and at the same time have occasionally indicated the direction in which further investigations are desirable. A few remarks on the heads under which each particular article is treated, will explain more pre- cisely their design. The drugs included in the present work are chiefly those which are commonly kept in store by pharmacists, or are known in the drug and spice market of London. The work likewise contains a small number aa eee _ PREFACE. which belong to the Pharmacopwia of India: the appearance of this volume seemed to present a favourable opportunity for giving some more copious notice of the latter than has hitherto been attempted. Supplementary to these two groups must be placed a few substances which possess little more than historical interest, and have been intro- duced rather in obedience to custom, and for the sake of completeness, _ than on account of their intrinsic value. : Each drug is headed by the Latin name, followed by such few synonyms as may suffice for perfect identification, together in most cases with the English, French, and German designation. In the next section, the Botanical Origin of the substance is dis- cussed, and the area of its growth, or locality of its production is stated. Except in a few instances, no attempt has been made to furnish botanical descriptions of the plants to which reference is made. Such information may readily be obtained from original and special sources, of which we have quoted some of the most important. Under the head of History, the authors have endeavoured to trace the introduction of each substance into medicine, and to bring forward other points in connection therewith, which have not hitherto been much noticed in any recent work. This has involved researches which have been carried on for several years, and has necessitated the consul- tation of many works of general literature. The exact titles of these works have been scrupulously preserved, in order to enable the reader to verify the statements made, and to prosecute further historical inquiries. In this portion of their task, the authors have to acknow- ledge the assistance kindly given them by Professors Heyd! of Stuttgart, Winkelmann of Heidelberg, Monier Williams of Oxford, Diimichen of Strassburg ; and on subjects connected with China, by Mr, A. Wylie and Dr. Bretschneider. The co-operation in various directions of many other friends has been acknowledged in the text itself: In some instances the Formation, Secretion, or Method of Collection of a drug, has been next detailed: in others, the section History has been immediately followed by the Description, succeeded by one in which the more salient features of Microscopie Structure have been set forth. The authors have not thought it desirable to amplify the last- named section, as the subject deserves to be treated ina special work, and to be illustrated by engravings. Written descriptions of micro- 1The admirable work of this author—Geschichte des Levantehandels im Mittelalter, 2 vols., Stuttgart, 1879—appeared when the second edition of our Pharmacographia was already in the press. PREFACE. Vii scopic structure are tedious and uninteresting, and however carefully drawn up, must often fail to convey the true meaning which would be easily made evident by the pencil. The reader who wishes for illustra- tions of the minute structure of drugs may consult the works named in the foot-note. } The next division includes the important subject of Chemical Com- position, in which the authors have striven to point out to the reader familiar with chemistry what are the constituents of greatest interest in each particular drug—what the characters of the less common of those constituents—and by whom and at what date the chief investi- gations have been made. A knowledge of the name and date provides a clue to the original memoir, which may usually be found, either in eatenso or in abstract, in more than one periodical. It has been no part of the authors’ plan to supersede reference to standard works on chemistry, or to describe the chemical character of substances? which may be easily ascertained from those sources of information which should be within the reach of every pharmaceutical inquirer. In the section devoted to Production and Commerce, the authors have given such statistics and other trade information as they could obtain from reliable sources; but they regret that this section is of very unequal value. Duties have been abolished, and a general and continuous simplification of tariffs and trade regulations has ensued. The details, therefore, that used to be observed regarding the com- merce in drugs, exists no longer in anything like their former state of completeness ; hence the fragmentary nature of much of the informa- tion recorded under this head. The medicinal uses of each particular drug are only slightly men- tioned, it being felt that the science of therapeutics lies within the province of the physician, and may be wisely relinquished to his care. At the same time it may be remarked that the authors would have rejoiced had they been able to give more definite information as to the technical or economic uses of some of the substances they have described. 1 Berg, Anatomischer Atlas zur pharmazeutischen Waarenkunde, Berlin, 1865. 4to., with 50 plates. Flickiger, Grundlagen der pharmaceutischen Waarenkunile, Einleitung in das Studium der Pharmacognosie, Berlin, 1873. Planchon, T'raité pratique de la détermination des drogues simples d’origine végétale, ~ Paris, 1874. Luerssen, Medicinisch-Pharmaceutische Botanik, Leipzig (in progress), * For further information, see Fliickiger, Pharmaceutische Chemie, Berlin, 1879. viii PREFACE. | What has been written under the head of Adulteration is chiefly the result of actual observation, or might otherwise have been much extended. The authors would rather rely on the charactérs laid down in preceding sections than upon empirical methods for the determina- tion of purity. The heading of Substitutes has been adopted for certain drugs, more or less related to those described in special articles, yet not actually used by way of adulteration. A work professing to bring together the latest researches in any subject will naturally be thought to contain needless innovations. Whilst deprecating the inconvenience of changes of nomenclature, the authors have had no alternative but to adopt the views sanctioned by the leaders of chemical and botanical science, and which the progress of knowledge has required. The common designations of drugs may indeed remain unchanged :—hellebore, aconite, colchicum, anise, and caraway, need no modernizing touch. But when we attempt to com- bine with these simple names, words to indicate the organ of the plant of which they are constituted, questions arise as to the strict applica- tion of .such terms as root, rhizome, tuber, corm, about which a. diversity of opinion may be entertained. It has been the authors’ aim to investigate anew the field of Vege- table Materia Medica, in order as far as possible to clear up doubtful points, and to remove some at least of the uncertainties by which the subject is surrounded. In furtherance of this plan they have availed themselves of the resources offered by Ancient and Modern History ; nor have they hesitated to lay under contribution either the teaching of men eminent in science, or the labours of those who follow the paths of general literature. How far they have accomplished their desire remains for the public to decide. CORRIGENDA, Page 57, foot-note 4 ; for qui produit, read qui a produit. », 86, 13th line from bottom ; for Bauchin, read Bauhin. ,, 128, foot-note 3 ; read Adversariorum, Jor Adersariorum. »» 161, line from top ; read southern and south-western part, for northern part. », 265, foot-note 2 ; for 4794 grammes, read 4°794 grammes, »» 271, line 5 from bottom ; read ordpaé trypds for wipa-{vypos. », 368, line 12 from bottom; read Flora, for Flore. eo ey ee Ee » lMossing, for motsing. » 869, ,, 17 from top; read José, for Jose. » 404, ,, 2 from bottom ; read Xarnauz, for Xarnaux. +» 3, foot-note 7; read por, for par. » », line 12 from bottom; road Barbhicdis: for Barhberigo. So ‘3 », benzoic, for benzoin. », 469, lines 21 and 24 from top; with reference to Nicotiana rustica and NV. repanda, see Pharm. Journ. ix. (1878) 710, », 558, foot-note 3; read 562, for 652. », 559, line 24 from top; read 1849, for 1749. PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. THE premature death—March 24, 1875—of my lamented friend Daniel Hanbury, having deprived me of his invaluable assistance, I have attempted to prepare the new edition of our work with adherence to the same principles by which we were guided from the beginning. _I desire to acknowledge my obligations for great and valuable assistance to my friend Thomas Hanbury, Esq., F.L.S., who has also honoured the memory of his late brother by causing the scientific researches of the latter to be collected and republished in the handsome volume entitled, “ Science Papers, chiefly Pharmacological and Botanical, by Daniel Hanbury, edited, with memoir, by Joseph Ince,” London. 1876. To Dr. Charles Rice of New York, editor of “New Remedies,” I am indebted for much kindly extended and valuable information, and to whose intimate acquaintance with oriental literature, both ancient and modern, many of the following pages bear ample testimony. — I am likewise indebted for similar assistance to my friends Professors Goldschmidt and Néldeke, Strassburg. Information of various kinds, as well as valuable specimens of drugs, have also been courteously sup- plied to me by the following gentlemen, viz.:—Cesar Chantre, Esq., F.L.S., London ; Prof. Dymock, Bombay ; H. Fritzsche, Esq. (Schimmel | & Co., Leipzig) ; E. M. Holmes, Esq., F.LS., &e., London; J. E. Howard, | Esq., F.R.S., &c., London; David Howard, Esq., F.C.S., &e. ; Wm. Dill- worth Howard, F.L.C., London ; Capt. F. M. Hunter, F.G.S., &., Assistant Resident, Aden; A. Oberdorffer, Esq., Hamburg ; Prof. Edward Schiir, Ziirich ; Dr. J. E. de Vry, the Hague, &e. On mature consideration, it was deemed expedient to omit in the new edition a large number of references relating more especially to — chemical facts. Yet, in most instances, not only the author but also the year has been stated in which the respective observation or dis- x ~~ PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION. covery was made, or at least the year in which it was published or _ recorded. Every such fact of any importance may thus, by means of _ _ those short references, be readily traced and consulted, if wished for, either in the original sources, in abstracts therefrom, or in the periodical reports. Opportunities of the latter kind are abundantly afforded by the German Jahresbericht der Pharmacie, &c., published at Gottingen since 1844, successively by Martius, Wiggers, Husemann, and at the present time by Dragendorff. The same may be said, since 1857, of _ the Report on the Progress of Pharmacy, as contained annually in the Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association, and likewise, since 1870, of the Yearbook of Pharmacy, for which the profession is indebted to the British Pharmaceutical Conference. PROF, FLUCKIGER. STRASSBURG, GERMANY, October, 1879. EXPLANATIONS. Polarization.—Most essential oils, and the solutions of several substanees described in this book are capable of effecting the deviation of a ray of polarized light. The amount of this rotatory power cannot be regarded as constant in essential oils, and is greatly influenced by various causes. As to alkaloids and other organic compounds, the — deviation frequently depends upon the nature and quantity of the solvent. The authors have thought it needful to record in numerous cases the results of such optical investigations, as determined by means of the Polaristrobometer invented by Wild, and described in Poggen- dorff's Annalen der Physik und Chemie, vol. 122 (1864) p. 626; or more completely in the Bulletin de 1 Académie impériale des Sciences de St. Pétersbowrg, tome viii. (1869) p. 33. Measurements and Weights.—The authors regret to have been unable to adopt one standard system of stating measurements. They have mostly employed the English inch: the accom- panying woodcut will facilitate its comparison with the French decimal scale. The word miili- metre is indicated in the text by the contraction mm; micromillimetre,signifying the thousandth part of a millimetre, and only used in reference to the microscope, is abbreviated thus, mkm. 1 inch = 25°399 millimetres. 1 gallon = 4543 litres. 1 ounce(oz.)avdp.= 28°34 grammes. 1 lb. avoirdupois = 45359 =, ee 1 cwt. = 112lb = 508 kilogrammes. 1 ton —2240 , =1016 lkilogramme = 2-204 Ib. avoirdupois. 1 pecul = 13333 1b.= 60479 kilogrammes. Thermometer.—The Centigrade Thermometer has been alone adopted. The following table is given for comparing the degrees of the Centigrade or Celsius Thermometer with those of Fuhrenheit’s Seale. INCHES | CENTIMETRES SHLHOI3Z ny SHLINIL to On ee ee | ere idusltutis unit tuslitstsunstiel hull wdlasuislivstunsl ti tiilii ea a SANIT 4° SHLIIAML go & =) SHLNAILXIS bed THERMOMETRIC TABLE, CENT. FAHR. CENT. FAHR. lo oh =) 10 SSSLEKESSH SBRBNERLRNN B + | BIODRAIWHONM Koss ere SHEABDSUEASD SURAHSHEED COOH FP SSSRSESSRe SSRRPNNene lor de 2) WK ABSNHUKSGS SOKAOBSNHE Sessggug 68°0 84°2 SSN Rado S SSSSSSLS & DRS 1040 gece 42 + 105°8° + il + 2318 112 Re Be Para a ae asses &ES SYKRASAH SHKESBMONKOGG CONTENTS. Prerack ee a ce fae ak PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION se ia aie ae EXPLANATIONS =e 4 as sa vee Sue es ee TuHERMOMETRIC TABLE Bak Fo itass see ey nea Ee: ine \L—PHENOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS. Dicotyledons and Gymnosperms. RANUNCULACEE APS 3 at ay Bee os ue nae ie Radix Hellebori nigri... is = Cortex Winteranus Ee en sia ee is she * Fructus Anisi stellati ... “a ae eae I on a ‘ MENISPERMACER A i a a ae ee _ Radix Calumbe ... ied je oe! ee sie vas ab Cocculus indicus ... oe waa ree sae ae ae BERBERIDEX oan sea ede ae A ue we oe Cortex Berberidis indicus ine i : ee je ie Rhizoma Podophylli_... ae < ane wa ie a PAPAVERACER ‘Seg aes ‘3 Wee ~ ss So - Petala Rhoeados ... Sie gee wie ide dee yk ee Capsule Papaveris be ee pe a oS atk CRUCIFERA ve se Cae es Mas es a wk p AK Bla a ee a ee 2% 2x eeeeege Xiv Radix Armoracie ne CANELLACEZ ... Nie tan Cortex Canelle albe ... BiIxacEx ine ae Sen Semen Gynocardiz és POLYGALEZ ... re fan Radix Senege ... ive Kramerie ... ses GUTTIFERZE ... a sae Oleum Garcinie ... sui DipTeROCARPEZiwsw iss Balsamum Dipterocarpi ... MALVACEX .... ar Ses Radix Althee .,. x Fructus Hibisci esculenti STERCULIACEE one aay Oleum Cacao pon Poe LINEZ ... a oo 165 Galle chinenses seu japonicae ... A ise “a peeked me 207 LEGUMINOSZ ... ae aes ay ee oa eae a fe cima Ai Herba Scoparii_... oD oa Fas a oc she a Se aie Semen Foeni greeci ee fea a ‘as aa ps ite Fee) Tragacantha se ae as eo ys oe ci temmeniraee ¥; | Radix Glycyrrhize oa ie mS eerie a re it ee Succus Glycyrrhizze es a ae is ne fs ra eee Oleum Arachis... ie ox ee ee ee a Re rege hy Radix Abri = ee ee nie vee Ss ie oe arses tb . Setee Mucune ... ae es obs ie ae ss sié a to Semen Physostigmatis ... a ae is i a ae Ge Ak Kino its ar ae es ine = axe a pe Lignum Pterocarpi a is “es ee as aa re nc 3a Balsamum tolutanum _... ae = Sa - iss oe + ee peruvianum ... ie ie << it ik; Hc =. ee Semen Bonducellee = = “as os ae se ize Sige 28 Lignum Hematoxyli_... a re ie ae = $33 er. SHS Folia Senne se ses si e a Fe: Sa 216 Fructus Cassize Fistule ... 8 AS Hg ie Ns a we B31 Tamarindi Pulpa... —... oe F ek 2 ae sed i) Se Balsamum Copaiba te aS; ee a via re sia ie; $27 Gummi Acacie ... re yes ‘cule = ee $i ote sc: 233 Catechu ... yes = iis ee bie Sax ‘a a zz: 240 Rosacez ae aK ie ae ae ins Re re: ro ves" SAE Amygdalz dulces oi ne Ser wi os oe ws M4 | — amare Went sel ee a en eae See ee Oe oe: Fructus Pruni_... oe — nea ot ae “od + a ‘— Cortex Pruni serotine ... ae ae Be ese aA 4 si. 958 ig Folia Lauro-cerasi ae ct pe ee Sees dee 3. 254 Flores Koso fe aa sik way a rae ae id cer B66 Petala Rose gallicze ae ens oe Ss ae oe xt i‘. 259 : — centifoliz ... cor Ss OLE — nigra ... as ki se We a ae is Be acres Fructus Juniperi ... Sen me is i bis in ve ... 624 Herba Sabine .... i = ei oa ves “ es ses 626 aMonorotyledons, CANNACE im = eo Sopot aevs i te ea cae «. ~629 Amylum Marcte ti Ses Sve er fen Uedlicina Brasiliensis, 1648, 94. many editions of the HLdinburgh Dispen- pecies Plantarum, Holmiw, 1753; see sa Mat. Med. 1749. No. 459, ZL 0. 7 teaieaty in Pharm. Journ. Aug, 2—9, D unan, Hort, Jamaic. ii. (1814) 254; 1873, pp. 81 and 102. (1897) oa Flor, méd. des Antilles, iii. ‘Lond. Med. Gazette, Feb. 16, 1828; 4 ) 231. Brodie, Lectures on Diseases of the Urinary Thus it was omitted from the London Organs, ed. 3. 1842. 108, 138. Pharmacopaias of 1809 and 1824, and from —_ MENISPERMACEA. fibrous substance. The taste is bitter, well marked but not persistent. a The drug has no particular odour. Its aqueous decoction is turned inky bluish-black by tincture of iodine. The aerial stems especially differ by enclosing a small but well- defined pith. Microscopic Structure—The most interesting character consists in the arrangement rather than in the peculiarity of the tissues com- — posing this drug. The wavy light-coloured lines already mentioned are built up partly of sclerenchymatous cells. The other portions of — the parenchyme are loaded with large starch granules, which are much _ less abundant in the stem. Chemical Composition—From the examination of this drug made _ by one of us in 1869,’ it was shown that the bitter principle is the same as that discovered in 1839 by Wiggers in the drug hereafter described as Common False Pareira Brava, and named by him Pelosine. It was further pointed out that this body possesses the chemical pro- perties of the Bibirine of Greenheart bark and of the Buxine obtained by Walz from the bark of Buwus sempervirens L. It was also obtained — on the same occasion (1869) from the stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L, collected in Jamaica; but from both drugs in the very s™ proportion of about 4 per cent. Whether to Buaine (for by this name rather than Pelosine it should be designated) is due the medicinal power of the drug may well doubted. No further chemical examination of true Pareira Brava has been made. Uses—The medicine is prescribed in chronic catarrhal affections of % the bladder and in calculus. F rom its extensive use in Brazil? it seems — deserving of trial in other complaints. Helvetius used to give ibm substance, which in 5-grain doses was taken in infusion made with boiling water from the powdered root and not strained. : Substitutes— We have already pointed out how the name Pareira q Brava has been applied to several other drugs than that described 10 the foregoing pages. We shall now briefly notice the more important. 1. Stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L.—Owing to the ie culty of obtaining good Pareira Brava in the London market, althoug 5 this plant is very widely diffused over all the tropical regions of both hemispheres, the firm of which one of us was formerly a member = (Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, Plough Court, Lombard Street) oa : : Le be collected in Jamaica, under the superintendence of Mr. N. of the Bath Botanical Gardens, the stems and root of Cissamepelos Pareira L., of which it imported in 1866-67-68 about 300 1b. found impracticable to obtain the root per se; and the greater bulk of 2 the drug consisted of long cylindrical stems,’ many of which had been decumbent and had thrown out rootlets at the joints. They had very * Neues Jahrb. f. Pharm. xxxi. (1869) isias, e suspensio de lochios.”— Lang < 257 ; Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 192. saeeee Diccionario de Medicina domestica ® — 2‘ Presentamente[Abutua] ¢ reputada popular, Rio de Janeiro, i. (1865) 17- ip diaphoretica, diureticae emenagoga, e usada Figured, together with the plant, interiormente na ddése de duas a quatro Bentley and Trimen, Medic. Plants, oitavas para uma libra de infusdo ou cozi- 9 (1876). mento, nas febres intermittentes, hydro- It was - i ‘ PAREIRA BRAVA. eee much the aspect of the climbing stems of Clematis vitalba L., and varied from the thickness of a quill to that of the forefinger, seldom attaining the diameter of an inch. The stems have a light brown bark marked longitudinally with shallow furrows and wrinkles, which some- times take a spiral direction. Knots one to three feet apart, sometimes throwing out a branch, also occur. The root is rather darker in colour, but not very different in structure from the stem. The fracture of the stem is coarse and fibrous. The transverse sec- tion, whether of stem or root, shows a thickish, corky hark surrounding a light brown wood composed of a number of converging wedges (10 to 20) of very porous structure, separated by narrow medullary rays. ‘There are no concentric layers of wood; nor is the arrangement of the wedges oblique as in many other stems of the order. The drug is inodorous, but has a very bitter taste without sweetness or astrin- gency. 2. Common False Pareira Brava—Under this name we designate the drug which for many years past has been the ordinary Pareira Brava of the shops, and regarded until lately as derived from Cissampelos Pareira L. We have long endeavoured to ascertain, through corre- spondents in Brazil, trom what plant it is derived, but without success. We only know that it belongs to the order Menispermacee. The drug consists of a ponderous, woody, tortuous stem and root, occurring in pieces from a few inches to a foot or more in length, and from 1 to 4 inches in thickness, coated with a thin, hard, dark brown bark. The pieces are cylindrical, four-sided, or more or less flattened— sometimes even to the extent of becoming ribbon-like. In transverse section, their structure appears very remarkable. Supposing the piece to be stem, a well-defined pith will be found to occupy the centre of the first-formed wood, which is a column about } of an inch in diameter, This is succeeded by 10 to 15 or more concentric or oftener eccentric zones, 315 to 75 of an inch wide, each separated from its neighbour by a layer of parenchyme, the outermost being coated with a true bark. In pieces of true root, the pith is reduced to & mere point. Sometimes the development of the zones has been so irregular that they have formed themselves entirely on one side of the primitive column, the other being coated with bark. The zones, including the layer, around the pith (if pith is present), are crossed by numerous smal] medullary rays. These donot run from the centre to the circum- ference, but traverse only their respective zones, on the outside of which they are arched together. e drug, when of good quality, has its wood firm, compact, and of . dusky yellowish brown hue, and a well-marked bitter taste. It exhibits under the knife nothing of the close waxy texture seen in the root of Chondodendron, but cuts as a tough, fibrous wood. Its decoc- _ tion is not tinged blue by iodine. It was in this drug that Wiggers in 9 discovered pelosine. e drug just described, which is by no means devoid of medicinal power, has of late years been almost entirely supplanted in the market 1 It is therefore od : s . . eee « entirely different to the in Martius’ Flor. Bras. xiii. pars. i. tab. wood figured asthatofC. PareirabyEichler 50. fig. 7. — MENISPERMACEZ. by another sort consisting exclusively of stems which are devoid é bitterness and appear to be wholly inert. They are in the form of sticks or truncheons, mostly cylindrical. Cut traversely, they display the same structure as the sort last described, with a well-defined pith. The | wood is light in weight, of a dull tint, and disposed to split. The bark, which consists of two layers, is easily detached. ; __ 8. Stems of Chondodendron tomentosum R. et P.—These have been recently imported from Brazil, and sold as Pareira Brava: The drug consists of truncheons about 1} feet in length, of a rather rough and knotty stem, from 1 to 4 inches thick? The larger pieces, which are sometimes hollow with age, display, when cut traversely, a small — number (5—9) nearly concentric woody zones. The youngest pieces have the bark dotted over with small dark warts. The wood is inodorous, but has a bitterish taste like the root, of which it is probably an efficient representative. Some pieces have portions of root springing from them, and detached roots occur here and there among the bits of stem. The structure and development of the latter has been elaborately examined and figured by Moss,* and also by Lanessan,‘ in the French translation of our book. 4. White Pareira Brava—Stems and roots of Abuta rufescens Aublet.—Mr. J. Correa de Méllo of Campinas has been good enough 05 send to one of us (H.) a specimen of the root and leaves ® of this pag : marked Parreira Brava grande. The former we have identified wi a drug received from Rio de Janeiro as Abutua Unha de Vaca, 1.€. oo hoof Abutua, and also with a similar drug found in the London marke! Aublet * states that the root of Abuta rufescens was, in the time of his visit to French Guiana, shipped from that colony to Europe as P Oren Brava Blane (White Pareira Brava). ; | This name is well applicable to the drug before us, which consists i short pieces of a root, } an inch to 3 inches thick, covered with a roug blackish bark, and also of bits of stem having a pale, striated, cor bark. Cut transversely, the root displays a series of concentric zones ; white amylaceous cellular tissue, each beautifully marked with ae vee wedge-shaped medullary rays of dark, porous tissue. The wood of th stem is harder than that of the root, the medullary rays are closet together and broader, and there is a distinct pith. i ok The wood, ‘neither of root nor stem, has any taste or smell. decoction of the root is turned bright blue by iodine. te 5. Yellow Pareira Brava—This drug, of which a quantity was 1? the hands of a London drug-broker in 1873, is, we presume, the Pare Brava jawne of Aublet—the bitter tasting stem of his “ Abuta ama folio levi cordiformi ligno flavescente,’—a plant of Guiana unknow if recent botanists. That which we have seen consists of portions | th & hard woody stem, from 1 to 5 or 6 inches in diameter, covered with @ *45 packages containing about 20 ewt. * Pharm. Journ, vi. (1876) 702. néget were offered for sale by Messrs. Lewis and * Histoire des Drogues d'origine Peat, ang beckeem, 11 Sept. 1873, but i. (Paris, 1878) 72. ee there had been earlier importations, *I have compared these leav * From these knots, which are at regular = Aublet’s own specimen in the intervals, and sometimes very rotuberant, Museum.—D. H. . ee it would ap that the pealéles of flower ° Hist. des Plantes de la Guiane arise year after year. ¢oise, i. (1775) 618, tab. 250. COCCULUS INDICUS. 31 whitish bark. Internally it is marked by numerous regular concentric zones, is of a bright yellow colour and of a bitter taste. It contains berberine. The same drug, apparently, was exhibited in the Paris exposition of 1878 as “ Liane amére ” from French Guiana. COCCULUS INDICUS. Fructus Coceuli ; Cocculus Indicus; F, Coque du Levant ; G. Kokkelskirner. Botanical Origin—Anamirta paniculata Colebrooke, 1822 (Menis- permum Cocculus L.; Anamirta Cocculus Wight et Arnott, 1834), a strong climbing shrub found in the eastern parts of the Indian penin- sula from Concan and Orissa to Malabar and Ceylon, in Eastern Bengal, Khasia and Assam, and in the Malayan Islands. History—It is commonly asserted that Cocculus Indicus was intro- duced into Europe through the Arabs, but the fact is difficult of proof ; for though Avicenna? and other early writers mention a drug having the power of poisoning fish, they describe it as a bark, and make no allusion to it as a production of India. Even Ibn Baytar? in the 13th century professed his inability to discover what substance the older Arabian authors had in view. Cocculus Indicus is not named by the writers of the School of Salerno. The first mention of it we have met with is by Ruellius,* who, alluding to the property possessed by the roots of Aristolochia and Cyclamen of attracting fishes, states that the same power exists in the little berries found in the shops under the name of Cocci Ovrientis, which when scattered on water stupify the fishes, so that they may be captured by the hand. Valerius Cordus‘ thought the drug which he calls Cuculi de Levante to be the fruit of a Solanum growing in Egypt. Dalechamps* repeated this statement in 1586, at which period and for long afterwards, Cocculus Indicus used to reach Europe from Alex- andria and other parts of the Levant. Gerarde,® who gives a very good figure of it, says itis well known in England (1597) as Cocculus _ Indicus, otherwise Cocci vel Coccule Orientales, and that it is used for destroying vermin and poisoning fish. In 1635 it was subject to an ‘port duty of 2s, per lb., as Cocculus Indic. The use of Cocculus Indicus in medicine was advocated by Battista _ Codronchi, a celebrated Italian physician of the 16th century, in a tractate entitled De Baccis Orientalibus® In the “Pinax” Caspar Bauhin (about 1660) states that Coccule officinarwm “ saepe racematim Pediculis herentes, hederee corymborum modo, ex Alexandria adferuntur.” & word Cocculus is derived from the Italian coccola, signifying a cap. agra i edition, 1564. lib. ii, tract. z, Fy Sasctieogy foie a he h ein er . le 548—4! ee : a “eimer’s transl. ii, 460. 7 The Rates of Marchandizes, Lond. 1635. — ap Natura Stirpium, Paris, 1535. lib, 8 It forms part of his work De Christiana Rr ac tuta medendi ratione, Ferrarizw, 1591. * Adnotationes, 1549, cap. 63 (p. 509). : 32 - MENISPERMACE. small, berry-like fruit.’ Mattioli remarks that as the berries when first q brought from the East to Italy had no special name, they got to be called Coccole di Levante? a Description—The female flower of Anumirta has normally 5 ovaries placed on a short gynophore. The latter, as it grows, becomes raised into a stalk about } an inch long, articulated at the summit with shorter stalks, each supporting a drupe, which is a matured ovary. The purple drupes thus produced are 1 to 3 in number, of gibbous ovoid form, with the persistent stigma on the straight side, and in a line with the shorter stalk or carpodium. They grow ina pendulous panicle, a foot or more in length. These fruits removed from their stalks and dried have the aspect of : little round berries, and constitute the Cocculus Indicus of commerce. — As met with in the market they are shortly ovoid or subreniform, yo #9 — zo. of an inch long, with a blackish, wrinkled surface, and an obscure : ridge running round the back. The shorter stalk, when present, sup- ports the fruit very obliquely. The pericarp, consisting of a wrinkl | skin covering a thin woody endocarp, encloses a single reniform seed, into which the endocarp deeply intrudes. In transverse section the seed has a horse-shoe form; it consists chiefly of albumen, enclosing a pair cof large, diverging lanceolate cotyledons, with a short terete | radicle. ee The seed is bitter and oily, the pericarp tasteless. The drug 1s pre ferred when of dark colour, free from stalks, and fresh, with the set well preserved. 3 elongated cells. They are densely packed, and run in various Ce tions, showing but small cavities. “The parenchyme of the seed 1s loaded ed ? of the drug. Picrotoxin mate of potassium it somewhat resembles strychnine, as shown in Ii , by Kohler, . “oe Picrotoxin melts at 200° C. ; its composition, C°H”O%, as ascertal i¢ . in 1877 by Paternd and Oglialoro, is the same as that of evernini i * Frutto d’aleuni alberi, e d’aleune piante, 2 Quoted by J. J. von Tschudi, Die Kok- © erbe salvatiche, come cipresso, ginepro, kelskérner und das Pikrotoxin, St. alloro, pugnitopo, e lentischio, e simili,— 1847. ute Lat. bacca; Gr. dxpdépve,—Vocabolario 3 The fruit should be macerated in ¢ degli Accademici della Crusca. to examine its structure. ; t GULANCHA. — 33 hydrocoffeic, umbellic and veratric (or dimethylprotocatechuic acid— see Semen Sabadillze) acids. __ Pelletier and Couerbe (1833) obtained from the pericarp of Cocculus Indicus two crystallizable, tasteless, non-poisonous substances, having the same composition, and termed respectively Menispermine and . Paramenispermine. These bodies, as well as the very doubtful amorphous Hypopicrotowic Acid of the same chemists, require re- examination. The fat of the seed, which amounts to about half its weight, is used in India for industrial purposes. Its acid constituent, formerly regarded as a peculiar substance under the name of Stearophanic or Anamirtic Acid, was found by Heintz to be identical with stearic acid. Commerce—Coceulus Indicus is imported from Bombay and Madras, but we have no statistics showing to what extent. The stock in the dock warehouses of London on 1st of December, 1873, was 1168 packages, against 2010 packages on the same day of the previous year. The drug is mostly shipped to the Continent, the consumption in Great Britain being very small. ‘ Uses—In British medicine Cocculus Indicus is only employed as an ingredient of an ointment for the destruction of pediculi. It has been discarded from the British Pharmacopeia, but has a place in that of India. GULANCHA. Caulis et radix Tinospore. Botanical Origin—Tinospora cordifolia Miers (Cocculus cordi- folius DC.), a lofty climbing shrub found throughout tropical India from Kumaon to Assam and Burma, and from Concan to Ceylon and the Carnatic.’ It is called in Hindustani Gulancha ; in Bombay the drug is known under the name of Goolwail. ‘ History—The virtues of this plant which appear to have been long familiar to the Hindu physicians, attracted the attention of Europeans in India at the early part of the present century.” According to a paper published at Calcutta in 1827; the parts used are the stem, leaves, and root, which are given in decoction, infusion, or a sort of extract called palo, in a variety of diseases attended with slight febrile symptoms. : O'Shaughnessy declares the plant to be one of the most valuable in India, and that it has proved a very useful tonic. Similar favourable testimony is borne by Warisic. Gulancha was admitted to the Bengal f rmucopaia of 1844, and to the Pharmacopwia of India of 1868. Description—The stems are perennial, twining and succulent, oe ever the highest trees and throwing out roots many yards in sugth which descend like slender cords to the earth. They have a thick corky bark marked with little prominent tubercles. 5 Fig. in Bentle . . b y and Trimen, Med. * On the native drug called Gulancha by ee 13. Ram Comol Shen.—7'rans. of Med. and and Dn te Catal. of Indian Med. Plants Phys. Soc. of Calcutta, iii, (1827) 295. Drugs, Calcutta, 1810, 27, Cc 34 BERBERIDEA. As found in the bazaars the drug occurs as short transverse segment of a cylindrical woody stem from ¢ of an inch up to 2 inches in” diameter. They exhibit a shrunken appearance, especially those derived — from the younger stems, and are covered with a smooth, translucen shrivelled bark which becomes dull and rugose with age. Many of th pieces are marked with warty prominences and the scars of adventitious — roots. The outer layer which is easily detached covers a shrunken parenchyme. The transverse section of the stem shows it to be divided — by about 12 to 14 meduallry rays into the same number of wedge- shaped woody bundles having very large vessels, but no concentri¢ structure. The drug is inodorous but has a very bitter taste. The | root is stated by O'Shaughnessy’ to be large, soft, and spongy. Microscopic Structure--The suberous coat consists of alternating layers of flat corky cells and sclerenchyme, sometimes of a ye colour. The structure of the central part reminds one of that 0 Cissampelos Pareira (p. 28), like which it is not divided into concentric zones. ‘The woody rays which are sometimes intersected by parenchy ies are surrounded by a loose circle of arched bundles of liber tissue. Chemical Composition—No analysis worthy of the name a been made of this drug, and the nature of its bitter principle is ve . unknown, We have had no material at our disposal sufficient 10T — chemical examination. Uses—Gulancha is reputed to be tonic, antiperiodic and diuretic. According to Waring? it is useful in mild forms of intermittent ievea debility after fevers and other exhausting diseases, in secondary syphi affections and chronic rheumatism. | Substitute—Tinospora crispa Miers, an allied species occurring Silhet, Pegu, Java, Sumatra, and the Phillipines, possesses wares perties, and is highly esteemed in the Indian Archipelago as a feb Be BERBERIDEZ. CORTEX BERBERIDIS INDICUS. Indian Barberry Bark. 2. B. Lycium Royle, an erect, rigid shrub found in dry, hot — tions of the western part of the Himalaya range at 3000 to 9000 te" above the sea-level, ! Bengal Dispensatory, 1842, 198, Indica (1855), also Hooker’s Flora of British ° Pharm. of India, 1868, 9. India, i. (1872) 108. . Med. * For remarks on the Indian species of 4 Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, “1 — Berberis, see Hooker and Thomson’s Flora Plants, part 25, ~ CORTEX BERBERIDIS INDICUS, 35 3. B. asiatica Roxb.—This species has a wider distribution than the last, being found in the dry valleys of Bhotan and Nepal whence it stretches westward along the Himalaya to Garwhal, and occurs again in Affghanistan, History—The medical practitioners of ancient Greece and Italy made use of a substance called Lyciwm (Avtov) of which the best kind was brought from India. It was regarded as a remedy of great value in restraining inflammatory and other discharges; but of all the uses to which it was applied the most important was the treatment of various forms of ophthalmic inflammation. Lycium is mentioned by Dioscorides, Pliny, Celsus, Galen, and Scribonius Largus; by such later Greek writers as Paulus Aigineta, Altius, and Oribasius, as well as by the Arabian physicians. The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea who probably lived in the Ist century, enumerates \v«coy as one of the exports of Barbarike at the mouth of the Indus, and also names it along with Bdellium and Costus among the commodities brought to Barygaza :— and further, lycium is mentioned among the Indian drugs on which va was levied at the Roman custom house of Alexandria about A.D. 176—180." An interesting proof of the esteem in which it was held is afforded by some singular little vases or jars of which a few specimens are pre- served in collections of Greek antiquities.” These vases were made to contain lycium, and in them it was probably sold; for an inscription on the vessel not only gives the name of the drug but also that of a person who, we may presume, was either the seller or the inventor of the composition. Thus we have the Lyciwm of Jason, of Musceus, and of Heracleus. The vases bearing the name of Jason were found at Taren- tum, and there is reason to believe that that marked Heracleus was from the same locality. Whether it was so or not, we know that a certain Heraclides of Tarentum is mentioned by Celsus* on account of his method of treating certain diseases of the eye; and that Galen gives formule for ophthalmic medicines‘ on the authority of the same person. Innumerable conjectures were put forth during at least three centuries as to the origin and nature of lycium, and especially of that highly esteemed kind that was brought from India. : In the year 1833, Royle’ communicated to the Linnean Society of London a paper proving that the Indian Lycium of the ancients was identical with an extract prepared from the wood or root of several Species of Berberis growing in Northern India, and that this extract, well known in the bazaars as Rusot or Rasot, was in common use among the natives in various forms of eye disease.® This substance attracted * Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of * Lib. vii. c. 7.—See also Cexlius Aure- the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, ii. (1807) lianus, De morbis chronicis (Haller’s ed.) lib. 390, 410, 734. i. c. 4, lib. iii. ¢. 8. ; * Figures of these vessels were published 4 Cataplasmata lippientium quibususus est by Dr. J. ¥. Simpson in an interesting paper Heraclides Tarentinus—Galen, De Comp. entitled Notes on some ancient Greek medical Med. sec. locos, lib. iv. (p. 153 in Venice reed for containing Lycium, of which we edit. of 1625). : : ; : J, ve made free use.—See (Edinb.) Monthly 5On the Lycium of Dioscorides,—Linn. Ppnal of Med. Science, xvi. (1853) 24, also Trans. xvii. (1837) 83. harm. Journ, xiii, (1854) 413, 6 It is interesting to find that two of the * * - BERBERIDE. | considerable notice in India, and though its efficacy per se’ seemed | questionable, it was administered with benefit as a tonic and febrifuge.” But the rusot of the natives being often badly prepared or adulterated, — the bark of the root has of late been used in its place, and in consequence — of its acknowledged efficacy has been admitted to the Pharmacopwia — of India, Description.—In B. asiatica (the only species we have examined) the roots which are thick and woody, and internally of a bright yellow, are covered with a thin, brittle bark. The bark has a light-brown corky layer, beneath which it appears of a darker and greenish-yellow hue, and composed of coarse fibres running longitudinally. The inner surface has a glistening appearance by reason of fine longitudinal — striz. The bark is inodorous and very bitter. Chemical Composition.—Solly* pointed out in 1843 that the root- bark of the Ceylon barberry [B. avistata] contains the same yellow colouring matter as the barberry of Europe. L. W. Stewart‘ extracted Ee Berberine in abundance from the barberry of the Nilkhiri Hills and _ Northern India, and presented specimens of it to one of us in 1865. The root-bark of Berberis vulgaris L. was found by Polex (1836) to contain another alkaloid named Oayacanthine, which forms with ach colourless crystallizable salts of bitter taste. Uses.—The root-bark of the Indian barberries administered ae tincture has been found extremely useful in India in the treatment ol fevers of all types. It has also been given with advantage in dit 5 and dyspepsia, and as a tonic for general debility. In the collection 0 the Chinese customs at Paris, in 1878, the root-barks of Berberis Lycium and B, chinensis, from the province of Shen-si, were likewise exhibited (No. 1,823) as a tonic. | RHIZOMA PODOPHYLLI. Radia podophylli; Podophyllum Root. Botanical Origin—Podophyllum peltatum L., a perennial i growing in moist shady situations throughout the eastern side of the North American continent from Hudson’s Bay to New Orleans a0 Florida. : a The stem about a foot high, bears a large, solitary, white flower rising from between two leaves of the size of the hand composed si 5 to 7 wedge-shaped divisions, somewhat lobed and toothed at t 5 apex. The yellowish pulpy fruit of the size of a pigeon’s egg # slightly acid and is sometimes eaten under the name of May Apple The leaves partake of the active properties of the root. . History—The virtues of the rhizome as an anthelminthic and emet! names for /ycium given by Ibn Baytar in 2 O'Shaughnessy, Bengal Dispensatory the 13th century are precisely those under (1842) 203—205. ie 74. which ruso¢t is met with in the Indian ® Journ. of R. Asiat. Soe. vil. (1843) bazaars at the present day. * Pharm. Journ. vii. (1866) 303. pe 1 The natives apply it in combination 5 Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 197. with alum and opium. RHIZOMA PODOPHYLLI. 37 have been long known to the Indians of North America, The plant was figured in 1731 by Catesby’ who remarks that its root is an excellent emetic. Its cathartic properties were noticed by Schépf? and Barton* and have been commented upon by many subsequent writers. In 1820, podophyllum was introduced into the United States | Pharmacopeia, and in 1864 into the British Pharmacopeia. Hodg- son published in 1832 in the Journal of the Philadelphia College of Pharmacy* the first attempt of a chemical examination of the rhizome, which now furnishes one of the most popular purgatives, the so-called Podophyllin, manufactured on a large scale at Cincinnati and in other places in America, as well as in England. Description—The drug consists of the rhizome and rootlets. The former creeps to a length of several feet, but as imported is mostly in somewhat flattened pieces of 1 to 8 inches in length and 2 to 4 lines in longest diameter: it is marked by knotty joints showing a depressed scar at intervals of a few inches which marks the place of a fallen stem. ach joint is in fact the growth of one year, the terminal bud being enclosed in papery brownish sheaths. "Sometimes the knots produce one, two, or even three lateral buds and the rhozime is bi- or tri-furcate. The reddish-brown or grey surface is obscurely marked at intervals by oblique wrinkles indicating the former attachment of — rudimentary leaves. The rootlets are about 4 a line thick and arise from below the knots and adjacent parts of the rhizome, the internodal space being bare. They are brittle, easily detached, and commonly of a paler colour. The rhizome is mostly smooth, but some of the branched pieces are deeply furrowed. Both rootstock and rootlets have a short, smooth, mealy fracture ; the transverse section is white, exhibiting only an extremely small corky layer and a thin simple circle of about 20 to 40 yellow, vascular bundles, enclosing a central _ pith which in the larger pieces is often 2 lines in diameter. The drug has a heavy narcotic, disagreeable odour, and a bitter, acrid, nauseous taste. . Microscopic Structure—The vascular bundles are composed of Spiral and scalariform vessels intermixed with cambial tissue. From each bundle a narrow-tissued, wedge- or crescent-shaped liber-bundle Projects a little into the cortical layer. This, as well as the pith, exhibits e thin-walled cells. The rootlets are as usual of a different structure, their central part consisting of one group of vascular bundles more or less scattered.» The parenchymatous cells of the drug are Pe with starch granules ; some also contain stellate tufts of oxalate of calcium. _ Chemical Composition—The active principles of podophyllum €xist in the resin, which according to Squibb’ is best prepared by the process termed re-percolation. The powdered drug is exhausted by alcohol which is made to percolate through successive portions. The , Nat. Hist. of Carolina, i. tab. 24. 4 Vol. iii. 273. : Materia Med. Americ. Erlangex, 1787, 5 Figured by Power, Proc. American troees qctovE was physician to German Phar. Assoc., 1877. 420433. ting in the War of Independence. 6 American Journ. of Pharm, xvi. (1868) ® Collections for ete U.8. Philea 4 tn tad on Mat. Med.of 1 s BERBERIDEA, strong tincture thus obtained is slowly poured into a large quantity of — water acidulated with hydrochloric acid (one measure of acid to 70 of - water), and the precipitated resin dried ata temperature not exceeding 32°C. The acid is used to facilitate the subsidence of the pulverulent resin which according to Maisch settles down but very slowly if preci- _ pitated by cold water simply, and if thrown down by hot water fuses into a dark brown cake. The resin re-dissolved in aleohol and again precipitated by acidulated water, after thorough washing with distilled — water and finally drying over sulphuric acid, amounts to about 2 per cent. Resin of podophyllum is a light, brownish-yellow powder with a tinge of green, devoid of crystalline appearance, becoming darker if exposed to a heat above 32° C., and having an acrid, bitter taste; it is very incorrectly called Podophyllin. The product is the same whether the rhizome or the rootlets are exclusively employed. It is soluble in caustic, less freely in carbonated alkalis, even in ammonia, and is precipitated, apparently without alteration, on addition of an acid. Ether separates it into two nearly equal portions, the one soluble in the menstruum, the other not, but both energetically purgative. From the statements of Credner? it appears that if caustic lye 18 shaken with the ethereal solution, about half the resin combines with the potash, while the other half remains dissolved in the ether. If an acid is added to the potassic solution a red-brown precipitate is produc which is no longer soluble in ether nor possessed of purgative power. — According to Credner, the body of greatest purgative activity wee precipitated by ether from an alcoholic solution of crude podophyllin. _ By exhausting the resin with boiling water, Power found that finally not more than 20 per cent. of the resin remained undissolved. By melting the crude resin with caustic soda, a little protocatechuic acl was obtained. . | __F.F. Mayer’ of New York stated podophyllum to contain, beside the resin already mentioned, a large proportion of Berberine, a colourless _ alkaloid, an odoriferous principle which might be obtained by sublima- tion in colourless scales, and finally Saponin. From all these bodies the resin as prepared by Power,‘ was ascertained by him to be destitute ; he especially proved the absence of berberine in Podophyllum. Uses—Podophyllum is only employed for the preparation of the resin (Resina Podophyllz) which is now much prescribed as a purgative. : Saunders in Am. Journ. of Pharm. xvi. 3Am. Journ. of Pharmacy, xxxv. (1863) _ ; 9 _ 2 Ueber Podophyllin (Dissertation), Gies- ‘L, cit., also.Am. Journ. of Pharm. (1878) sen, 1869. 370. PETALA RH(EADOS. 3 39 PAPAVERACE:. PETALA RHCEADOS. Flores Rheados ; Red Poppy Petals; F. Flewrs de Coquelicot ; G. Klatschrosen. Botanical Origin—Papaver Rhwas L.—The common Red Poppy or Corn Rose is an annual herb found in fields throughout the greater part of Europe often in extreme abundance. It almost always occurs as,’ accompaniment of cereal crops, frequently disappearing when this cultivation is given up. It is plentiful in England and Ireland, but less so in Scotland; is found abundantly in Central and Southern Europe and in Asia Minor, whence it extends as far as Abyssinia, Palestine, and the banks of the Euphrates. But it does not occur in dia or in North America, From the evidence adduced by De Candolle' it would appear that the plant is strictly indigenous to Sicily, Greece, Dalmatia, and possibly — the Caucasus, History—Papaver Rheas was known to the ancients, though doubt- less it was often confounded with P. dubium L. the flowers of which are tather smaller and paler, The petals were used in pharmacy in Germany in the 15th century.2 3 Description—The branches of the stem are upright, each terminat- mg in a conspicuous long-stalked flower, from which as it opens the two sepals fall off The delicate scarlet petals are four in number, transversely elliptical and attached below the ovary by very short, dark- Violet claws. As they are broader than long, their edges overlap in the xpanded flower. In the bud they are irregularly crumpled, but when unfolded are smooth, lustrous, and unctuous to the touch. They fall off very quickly, shrink up in drying, and assume a brownish-violet tint even when dried with the utmost care. Although they do not contain a milky juice like the green parts of the plant, they have while fresh a strong narcotic odour and a faintly bitter taste. Chemical Composition—The most important constituent of the petals is the colouring matter, still but very imperfectly known. According to L, Meier (1846) it consists of two acids, neither of which could be obtained other than in an amorphous state. The colouring matter is abundantly taken up by water or spirit of wine but not by — The aqueous infusion is not precipitated by alum, but yields a be Violet precipitate with acetate of lead, and is coloured blackish- | Town by ferric salts or by alkalis. ‘ © alkaloids of opium cannot be detected in the petals. Attfield ob ‘rticular has examined the latter (1873) for morphine but without taining a trace of that body. mem: botanique, ii, (1855) 649, Nordlingen. See Fliickiger, in the Archiv Papaveris rubri—in the list of | der Pharm, 211 (1877) 97, No. 62. the Pharmaceutical shop of the town of ; 40 | PAPAVERACEZ. The milky juice of the herb and capsules has a narcotic odour,and — appears to exert a distinctly sedative action. Hesse obtained from — them (1865) a colourless crystallizable substance, Rhawadine, C*H" NO’, — of weak alkaline reaction. It is tasteless, not poisonous, nearly insoluble — in water, alcohol, ether, chloroform, benzol, or aqueous ammonia, but dissolves in weak acids. Its solution in dilute sulphuric or bydrochlorie — acid acquires after a time a splendid red colour, destroyed by an alkali but reappearing on addition of an acid. Hesse further believes (1877) the milky juice to contain meconic acid. Uses—Red Poppy petals are employed in pharmacy only for the sake of their fine colouring matter. They should be preferred in the fresh state. CAPSULZ PAPAVERIS. Fructus Papaveris ; Poppy Capsules, Poppy Heads; F. Capsules 0 Tétes de Pavot; G. Mohnkapseln. . Botanical Origin—Papaver somniferum L. Independently of the — garden-forms of this universally known annual plant, we may, following — Boissier,' distinguish three principal varieties, viz. :— a a. setigerum (P. setigerum DC.), occurring in the Peloponnesus Cyprus, Corsica and the islands of Hidres, the truly wild form of ke plant with acutely toothed leaves, the lobes sharp-pointed, and eact terminating in a bristle. The leaves, peduncles, and sepals are covere with scattered bristly hairs, and the stigmata are 7 or 8 in number. ‘4 8. glabrwm—Capsule subglobular, stigmata 10 to 12. Chiefly cub tivated in Asia Minor and Egypt. y. album (P. officinale Gmelin)—has the capsule more or less ego _ shaped and devoid of apertures. It is cultivated in Persia. a Besides the differences indicated above, the petals vary from ane = to red or violet, with usually a dark purplish spot at the base of each. The seeds also vary from white to slate-coloured. History—The poppy has been known from a remote period through- — out the eastern countries of the Mediterranean, Asia Minor, and Cent Asia, in all which regions its cultivation is of very ancient date.’ = Syrup of poppies, a medicine still in daily use, is recommended re Re sedative in catarrh and cough in the writings of the younger Mesue e a A.D. 1015) who studied at Bagdad, and subsequently resided at Cairo a i physician to the Caliph of Egypt. Their medicinal use seems to have — reached Europe at an early period, for the Welsh “ Physicians ee Myddvai” in the 13th century already stated :* “Poppy heads bruise in wine will induce a man to sleep soundly.” They even da = pills with the juice of poppy, which they called opiwm. In the tario Fiorentino (see Appendix R) a formula is given for the syroe 1 Flora Orientalis, i. (1867) 116. Unger, Botanische Streifziige auf dem Gebile ; 2 English growers prefer a white-flowered der Culturgeschichte, ii. (1857) 46. 1961, Poppy. 4 Meddygon Myddfai, Llandovery, ue or further particulars consult Ritter, 50. 216. 400. Erdkunde von Asien, vi. (1843) 773, ete. ; CAPSULZ PAPAVERIS. 41 as Syroppo di Papaveri semplici di Mesue ; in the first pharmacopoeia of the London College (1618), the medicine is prescribed as Syrupus de Meconio Mesue. Description—The fruit is formed by the union of 8 to 20 carpels, the edges of which are turned inwards and project like partitions towards the interior, yet without reaching the centre, so that the fruit is really one-celled. In the unripe fruit, the sutures of the carpels are distinctly visible externally as shallow longitudinal stripes. The fruit is crowned with a circular disc, deeply cut into angular ridge-like stigmas in number equal to the carpels, projecting in a stellate manner with short obtuse lobes. Each carpel opens immediately below the dise by a pore, out of which the seeds may be shaken ; but in some varieties of poppy the carpel presents no aperture even when fully ripe. The fruit is globular, sometimes flattened below, or it is ovoid; it is contracted beneath into a sort of neck immediately above a tumid ring at its point of attachment with the stalk. Grown in rich moist ground in England, it often attains a diameter of three inches, which is twice that of the capsules of the opium poppy of Asia Minor or India. While growing it is of a pale glaucous green, but at maturity becomes yel- lowish brown, often marked with black spots. The outer wall of the pericarp is smooth and hard; the rest is of a loose texture, and while green exudes on the slightest puncture an abundance of bitter milky juice. The interior surface of the pericarp is rugose, and minutely and beautifully striated transversely. From its sutures spring thin and brittle placentze directed towards the centre and bearing on their per- pendicular faces and edges a vast number of minute reniform seeds. The unripe fruit has a narcotic odour which is destroyed by drying ; and its bitter taste is but partially retained. Microscopic Structure—The outer layer consists of a thin cuticle exhibiting a large number of stomata ; the epidermis is formed of a row of small thick-walled cells. Fragments of these two layers, which on the whole exhibit no striking peculiarity, are always found in the resi- © due of opium after it has been exhausted by water. The most interesting part of the constituent tissues of the fruit is the sy; stem of laticiferous vessels, which is of an extremely complicated nature inasmuch as it is composed of various kinds of cells intimately interlaced so as to form considerable bundles.’ The cells containing eo — juice are larger but not so much branched as in many other ai Chemical Composition—The analyses of poppy heads present Screpant results with regard to morphine. Merck and Winckler detected it in the ripe fruit to the extent of 2 per cent., and it has also oe found by Groves (1854) and by Deschamps d’Avallon (1864). © ther chemists have been unable to find it. In recent pharmacopceias poppy heads are directed to be taken date to complete maturity, and both Meurein and Aubergier have 8 + that in this state they are richer in morphine than when more xdvanced. Deschamps d’Avallon found them sometimes to contain * For are 4 ; Sci see Trécul, Ann. des Grundlagen der Pharmaceutischen Waaren- at. v. (1866) 49; also Flickiger, kunde, 1873. 45. ee - PAPAVERACEA. nareotine. He also obtained mucilage perceptible by neutral aceti of lead, ammonium salts, meconic, tartaric, and citric acid, the ordinary mineral acids, wax, and lastly two new crystalline bodies, Papavert and Papaverosine.’ The former is not identical with Merck’s alkaloid of the same name; although nitrogenous and bitter, it has an acid reaction (?), yet does not combine with bases. It yields a blue precipl tate with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium. = Papaverosine on the other hand is a base to which sulphuric acid imparts a violet colour, changing to dark yellowish-red on addition of nitric acid. : ; In ripe poppy heads, Hesse (1866) found Rhwadine. Groves in 1854 somewhat doubtfully announced the presence of Codeine. — Fricker” stated to have obtained from the capsules 0:10 per cent. of alkaloid, and Krause? was able to prove the presence of traces of nore narcotine, and meconic acid. Ripe poppy capsules (seeds na ) dried at 100° C. afforded us 14-28 per cent. of ash, consisting chia of alkaline chlorides and sulphates, with but a small quantity ot - phosphate. Production—Poppies are grown for medicinal uses in many parts: of England, mostly on a small scale. The large and fine fruits (poppy heads) are usually sold entire; the smaller and less slightly are re and the seeds having been removed are supplied to the druggist 10 pharmaceutical preparations. The directions of the pharmacopol4 e to the fruit being gathered when “nearly ripe” does not appear oe - much regarded. : Uses—lIn the form of syrup and extract, poppy heads are in com ; _ mon use as a sedative. A Get Siesoution is often externally applied as - an anodyne. sr the In upper India an intoxicating liquor is prepared by heating ™° capsules of the poppy with jagghery and water. OPIUM. Botanical Origin—Papaver somniferwm L., see preceding artic History*—The medicinal properties of the milky juice © : poppy have been known es oe period. Theophrastus We lived in the beginning of the 3rd century B.C. was acquainted ee a substance in question, under the name of Myxenov. The investiga’ : of Unger (1857; see Capsule Papaveris,) have failed to trace acquaintance of ancient Egypt with opium. : 5 (ci pe Seribonius Largus in his Compositiones Medicamentorum bats A.D. 40) notices the method of procuring opium, and points out t 2 the true drug is derived from the capsules, and not from the foliage 0 * plant. } Dragendorff’s Jahresbericht, 1874. 148. 1876, 229, reprinted in Pharm. J wii and 2 Archiv der Pharm. 204 (1874) 507. (2 Dec. 1876; 23 June 1877), PP 8 Catal. Ind. Departm. Internat. Exhibi- 1041. sii. sect tion. 1862. No. 742. 5 Ed. Bernhold, Argent. 1786, ¢. 111. °° *For more particulars see Dr. Rice’s 22. a learned notes in New Remedies, New York, OPIUM. 43 _About the year 77 of the same century, Dioscorides’ plainly distin- guished the juice of the capsules under the name of dads from an extract of the entire plant, uyxéveov, which he regarded as much less active. He described exactly how the capsules should be incised, the performing of which operation he designated by the verb dxifew. We may infer from these statements of Dioscorides that the collection of opium was at that early period a branch of industry in Asia Minor. The same authority alludes to the adulteration of the drug with the milky juices of Glauciwm and Lactuca, and with gum. Pliny’ devotes some space to an account of Upion, of which he ~ describes the medicinal use. The drug is repeatedly mentioned as Lacrima papaveris by Celsus in the 1st century, and more or less particularly by numerous later Latin authors. During the classical period of the Roman Empire as well as in the early middle ages, the only sort of opium known was that of Asia Minor. The use of the drug was transmitted by the Arabs to the nations of the East, and in the first instance to the Persians. From the Greek word dzds, juice, was formed the Arabic word Afyun, which has found its way into many Asiatic languages.” _ The introduction of opium into India seems to have been connected with the spread of Islamism, and may have been favoured by the Mahommedan prohibition of wine. The earliest mention of it as a production of that country occurs in the travels of Barbosa* who visited Calicut on the Malabar coast in 1511. Among the more valuable drugs the prices of which he quotes, opium occupies a prominent place. It was either imported from Aden or Cambay, that from the latter place being the cheaper, yet worth three or four times as much as camphor or benzoin. Pyres’ in his letter about Indian drugs to Manuel, king of Portugal, written from Cochin in 1516, speaks of the opium of Egypt, that of - Cambay and of the kingdom of Cots (Kus Bahar, S.W. of Bhotan) in Bengal. He adds that it is a great article of merchandize in these parts and fetches a good price;—that the kings and lords eat of it, Patek even the common people, though not so much because it costs : Garcia d’Orta* informs us that the opium of Cambay in the middle of the 16th century was chiefly collected in Malwa, and that it is soft ro yellowish. That from Aden and other places near the Erythrean is black and hard. A superior kind was imported from Cairo, bar as Garcia supposed with the opium of the ancient Thebaid, a istrict of Upper Egypt near the modern Karnak and Luksor. In India the Mogul Government uniformly sold the opium monopoly, Lib. iv. ¢, 65 * Lib. xx. ¢. 76. ie = are no ancient Chinese or Sanskrit ; Pe er opium. In the former language hate is called O-fu-yung from the Arabic. er names Ya-pien and O-pien are per ce to the Chinese idiom of our word ’ Journ. de Soc. Pharm. Lusit, ii. (1838) 36. Pires, or Pyres, was the first ambassador from Europe to China: Abel Rémusat, Nouv. mélanges asiatiques, ii, (1829) 203. See also Pedro José da Silva, Hlogio historico e noticia completa de Thomé Pires, pharma- ceutico € primeiro naturalista da India, Lisboa, 1866 (Library of the Pharm. Soc., London, Pamphlets, No. 30). 6 Aromatum . . . Historia, edit Clusius, Antv, 1574. lib. i. ¢. 4. oe PAPAVERACEZ, and the East India Company followed their example, reserving to itself the sole right of cultivating the poppy and selling the opium, Opium thebaicum was mentioned by Simon Januensis, physician to Pope Nicolas IV. (A.D. 1288-92), who also alludes to meconium a — the dried juice of the pounded capsules and leaves. Prosper Alpinus? : who visited Egypt in 1580-83, states that opium or meconium was Il — Me time prepared in the Thebaid from the expressed juice of poppy — eads. The German traveller Kiimpfer, who visited Persia in 1685, describes — the various kinds of opium prepared in that country. The best sorts were flavoured with nutmeg, cardamom, cinnamon and mace, or simply with saffron and ambergris. Such compositions were called Theriaka, | and were held in great estimation during the middle ages, and probably — supplied to a large extent the place of pure opium. It was not | uncommon for the sultans of Egypt of the 15th century to <7 ns of Theriaka to the doges of Venice and the sovereigns 2 yprus. In Europe opium seems in later times not to have been reckoned . among the more costly drugs; in the 16th century we find it quo a at the same price as benzoin, and much cheaper than camphor, rhubarb, : or manna. ht 4 With regard to China it is supposed that opium was first brought | thither by the Arabians, who are known to have traded with t | southern ports of the empire as early as the 9th century. More recen yy} at least until the 18th century, the Chinese imported the drug in pee | junks as a return cargo from India. At this period it was used a exclusively as a remedy for dysentery, and the whole quantity imp? ied 5 was very small. It was not until 1767 that the importation rea¢ da 1,000 chests, at which rate it continued for some years, most of the ee being in the hands of the Portuguese. The East India Company ma" a small adventure in 1773; and seven years later an opium de : : wry small vessels was established by the English in Lark’s Bay, °¥ of Macao. aan The Chinese authorities began to complain of these two ae | 1793, but the traffic still increased, and without serious interrupt) oe until 1820, when an edict was issued forbidding any vessel eee _ opium on board to enter the Canton river. This led to a ehr* contraband trade with the connivance of the Chinese officials, ‘ ’ towards the expiration of the East India Company’s charter 1D oth had assumed a regular character. The political difficulties bean England and China that ensued shortly after this event, and the by called Opium War, culminated in the Treaty of Nanking (1843) as which five ports of China were opened to foreign trade, and opium W in 1858 admitted as a legal article of commerce.’ ; The vice of opium-smoking began to prevail in China in the second s 1 Olavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510, 46. 4Fontanon, Hdicts et ordonnances des roys 2 De Medicina Agyptiorum, Lugd. Bat. de France, ii. (1585) 347. : these 1719. 261. ’For more ample particulars 0D | ve * De Mas Latrie, Hist. de Chypre, iii. 406. momentous events, see S. Wells Wiha 483; Muratori, Rerum Italic. Scriptores, Middle Kingdom, vol. ii. (1848); xxii. 1170; Amari, I diplomi Arabi del Almanac Companion for 1844, p. 77- ' archivio Fiorentino, Firenze, 1863. 358. OPIUM. 45 half of the 17th century,’ and in another hundred years had spread like a plague over the gigantic empire. The first edict against the practice was issued in 1796, since which there have been innumerable enact- ments and memorials,’ but all powerless to arrest the evil which is still increasing in an alarming ratio. Mr. Hughes, Commissioner of Customs at Amoy, thus wrote on this subject in his official Z'’rade Report® for the year 1870:—“ Opium-smoking appears here as else- where in China to be becoming yearly a more recognized habit,— — almost a necessity of the people. Those who use the drug now do so openly, and native public opinion attaches no odium to its use, so long as it is not carried to excess. . . . In the city of Amoy, and in adjacent cities and towns, the proportion of opium-smokers is estimated to be from 15 to 20 per cent. of the adult population. ... In the country the proportion is stated to be from 5 to 10 per cent... .” Production—The poppy in whatever region it may grow always contains a milky juice possessing the same properties; and the collection of opium is possible in all temperate and sub-tropical countries ‘where the rainfall is not excessive. But the production of the drug is limited by other conditions than soil and climate, among which the value of land and labour stands pre-eminent. _At the present day opium is produced on an important scale in Asia Minor, Persia, India, and China; to a small extent in Egypt. The drug has also been collected in Europe, Algeria,‘ North America, and Australia,© but more for the sake of experiment than as an object of commerce, We shall describe the production of the different kinds under their Several names. 1. Opium of Asia Minor; Turkey, Smyrna, or Constanti- nople Opium’—The poppy from which this most important kind of eplum is obtained is Papaver somniferum, var. B. glabrum Boissier. the flowers are commonly purplish, but sometimes white, and the seeds vary from white to dark violet. The cultivation is carried on throughout Asia Minor, both on the more elevated and the lower lands, the cultivators being mostly small | poet proprietors. The plant requires a naturally rich and moist soil, urther Improved by manure, not to mention much care and attention on the part of the grower. Spring frosts, drought, or locusts sometimes one its complete destruction. The sowing takes place at intervals tom November to March, partly to insure against risk of total failure, and partly in order that the plants may not all come to perfection at the same time, e plants flower between May and July according to the elevation of the land. A few days after the fall of the petals the poppy head 'Bretschneider, Stud : a one , of Chinese Bot. 6 Pharm. Journ. Oct. 1, 1870. 272. "< Ks, 1870. 48. il 7 Much information under this head has 3 Ada. Repository, vol. v. (1837) vi. &e. been derived from a paper On the production dressed to the Inspector-General of of Opium in Asia Minor by 8. H. Maltass iss} ms, Pekin, and published at Shanghai, (Pharm. Journ. xiv. 1855. 395), and one * Pha On the Culture and Commerce in Opium in " phates Journ, xv. (1856) 348. Asia Minor, by E. R. Heffler, of Smyrna Journ. ; ondag of Phar. xviii. (1870) 124; (Pharm. Journ. x. 1869. 434). * ¥ Soc. of Arts, Dec. 1, 1871. —— PAPAVERACEA being about an inch and a half in diameter is ready for incision. incision is made with a knife transversely, about half-way up the ¢ — sule, and extends over about two-thirds the circumference, or is carried spirally to beyond its starting point. Great nicety is required not cut too deep so as to penetrate the capsule, as in that case some of the juice would flow inside and be lost. The incisions are generally mate _ in the afternoon and the next morning are found covered with exuded juice. This is scraped off with a knife, the gatherer transferring it to a poppy leaf which he holds in his left hand. At every alternate” scraping, the knife is wetted with saliva by drawing it through mouth, the object being to prevent the adhesion of the juice to the blade. Each poppy-head is, as a rule, cut only once; but as a plant produces” several heads all of which are not of proper age at the same time, operation of incising and gathering has to be gone over two or thie times on the same plot of ground. a : As soon as a sufficient quantity of the half-dried juice has been collected to form a cake or lump, it is wrapped in poppy leaves and put for a short time to dry in the shade. There is no given size for cakes | : opium, and they vary in weight from a few ounces to more than two — pounds. In some villages it is the practice to make the masses ie be than in others. Before the opium is ready for the market, a meeting” buyers and sellers is held in each district, at which the price to ® asked is discussed and settled,—the peasants being most of them debt to the buyers or merchants. To the latter the opium is sold in a very soft but natural s These dealers sometimes manipulate the soft drug with a wooden Li into larger masses which they envelope in poppy leaves and pac ring cotton bags sealed at the mouth for transport to Smyrna. Acco nel: to another account, the opium as obtained from the grower 18 ee 4 packed in bags together with a quantity of the little chaffy fru d dock (Rumez sp.) to prevent the umps from sticking together, an . brought in baskets to Smyrna, or ports farther north. The opium remains in the baskets (placed in cool warehou avoid loss of weight) till sold, and it is only on reaching the buy warehouse that the seals are broken and the contents of the bags posed. This is done in the presence of the buyer, seller, and 8 Fe examiner, the last of whom goes through the process of inspecting drug piece by piece, throwing aside any of suspicious quality. ak of Smyrna asserts that the drug is divided into three qualities, ia the prime, which is not so much a selected quality as the opi”. some esteemed districts,—the ewrrent, which is the mercantile Te and constitutes the great bulk of the crop—and lastly the ser chiqinti.. The opium of very bad quality or wholly spunoy would place in a fourth category. Maltass applies the name CN" (or chicantee) to opium of every degree of badness. The examination of opium by the official expert is not cond any scientific method. His opinion of the drug is based oD ee odour, appearance and weight, and appears to be generally very ye ‘ayk Bey (1867) has recommended the Turkish government we the more certain method of assaying opium by chemical means. — In Asia Minor the largest quantities of opium are now procl™ * Probably signifying refuse,—that which comes out. OPIUM. ae 47 the north-western districts of Karahissar Sahib, Balahissar, Kutaya, and Kiwa (or Geiveh), the last on the river Sakariyeh which runs into the Black Sea. These centres of large production of opium send a superior quality of the drug to Constantinople by way of Izmid; the best ap- parently from Bogaditch and Balikesri, near the Susurlu river. Angora and Amasia are other places in the north of Asia Minor whence opium is obtained, In the centre of the peninsula Afium Karahissar (literally opiwm- black-castle) and Ushak are important localities for opium, which is also the case with Isbarta, Buldur and Hamid farther south. The product of these districts finds its way to Smyrna, in the immediate neighbour- hood of which but little opium is produced. The export from Smyrna in 1871, in which year the crop was very large, was 5650 cases, valued at £784,500. Turkey Opiwm, as it is generally called in English trade, occurs in the form of rounded masses which according to their softness become more or less flattened or many-sided, or irregular by mutual pressure in the cases in which they are packed. There appears to be no rule as to their weight” which varies from an ounce up to more than 6 tb. ; from 2 Ib. to 2 th. is however. the most usual. The exterior is covered with the remains of poppy leaves strewn over with the Rumew chaff before alluded to, which together make the lumps sufficiently dry to be easily handled. The consistence is such that the drug can be readily cut with a knife, or moulded between the fingers. ‘The interior is moist and coarsely granular, varying in tint from a light chestnut to a blackish brown. Fine shreds of the epidermis of the poppy capsule are perceptible even to the naked eye, but are still more evident if the residue of opium washed with water, is moistened with dilute chromic acid (1 to 100). The odour of Turkey opium is peculiar, and though commonly described as narcotic and unpleasant, is to many persons far from disagreeable. The taste is bitter. The substances alleged to be used for adulterating Turkey opium are sand, pounded poppy capsules, pulp of apricots or figs, gum traga- canth or even turpentine, Bits of lead are sometimes found in the lumps, also stones and masses of clay. 2. Egyptian Opiwn—though not abundant little as formerly is still met with in European commerce. It usually occurs in hard, flattish es about 4 inches in diameter covered with the remnants of a poppy eaf, but not strewn over with rumex-fruits. We have also seen it (1873) as freshly imported, in a soft and plastic state The fractured rs ace of this opium (when hard) is finely porous, of a dark liver- Colour, shining here and there from imbedded particles of quartz or gum, and teddish-yellow points (of resin?). Under the microscope i abundance of starch granules is sometimes visible. The morphine a8 sample from Merck amounted to 6 per cent. According to Von Kremer who wrote in 1863,° there were then in + Consul Cu: l mberbatch, Trade Report for 3 Aegypten, Forschungen iiber Land und Tae nted to Parliament, . Volk wihrend eines 10 jéhrigen Aufenthaltes, 6m. "sl! ag lump a fen weighed Leipzig, 1863. ined dng part of 65 pac ch *xamined 2nd July, 1873. Di 48 : PAPAVERACEA. Upper Egypt near Esneh, Kenneh, and Siout, as much as 10,000 feddan (equal to about the same number of English acres) of lat cultivated with the poppy from which opium was obtained in Mar and seed in April. Hartmann’ states that the cultivation is carr on by the government, and solely for the requirement of the sanitaty establishments. S. Stafford Allen in 1861 witnessed the collection of opium at Kenneh in Upper Egypt,? from a white-flowered poppy. An incision” is made in the capsule by running a knife twice round it transversell and the juice scraped off the following day with a sort of scoop-knif The gatherings are collected on a leaf and placed in the sun to — : The produce appeared extremely small and was said to be wholly use | in the country 5 | Gastinel, director of the Experimental Garden at Cairo, and ae s ment inspector of pharmaceutical stores, has shown (1865) that Oe : poppy in Egypt might yield a very good product containing 10 to 1 : per cent. of morphine, and that the present bad quality of Egyptian - opium is due to an over-moist soil, and a too early searification : the capsule, whereby (not to mention wilful adulteration) the propo : tion of morphine is reduced to 3 or 4 per cent.: — In 1872, 9636 tb. of opium, value £5023, were imported into Re United Kingdom from Egypt. aoe 3. Persian Opium. —Persia, probably the original home of the” baneful practice of opium-eating, cultivates the drug chiefly im Of central provinces where, according to Boissier, the plant gro furnish it is Papaver somniferum, var. y album (P. officinale h we having ovate roundish capsules. Poppy heads from Persia which sf saw at the Paris Exhibition in 1867, had vertical incisions and contain x white seeds. es ree The strongest opium called in Persia Teriak-e-A rabistant is ie in the neighbourhood of Dizful and Shuster, east of the Lower ! bs a Good opium is likewise produced about Sari and Balfarush 1 re ps of Mazanderan, and in the southern province of Kerman. séld owest quality which is mixed with starch and other matters, 18 whe in light brown sticks; it is made at Shahabdulazim, 5 Tae Kum. A large quantity of opium appears to be produced in Rhee’ and Turkestan. ; khara, Persian opium is carried overland to China through Bo re Khokan and Kashgar ;* but since 1864 it has also been ee d conveyed thither by sea, and it is now quoted in trade reports Ii ie of Malwa, Patna, and Benares.’ It is exported by way ot Trebizo “did Constantinople where it used to be worked up to imitate the mi ; Ese ! Naturgeschichtl. medicin. Skizze der Nil- 3 Polak, Persien, ii. (1865) 218 oe ur léinder, Berlin, 1866. 353. * Powell, Heonomic Products of ¢* * Pharm. Journ. iv. (1863) 199. ” : jab, i. (1868) 294. pectot * Thus in the T’rade Report for Foochow, for 1870, addressed to Mr. Hart, Ins) ; General of Customs, Pekin, is the following table : Malwa, Patna. Benares. F300 Imports of Opium in 1867. . chests 2327 1673 724 nd r» to ee eee 377 493 - s 1500. . -BaOk 1340 410 ie es i ees 1283 245 OPIUM. 49 of Asior Minor, and at the same time adulterated.’ Since 1870, Persian opium which was previously rarely seen as such in Europe, has been imported in considerable quantity, being shipped now from Bushire and Bunder Abbas, in the Persian Gulf, to London or to the Straits Settlements and China. It occurs in various forms, the most typical being a short rounded cone weighing 6 to 10 ounces. We have also seen it in flat circular cakes, 1} tb.in weight. In both forms the drug was of firm consistence, a good opium-smell, and internally brown of a com- paratively light tint. The surface was strewn over with remnants of stalks and leaves. Some of it had been collected with the use of oil as in Malwa (see p. 51), which was apparent from the greasiness of the cone, and the globules of oil visible when the drug was cut. The best samples of this drug as recently imported, have yielded 8 to 10°75 per cent. of morphine, reckoned on the opium in its moist state.’ Carles,® from a specimen which seems to have been adulterated with sugar, obtained 8-40 per cent. of morphine, and 3°60 of narcotine, the drug not having been previously dried. Inferior qualities of Persian opium have also been imported. Some that was soft black and extractiform afforded wndried only 3 to 4 per cent. of morphine (Howard); while some of very pale hue in small sticks, each wrapped in paper, yielded no more than 02 per cent.! (Howard). For further details, see p- 61. In Turkestan an aqueous extract of poppy heads collected before maturity is prepared ; it seems to be rich in alkaloids. 4. European Opium—From numerous experiments made during the present century in Greece, Italy, France, Switzerland, Germany, England, and even in Sweden, it has been shown that in all these countries a very rich opium, not inferior to that of the East, can be produced. The most numerous attempts at opium-growing in Europe have been made in France. But although the cultivation was recommended in the strongest terms by Guibourt,’ who found in French opium the highest percentage of morphine yet observed (22°8 per cent.), it has hever become a serious branch of industry. : Aubergier of Clermont-Ferrand has carried on the cultivation with Steat perseverance since 1844, and has succeeded in producing a very pure inspissated juice which he calls A ffium, and which is said to con- 2 uniformly* 10 per cent. of morphine. It is made up in cakes of 50 grammes, but is scarcely an article of wholesale commerce.” _ me careful and interesting scientific investigations relating to the ache of opium in the neighbourhood of Amiens, were made by harme in 1855 to 18622 He found 14,725 capsules incised within , Letter from Mr, Merck to Dr. F- 1863. 3 Journ de Pharm. xvii. (1873) 427. ormation kindly given us (9th June, * Fedschenko’s Catalogue of the Moscow i./3), by Mr. W. Dilworth Howard, of Exhibition, Turkestan department, in of Howard and Sons, Stratford. Buchner’s Repertorium fiir Pharmacie, xxii, A mo: S ineed ) i : acturer has no particu- (1873) 221. : we m ascertaining the amount of 5 Journ. de Pharm. xli. (1862) 184, 201. ee he purchases. All he 6 How this uniformity is insured we know > Know is the en of not. Leah Which the es cece It is 7 Dorvault, Officine, éd. 8. 1872. 648. neler niga the pharmaceutist, whose 8 They are pomees = eral Sa Opium ve to be made with dried for which we are inde e author, — reprinted from the Mém. del Acad. du dé. D ‘Mo. Bot. Garden, 1893 50 PAPAVERACEE. 6 days to afford 431 grammes of milky juice, yielding 205 grammes — (= 47-6 per cent.) of dry opium containing 16 per cent. of morphine — Another sample of dried opium afforded 20 per cent. of morphine Decharme observed that the amount of morphine diminished when the ; juice is very slowly dried,—a point of great importance deserving atten: — tion in India. The peculiar odour of opium as observable in the oriental drug, is developed, according to the same authority, by a kind of fermentation.’ Adrian even suggests that morphine is formed only by a similar process, inasmuch as he could obtain none by oh fresh poppy capsules with acidulated alcohol, while capsules of the same crop yielded an opium rich in morphine. : 5. East Indian Opium—The principal region of British te distinguished for the production of opium is the central tract 0 he Ganges, comprising an area of about 600 miles in length, by 200 m re in width. It reaches from Dinajpur in the east, to Hazaribagh 1m Me — _ south, and Gorakhpur in the north, and extends westward to 4 thus including the flat and thickly-populated districts of paras : Benares. The amount of land here actually under poppy cultivation — was estimated in 1871-72 as 560,000 acres. : sath | The region second in importance for the culture of opium Orn ‘ls, of the broad table-lands of Malwa, and the slopes of the Vindhya . in the dominions of the Holkar. ee Beyond these vast districts, the area under poppy cultivaiy™ : comparatively small,” yet it appears to be on the increase. Coal : reports (1869) that the plant is grown (principally for opium) t a ae out the plains of the Punjab, but less commonly in the north-wes early 2 the valley of the Bias, east of Lahore, it is cultivated up to R&™ — 7500 feet above the sea-level. athe der att The manufacture of opium in these parts of India is not un 1368)! a restriction as in Hindustan. Most districts, says Powell ( 8 oe cultivate the poppy to a certain extent, and produce a small ra fe of indifferent opium for local consumption. The drug, pega of prepared in the Hill States, and the opium of Kali (E. of Lahore), sis excellent quality, and forms a staple article of trade in that re Opium is also produced in Nepal, Basahir and Rampur, and at trict s Kashtwar in the Jammi territory.’ It is exported from these dis ask to Yarkand, Khutan, Aksu, and other Chinese provinces,—to the ex : in 1862 of 210 maunds (= 16,800 tb.). The Madras Presidency eg si no opium at all. «oq those The opium districts of Bengal® are divided into two agencies, vg of Behar and Benares, which are under the control of officials pee a respectively at Patna and Ghazipur. The opium is 4 Seber ool = monopoly—that is to say, the cultivators are under an obligation + the their produce to the government at a price agreed on beforehand; at ™ partement de la Somme and the Mém. de 8 Punjab Plants, Lahore, 1869. 10. | v Académie Stanislas. 4 Op. cit. i. 294. : g, and 1 Journ. de Pharm. vi. (1867) 222. 5 At the base of the Himalay4 oe * Sowe mayinfer from the fact that ofthe S.E. of Kashmir. ti Bent! 2 39,225 chests which paid duty to Govern- 6 Much of what follows seo me tw ae ment at Bombay in 1872, 37,979 were Malwa _—_ opium is derived from a paper Ae Exe opium, the remaining 1,246 being reckoned formerly First Assistant and Op! + Gha - as from Guzerat.—Statement of the Trade miner in the Government raged ke and Nav. of Bombay for 1871-72, p. xv. pur.—Pharm. Journ. x1. (1852) 20%» © OPIUM. | 51 same time it is wholly optional with them, whether to enter on the cultivation or not. The variety of poppy cultivated is the same as in Persia, namely, P. somniferum, var. y album. As in Asia Minor, a moist and fertile soil is indispensable ‘The plant is liable to injury by insects, excessive rain, hail, or the growth on its roots of a species ot Orobanche. In Behar the sowing takes place at the beginning of November, and the capsules are sacrificed in February or March (March or April in Malwa). This operation is performed with a peculiar instrument, called a nushtwr, having three or four two-pointed blades, bound together with cotton thread.? In using the nushtur, only one set of points is brought into use at a time, the capsule being scarified vertically from base to summit. This scarification is repeated on different sides of the capsule at intervals of a few days, from two to six times. In many districts of Bengal, transverse cuts are made in the poppy-head as in Asia Minor. The milky juice is scraped off early on the following morning with an iron scoop, which as it becomes filled is emptied into an earthen pot carried by the collector’s side. In Malwa a flat scraper is used which, as well as the fingers of the gatherer, is wetted from time to time with linseed oil to prevent the adhesion of the glutinous juice. All accounts represent the juice to be in a very moist state by reason of dew, which sometimes even washes it away; but so little is this moisture of the juice thought detrimental that, as Butter states,’ the collectors in some places actually wash their scrapers in water, and add the washings to the collection of the morning! The juice when brought home is a wet granular mass of pinkish colour; and in the bottom of the vessel in which it is contained, there — collects a dark fluid resembling infusion of coffee, which is called pasewa, The recent juice strongly reddens litmus, and blackens metallic iron. It is placed in a shallow earthen vessel, which is tilted in such manner that the paséwa may drain off as long as there is any of it to separated. This liquor is set aside in a covered vessel. The residual mass is now exposed to the air, though never to the sun, and turned over every few days to promote its attaining the proper degree of ess, which according to the Benares regulations, allows of 30 per — cent. of moisture. This drying operation occupies three or four weeks. re, ots e drug is then taken to the Government factory for sale ; previous +e ing sold it is examined for adulteration by a native expert, and ven portion of water is also carefully determined. Having been Ived into stock, it undergoes but little treatment beyond a thorough : Xing, until it is required to be formed into globular cakes. This is a in a somewhat complicated manner, the opium being strictly of dard consistence. First the quantity of opium is weighed out, and Betakee been formed into a ball is enveloped in a crust of dried poppy called. skilfully agglutinated one over the other by means of a liquid ort léwin. _ This consists partly of good opium, partly of pasewa, and. of vd of opium of inferior quality, all being mixed with the washings € various pots and vessels which have contained opium, and then ’ Itis said ; to popp (1873) that the ground devoted 2 For figures of the instrument, see — } Poversheg vate in in batetning im- Pharm. Journ. xi. (1862) 207. ss ttaing ia? 204 that the plant no longer 3 Pharm Journ, xi. (1852) 209, ‘ its usual dimensions, * +59 PAPAVERACEZ. | a : 1 53 of d evaporated to a thick fluid, 100 grains of which should afford 53 of dry ium in the residue. These various things are used to form a ball of opium following proportions :— seers. chittaks. Opium of standard consistence . ‘ dk ee »» contained in lad . : : ‘ iat Cope eS > es Spo apc dos Fine trash . : ° about 4 Tb. 34 02 2 1:18= avoirdupois. EES rical and The finished balls usually termed cakes, which are quite sphe : sch is the name have a diameter of 6 inches, are rolled in poppy trash which is t given to the coarse lant; ly powdered stalks, capsules and a of ee : they are then placed in small dishes and exposed to the “te the gus of the sun. Should any become distended, it is at —__ rrae e days allowed to escape, and the cake made up again. “s = ctory where the cakes are placed, by the end of J uly, in frames in the fa i onstan the air is allowed to circulate. They still however require co watching and tur : ich has ning, as they are liable to contract seen erie have to be removed by rubbing in poppy trash. By October t po dition t0 become perfectly dry externally and quite hard, and are oak which col be packed in cases (40 cakes in each) for the China marke sumes the great bulk of the manufacture. ; : t shape. For consumption in India the drug is prepared in a differen : 2 f mois- It is inspissated by solar heat till it contains only 10 per cent. of mo : P h whi ture, in which state it is formed into square cages of 2 tb. eac are wrapped in oil Such paper, or it is made into flat square tablets. | a drug is known as Abkayy Opium. e Government opium factories most orderly system. The care sts - Inthe year 1871-72 the number of che sold was 49,695, the price est than the average of the preceding year. The net profit on each a was £90), . ter- _ In Malwa the manufacture of opium is left entirely to private eD 0 prise, the profit to Government being derived from an export duty ¢ 600 rupees (£60) per chest? is As may readily be supposed, the a | of much less uniform quality than that which has passed membet 2 088 ngal agencies, and having no guarantee as to purity it comman confidence, < . Malwa opium is not made into balls, but into rectangular masses, 93 bricks which are not in poppy petals ; it contains as much eee in 1870 mid opium. Some opium sold in London as Malwa Opn 8. the form of rounded masses covered with vegetable remain It was of fj ej) irm consistence, dark our, and rather smoky odour. Howard obtained m it (undri é ; er ed) 9 per cent. of morphine. Oth * Statement exhibis: material nda ec sg moral and = at, by this duty upon opin during dhe "year “ignition oF India qxponeg SoU", ¥Y hin ty =DOU HTS, : - paral e Book ° 3 : ordered to be printed 29th July, 1873. p10. was £2,353,500 OPIUM. 53 importations afforded the same chemist 48 and 6 per cent. respec- tively. The chests of Patna opium hold 120 catties or 160 Ib. Those of Malwa opium 1 pecul or 1334 ib. The quantity of opium produced in India cannot be ascertained, but the amount exported’ is accurately known. Thus from British India the exports in the year ending March 31, 1872, were 93,364 chests valued at £13,365,228. Of this quantity Bengal furnished 49,455 chests, Bombay 43,909 chests: they were exported thus :— To China : : : : : : . 85,470 chests. The Straits Settlements : : ‘ : 3845 4, Ceylon, Java, Mauritius and Bourbon. ; 38i ey, The United Kingdom ‘ ° ‘ ‘ ‘ ee Other countries j : : : : ; 255 Total . ° . 93, 364 ” The net revenue to the Government of India from opium in the year 1871-72 was £7,657,213. 6. Chinese Opium—China consumes not only nine-tenths of the opium exported from India, and a considerable quantity of that produced in Asia Minor, but the whole of what is raised in her own provinces. How large is this last quantity we shall endeavour to show. The drug is mentioned as a production of Yunnan in a history of that province, of which the latest edition appeared in 1736. But it is only very recently that its cultivation in China has assumed such large proportions as to threaten serious competition with that in India.’ In a Report upon the Trade of Hankow for 1869, addressed to Mr. Hart, Inspector-General of Customs, Pekin, we find Notes of a journey through the opium districts of Szechuen, undertaken for the special pur- pose of obtaininginformation about the drug.’ From these notesitappears that the estimated crop of the province for 1869 was 4235 peculs (=564,666 ib.). This was considered small, and the Szechuen opium Merchants asserted that 6000 peculs was a fair average. The same authorities estimated the annual yield of the province of Kweichow at 15,000, and of Yunnan at 20,000 peculs, making a total of 41,000 peculs or 5,466,666 tb. In 1869 also, Sir R. Alcock reported that about two- of the province of Szechuen and one-third of that of Yunnan Were devoted to opium+ ie Mr. Consul Markham states’ that the province of Shensi likewise Annual St e soil as sensibly to affect the demand for coaaiition of Brit y As a oan the India-grown commodity. ”__Foreignerin General, Galoutta, 1953. — Ores deat ad opium exported from *In the Re ' : by 1719 chests ‘port on the Trade of Hankow Bombay in 1871-72 was less by c Sor 1869 addressed to Mr. Hart, tector than that exported in 1870-71, the decrease General of Customs, Pekin, it is stated— being attributed to the present large culti- abl © importation of opium is consider- vation in China.—Statement of the Trade ‘Y Short for the last two seasons, but and Nav. of Bombay for 1871-72, pp. Xi. Xvi. Golas not to be wondered at now that each 8 According to the French missionaries, i. a-Shopkeeper inthis andthe surround- _ the cultivation of the poppy in the great » ticts advertises native drug for province of Szechuen was y known WH Median cig ang: log OR ee urst, British Consul at Shang- 4 Calcutta Blue Book, p. 205. hai, says—“The drug is now being so exten- 5 Journ. of Soc. of Arta, Sept. (1872) 6, 8i Vely produced by the Chinese upon their _p. 338. fee seek ages PAPAVERACEAR. furnishes important su lies. Mr. Edkins the well-known nae : has lately pointed out froth personal observation! the extensive cultiva tion of the poppy in the north-eastern province of Shantung. lat, 44° Opium of very fair quality is now produced about Ninguta ( : He in north-eastern Manchuria, a region having a rigorous winter ¢ me Consul Adkins of Newchwang who visited this district in ree z + that the opium is inspissated in the sun until hard enoug ould wrapped in poppy leaves, and that its price on the spot is equal to a 1s. per ounce? : 5 hensi opium is said to be the best, then that of Yunnan. But Chinese : consumers mostly regard and flavour, and only fit for use Ils, besides about 70 peculs of Turkish, the growth of the trade in opium between India and China, the following figures® wil] give som e idea: value of exports in 1852-53 — £6,470,915, 1861-62 — £9,704,979, 1871-72 — £11,605,577. and ° 2 AS ee 1872 1873 1874 1875 1876 oplum, . 93,364 908 88, 27 94,746 : 88,350 Value, “. .” $13,365,998 11,438.280 11,341,857 11,956,972 11,148,426 In 1877 the imports of opium in Hong Kong were stated to consist of 6818 peculs, valued at 2,380.66 i Herald, June 28, 1873, the G 2199. eports ae ee oe Overnor-G Calcutta, 1872—!¥" 1872) tei eons oy China, 1871 ° Statistical evisene relating to_ Britt = 1335 1h,” 1875) v4.23. aya Jrom 1866-67 to 1875-76. London, * RB On the Trade 1877, pp. 51, 53) a Ports in China for 1965, Bhan alday ca ead *4 Pan onl dis voyage @' epee ae ° Taken from © Annual g mt of po du Mekong et de Cochinchine, Paris, 2 with foreiy Countren cae of British India SR ton the Trade Hankow, before gn ries, Published by onder of aheled on rade of : OPIUM. 55 asample submitted to him as a flat cake enveloped in the sheathing _ petiole of bamboo; externally it was a blackish-brown, glutinous sub- stance, dry and brittle on the outside. It lost by drying 18 per cent. of water, and afforded upon incineration 7-5 per cent. of ash. In 100 grains of the (undried) drug, there were found 5:9 of morphine, and 75 of narcotine. (See also p. 62.) The Chinese who prepare opium for use by converting it into an aqueous extract which they smoke, do not estimate the value of the drug according to its richness in morphine, but by peculiarities of aroma and degree of solubility. In China the preparation of opium for smoking is a special business, not beneath the notice even of Europeans! ...§: Zambexi or Mozambik Opium—From a notice in Pharm. Journal vil. (1878) 1007, it would appear that the Portuguese have formed in 1877 a large company called the “Mozambique Opium Cultivating and Trading Company.” Description—The leading characteristics of each kind of opium have been already noticed. The following remarks bear chiefly on the microscopic appearances of the drug. will be presently shown, a more or less considerable part of the drug consists of peculiar substances which are mostly crystalliz- able and are many of them present in a crystalline state in the drug itself. All kinds of opium appear more or less crystalline when a little 'n a dry state is triturated with benzol and examined under the micro- Scope. The forms are various: opium from Asia Minor exhibits needles and short imperfect crystals usually not in large quantity, whereas an and still more Persian opium is not only highly crystalline but shows a variety of forms which become beautifully evident when seen by polarized light. In several kinds large crystals occur which are doubtless Sugar, either intentionally mixed or naturally present. The crystals seen in opium are not however sufficiently developed to Warrant positive conclusions as to their nature, besides which the plum constituents when pure are capable under slightly varied circum- pontes of assuming very different forms. Hence the attempt to obtain — Tom solutions crystals which shall be comparable with those of the “ime substances in a state of purity often fails. Some interesting t 8 is in this direction were made by Deane and Brady in ~ All opium has a peculiar narcotic odour and a sharp bitter taste. Chemical Com iti -juice lik al vegetable ee ; position—Poppy-juice like analogous vegetal luids is a mixture of several substances in variable proportion. With we “ommoner substances which constitute the great bulk of the drug © are not yet sufficiently acquainted. ; ; In 1870, a British : . h 1 . firm at Amoy opened and the Exchequer will receive the yearly the ¢ablishment for preparing opitiat for sum of 140,000 dollars—a welcome addi- Austra, ly of the Chinese in California and tion to the revenue,” . : 1s7g. Pall Mall Gazette, Nov. 7th, 2 Pharm. Journ. vi. 234; vii. 183. with , P 4, announces; “The monopoly of 4 beautiful plates representing the erystal- tricts of Ske selling opium in the 14 dis- _lizations from extract and tincture of opium ® Ho -chow-fu, has been leased to _as well as from the pure opium constituents. innovate at Canton for 3 years, . . . When the juice of the poppy is prevented Opium she," former practice... | | | from rapid drying by the addition of a °Ps are henceforth to be licensed, little glycerin, crystals are developed in it, 56 —- PAPAVERACEZ. a cil In the first place (independently of water) — — ne distinct from that of gum arabic, also pectic matter, These bodies, together with unavoidable fragments of the poppy- eight capsules, probably amount on an average to more than half the weig of the opium? . : in solu- Tn addition to these substances, the juice also contains an yi tion,—in French opium to the extent of 61 to 8 per 2 pee opin Decharme it is uncrystallizable. Sugar also exists ; but whether always naturally has not been iter ‘ — Fresh poppy-juice contains in the form of emu rt : key opie albumin and insoluble calcareous salts. When good Tu ae . extent treated with water these substances remain in the residue to the of 6 to 10 per cent, ‘ fuse of Hesse (1870) has isolated the waz by ehanaine, ee ee ee opium with boiling alcohol and a little lime. He thu ‘tate aud crystalline mass from which he separated by chloroform Palita Cerotate of Cerotyl, the former in the larger proportion. € presence of Cg r outchouc has also been pointed brie er found opium produced in Vermont to contain about 1 8: | that substance, together with a little fatty matter and pier aie tity specting the colouring matter and an extremely + hele After of a volatile body with pepper-like odour, we know but s solution 0 the colouring matter has been precipitated from an iene exposure opium by lead acetate, the liquid becomes again coloure ‘ " vetoue a to the air. As to the volatile body, it may be removed by benzol, but has not yet been isolated. : esium and © salts of inorganic bases, chiefly of calcium, magn horie aun _ potassium, contain € ordinary acids such as phosp sulphuric, and partly an acid opium of Asia M of ash, Poppy-juice contains neither which easily-detected subs : of starch nor tannic acid, the absence purity of the drug, : e : “ . os D of ces affords one criterion for judging . : ing © proportion of water in opium is very variable. In dry! ®Y Opium previous to ti pulverization and for other pia ae purposes, the average loss is about 12} per cent.* Bengal opium, resembles a soft black e trac ; (0) per : Xtract, is manufactured so as to contain 30 pe 2 cent. of water. ine, tuents of opium, or at all events the pepe : be completely extracted by cold water, the proportion 0 Minor . matter is of practical importance, [pn good opium of Asia ts Bi Pee viously dried, the extract (dried at 100° C.) always eer 2 : ( t.—generally to more than 60,—th | mM many instances a test of the pureness of the drug. 1370. é 3 American Journ. of Pharm., oe Specimens of Pectic matter and 124, : f Messrs caoutchoue er eee which we * From the laboratory onras which #t essrs, J, F b London, by, ie raciatlane & Co,, of peat and Edin. ayrenta an i Turkey opine aa aOR at various times in the course 2 ate. lickiger, in Pharm, Journ, x. (1869) Jost isk Welatek 25} tb. OPIUM. 57 Indian opium yields from 60 to 68 per cent. of matter soluble in cold water. The peculiar constituents of opium are of basic, acid, or neutral nature. Some of these substances were observed in opium as early as the 17th and 18th century, and designated Magisteriwm Opii. Bucholz in 1802 vainly endeavoured to obtain a salt from the extract by crystallization. In 1803, however, Charles Derosne, an apothecary of Paris, in diluting a syrupy aqueous extract of opium, observed crystals of the substance now called Narcotine, which he prepared pure. He believed that the same body was obtained by precipitating the mother liquor with an alkali, but what he so got was morphine. It is needless to pursue the further researches of Derosne. Ingenious as they were, it was reserved for Friedrich Wilhelm Adam Sertiirner, apothecary of Kimbeck in Hanover (nat. 1783, ob. 1841) to discover their true interpretation. Sertiirner had been engaged since 1805 with the chemical investi- gation of opium, and in 1816 he summarized his results in the state- ment that he had enriched science (we now translate his own words’) —“not only with the knowledge of a remarkable new vegetable acid [Mekonsdwre (meconic acid) which he had made known as Opiumsdure in 1806], but also with the discovery of a new alkaline salifiable base, orphiwm, one of the most remarkable substances, and apparently related to ammonia.” Sertiirner in fact distinctly recognised the basic nature and the organic constitution of morphium (now called Morphine, Morphia, or Morphinum), and prepared a number of its crystalline salts. He likewise demonstrated the poisonous nature of these sub- stances by experiments on himself and others. Lastly, he pointed out, though very incorrectly, the difference between morphine and the so- called Opiwm-salt (Narcotine) of Derosne. It is possible that this latter chemist may have had morphine in his hands at the same time as Sertiirner, or even earlier. This honour is also due to Séguin, Whose ‘paper “Sur ?Opium,” read at the Institute, December 24, 1804, Was, strange to say, not published till 1814.2 To Sertiirner, however, undoubtedly belongs the merit of first making known the existence of organic alkalis in the vegetable kingdom,*—a series of bodies practically interminable. As to opium, it still remains after nearly seventy years a atten new substances. Ofutions of morphine in acids or in alkalis rotate the plane of Polarization to the lef : : F he morphine in opium is combined with meconic acid, and is crefore easily soluble in water’ The Narcotine is present in the aah State, and can be extracted by chloroform, boiling alcohol, benzol, “tr, os volatile oils but not by water. It dissolves in 3 parts of toa orm, in 20 of boiling alcohol, in 21 of benzol, in 40 of boiling — er. Its alkaline properties are very weak, and it does not affect : Calculated by Estwell 1 from official statements given _alcaline dela morphine, et avoir ainsi ouvert Gilbert’ in the paper quoted at p. 50. une voie qui produit de grandes découvertes : 8 Annalen der Physik, lv. (1817) = médicales.” = Mero * * Annal oe ‘There are exceptional cases in which 1 4 I : € Chimie, xcii. (1814) 225, is asserted that water does not take up the June, tut de ce on the 27th = whole amount of morphine. 2000 ieee awarded to Sertiirner a prize of ‘In large crystals by means of oil of °“S—““pour avoir reconnu lanature _ turpentine. ae a 3 PAPAVERACES. ; nnot vegetable colours. If we éxamine opium by the popes 5 with | at once detect the presence of narcotine, but if cor pe after tinal glycerin, numerous ini crystals may generally 1 : hausted with — _ dapse of some days. If the opium has been previously * otal al nzol or ether, in order to remove the narcotine, no suc eer orphoul formed. Hence it follows that harcotine pre-exists in an amorphous — State. x : ~ ine, By decomposition with sulphuric acid, narcotine yields pew an undoubted base, together with Opianic Acid, and certain of the latter. . b The discovery of another base, Codeine, was made mi » hight Robiquet. It dissolves in 17 parts of boiling water, pt exile in alkaline solution which perfectly saturates acids, eat soluble at polarized light a levogyre power. Codeine is also rea : y f bewial ordinary temperatures in 7 parts amylic alcohol, and in 11 0 taining 2 : The codeine of commerce is in very large crystals con ther the atoms = 5°66 per cent. of water. By crystallization from e alkaloid may be obtained in small anhydrous crystals. ; may be Since 1832 other alkaloids have been found in er ge: ; seen in the following table, which includes all the 17 now en oak A very large number of derivatives of several among xe olecular prepared, of which we point out a few in smaller type. T ve acttled, ‘constitution of these Opium alkaloids being not yet thoroughly : | TG istake- we add only their empirical formule, which however exhibit unmistak : able connections, 42) cad apaverosine discovered by Deschamps in poppy-heads (p. semble — hardly “ absent from opium. In some points it appears to re cryptopine. Among the peculiar non-basic constituents of opium, the first to Fe or notice is Meconic Acid, CTH‘Q7 € same as that of ferric scl —_ nly dissolves in ether. Meconic acid is solub mie parts of boiling water, but immediately gives off CO?, and the re conic ing solution instead of depositing micaceous crystalline scales of pee : acid, yields on cooling (but best after boiling with hydrochloric 2 H. Smith in the opiam rphine. These chemists pet it topether w; -e and under the name of Thebolactic —— Intel "i er with its copper and is wale al tc. ton ae ‘National Extibiti ppe morphine sa, a ob mine; Dr. Hesse hag P04» and found (1875) it to consist z = void, Opianine ; + fesse hag j ine. _ Sxamined Hinterberger's specimen a pi ae Deutsch, Chem. Geselscl , , su Berlin, iii, (1870) 182. | NATURAL ALKALOIDS OF OPIUM OPIUM. and a few of their Artificial Derivatives. DISCOVERED BY Wohler, 1844 .. Hesse, 1871 Matthiessen and Wright, 1869 .. \ Wright, 1871 . Sertiirner, 1816 Pelletier and eat bouméry, 1835 .. Matthiessen and ) Burnside, 1871 .. f Wright, 187] .. Robiquet, 1832 sé Matthiessen and Foster, 1868 ai \ Thibouméry, 1835 .. Hesse, 1870 Hesse, 1870 Hesse, 1871 .. we Matthiessen and ohne = . Hesse, 1870 _ Hesse, 1878 Merck, 1848 CoTARNINE Formed by oxidizing narcotine ; soluble in water. 1. HYDROCOTARNINE Crystallizable, alkaline, volatile at 100°, : APOMORPHINE =e From morphine, by hydrochloric acid. Colourless, amorphous, turning green by exposure to air; emetic. DESOXYMORPHINE 2, MORPHINE . 4 alkaline, levogyre. 3. PSEUDOMORPHINE .. Crystallizes. with H20; does not unite even with acetic acid, APOCODEINE From codeine by chloride of zinc; amorphous, emetic. DESOXYCODEINE 4. CODBINE .. Crystallizable, alkaline, soluble in water. NORNARCOTINE 5, THEBAINE .. Crystallizable, alkaline, isomeric with buxine. THEBAICINE From thebaine or thebenine by hydrochloric ‘acid, 6, PROTOPINE . Crystailizable, italien .. METHYLNORNARCOOTINE .. % ¥ . DEUTEROPINE Not yet isolated. LAUDANINE. pe An alkaloid which, as well as its salts, forms large crystals; turns orange by hydrochloric acid. ‘* 8. CODAMINE a Crystallizable, alkaline; can be sublimed ; becomes green by nitric acid. .9. PAPAVERINE.. Crystallizable, also its hydrochlorate; sulphate in sulphuric acid precipitated by water. - : -- 10. RHG@ADINE .. oe ae Crystallizable, not distinctly alkaline; can be sub- ; occurs also in Papaver Rheas. 5 a 5 RHQ@AGENINE From rheadine ; ble, alkaline. . s popes amen oit rs 1. MECONIDINE Amorphous, ieee melts at 58°, not stable, the salts also a altered. 2. CRYPTOPINE Crystallizable, uiatios; salts tend to gelatinize ; hy- orate eee oe LAUDAN OSINE is be Uryolalientle 2 alkaline. i vel NARCOTINE.. “ Crystailizable, not alkaline; salts not stable. 15. LANTHOPINE Microscopic crystals not alkaline, sparingly soluble in hot or cold spirit of wine, ether or benzol. 16. NARCEINE . Crystallizable (asa eer la readily soluble in boil- ing water or in alkalis, levogyre. ak AF mgt a ts PINE Crystalizabo, ant its at 233°, soluble in chloroform ide of carbon, slightly so in benzol, not tin etter: The silts have an acid reaction. 20 21 21 21 21 59 ow he il ee CHa VERICEAR ' In the"year 1826, Dublane! observed in opium a ecm having neither basic nor acid properties which was a pe Opiangl prepared in a state of purity by Couerbe. It has —— CoE or (by Couerbe) Meconine. It has the ae fase ta C°H?.CH’.0.CO(OCH? *. Meconin forms prisms whic Ives in all water at 77° C. or per se at 110°, and distil at 155°; it — vcvatalal 20 parts of boiling water, from which it may be readily ae | €conin may be formed by heating narcotine with — (OHy. (CH? An analogous substance Meconoiosin C7H"O =C ae onoicaial has been discovered in 1878 by T. and H. Smith. aa When readily soluble in 27 parts of cold water, and melts we evapora heated with slightly diluted sulphuric acid, and when z e node as reached a certain point, meconoiosin produces a deep red; meconin the coloration is a beautiful green, Proportion of peculiar in the foregoing section exist _ as it is on their presence, but of the drug depends, the imp pium whether required tions has to be taken exclusi : ivel by complete desiccation at 100° C.,, before any giv" Weight is taken . les of Morphine—Guibourt? who analysed a large number of samp opium, and wh i i obtained from a g ; This pel- _ Per cent. of morphine crystallized from spirit of wine. | centage has not to our kn 1496, st percentage from a French opium was — ont : from opium grown by Aubergier at oe : in the centre of France, 17-50 per cent. of morphine. Decharm & French opium obtained 17: 873 aff ) F cent. of mor- : : ' orded Hesse 12 to 15 per | Phine ; llesia 9 to 10 per cent? pure Americ i . ly the same Pp, hor ° The. "aes nk um recorded by a is 21:46 per cent. obtained fro | . doit : Pape > la quantité de morphine que Vopium ae 826 Acad. 4 Tsth wezt — contenir, Paris, 1863 . je 1 ore the de Méd., 13th 7, or Schrott Ausstellungsbericht, a : 2M ve sur le dosage dep’ ium et 4 pg eet of Pharm. xviii. (1870) } : . OPIUM. a Chevallier’ states that Smyrna opium, of which several cases were received by Merck of Darmstadt in 1845, afforded 12 to 13 per cent. of pure morphine reckoned upon the drug in its fresh and moist state. Fayk Bey? analysed 92 samples of opium of Asia Minor, and found that half the number yielded more than 10 per cent. of morphine. The richest afforded 17-2 per cent. From the foregoing statements we are warranted in assuming that good Smyrna opium deprived of water ought to afford 12 to 15 per cent. of morphine, and that if the percentage is less than 10, adultera- tion may be suspected. Egyptian opium has usually been found very much weaker in mor- phine than that of Asia Minor. A sample sent to the Paris Exhibition of 1865 and presented to one of us by Figari Bey of Cairo, afforded us 5°8 per cent. of morphine and 8°7 of narcotine. Persian opium appears extremely variable, probably in consequence of the practice of combining it with sugar and other substances. It is however sometimes very good. Séput* obtained from four samples the respective percentages of 13°47, 11°52, 10:12, 10:08 of morphine, the opium being free from water. Mr. Howard as already stated (p. 49) extracted from Persian opium, not previously dried, from 8 to 10°75 per cent. of morphine. _East Indian opium is remarkable for its low percentage of mor- phine, a circumstance which we think is attributable in part to climate and in part to a method of collection radically defective. It is scarcely conceivable that the long period during which the juice Temains in a wet state,—always three to four weeks,—does not exer- cise a destructive action on its constituents. According to Eatwell+ the percentage of morphine in the samples of hares opium officially submitted for analysis gave the following averages — 1845-46 1846-47 1847-48 1848-49 2°48 2°38 220 3°21 The same observer has recorded the results of the examination sf freshly collected poppy-juice, which in three instances afforded respectively 1:4, 3-06, and 2°89 per cent. of morphine, reckoned on the material deprived of water; but the conditions under which the *xperiments were made appear open to great objection.® : _ Such very low results are not always obtained from East Indian Splum. Ina sample from Khandesh furnished by the Indian Museum, ey of morphine. Solly from the same kind obtained about r cent, Patna Garden Opium which is the sort prepared exclusively for medicinal use, afforded us 8-6 per cent. of purified morphine and 4 per “ent. of nareotine.’ Guibourt obtained from such an opium 7°72 * Notice historique sur 5 ‘ ‘ 7 ‘ ; um indigéne stand in a basin from 23rd Feb. to 7th May, Paris, 1852. a ie oo being ‘‘ occasionally stirred” ! Ottoman awhie des Opiums de ? Empire ¢ This drug made in 1838 came from 1867 nm envoyés & Exposition de Paris, the Apothecary- General, Calcutta, and a J was presented by Christison to the Kew ‘ ile de Pharm, xxxix, (1861) 163. Museum. It is in rectangular tablets n rm. Journ. xi, (1852) 361. 21 inches square and } of an inch thick, One case the juice was allowed to cased in wax. 62 : PAPAVERACE. tinburgh in per cent, Christison from a sample sent to Duncan of Edinburg z 1830,! 9:50 per cent, of hydrochlorate of morphine. | De Samples from the Indian Museum placed at our disposal by J. Forbes Watson gave” us the following percentages of noe | Medical (Indian) Opium, 1852-53 portion of a square No, 5380, Garden Behar Opium, 46; Abkari Provision Opium, P he (and 54 H+ Sind Opium, No. 28,88; Opium, Hyderabad, Sind, of narcotine) ; Malwa Opium, 61, : : piwm, the With se to the res of morphine in Chinese On W. following data have been obligingly furnished to us by A ency, of Sheppard, FCS, Opium Examiner to the Benares Opium 3 a China analyses made by himself from samples of the drug white na. ae by Sir R. Aleock —Szechuen opium, 2°2; Kweichow, 2°5 ; ee ‘ned if ansu, 5°1 per cent, Mr. S. informs us that Dr, Eatwell 0 ret per _ 1852 from Szechuen, opium 33, and from Kweichow oP amples cent.—the opium in all instances being reckoned as dry. The 6 ium, examined by Mr. ¢ contained 86 to 95 per cent. of dry | oo and yielded (undried) 36 to 53 per cent. of extract soluble o jum water. The proportion of Morphine in the sample of ene a on the rey Dr, Jamieson (p. 55) was nearly 7:2 per cent. calcula | e g. re Hesse Pseudomorphine , curs only in very small quantities. _in found it in some Sorts of opium ‘te the Setettt of 002 per conte” _ others stil] less, opium, Codeine—has been found in Smyrna, French and Indian . ; but only to the extent of 4 to 2 oH eae “'T, and H. Smith give the proportion in Turkey opium as 0:3 per cent.‘ , jum, likewise been obtained from French - : Betting to Merck to about 1 sans "pat of - Smit: ‘15 per és Papaverine—in the ; ound only about 8 p ‘ Ve found j able eg a .. Cent. of narcotine. fford | Mie ny oPium was found by Eatwell (1850) always to a aD mo: hine,— fre le quently twice as much. ‘The 77 al ao narcotine °° % the opposite page, afforded us 7 Neither ‘oo ny Collected fro: m +t e, thebaine, he ey . rds vot willet sometimes afto nor harceine 6 wn,jcollected in 1829 by Biltz sng oe pahdor ¥- (1875) gas, ingly are in 1867 at my disposa | iene son.—F. AF an _ Phine, is noted as ot *Qnd qin in mor. The statement of Biltz (1831) that jes : sbium collected by himself from Poe pet Grown in 1829 at Erfurt afforded OPIUM. _ eo ae Narceine—Of this substance Couerbe found in opium 0°1 per cent. ; T. and H. Smith 0°02 and Schindler 0°71. Cryptopine—exists in opium in very small proportion. T. and H. Smith state that since the alkaloid first came under their notice, they have collected of it altogether about 5 ounces in the form of hydro- chlorate, and this small quantity in operating on many thousands of pounds of opium. But they by no means assert that the whole of the © eryptopine was obtained. Rheeadine—is also found only in exceedingly minute quantity. Meconic Acid—If the average amount of morphine in opium be estimated at 15 per cent., and the alkaloid be supposed to exist as a tribasic meconate, it would require for saturation 3:4 per cent. of meconie acid, Wittstein obtained rather more than 3 per cent., T. and H. Smith 4 per cent., and Decharmes 4°33. Opium produced in Vermont yielded, according to Proctor (1870) 5-25 per cent. of meconic acid. The quantity of acid required to unite with the other bases assuming them to exist as salts can be but extremely small. Estimation of Morphine in Opium—The practical valuation of opium turns in the first instance upon the estimation of the water pre- Sent in the drug, and in the second upon the proportion which the latter contains of morphine.’ The first question is determined by exposing a known quantity of the drug divided into small slices or fragments to the heat of a water- _ bath until it cease to lose weight. For the estimation of the morphine many processes have been devised, but none is perfectly satisfactory? That which we recommend is thus performed :—Take of opium previously dried at 100° C., as above stated, and powdered, 10 grammes; shake it with 100 grammes alcohol 0950 sp. gr., and filter after a day or two. The weight of the liquid should be made equal to 100 grammes. Add to it 50 grammes of ether and 2 grammes of ammonia water 0°960 sp. gr.; collect the crystals of oplum which separate slowly, after a day or two, dry them at 100°C., _ and weigh them.—On applying this method to Indian opium, we were ut little satisfied with it. . Commerce—By official statistics it appears that the quantity of. *plum imported into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 356,211 1b., Valued at £361,503. The imports from Asiatic and European Turkey are stated in the same tables thus :-— 1868 1870 1872 1874 317,133 Ib. 276,691 Ib. 325,572 Ib. 514,000 Ib. It is thus evident that the drug used in Great Britain is chiefly Turkish. The import of opium from Persia has been very irregular. e 1871, 21,894 tb. are reported as received from that country; in 872, non e. cent, of Narcotin . Tt € is contrary to the ex- the bulk of the drug. We prefer to take Perience of all other Seiiiate The same — a little piece from each of several lumps, ing an ee of Mulder’s assertion respect- mix them in a mortar, and weigh from the Narceing- ™ Siving 6 to 13 per cent. of mixed sample the required quantity. ; Tn select; 2 See also Proctor, Pharm. Journ, vil. : hg asample for analysis, care (1876) 244, and Yearbook of Pharm. 1877. §28. : Should be en that it fairly represents eo: ss ORUCIFERZ. : : f righ : Except that a little Malwa opium has occasionally been impo it may be asserted the opium of India is entirely unknown a be English market, and that none of it is to be found even in in the warehouse of any druggist. . import of As to other countries, we may point out that in _ me roreee opium (prepared) into the colony of Victoria was valued a > : iversall Uses—Opium possesses sedative powers which are "oR nown. In the words of Pereira, it is the most important ~~ vi medicine of the whole Materia Medica ; and we may . ee by its judicious employment of more happiness and by more misery * than any other drug employed by mankind. ta: - and the h Starch ever occur in genuine opium Pie sok Proportion of ash left upon the incineration of a good opium exceed 4 to 8 ~ t. water which ought to exceed 55 rte reckoned on opium. Finally, if we are correct, the eh y neutral in pure opium ig distinct from gum arabic, being precipitable az th gum acetate of lead. If we exhaust with water opium falsified wi eutral arabic, the muci i opium will be precipitated by sill con- Separated from the precipitate will s T f gum tain the gum arabic which may be thrown down by alcohol. n abundant precipitate is produced. CRUCIFER A, SEMEN SINAPIs NIGRZ. ° marzer Red Mustard; ¥. Moutarde noire ou grise; G.Schwai Senf. Origin—Brassicg nigra Koch (Sinapis nigra a Is found wild oy. Black, Brown op Botanical . it gh regions where h ' : W become naturalized both in Nort uth America, Dioscorides xt? the ancients. ope see | a _aru,— 10scorides 4 ; : 1D three kinds which tre are: “alte nigra Koch, : Fry; 1876 (308 pages) ; Sir Edw. i He Society Dress’ Zngland, Ching, 2°8 Opium, 1878 (61 P-):. . fe : * : > P ? s i. of the Opium Trade}, wg: eee asseeaniaue et Matiére Méd. de Pline SEMEN SINAPIS NIGRA. : 65 B. alba Hook. f. et Th., and to a South European species, Diplotamis erucoides DC. (Sinapis erucoides L.). The use of mustard seems up to this period to have been more medicinal than dietetic. But from an edict of Diocletian, A.D. 3011 in which it is mentioned along with alimentary substances, we must suppose it was then regarded as a con- diment at least in the eastern parts of the Roman Empire. In Europe during the middle ages mustard was a valued accom- paniment to food, especially to the salted meat which constituted a large portion of the diet of our ancestors during the winter. In the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai,” of the 13th century, a paragraph is devoted to the “Virtues of Mustard.” In household accounts of the 13th and 4th centuries, mustard under the name of Senapiwm is of constant occurrence, Mustard was then cultivated in England, but not as it would seem very extensively. The price of the seed between A.D. 1285 and 1895 varied from 1s. 3d. to 6s. 8d. per quarter, but in 1347 and 1376 it was as high as 15s. and 16s In the accounts of the abbey of St. Germain- des-Prés in Paris, commencing A.D. 800, mustard is specifically men- tioned as a regular part of the revenue of the convent lands.‘ The essential oil of mustard was, apparently, noticed about the year 1660 by Nicolas Le Febvre (see in the article Rad. Inulae), more dis- tinctly in 1732 by Boerhaave. Its acridity and high specific gravity Were pointed out by Murray.® Thibierge in 1819 observed that sulphur Was one of the constituents of the oil, and Guibourt* stated that it is hot pre-existing in the seed. Production—Mustard is grown in England only on the richest uvial soils, and chiefly in the counties of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire. ery good seed is produced in Holland. Description—The pod of Brassica nigra is smooth, erect, and closely Pressed against the axis of the long slender raceme. It has a strong neha on each of its two valves and contains in each cell from 4 to 6 Spherical or slightly oval seeds. The seeds are about ; of an inch in + weter and ., of a grain in weight; they are of a dark reddish-brown. — a surface is reticulated with minute pits, and often more or less os with a whitish pellicle which gives to some seeds a grey colour.’ te sta which is thin, brittle and translucent encloses an exalbumi- ec vo having two short cotyledons folded together longitudinally ebro, aS 2 sort of trough in which the radicle lies bent up. The és ny thus coiled into a ball completely fills the testa; the outer ena on is thicker than the inner, which viewed in transverse section to hold the radicle as a pair of forceps. The seeds when pul- 1 dey omamsen in Berichte der stichs. Gesellsch. * Guérard, Polyptique de 0 Abbé Irminon, Bre schaften zu Leipzig, 1851. 1—80. Paris, i. (1844) 715. Tate, a Pasture land in England was . 5 Patna medicaminum, ti. (1794) 399. were was but scanty provision 6 Journ. de Pharm. xvii. (1831) 360. "oot sl — through the winter, 7The grey colour of the seed, which is November the ing unknown. Hence in attributed to rain during the ripening, is re was a general slaughterin very detrimental to its value. The great Salted wie xen, the flesh of which was si OF the grower is to produce seed of a Journ, viii ae use.—See also Pharm. bright reddish brown, with no grey seed | in oes, Hist op Het 27) 852. intermixed. : » 1, (1866) —— and Prices 66 oo eee CRUCIFERA. ae . e for an verized have a greenish yellow hue. open oe a nt instant a bitterish taste which however quic “fi eraision oxieaa When triturated with water they afford a — — a strong ail a pungent acrid vapour which affects the aceiet ne When reaction. The seeds powdered dry have no suc Be odour is no seeds are triturated with solution of potash, the sa : the aol evolved; nor when they are boiled in water. = eral ee developed on triturating them with alcohol, dilute kept in solution of tannin, or even with water when they have been _ powder for a long time. : : entioned, Microscopic Structure—The whitish pellicle ae wait The which covers the seed, is made up of hexagonal ta ee cells, radially epidermis consists of one row of densely packed my alate outa elongated and having strong lateral and inner walls. are not clearly on the other hand are thin and not coloured ; they ‘derably in pte obvious when seen under oil, but swell up very consi water become Sence of water, emitting mucilage.! Seeds immersed in the superficl therefore covered with a glossy envelope, levelling 4 « tissue-of ae inequalities, so that the wet seed appears smooth. te, oP albania cotyledons exhibits large drops of fatty oil and granules wit eee Chemical Composition—By distilling brown pineot t principle the seed having been preupaaly erated, the pung ‘ Essential Oil o Mustard, is obtained. - sosulphocy- The oil, ew has the composition SCN(C*H"), (ally oe power anate), boils at 148°C.; it has a sp. gr. of 1:017, no ro es igs weight and is soluble without coloration or turbidity. in three Seite the pungent or more of cold strong sulphuric acid. To this oil is due n the ski. tard and its inflammatory action 0 ; stard ich gives rise to the eer pie from oil was explained by Will and Korner in 1863. They obta tassi wil mustard a crystallizable substance, then termed Myronate of Pe dmirable now called Sinigrin, It is to be regarded, according to the : investigations of these chemists, as a compound of Isosulphocyanate of allyl or mustard oil . Ct H?® Ne 0! Bisulphate of potassium, . | . 3 H Bee Sugar (dextroglucose) pe So that the formula . om 1p" KNS* 0” is that of sinigrin, : RE It does in fact split into the above-mentioned tht Substances when dissolved in wa wi ter and brought into contact yrosin, a This albuminous body discovered by Bussy in 1839, but the cB position of which has not been ikewi * Most minutely 4. - g Pflanzel™ escribed and figured suchun auf dem Gebiete .des by F. von Hohnel, in Haberlandt’s nter- — baues, gr paling 1875) 171—202. SEMEN SINAPIS NIGRA. 67 nitrate. These chemists obtained sinigrin from the seeds in the pro- portion of 0-5 per cent.; Will and Korner got 0°5 to 0°6 per cent. The extraction of the substance is therefore attended with great loss, as the minimum yield of volatile oil, 0°42 per cent. indicates 2°36 of potassium myronate. The aqueous solution of myrosin coagulates at 60° C. and then becomes inactive : hence mustard seed which has been heated to 100° C. or has been roasted yields no volatile oil, nor does it yield any if powdered and introduced at once into boiling water. The proportion of myrosin in mustard has not been exactly determined. The total amount of nitrogen in the seed is 2°9 per cent. (Hoffmann) which would corre- spond to 18 per cent. of myrosin, supposing the proportion of nitrogen in that substance to be the same as in albumin, and the total quantity of nitrogen to belong to it. Sometimes black mustard contains so little of it, that an emulsion of white mustard requires to be added in order to develop all the volatile oil it is capable of yielding. An emulsion of mustard or a solution of pure sinigrin brought into contact with myrosin, frequently deposits sulphur by decomposition of the allyl sulphocyanide, hence crude oil of mustard sometimes contains @ considerable proportion (even half) of Allyl cyanide, C*HEN, distin- guished by its lower sp. gr. (0°839) and lower boiling point (118° C.). The seeds, roots, or herbaceous part of many other plants of the order Cruciferee yield a volatile oil composed in part of mustard oil and in part a of allyl sulphide C'H"S=CHl §, which latter is likewise obtainable — CH} ! from the bulbs of garlic. Many Crucifere afford from their roots or seeds chiefly or solely oil of mustard, and from their leaves oil of garlic. As to other plants, the roots of Reseda lutea L. and R. luteola L. have been shown by Volhard (1871) to afford oil of mustard,’ The strong smell given off by the crushed seeds or roots of several Mimosez, as for instance, Albizzia lophantha Benth. (Acacia Willd.) is perhaps due to Some allied compound. _ The artificial preparation of mustard oil was discovered in 1855 by min, and at the same time also by Berthelot and De Luca. It may be obtained in decomposing bromide of allyl by means of sulphocyanate of ammonium :— C*H’Br . SCN(NH’)=NH'Br . C°H'SCN. te _The liquid C°7H°SCN, boiling at 161°, is sulphocyanate of allyl ; if the, gently warmed with a little alcoholic potash, and then acidulated, & red coloration of ferric sulphocyanate is produced on addition of Pauoride of iron, but by submitting the sulphocyanate of allyl to fhe lation it is at once transformed in the isosulphocyanate, 7.e. in ; tard oil ; the latter is not coloured by ferric salts, but it would ot that in the cold emulsion of mustard, even at 0°, a little ae anate makes also its appearance. : re ustard submitted to pressure affords about 23 per cent.’ of a mild- e 2g, Inodorous, non-drying oil, solidifying when cooled to —17°5° C., - Baonssting of the glycerin compounds of stearic, oleic and Hrucic ey Acid. The last-named acid, C"H*O*, occurs also in the fixed 1 Oe. hand Radiz: Armoracie, p. 68. 9 — by means of boiling ether.— ve obtained as much as 33:8 6 =. GRucIFERZ. oil of white mustard and of rape, and is homologous — pe oe : Darby (1849) has pointed out the existence of another 6 en ee Acid, C*H*O°, which occurs in the fixed oil of both blac eo mustard. Goldschmiedt, in 1874, ascertained the presence oo Behenic Acid, C?H*O? in black mustard. Sinigrin being Es we by the extraction of the fatty oil, either by pressure es ite ofa of bisulphide of carbon, the powdered seed, deprived o la ge ‘This yields the whole amount of the irritating “ essential , ‘S oan important fact has been ingeniously used by Rigollot' for aration of his mustard paper. : +h ity : Mustard seed when oe is devoid of starch; the mucilage i _ epidermis affords amounts to 19 per cent. of the seed emere phoe- ash-constituents amounting to 4 per cent. consist chiefly o phates of calcium, magnesium, and potassium. : ere Uses—Black mustard is employed in the form of poultice = i ee ful external stimulant ; but it is rarely used in its pure sta ain Flour of Mustard prepared for the table, which contains in noel white mustard, answers perfectly well and is at hand in every conse The essential oil of mustard dissolved in spirit of wine is occa ’ prescribed as a liniment, = L)is Substitute—Brassica juncea Hook. f. et Th. (Sinaprs st ee own extensively cultivated throughout India(where B. nigra is rarely a ch Central Africa, and generally in warm countries where it per nigra and is applied to the same uses. Its seeds constitute aii oh Indi the mustard of Europe, as we may infer from the fact that Bri 5 ohio exported in the year 1871-72, of « Mustard seed,” 1418 ares ene 790 tons were shipped to the United Kingdom, and 516 tons nes steppes - Juncea, is largely grown in the south of Russia and in the s . : el north-east of the Caspian where it appears to flourish particularly in the saline soil. ta- At Sarepta in the Government of Saratov, an és blishment has exis here ted since the beginning of the present century W this sort of mustard is prepared for use to the extent of 800 tons of s annually. The seed fot Ss make a fine yellow powder employed both culinary and medici han nal purposes, By pressure they yield more thé 20 per cent. of fixed oil which is u sed in Russia like the best olive ° e seeds closely r Pare] esemble those of B. nigra and afford when = the same essential oil; it is largely made at Kiew. SEMEN SINAPIS ALBA. White Mustard ; F. Moutarde blanche ou Anglaise ; G. Weisser _ : Botanical Origin—Brassica alba, Hook. f. et Th. (Sinapis a bic — appears to belong to the more southern countries of inese authors‘ it was introdu 2 gum. de Pharm. vi. (1867) 269. a re to 2 The best tard is however kept for those who ‘iad oy ok Flour of ~ Some such as is _ purchase it. 1s tridadsanl Se € nutac i 3 ” Z yade t nothing but walkie = contains Annual Statement of the 2, 62. : 1872. : 8. gation of British India, Calcutta, tan. i cheaper qualities made by = th Soto Study of Chinese eee a the same firms co: > eurmeric, and = Works, 1870, 177. _ + Capsicum, Unmixed flour of Black , SEMEN SINAPIS ALB. 69 into China from the latter region. Its cultivation in England is of recent introduction, but is rapidly extending.’ The plant is not uncommon as a weed on cultivated land. History—White mustard was used in former times indiscriminately with the brown. In the materia medica of the London Pharmacopeia of 1720 the two sorts are separately prescribed. The important chemical distinction between them was first made known in 1881 by Boutron- Charlard and Robiquet.2 Production—White mustard is grown as an agricultural crop in Essex and Cambridgeshire. Description—Brassica alba differs from B. nigra in having the pods bristly and spreading. They are about an inch long, half the length being occupied by a flat veiny beak. Each pod contains 4 to 6 yellowish seeds about 51, of an inch in diameter and 7, of a grain in weight. The brittle, nearly transparent and colourless testa encloses an embryo of a bright pure yellow and of the same structure as that of black mustard. he surface of the testa is likewise pitted in a reticulate manner, but so finely that it appears smooth except under a high magnifying power. When triturated with water the seeds form a yellowish emulsion of very pungent taste, but it is inodorous and does not under any cireum- stances yield a volatile oil. The powdered seeds made into a paste with cold water act as a highly stimulating cataplasm. The entire seeds yield to cold water an abundance of mucilage. Microscopic Structure—The epidermal cells of white mustard atford a good illustration of a mucilage-yielding layer such as is met with, under many variations, in the seeds of numerous plants. The cuticle consists of large vaulted cells, exhibiting very regular hexagonal outlines when cut across? The inner layer of the epidermis is made up of thin-walled cells, which when moistened swell and give off the muci- 8°. In the dry state or seen under oil, the outlines of the single cells of this layer are not distinguishable. The tissue of the cotyledons is loaded with drops of fatty oil and with granular albuminoid matter ; starch which is present in the seed while young, is altogether absent When the latter reaches maturity. . Chemical Composition — White mustard deprived of fatty oil. yields to boiling alcohol colourless crystals of Sinalbin, an indifferent Substance, readily soluble in cold water, but sparingly in cold alcohol. tom the able investigations of Will (1870) it follows, that it is to be- "garded as composed of three bodies, namely : Sulphocyanate of Acrinyl . . . ... C H? NS O Sulphate of Sinapine . > c* H®.N S O° ee ce uo O° 80 that the formals c<-<.., . 24 ee eee oe SS" OY represents according to Will the composition of sinalbin. It is actually Tesolved into these three substances when placed at ordinary tempera- 1) o. assay star's Cycloped. of Agriculture, ii. 3 An interesting object for the polarizing es microscope. urn. de Pharm, Xvii. (1831) 279, Cc _CRUCIFERA, Se, : ich is @ Con- — tures, in contact with water and Myrosin, the latter - Ae 'e liquid stituent of white mustard as well as of brown P. eee separates becomes turbid, the first of the above-named su me soluble as Coaster ith coagulated albumin) ae an oily liquid, not soluble water, but dissolving in alcohol or ether. This te oes te mustlee Acrinyl is the rubefacient and vesicating principle vd and canhoeae [t does not pre-exist, as shown by Will, in the see It of silver, Will — obtained by distillation. By treating it with a ke warming it (ot obtained crystals of cyanide of acrinyl, C*H’NO: ‘f austic potash sinalbin itself, or an alcoholic extract of the seed) wi ; of the latter sulphocyanide of potassium is produced. The Spiatyes when a Bleam may be indicated by adding a drop of perchloride of iron, red coloration will be roduced. : 3 tard, i _ Sulphate of Souasas imparts to the emulsion of oy a alee which it is formed, an acid reaction. Sinapine is itse : Thus its - which has not yet been isolated, as it is very liable to chang si a bright solution on addition of a trace of alkali immediately peers produc yellow colour indicating decomposition, and a similar colour In an aqueous extract of the seed, : . inalbin e above statements show, that the chemical properties me 66) and and its derivatives correspond closely with those of sinigrin (p. the substances which : : black make their appearance in an emulsion of mustard, The other constituents of wh @ ite mustard seed are nearly the sam as those of black. The fat oil a ds ield in addition to the act ppears to yield in addi : ustard _ mentioned at p. 67, Benic or Behenic Acid, C?H*O*. betes 2% the — _ is said to be richer than black in myrosin,-so that, as explai ‘previous article, the p i ri d b ngency of the latter may be often increase y an addition of white mustard Eruein and Sinapic A constituents of white ; pn’ urther investigation, The sinapic acid of Von Babo and Hirschbru (1852) is a product of th : ut for sinapisms they Flour of Srictend 1 The red compound thus formed with pee ogyanide 18 readily soluble in ether, yet in the case of white mustard Wepre — 2 my bese performed by Mr. not to be so, “ find it . x; in my laboratory, 1869.—F. A. a1 aud SGmelin, Chemistry, xiv, (1860) 5 529, 4Thid. 521. RADIX ARMORACLE, ie RADIX ARMORACIA. Hovse-radish ; F. Raifort (i.e. racine forte), Cran de Bretagne ; G. Meerrettig. Botanical Origin—Cochlearia Armoracia L.,& common perennial with a stout tapering root, large coarse oblong leaves with long stalks, and erect flowering racemes 2 to 3 feet high. It is indigenous to the eastern parts of Europe, from the Caspian through Russia and Poland to Finland. In Britain and in other parts of Europe from Sicily to the polar circle, it occurs cultivated or semi-wild; in the opinion of Schii- ~ beler’ it is not truly indigenous to Norway. History—The vernacular name Armon is stated by Pliny’ to be used in the Pontic regions to designate the Armoracia of the Romans, the Wild Radish (padavis aypia) of the Greeks, a plant which cannot be positively identified with that under notice. : orse-radish is called in the Russian language Chen, in Lithuanian rend, in Illyrian Kren, a name which has passed into several German — dialects, and as Cran or Cranson into French. ; From these and similar facts, De Candolle? has drawn the con- | clusion that the propagation of the plant has travelled from Eastern to estern Europe. ; Both the root and leaves of horse-radish were used as a medicine and also eaten with food in Germany and Denmark during the middle ages.” But the use of the furmer was not Common in England until a much later period. The plant is mentioned in the Meddygon Myddfai and was known in England as Red-cole in the time of Turner, 1568, but is hot quoted by him’ as used in food, nor is it noticed by Boorde,’ 1542, in his chapter on edible roots, Gerarde’ at the end of the 16th century remarks that horse-radish— is commonly used among the Tans for sauce to eat fish with, and such like meats, as we do ustard.” Half a century Jater the taste for horse-radish had begun to Prevailin England. Coles® (1657) states that the root sliced thin and nuxed with vinegar is eaten as a sauce with meat as among the _ *Tthans. That the use of horse-radish in France had the same origin 'S proved by its old French name Moutarde des Allemands. The root to which certain medicinal properties had always been 4Ssigned, was included in the materia medica of the London Pharma- “opeias of the last century under the name of Raphanus rusticanus. of Description—'The root which in good ground often attains a length into feet and nearly an inch in diameter, is enlarged in its upper part mou & ¢rown, usually dividing into a few short branches each sur- nted by a tuft of leaves, and annulated by the scars of fallen sage; below the crown it tapers slightly, and then for some distance is 1 Pfla 2p menwelt Norwegens (1873) 296. 5 Herball, part 2, (1568) EE ay a c. i (Littré’s ie oe * Dyetary of an” Early English Text 4 € Botanique, ii, (1855 : Society, 1870. . asset Geschichte oe ( pana a 7 Herbal, edited by Johnson, 1636, 240. pel ; also Schitbeler (c.; Pfeiffer, 8 Adam in Hden, or Nature’s Paradise, Far itr von Kons 1657. chap. 256. Stuttgart, 186] mito Megenberg, Lond. 1657. chap. 72 ae - CRUCIFERA, often almost cylindrical, throwing off here and there filiform and ci . slender cylindrical roots, and finally dividing into two or three — 7 The root is of a light yellowish brown; internally it is fles ye = perfectly white, and has a short non-fibrous fracture. _ Before ae broken it is inodorous, but. when comminuted it immediately ex a its characteristic pungent smell. Its well-known pungent taste is n lost in the root carefully dried and not kept too long. ‘an transverse section of the fresh root displays a large ee , column with a radiate and concentric arrangement of its tissues, be ue : are separated by a small greyish circle from the bark, whose a aa from 3 to 2 lines. In the root branches there is neither a well- ee iber nor a true pith. The short leaf-bearing branches include = be! | pith surrounded by a circle of woody bundles. The bark = pi strongly to the central portion, in which zones of annual grow easily perceptible, at least in older specimens. Microsco tabular cells : 1 cted in Spring is loaded with small sta granules, Chemical Composition—Among the constituents of horse-radis® _ Foot (the chemical history of which is however far from perfect) dis volatile oil is the most interesting, The fresh root submitted “ il tillation with water in a glass retort, yields about 3 per mille 0 bw which is identical with that of Black Mustard as proved in 1848 Hi Ea He combined it with ammonia and obtained ef stals, e thiosinammine, the composition of which agreed with the thiosinammym® — from mustard oil. ie An alcoholic extract of the root is devoid of the odour of the but this is quickly evolved on addition ofan emulsion of White Mustard he essential oil d ces not therefore pre-exist, but only sinign? (myronate of potassi ) the presence of water it is formed (p. 66). Th process does not §° on in th CORTEX CANELLE ALBA. 73 matter and sugar (Winckler 1849). Salts of iron do not alter thin slices of it, tannic matters being absent. The presence of myrosin, which at present has been inferred rather than proved, ought to be further investigated. The root dried at 100° afforded 11°15 per cent. of ash to Mutschler (1878). Uses—An infusion or a distilled spirit of horse-radish is reputed stimulant, diaphoretic, and diuretic, but is not often employed. Substitute—In India the root of Moringa pterygosperma Giirtn. is considered a substitute for horse-radish. It yields by distillation an essential oil of disgusting odour which Broughton, who obtained it in minute quantity, has assured us is not identical with that of mustard or of garlic. CANELLACE.. CORTEX CANELLZ ALB. Canella Bark, Canella Alba Bark ; F. Canelle blanche ; G. Canella-Rinde. Botanical Origin—Canella alba Murray,’ a tree, 20 to 30 or even 50 feet in height, found in the south of Florida, the Bahama Islands — (whence alone its bark is exported), Cuba, Jamaica, Ste. Broix, Guada- loupe, Martinique, Barbadoes and Trinidad. History—The drug was first mentioned in 1605 by Clusius, who remarks that it had been then newly brought to Europe and had received the name of Canella alba (White Cinnamon). It was afterwards known as Costus Corticosus, Costus dulcis, Cassia alba, Cassia lignea Jamai- censis or Jamaica Winter's Bark. Dale* writing in 1698 notices it as not unfrequently sold for Winter's Bark. Pomet! (1694) describes it as ‘synonymous with Winter's Bark, and observes that it is cominon, yet but little employed. . “ie drug is mentioned by most subsequent writers, some of whom . like Pomet probably confounded it with the bark of Cinnamodendron - 19). It is usually described as produced in Jamaica or Guadaloupe, - °m which islands no Canella alba is now exported. On the other , New Providence, one of the Bahamas whence the Canella alba of ® Present day is shipped, is not named. Nor do we find any allusion ae a in the records of the Company (1630-50) which was formed or the colonization of New Providence and the other islands of the Stoup, though their staple productions are frequently enumerated.’ : wine alba Murr. was described and figured by Sloane (1707) and better by Patrick Brown in 1789, and Olaf Swartz in 1791.° Collection—In the Bahamas, where the drug is known as White ark or Cinnamon Bark, it is collected thus :—preparatory to — in A Puan i Bentley and Trimen, Medic. 5 Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 2 Banton i, 1876). 1584—1660, Lond. 1860. a. ¢Q. Swartz, Trans. of the Linnean Soc., * Hist. ologia, 432, i. 96. See also Bonnet, Monographie des » des Drog. part i. 130, Canellées, 1876. . : ‘ eS Ganetticnn ‘se ; . ith a stick, _ being stripped from the wood, the bark is gently beaten wl ace W. ich SLES the suberous layer. By a further beating, the remain- — ing bark is separated, and having been peeled off and dried, is exported without further preparation.’ Description—Canella bark occurs in the form of — nt less crooked and irregular, or in channelled pieces from 2 wai fe 8, or more inches in length, } an inch to 1 or 2 inches in wi 1 oe ine or two in thickness, The suberous layer which here and t ‘hae escaped removal is silvery grey, and dotted with pet age Commonly, the external surface consists of inner cellu me ae (mesophlewm) of a bright buff, or light orange-brown a ittle wrinkled transversely, and dotted (but not always) yee ihe scars. The inner surface ig whitish or cinnamon-coloure i aie smooth or with slight longitudinal strize. Some parcels of . wie the bark much bruised and longitudinally fissured by t < witli mentioned process of beating. The bark breaks transversely ie short granular fracture, which distinctly shows the three, or ie ere Specimens the two, cortical layers, that of the liber being t 7 i kes and projecting by undulated rays or bundles into the middle : s of a which presents numerous large and unevenly scattered oil-cells o yellow colour, P ent Canella has an agreeable cinnamon-like odour, and a bitter, pung acrid taste.2 Even the corky coat is somewhat aromatic. Microscopical Structur very numerous layers of | undulated rather than rect = . he corky layer and the middle PORRS ee an interruption in this thick-walled rere the ions of it are enveloped and separated by : : oxalate of calcium deposited in the latter: This crystalline oxalate retains ’ Information communicated to itie b 46 te 4 +‘ ith canella alba, . F absolutely identical wit at _— J.C. Lees, Chief-Justice of the still retains 9) nan fragrance afternear'y to be not — cond mating would seem two centuries.—F. A. F, Oude- 2 pipes sways eae He *First figured and described oY edieelte British Museum label eget Collection in the Fass -Aanteekeningen op het. a : of the Isles,” but under the microscope cco = Pharm, Neerlandiea, 1854-56. > SEMEN GYNOCARDIE. 75 Chemical Composition—The most interesting body in canella is the volatile oil, examined in 1843 under Wohler’s direction by Meyer and Von Reiche, who obtained it in the proportion of 0°94 from 100 parts of bark. They found it to consist of four different oils, the first being identical with the Hugenol or Eugenic Acid of oil of cloves; the second is closely allied to the chief constituent of cajuput oil. The other oils require further examination.’ The bark, of which we distilled 20 tb., afforded 0°74 per cent. of oil. This when distilled with caustic potash in excess was found to be composed of 2 parts of the acid portion and 1 part of the neutral hydrocarbon ; the latter has an odour suggesting a mixture of pepper- mint and cajaput. Meyer and Von Reiche evaporated the aqueous decoction of canella, and removed from the bitter extract by alcohol 8 per cent. of mannite, which they ascertained to be the so-called Canellin described in 1822 by Petroz and Robinet. The bark yielded the German chemists 6 per cent. of ash, chiefly carbonate of calcium. The bitter principle has not yet been isolated. An aqueous infusion is not blackened by a persalt of iron. _ Commerce—Canella alba is collected in the Bahama Islands and shipped to Europe from Nassau in New Providence, the chief seat of vere in the group. In 1876 the export of the bark amounted to 2 ewt. Uses—The bark is an aromatic stimulant, now but seldom em- Ployed. It is used by the West Indian negroes as a condiment. BIXINEA. SEMEN GYNOCARDIZ. Chaulmugra Seed. Botanical Origin—Gynocardia odorata R. Br. (Chaulmoogra ‘oxb,, Hydnocarpus Lindl.), a large tree? with a globular fruit of the ‘we of a shaddock, containing numerous seeds immersed in pulp. It Sows in the forests of the Ma ayan peninsula and Eastern India as far | horth as Assam, extending thence along the base of the Himalaya Westward to Sikkim. ne History—The inhabitants of the south-eastern countries of Asia ee long been acquainted with the seeds of certain trees of the tribe Ungiee (ord, Bivimee) as a remedy for maladies of the skin. In na a seed called Ta-fung-tsze is imported from Siam*® where it is 4 : é a pimelin, Chemistry, xiv. (1860) 210. 1871. Sir Joseph Hooker (Report on the Plants’ it, Bentley and Trimen, Medic. Royal Gardens at Kew, 1877, p. 33) has «New ¢, asl 26 (1877). Also in Christy, been informed by Mr. Pierre, the director 3 pnereial Plants, No. 2 (1878). of the Botanic Garden at Saigon, Cochin- Consul-Genens mercial Report from H.M. china, that the seeds have proved to derive Presented to i in Siam for the year 1871, from a Hydnocarpus (Gynocardia).—See that 4g peak tiament, Aug. 1872, states also our article Semen Ignatii and Science © Were exporte) vib.) of Lukrabow seeds Papers, p. 235. é from Bangkok to China in a BIXINE: known as Lukrabo and used in a variety of cutaneous con The tree affording it, which is figured in the Puwn-tasao — “a - 1596) has not been recognised by botanists, but from the structure the seed it is obviously closely related to Gynocardia : ae The properties of G. odorata were known to eye : Latinizing the Indian name of the tree, called it (1814) Chau Het . odorata. Of late years the seeds have attracted the notice her peans in India, and having been found useful in certain ree they have been admitted a place in the Pharmacopeia of India. Description—The seeds, 1 to 14 inches long and ae: ee much in diameter, are of irregular ovoid form, and more or less be oa or flattened by mutual pressure ; they weigh on an rien” "aie . grains each. The testa is thin (about }, of an inch), iter darker dull grey ; within there is a brown oily kernel, marked wit ber colour at its basal end. The weight of the kernel 18, 00 88 a twice that of the testa. The former encloses in its eee . albumen a pair of large, plain, leafy, heart-shaped cotyledons stout radicle. The taste of the kernel is simply oily. Microscopic Structure—The testa is chiefly formed of cylin thick-walled cells. The albumen exhibits large angular cells er 4 fatty oil, masses of albuminous matter and tufted erystals 0 ; oxalate. Starch is not present. Chemical Composition—The kernels afforded us by a oo ether 51°5 per cent. of fatty oil, which is almost era tee what brownish if the seeds are not fresh. Either ex re 17°C; _ expressed it is of no peculiar taste. The pressed oil peer, golidifice- that extracted by ether or bisulphate of carbon requires i vote tion a lower temperature. The expressed oil is slightly If the oe less so that extracted by means of bisulphide of carbon. nd then — either pressed or extracted, is diluted with the bisulphids, Tae . concentrated sulphuric or nitric acid is added, no peculiar colo | produced. oves the — From the powdered kernels deprived of oil, water rem usual constituents, glucose, mucilage and albumin. aD Uses—tThe seeds are said to have been advantageously U ae ‘They MY, alternative tonic in scrofula, skin diseases and rhe Te ae of should be freed from the testa, powdered, and given in the. ed with — grains gradually increased. Reduced to a paste and ie of the Simple Ointment, they constitute the Unguentum Gynocai “1 of the Indian Pharmacopoeia, which, as well as an expressed - a seeds may be employed externally in herpes, tinea, &c.? ; pus : Substitute—It has been suggested that the seeds of H. yen : Wightiana BL, a tree of Western India, and of H. venenata re nob native of Ceylon, might be tried where those of Gynocardia come procurable. The seeds of both species of Hydnocarpus (formerly ~~ tree. ms ‘ Hanbury, Notes on Chinese Mat, Med. stronger testa than those of that 5 (1862) 23. — Science Papers, 244. Dr D.H. Porter Smith assumes the Chinese dru ? For particulars see Christy's pamphlet . : - odorata, but as i alluded to above, p. 75. a have pointed out, the seeds have a much : i? RADIX SENEGA. 77 founded together as H. inebrians Vahl) afford a fatty oil which the natives use in cutaneous diseases.’ POLYGALE A. RADIX SENEG&. Radia Seneke; Senega or Seneka Root; F. Racine de Polygala de Virginie; G. Senegawwrzel. Botanical Origin—Polygala Senega L., a perennial plant with slender ascending stems 6 to 12 inches high, and spikes of dull white flowers resembling in form those of the Common Milkwort of Britain. It is found in British America as far north as the river Saskatchewan, and in the United States from New England to Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and the upper parts of North Carolina, as well as in Georgia and Texas, not in the Rocky Mountains. Z The plant, which frequents rocky open woods and plains, has become somewhat scarce in the Atlantic states, and as a drug is now chiefly collected in the west, the plant growing profusely in Iowa and Min- nesota, west of New York. History—The employment of this root among the Seneca Indians as a remedy for the bite of the rattle-snake attracted the notice of | Tennent, a Seotch physician in Virginia; and from the good effects he witnessed he concluded that it might be administered with advantage m pleurisy and peripneumonia. ‘The result of numerous trials made in the years 1734 and 1735 proved the utility of the drug in these com- plaints, and Tennent communicated his observations to the celebrated Dr. Mead of London in the form of an epistle, afterwards published to- gether with an engraving of the plant, then called the Seneca Rattle- snake Root? Tennent’ practice was to administer the root in powder or as a strong decoction, or more often infused in wine. The hew drug was favourably received in Europe, and its virtues discussed in numerous theses and dissertations, one written in 1749 being by Innzeus.? re Description—Senega root is developed at its upper end into a otty crown, in old roots as much as an inch in diameter, from which Spring the numerous wiry aerial stems, beset at the base with scaly Tudimentary leaves often of a purplish hue. Below the crown is a ‘imple tap-root 42, to ,%, of an inch thick, of contorted or somewhat Spiral form, which usually soon divides into 2 or 3 spreading branches and smaller filiform rootlets. ; ‘a € bark ig light yellowish-grey, translucent, horny, shrivelled, otted and partially annulated. Very frequently a keel-shaped ridge sai running like a shrunken sinew through the principal root; it no connexion with the wood, but originates in a one-sided develop- ment of the liber-tissue. The bark encloses a pure, white woody column i . i 8, Pharm. of India, 1868. 27. Virginia, &c., Edinb. 1738. Mead conen 0°82), Epistle to Dr. Richard 3 Amenitates Academica, ii. 126. ing the epidemical diseases of So - POLYGALER. about as thick as itself. After the root has been macerated in water the bark is easily peeled off, and the peculiar structure of the wood can a then be studied. The latter immediately below the crown is a cyli- — drical cord, cleft however by numerous, fine, longitudinal fissures Lower down these fissures increase in an irregular manner, causing? — very abnormal development of the wood. Transverse sections of a root therefore differ greatly, the circular woody portion being either pene trated by clefts or wide notches, or one-half or even more is alice wanting, the space where wood should exist being in each case fill up by uniform parenchymatous tissue. ; ; j Senega root has a short brittle fracture, a peculiar rancid odour, an a very acrid and sourish taste. When handled it disperses in irritating dust. Microscopic Structure—The woody part is built up of a vessels surrounded by short porous ligneous cells; the medullary pa consist of one or two rows of the usual small cells. There is no pith} the centre of the root. The clefts and notches are filled up with a uniform tissue passing into the primary cortical tissue without a — _ liber; the large cells of this tissue are spirally striated. In the ; shaped rider the proper liber rays may be distinguished from the medullary rays. The former are made up of a soft tissue, hence the cortical part of the root breaks short together with the wood. " < ee Neither starch granules nor crystals of oxalate of calcium are pie : in this root; the chief contents of its tissue are albuminoid gram and drops of fatty oil. Chemical Composition—The substance to which the drug oW® - Acid f Quevenne (1836) and of Procter (1859), Christophsohn (1874) % — tracted it by means of boiling water, evaporated the solution, yl its irritating taste was distinguished by the name of Senegin by as early as 1804, and is probably the same as the Polygalic exhausted the residue with boiling aleohol (0'853 sp. gr). ‘The ligt after a day or two, deposits the crude senegin, which is to be was™ . i t : with alcohol (0'813 sp. gr.), and again dissolved in water, from ak a is precipitated by a large excess of hydrate of baryum. The baty’ a compound, dissolved in water, is decomposed by carbonic acid, by wht carbonate of baryum is separated, senegin remaining in solution. ial lastly to be precipitated by alcohol. It is amorphous, insoluble 10 & and in cold water; it forms with boiling water a frothing s° . : : rae nt Like saponin, to which it is very closely allied, it excites VIO™ sneezing, ; Dilute inorganic acids added to a warm solution of senegin down a floceulent jelly of Sapogenin, the liquid retaining 1m 5°" uncrystallizable sugar. Alkalis give rise to the same decompost mulas given for this process are doubtful. Even the formula of sence itself is not definitely settled. According to Christophsohn, the * : r- : yields about 2 per cent. of this substance; according to earlier autho | _ ties, who doubtless had it less pure, a much larger proportion. Schneider’s investigations (1875) it would appear that the rootlets oe : richest in senegin. Senega root contains a little volatile oil, traces of resin, also gU . It is Jutiod SOS eT S85, cog oe throw }utio® tiods but it is difficult to split up the senegin completely, and hence the fo : ‘ - RADIX KRAMERLE ne 79 salts of malic acid, yellow colouring matter, and sugar (7 per cent. according to Rebling, 1855). The Virginie Acid said by Quevenne to be contained in it, and the bitter substance Isolusin mentioned by Peschier, are doubtful bodies. Uses—Senega is prescribed as a stimulating expectorant and diuretic, useful in pneumonia, asthma and rheumatism. It is much esteemed in America. Adulteration—The drug is not liable to be wilfully falsified, but through careless collecting there is occasionally a slight admixture of other roots. One of these is American Ginseng (Panax quinquefoliwm L.) a spindle-shaped root which may be found here and there both in senega and serpentaria. The rhizome of Cypripedium pubescens Willd. has also been noticed ; 1t cannot be confounded with that of Polygala Senega. The same may be said with regard to the rhizome of Cynan- chum Vincetoxiewm R. Brown (Asclepias L., Vineetoxicwm officinale Monch). RADIX KRAMERIAZ. Radiz Ratanhie, Rhatanhie v. Rathanie ; Rhatany or Rhatania foot, Peruvian or Payta Rhatany ; F. Racine de Ratanhia ; G. Ratanhiawurzel} Botanical Origin—Kramerie triandra Ruiz et Pav., a small woody © “hrub with an upright stem scarcely a foot high and thick decumbent —_ branches 2 to 3 feet long." It delights in the barren sandy declivities of the Bolivian and Peruvian Cordilleras at 3000 to 8000 feet above the sea-level, often occurring in great abundance and adorning the ground With its red starlike flowers and silver-grey foliage. . vl root is gathered chiefly to the north, north-east, and east of Lima, as at Caxatambo, Huanuco, Tarma, J auja, Huarochiri and Canta ; °ecasionally on the high lands about lake Titicaca. It appears likewise to be collected in the northern part of Peru, since the drug is now frequently shipped from Payta. th History—Hipolito Ruiz,’ the Spanish botanist, observed in 1784 yt the women of Huanuco and Lima were in the habit of using for ~ Preservation of their teeth a root which he recognized as that of ates triandra, a plant discovered by himself in 1779. On his Aad to Europe he obtained admission for this root into Spain in 1796, “nee it was gradually introduced into other countries of Europe. ofa te first supplies which reached England formed part of the cargo uh panish prize, and were sold in the London drug sales at the com- Neement of the present century. Some fell into the hands of Dr. ~"*e who recommended it to the profession.‘ ut 20 years ago there appeared in the European market some ip; sag, eer tvon state that the root is * Mem, de la R. Acad. med. de Madrid, tion of the wenn’? ?atanhia, The deriva- i. (1797) 349—366. : lan © Word which is of the Quichua * Medicinal and Chirurgical Review, Py i - oP a Lond., xiii. (1806) cexlvi.; also Reece, Plants, cy and Tri ici ict. t. Med., 1808. : ; “Tanta, Part 30 (1876), Trimen, Medicinal Dict. of Domes oe POLYGALEA. other kinds of rhatany previously unknown: of these the more it portant are noticed at pp. 81, 82. Description—The root which attains a considerable size in propo tion to the aerial part of the shrub, consists of a short thick crown, — sometimes much knotted and as large as a man’s fist. This sie beneath the soil even more than above, throwing out an abundance branching, woody roots (frequently horizontal) some feet long and 1a + an inch thick. These long roots used formerly to be found in ¢oli- merce; but of late years rhatany has consisted in large ro of the more woody central part of the root with short stumpy ee which from their broken and bruised appearance have evidently extracted with difficulty from a hard soil. oe The bark which is scaly and rugged, and ;), to dy of an pe thickness, is of a dark reddish brown. It consists of a loose pe cork-layer, mostly smooth in the smaller roots, covering a bright brow red inner bark, which adheres though not very firmly to a ae yellow wood. The bark is rather tough, breaking with a S thin fracture. The wood is dense, without pith, but marked we odal- vessels arranged in concentric rings, and with still thinner, dark Ml ‘. lary rays. The taste of the bark is purely astringent; the w almost tasteless ; neither possesses any distinctive odour. ee, LEE r. Kr. cistoidea Hook, a plant scarcely to be distinguished from in triandra, affords in Chili a rhatany very much like that of Peru. root was contributed to the Paris Exhibition of 1867. A . ed Microscopic Structure—The chief portion of the bark is forme’ . eee : que es of liber, which in transverse section exhibits numerous bun yellow fibres separated by parenchymatous tissue and traverse y narrow brown medullary rays. The small layer of the primary aan made up of large cells, the surface of the root of large suberon rtical imbued with red matter. The latter also occurs in the inner ©? - fire a tissue, and ought to be removed by means of ammonia in order t0 8°" clear idea of the structure. Many of the parenchymatous ge : loaded with starch granules; oxalate of calcium occurs in the 2% ek ure bou rhood of the liber bundles. The woody portion exhibits no struct of particular interest, : yk of Chemical Composition— Wittstein (1854) found in the bark f ; pout rhatany (the only part of the drug having active properties) 1 ay ; 20 per cent. of a form of tannin called Ratanhia-tannie Act@, tioD related to catechu-tannic acid. It is an amorphous powder, the solutit of which is not affected by emetic | pyrocatechin as a product of the decomposition of ratanhia-tann’ into e latter is also decomposed by dilute acids which convert } crystallizable sugar and Ratanhia-red, a substance nearly inso!u water, also occurring in abundance ready formed in the bark. usti¢ Grabowski (1867) showed that by fusing ratanhia-red with cau’. potash, protocatechuic acid and phloroglucin! are obtained. ki, 98 red has the composition C*H2O" the same, according to Grabows ati an analogous product of the decomposition of the peculiar tannic occurring (as shown by Rochleder in 1866) in the horse-chest0™™ 1 See art. Kino. tartar, but yields with ferric ae : a dark greenish precipitate. By distillation’ Eissfeldt (1854) obtaite, Juble i tanhia- RADIX KRAMERLE, 81 The same red substance may also be obtained, as stated by Rembold (1868), from the tannic acid of the root of tormentil (Potentilla Tormentilla L.). As to rhatany root, Wittstein also found it to contain wax, gum and unerystallizable sugar (even in the wood! according to Cotton’). Cotton further pointed out the presence in very minute quantity of an odorous, volatile, solid body, obtainable by means of ether or bisulphide of carbon; it occurs in a somewhat more considerable amount in the other sorts of thatany. The root contains no gallic acid. _ A dry extract of rhatany resembling kino used formerly to be imported from South America, but how and where manufactured we know not. It is however of some interest as containing a crystalline body which Wittstein who discovered it (1854) regards as Tyrosin, C’H"NO?, previously supposed to be exclusively of animal origin.? Stiadeler and Ruge (1862) assigned to it a slightly different composition, C"H"NO*, and gave it the name of Ratanhin. It dissolves in hot water which is acidulated by a little nitric acid; the solution on boiling turns red, blue, and lastly green, and becomes at the same time fluorescent, Kreitmair (1875) extracted 0-7 per cent. of ratanhin from an old specimen of commercial extract of rhatany; but he did not succeed in obtaining it from other specimens. He also showed that ratanhin is not a con- Stituent of the roots of Krameria. The same substance has been abun- dantly found by Gintl (1868) in the natural exudation called Resina q Angelim pedra’ which is met with in the alburnum of Ferreirea Spectabilis Allem., a large Brazilian tree of the order Leguminose ~ (tribe Sophorec). Peckolt, who first extracted it, named it Angelin ; tt forms colourless, neutral crystals yielding compounds both with — is and acids, which have been investigated by Gintl in 1869 and 1870, _ Uses—Rhatany is a valu ble astringent, but is not much employed ' Great Britain, Z ‘i 8 ploy ¢ Other sorts of Rhatany—Of the 20 to 25 other species ot rameria, all of them belonging to America, several have astringent — which have been collected and used in the place of the rhatany ot “tu. The most important of these drugs is that known as— Bras Rhatany,—so called from having been shipped from Paré in Gu - Berg who described it in 1865 termed it Brazilian Rhatany, ton in 1868, Ratanhia des Antilles. It is a drug nearly resembling ne ollowing, but of a darker and less purple hue; it is also in longer hey: Which are remarkably flexible, and covered with a thick bark : ig humerous transverse cracks.‘ It is apparently derived from the dry distr; argentea of Martius,’ the root of which is collected in the tow Stricts of the provinces of Bahia and Minas Geraes, that plant from (b> throughout north-eastern Brazil. It is also called Rhatany i Paci iegatt Genre Krameria (thése), ‘For further oo Fliickiger, “Gmelin, Chor: Pharm. Journ., July 30, 1870. 84. * See Vox. amistry, xiii, (1859) 358. 5 Syst. Mat. Med. Bras., 1843, 51; Lang- Jahrbiig, St ® P aper on it in Pringsheim, peri Diccionario de Medicina, Rio de (1874) ong JU” wissenschaftliche Botanik, ix. aneiro, iii. (1865) 384.—Krameria argentea ) 77985, oe is figured in Flora Brasiliensis, Fascicul. 63 | (1874, pg. 71) tab. 28. F . POLYGALEZ. Savanilla or New Granada Rhatany. The plant viene bien: Krameria tomentosa St. Hil. (Kr. Ixina var. B ro ee Kr. grandifolia Berg), a shrub 4 to 6 feet high covering BA : tracts in the valley of Jiron between Pamplona and the Mag ke ork New Granada, in which locality the collection of the root was 0 ge by Weir in 1864.’ According to Triana it also crows at nee ge of Jiron. The same plant is found near Santa Marta and Beata - in north-eastern New Granada, in British Guiana, and in the . vinces of Pernambuco and Goyaz. : = tke stem or root-crown of Savaialla rhatany is never so nee ; _ and irregular as that of the Peruvian drug, nor are the roots ee long so thick. Separate pieces of root of sinuous form, 4 to 6 ‘. lore and +75 to 43, of an inch thick are most frequent. The fa so well distinguished by its dull purplish brown colour, its thic sn deed bark marked with longitudinal furrows, and here and there is ee transverse cracks, and by the bark not easily splitting off as 1 7 common rhatany. t The cate difference depends chiefly upon the more 0 development of the bark which in thickness is } to t the yd ree the wood. In Peruvian rhatany the cortical layer attains on fi of the the diameter of the woody column. The greater eee suberous coat in Savanilla rhatany is due to its cells being den with colouring matter. tee +, matter _ Savanilla rhatany differs from the Peruvian root in its eperie ater This becomes evident by shaking the powdered root (or bar: ) i and iron reduced by hydrogen. The liquid filtered from t solet colout, sort and diluted with distilled water exhibits an intense vi0 cue that from Peruvian rhatany a dingy brown; the latter we eT hoe by alkalis. Thin sections of the Peruvian root assume @ gr i he treat- when moistened with a ferrous salt; Savanilla root by a suml richer i2- ment displays the above violet colour. The Savanilla root 18 deserve soluble matter and from the greater development of its bark may to be preferred for medicinal use. rence In the English market, Savanilla root is of less frequent occur than that of Pard. . . C., . A kind of rhatany attributed to Krameria secwndiflora D : Berg herbaceous plant of Mexico, Texas and Arkansas, was furnished to in 1 as ‘ re 854, but has not been in commerce. Its anatomical structu been described by Berg? ' Hanbury, Origin of Savanilla Rhatany, in Pharm. Journ. vy (1865) 460.—Also ae Seience Papers, 333.—In that paper I re- se : a Tri ferred the drug to a variety of Kr. Irina Fig. of Kr. Izina in Bentley a0 which M. Cotton has shown to differ in no Med. Pi. 10. 1856, 797 respect from St, Hilaire’s Kr, tomentosa, ® Bot. Zeitung, 14th Nov. ‘ ful ree a conclusion in which, after oy agree. amination of specimens, H -CAMBOGIA. : 83 GUTTIFERA. CAMBOGIA. Gummi Gambogia, Gummi Gutti; Gamboge; F. Gomme Gutte; G. Gutti, Gummigutt. Botanical Origin—Garcinia Morella Desrousseaux, var. 8. pedi- cellata, a dicecious tree,’ with handsome laurel-like folliage and small yellow flowers, found in Camboja, Siam (province of Chantibun and the islands on the east coast of the gulf of Siam), and in the southern parts of Cochin China. It was introduced about thirty years ago into Singapore where several specimens are still thriving (1873) on the estate of Dr. Jamie. The finest is now a tree of 20 feet high, with a trunk a foot in diameter, and a thick, spreading head of foliage. G. Morella Desry—The typical form of this tree having sessile male flowers grows in moist forests of Southern India and Ceylon, and is capable of affording good gamboge. G. pictoria Roxh., a large tree of Southern India, produces a sort of gamboge found by Christian (1846) essentially the same as that of Siam. _It has been examined more recently by Broughton (1871) who states it to be quite equal to that of G. Morella. We have also been unable to find any difference between the product of G. pictoria as sent from Ceylon and common gamboge. Garcinia pictoria moreover is thought by Sir Jos. Hooker to agree with G. Morelia. History—The Chinese had intercourse with Camboja as early as the time of the Sung dynasty (A.D. 970—1127); and a Chinese traveller who visited the latter country in 1295-97, describes gamboge and the method of obtaining it by incisions in the stem of the tree.” The cele- brated Chinese herbal Pun-tsao, written towards the close of the 16th century, mentions gamboge (Tang-hwang) and gives a rude figure of the tree. The drug is regarded by the Chinese as poisonous, and is Scareely employed except as a pigment. _.+he first notice of the occurrence of gamboge in Europe is in the oe of Clusius* who describes a specimen brought from China by a Dutch Admiral, Jacob van Neck, and given to him in 1603, under : 8 hame of Ghittaiemou. It appears that shortly after this time it sar to be employed in medicine in Europe, for in 1611, Michael uden, a physician of Bamberg, made use of it as he stated in 1613.° ® termed the drug a “novum gummi purgans,” or also, Gummi de ; . . by hoe been named Garcinia Hanburyi for turmeric, but his description is unmis- Renn Soe Spenser St. Jo Op. cit. 3 . . cit, 5 by Graham, Catal. ret eke Sylvatica, Madras, part xv. (1872) RS en ° Pharm. Journ. xi, (1852) 65. : re ar 1830, when it was stated in an Indian newspar | : : : OLEUM GARCINIZ. 87 by about 54; broad. Each seed weighs on an average about eight grains. The thick cotyledons, which are inseparable,’ have a mild oily taste. Examination under the microscope shows them to be built up of large reticulated cells containing a considerable proportion of crystalline fat readily soluble in benzol. In addition globular masses of albuminous matter occur which with iodine assume a brownish ew hue. With perchloride of iron the walls strike a greenish- black, The process followed by the natives of India (by whom alone the oil is prepared) has been thus described :—The seeds having been dried by exposure for some days to the sun are bruised, and boiled in water. The oil collects on the surface, and concretes when cool into a cake which requires to be purified by melting and straining. Description—Kokum Butter is found in the Indian bazaars in the form of egg-shaped or oblong lumps about 4 inches long by 2 inches in diameter, and weighing about a quarter of a pound. It is a whitish substance, at ordinary temperatures, firm, dry, and friable, yet greasy _ to the touch. Serapings (which are even pulverulent) when examined ~ In glycerin under the microscope show it to be thoroughly crystalline. — rat ee a mild oily taste, yet redden litmus if moistened with coho By filtration in a steam-bath, kokum butter is obtained perfectly usparent and of a light straw-colour, concentrating again at 27‘5° - mto a white crystalline mass: some crystals appear even at 30°. elted in a narrow tube, cooled and then warmed in a water bath, the | fat begins to melt at 42°5° C,, and fuses entirely at 45°. The residue left after filtration of the crude fat is inconsiderable, and consists chiefly of brown tannic matters soluble in spirit of wine. en kokum butter is long kept it acquires an unpleasant rancid Smell and brownish hue, and an efflorescence of shining tufted crystals *ppears on the surface of the mass, Chemical Composition — Purified kokum butter boiled with | ‘austic soda yields a fine hard soap which, when decomposed with sul- Pauric acid, affords a crystalline cake of fatty acids weighing as much as * orginal fat. The acids were again combined with soda and the soap ving been decomposed, they were dissolved in alcohol of about 94 per | fent. By slow cooling and evaporation crystals were first formed which, : vr perfectly dried, melted at 69:5° C:: they are consequently Stearic cid. A less considerable amount of crystals which separated subse- : re had a fusing point of 55°, and may be referred to Myristic Ae Portion of the crude fat was heated with oxide of lead and water, : ® plumbie compound dried and exhausted with ether, which is T evaporation left a, very small amount of liquid oil, which we refer Oleic Acid, mate wy the sulphuric acid used at the outset of the experiments was one and examined in the usual manner for volatile fatty acids YU, valerianic, &c.) but with negative results. 1 ‘Trimes MbeYo, according to Bentley and thickened radicle, and is almost devoid of oe ®) consists chiefly of the cotyledons. "88 se DIPTEROCARPEZ. The fat of the seeds of G. indica was extracted by ether and examin ’ TEE . 1 was chemically in 1857 by J. Bouis and d’Oliveira Pine i obtained to the extent of 30 per cent., was found to and to-consist chiefly of stearin (tristearin). The seeds yield cent. of nitrogen. Their residue after exhaustion by ether alkaline solutions or aleohol a fine red colour. at Uses—The results of the experiments above-noted show t ‘ t anigh butter is well suited for some pharmaceutical preparations. : it vi stearic also be advantageously employed in candle-making, as it yields | her fats. acid more easily and in a purer state than tallow and most oth stig? a . large for But that it is possible to obtain it in quantities sufficiently larg | important industrial uses, appears to us very problematical. DIPTEROCARPE. BALSAMUM DIPTEROCARPI. Balsamun Gurjune; Gurjun Balsam, Wood Oi. of the Botanical Origin—This drug is yielded by several trees . enus Dipterocarpus, namely — et native : D. nuebin teens. cA ’D. levis Ham., D. indicus meee” rene of Eastern Bengal, Chittagong and Pegu to Singapore, Cochin China. D. incanus Roxb., a tree of Chittagong and Pegu. Tenasserill, D. alatus Roxb., growing in Chittagong, Burma, 1e a Jon. “D. zeylanicus Thw. and D. hispidus Thw., goa pees and D. crispalatus .... . abounding, together with D. tu ilis D. trinervis Bl., a native of Java and the Philippines, nie oan Bl., D. littoralis BL, D. retusus BI. (D. Spanoghet Bl.), commercial importance.2 The Gurjun trees are said by Hooker? to be among the magnificent of the forests of Chittagong. They are conspicue their gigantic size, and for the straightness and graceful ee glossy tall unbranched trunk, and small symmetrical crown of : 5 feet ip leaves, Many individuals are upwards of 200 feet high and 15 girth. uctions History—Gurjun balsam was enumerated as one of the prod of Ava by Francklin‘ in 1811, and in 1813 it was briefly mee Ainslie’ “Its botanical origin was first made known by Roxburg also described the metho d by which it is extracted. most us fot 2s (1855) 3 Himalayan Journal, ed. 2, ¥ Lond ervis is especially used 332. : in Java. Filet, Plantkundig Woordenboot * Tracts on the Dominions of AM ; Re” gicterlandech Indit, Leiden, 1876, 1811. 96 Produits No. 6157. 5 In the Catalogue des = the be of less Z : | | BALSAMUM DIPTEROCARPI 89 The medicinal properties of Gurjun balsam were pointed out by O'Shaughnessy’ as entirely analogous to those of copaiba; and his observations were confirmed by many practitioners in India. This has obtained for the drug a place in the Pharmacopwia of India (1868). Extraction—A recent account of the production of this drug is found in the Reports of the Jury of the Madras Exhibition of 1856. It is there stated that Wood Oil, as the balsam is commonly called, is obtained for the most part from the coast of Burma and the Straits, and is procured by tapping the trees about the end of the dry season. Several deep incisions are made with an axe into the trunk of the tree and a good-sized cavity scooped out. In this, fire is placed, and kept burn-— ing until the wood is somewhat scorched, when the balsam begins to exude, and is then led away into a vessel of bamboo. It is afterwards allowed to settle, when a clear liquid separates from a thick portion called the “guad.” The oil is extracted year after year, and sometimes _ there are two or three holes in the same tree. It is produced in extra- ordinary abundance; from 30 to 40 gallons according to Roxburgh may sometimes be obtained from a single tree in the course of a season, during which it is necessary to remove from time to time the old charred surface of the wood and burn afresh. | Ifa growing tree is felled and cut into piece, the oleo-resin exudes and concretes on the wood, very much, it is said, resembling camphor (?) and having an aromatic smell. Description—As Gurjun balsam is the produce of different trees as well as of different countries, it is not surprising to find that it varies considerably in its properties. The following observations refer to a balsam of which 400 tb. were recently imported from Moulmein for a London drug firm. It is a_ thick and viscid fluid, exhibiting a remarkable fluorescence, so that when seen by reflected light it appears opaque and of dingy greenish stey; yet when placed between the observer and strong daylight 1t is seen to be perfectly transparent and of a dark-reddish brown.’ _ Jas a weak aromatic copaiba-like odour and a bitterish aromatic taste i the persistent acridity of copaiba. Its sp. gr. at 16°9° C. is With the following liquids Gurjun affords perfectly clear solutions ie ich are more or less fluorescent, namely pure benzol (from benzoate “ calcium), cumol, chloroform, sulphide of carbon, essential oils. On ie other hand, it is not entirely soluble in methylic, ethylic, or amylic ¥ cohol ; in ether, acetic ether, glacial acetic acid, acetone, phenol (carbolie acid), or in caustic potash dissolved in absolute alcohol. “rag d ee of commercial benzin also are not capable of dissolving re oleo-resin perfectly, but we have not ascertained on what con- “uent of such benzin this depends. We have further noticed that nd abate of petroleum which is known as Petroleum Ether, contain- fie © most volatile hydrocarbons, does not wholly dissolve the oleo- mM. One hundred parts of the balsam warmed and shaken with 1000 Colon, : de Tach Francaises, Exposition Universelle 1 Mat. Med. of Hindoostan, Madras, balan ‘off p) it is stated that the 1813. 186. meee China j - @latus in French Cochin engal Dispensatory : 8 preferred, being a “‘ huile blanche.” 90 DIPTEROCARPEZ. parts of absolute alcohol yielded on cooling a precipitate of resin amounting when dried to 18°5 parts. All concentrated solutions of the balsam are precipitated by amylic alcohol. If the balsam is kept for a long time in a stoppered vessel at 100° C. it simply becomes a little turbid; but about 130° C. it is transformed into a jelly, and on cooling does not resume its former fluidity. Balsam of copaiba heated in a closed glass tube to 220° C. does not at all lose its fluidity, whereas Gurjun balsam becomes an almost solid mass. Chemical Composition—Of the balsam 6:99 grammes dissolved in benzol and kept in a water bath until the residue ceased to lose weight, yielded 3°80 grammes of a dry, transparent, semi-fluid resin, corresponding to 54°44 per cent., and 45°56 of volatile matters expelled by evaporation. But another sample afforded us much less residue. By submitting larger quantities of the above balsam to the usual process of distillation with water in a large copper still, 37 per cent. of volatile oil were easily obtained. The water passing over at the same time did not redden litmus paper. A dark, viscid, liquid resin remained in the still. The essential oil is of a pale straw-colour and less odorous than most _ other volatile oils. Treated with chloride of calcium and again distilled, it begins to boil at 210° C. and passes over at 255°—260° C., acquiring @ somewhat empyreumatic smell and light yellowish tint. The purified oil has a sp. gr. of 0915 ;! it is but sparingly soluble in absolute alcohol or glacial acetic acid, but mixes readily with amylic alcohol. oe _ According to Werner (1862) this oil has the composition C”H™ 4 like that of copaiba. He says it deviates the ray of polarized light to . the left, but that prepared by one of us deviated strongly to the right, the residual resin dissolved in benzol being wholly inactive. The oil does not form a crystalline compound with dry hydrochloric acid, which colours it of a beautiful blue? De Vry* states that the essential oil after this treatment deviates the ray to the right. The resin contains, like that of copaiba, a small proportion of a crystallizable acid which may be removed by warming it with ammonia “isting gone That part of the resin which is insoluble even in absolute cohol,’ we found to be uncrystallizable. The Gurgunic Acid, as the crystallized resinous acid is called by Werner, but which it is more ing the resin with ate may consequently be prepared by exes Renee b alcohol (838) and mixing the solution with ammon! te Ses get solution gurjunic acid is precipitated on addiug? ; he aa be ee and if itis again dissolved in ether and alcohol 1 aaa a in the form of small crystalline crusts. From ine dubitabl el Becao les we were not successful in obtaining ¥ urjunic acid, C“H®08 according to Werner, melts at 220°C, and me Gee again at 180° C;; it begins to boil at 260° G., yet at the same ccomposition takes place. By assigning to this acid the formu” C#H405 : 0° + 3H°0, which agrees well with Werner’s analytical results, W® 1 0" - : O'Shaughnessy 5 0°28 De Verna oo! b ae sample of gurjun baer er - is magnifi : ae y Werner as well as the resin! not dissolved by ae matter is —_ were entirely soluble in boiling potash oe 3 Pharm. Journ. xvi. (1857) 374, 5 Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. 545. BALSAMUM DIPTEROCARPI. 91 may regard it as a hydrate of abietinic acid, the chemical behaviour of which is perfectly analogous. Gurjunic acid is soluble in alcohol 0°838, but not in weak alcohol ; it is dissolved also by ether, benzol, or sulphide of carbon (Werner). In copaiba from Maracaibo, Strauss (1865) discovered Metacopaivic Acid which is probably identical with gurjunic; the former, however, fuses at 206° C. The amorphous resin forming the chief bulk of the residue of the distillation of the balsam, has not yet been submitted to exact analysis. We find that after complete desiccation it is not soluble in absolute alcohol. A crystallized constituent of Gurjun, which we obtained from a balsam of unknown origin, has been shown’ to answer to the formula C*H*O*. Its crystals, belonging to the asymmetric system, melt at 126°—130°C.; they are entirely devoid of acid character. A comparative examination of the product of each of the above named species of Dipterocarpus would be highly desirable. Commerce—Gurjun balsam is exported from Singapore, Moulmein, Akyab and the Malayan Peninsula, and is a common article of trade inSiam. It is likewise produced in Canara in Southern India. It is occasionally shipped to Europe. More than 2000 tb. were offered for sale in London under the name of Last India Balsam Capivi, 4th October 1855; and in October 1858, a no less quantity than 45 casks appeared in the catalogue of a London drug-broker. It is now not unfrequent in the London drug sales. Uses—In medicine it has hitherto been employed only as a substi- tute for copaiba, and chiefly in the hospitals of India. In the Kast its great use is as a natural varnish, either alone or - Combined with pigments; and also as a substitute for tar as an applica- tion to the seams of boats, and for preserving timber from the attacks of the white ant. To the first application it is often made better ‘ppropriated 2 by boiling it, so that the essential oil is evaporated. Wood Oil of China—The oleo-resin of Dipterocarpus must not be “onfounded with the so-called Wood Oil of China, which is of a totally ferent nature. The latter is a fatty oil expressed from the seeds of Aleu- — cordata Miill. Arg. (Dryandra cordata Thunb. Llaeococca Vernicia prgl. Prodromus xv, part 2, p. 724), the well-known Tung tree a * Vainese. It is a large tree of the order Euphorbiaceae, found in ama and Japan. The oil is an article of enormous consumption mong the Chinese, who use it in the caulking and painting of junks oats, for preserving woodwork, varnishing furniture, and also in 3 In the commercial reports of H.M. Consuls in China (No. 5, 199-654 3, 26) we find that this oil is largely exported from Hankow : sak .Peculs in 1874, and forms an article of import at Ningpo: 15-123 shi sd 1874 (pecul=133'33 Ib. avoirdupois). It is, however, not i to foreign countries. The oil of the Tung tree is also ex- Cie: remarkable on account of its chemical properties as shown 0€z (18751877), i . : fig, tckiger, Pharm, Journ. (1878) 725, with 2 Catalogue of the French Colonies, Paris Exhibition, 1878, 101, quoted above. Medicine, cortical tissue is due, Ee ree te which’ the tounsaes 99 MALVACE. MALVACEA. RADIX ALTHAA Marshmallow Root; F. Racine de Guimauve; G. Ebischwureel. Botanical Origin— Althea officinalis L., the marshmallow, grows in moist places throughout Europe, Asia Minor, and the temperate parts of Western and Northern Asia, but is by no means universally _ distributed. It prefers saline localities such as in Spain the salt marshes of Saragossa, the low-lying southern coasts of France neat Montpellier, Southern Russia, and the neighbourhood of salt-springs in Central Europe. In southern Siberia Althzea has been met with by Semenoff (1857) ascending as high as 3,000 feet in the Alatau mountains, south of the Balkash Lake. In Britain it occurs in the low grounds bordering the Thames below ‘London, and here and there in many other spots in the south of Eng- land and of Ireland. ee The cultivated marshmallow thrives as far north as Throndhjem 10 Norway, and has been naturalized in North America (salt marshes of New England and New York) and Australia. It is largely cultivated in Bavaria and Wiirtemberg. History—Marshmallow had many uses in ancient medicine, and 1s described by Dioscorides as ’AA@aia; a name derived from the Greek verb ade, to heal. g The diffusion of the plant in Europe during the middle ages Wa promoted by Charlemagne who enjoined! its culture (A.D. 812) under the name of “ Mismalvas, id est alteas quod dicitur ibischa.” _ Description—The plant has a perennial root attaining about a foot ‘ in length and an inch in diameter. For medicinal use the bien roots of the cultivated plant are chiefly employed. When fresh they — are externally yellowish and wrinkled, white within and of tender fleshy texture. “Previous to drying, the thin outer and a portion of the middle bark are scraped off, and the small root filaments are remove® — drug thus prepared and dried consists of simple whitish ste® — d to inches long, of the thickness of the little finger to that of a quill, * eeply furrowed longitudinally and marked with brownish scars. ‘. aie portion, which is pure white, breaks with a short fracture, bu —_ 1s tough and fibrous. The dried root is rather flexible a0¢ — a f oF _ (reper section shows the central Meee? yer 4 uw i ee Rehadea oe ORR gna from the thick bark by a fine dar ae e root has a peculiar though i d is of rather : : ona! gh very faint odour, and 1s yee mawkish and insipid taste, and very slimy when chewed. Microscopi | a iber, abounding oT e—The greater part of the bark se the They are branched and form bundles, each ¢ * Pertz, Monuwmenta fet the Greek ificxos, Germanic historica, Legum tom. i. (1835) 181.— Tbischa Which is sue RADIX ALTHAZ 93 taining from 3 to 30 fibres separated by parenchymatous tissue. Of the cortical parenchyme many cells are loaded with starch granules, others contain stellate groups of oxalate of calcium, and a considerable number of somewhat larger cells are filled with mucilage. The last- named on addition of alcohol is seen to consist of different layers. The woody part is made up of pitted or scalariform vessels, accom- panied by a few ligneous cells and separated by a parenchymatous tissue, agreeing with that of the bark. On addition of an alkali, sections of the root assume a bright yellow hue. Chemical Composition—The mucilage in the dry root amounts to about 25 per cent. and the starch to as much more. The former appears from the not very accordant analysis of Schmidt and of Mulder to agree with the formula C°H”O”, thus differing from the mucilage of gum arabic by one molecule less of water. It likewise differs in being precipitable by neutral acetate of lead. At the same time it does not show the behaviour of cellulose, as it does not turn blue by todine when moistened with sulphuric acid, and it is not soluble in ammoniacal solution of oxide of copper. _the root also contains pectin and sugar (cane-sugar according to Wittstock), and a trace of fatty oil. Tannin is found in very small quantity in the outer bark alone. In 1826 Bacon, a pharmacien of Caen, obtained from althzea root crystals of a substance at first regarded as peculiar, but subsequently identified with Asparagin, C‘H*N?0*, H?O. It had been previously prepared (1805) by Vanquelin and Robiquet from Asparagus, and is now own to be a widely-diffused constituent of plants Marshmallow root does not yield more than 0°8 to 2:0 per cent. Asparagin crystal- lizes in large prisms or octohedra of the rhombic system ; it is nearly tasteless, and appears destitute of physiological action. Its relation to Suecimie acid may be thus represented :-— bala scat s CONH? Suecinie acid: C2H* | oa Asparagin: C*H%(NH?*) | COOH : Hparagin is quite permanent whether in the solid state or dissolved, ae it is easily decomposed if the solution contains the albuminoid con- vents of the root, which act as a ferment. Leguminous seeds, yeast or decayed cheese induce the same change, the final product of cinate of ammonium, the asparagin taking the elements of ydrogen set free by the fermentation, thus— C*H*N?0* + H?O + 2H —2NH',C'H‘O* Asparagin. Succinate of Ammonium. on the influence of acids or bases, or even by the prolonged of A ng of its aqueous solution, asparagin is converted into Aspartate faine um, C*H®(NH*)NO%, of which the hydrated asparagin con- ns the elements, “se transformations, especially the former, are undergone by the m the root, if the latter has been imperfectly dried, or has 1 rte fee ‘teresting part in the ger- the juice by means of the microscope and and other the © seeds of papilionaceons absolute alcohol, in which latter asparagin Young ‘lat. +e At is abundant in the is insoluble. See Pfeffer in Pringsheim’s Tie ut in most it speedily dis- Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot. 1872. 533—564.— Presence can be proved in _ Borodin in Bot. Zeitung, 1878. 801 and seq. Water and h 94, —) = MALVACEA: = j ree i number of circles resembling annual rings, the general form of which is anaes: ; d i though the individual rings are by no means well define Stirs tha 20 such rings may be counted in the sapwood of ge: i as we have mentioned, and more than 30 in the heartwood. e pl i less centre is usually out of the axis. The medullary rays are - visible to the naked eye, but may be seen by a lens to be very ee and equidistant. The pores of the heartwood may be distinguis ? se containing a brownish resin, while those of the outermost layer of sap wood are empty. ; In the thickest pieces sapwood is wanting, and even in ae al about a foot in diameter it is reduced to 4 of an inch. It is of loos texture than the heartwood and floats on water, whereas the latter sinks. Both sapwood and heartwood owe their tenacity to an extremely ep zigzag arrangement’ of the woody bundles, _ The sapwood is % ot The heartwood has a faintly aromatic and slightly irritating taste, when heated or rubbed emits a weak agreeable odour. ee The bark which was formerly officinal but is now almost 0 : ne is very rich in oxalate of calcium and affords upon incineration no than 23 per cent. of ash. It contains a resin distinct from. that of the wie wood, and also a bitter acrid principle? The Lignum Vite of Jamaica (G. officinale) and that of the meee _ (G. sanctum), of which authentic specimens have been kindly place JI our disposal by Mr. G. Shadbolt, display the same appearance as wel as microscopic structure.’ ‘ We Microscopic Structure—The wood consists for the most part © pointed, not very long, ligneous cells (libriform), traversed by one-cell rows of medullary rays. There are also thin layers of parenchymatous: _ tissue, to which the zones apparent in a transverse section of the drug “are due. The pitted vessels are comparatively large but 9 a “g _Bumerous. The structure of the sapwood is the same as that of U eartwood, but in the latter the ligneous cells are filled with resi) The parenchymatous cells contain crystals of oxalate of calcium. . is Chemical Composition—The only constituent of any ner the resin which the heartwood contains to the extent of about a of its weight. The sapwood afforded us 091 and the heartwood per cent. of ash, _ Commerce—Lignum Vite varies much in estimation, con i size, soundness, and the cylindrical form of the logs. The m the exported from the city of Santo Domingo, whither it is brought fro i871 interior of the island. The quantity shipped from this port during on was 1494 tons; 220 tons were exported in 1877 from Puerto Plata : ss J. 63) Tt has been remarkab] i : : 7 Romae 1651, fol . y well pointed mexicanor. hist., Rom nitions out already by Valerius Cordus (obiit 1544), under the name of Guayacan. Pas those See Gesner’s edition of his Hist, Stirpium its large umbels with yellow azacan” oF Argentorat., 1561. 191 of Guaiacum officinale, the ‘‘ Ho the Pre- Lignum sanctum, being eee (unin, Seine 246 and plate ~ dromus F lore Neo-Granatent alk 2 nat, xv., 1872. p. 361) J. E. Plane here * See also Oberlin et § h Tourn, de Pharm, 28 (1878) lagdenhauffen, vi. * That of Guaiacum Ties Juayac lvillo; its Ww curring in New Granada, has Biscay bonis as Guayacan po noticed (1571—1577) by Francisco Hernan- 4 Consular Reports present dez (Nova plantarum, animal, et mineral, ment, Aug. 1872. % : . : known arhoreum DC. ig describes Guaiacum arboreum, jg of almost pulverulent fracture. oe patie RESINA GUAIACL. ~~ 103 the northern coast of the island. The wood obtained from the Haytian ports (of the western part of the same island) is much less esteemed in the London market. Some small wood of good quality comes from the Bahamas, and an - ordinary quality, also small, from Jamaica. From the latter island, the quantity exported in 1871 was only 14 tons;' from the Bahamas in the same year 199 tons.” Lignum Vite was shipped from Santa Marta in — 1872 to the extent of 115 tons.> * Hamburg is also an important place for the wood under notice; in 1877 there were imported 22,404 centners from S. Domingo and 3551 centners from Venezuela. _ Uses—Guaiacum wood is only retained in the pharmacopceia as an ingredient of the Compound Decoction of Sarsaparilla. It is probably inert, at least in the manner in which it is now administered. : Adulteration—In purchasing guaiacum chips it is necessary to observe that the non-resinous sapwood is absent, and still more that there is no admixture of any other wood. A spurious form of the drug seems to be by no means rare in the United States. RESINA GUAIACI. . Guaiacum Resin; F. Résine de Gaiac; G. Guaiakhare. Botanical Origin—Guaiacum officinale L., see preceding article. History--Hutten® in 1510 stated that guaiacum wood when set on fire exudes a blackish resin which quickly hardens, but of which he ewnouse. The resin was in fact introduced into medicine much later than the wood. The first edition of the London Pharmacopeia i which we find the former named is that of 1677. : Production’—In the island of St. Domingo, whence the supplies of _ sualacum resin are chiefly derived, the latter is collected from the stems : the trees, in part as a natural exudation, and in part as the result of qsions made in the bark. In some districts as in the island of ovave near Port-au-Prince, another method of obtaining it is adopted. log of the wood is supported in a horizontal position above the hee by two upright bars. Each end of the log is then set on fire, “oy ea incision having been previously made in the middle, the Swe resin runs out therefrom in considerable abundance. 36,350 Ibs. have been exported in 1875 from Port-au-Prince. ane = ae resin is collected chiefly from G. officinale, which affords it in — = = “© plenty than G. sanctum. 1 ia ee Wook —Island of Jamaica for 1871. pamphlet quoted before, and its numerous 1871, K for Colony of Bahamas for reprints and translations. * Consula 5 Schulz, in the (Chicago) Pharmacist, ‘The si Reports, Aug. 1873. 746. Sept. 1873. Giaiacum wien’ eatment of syphilis by é Op. cit. at p. 101. << ae immense Ich gained for the drug such 7 We have to thank Mr. Eugene Nau of Ministratj Putation, consisted in the ad- Port-au-Prince for the information given tion, the 1. of vast quantities of the decoc- _- under this head, as well as forsome interest- the pati toom ent beg shut up ina warm __ in specimens. aud kept mM Ded: =: Sas Hutten’s : te ea 7TYGOPHYLLES. — Description—The resin occurs in globular tears + an inch to 1 ineh in diameter, but much more commonly in the form of large compact masses, containing fragments of wood and bark. The resin is brittle, breaking with a clean, glassy fracture ; in thin pieces it is transparent and appears of a greenish brown hue. The powder when fresh is grey, but becomes green by exposure to light.and air. It has a slight mic odour and but little taste, yet leaves an irritating sensation in the throat. The resin has a sp. gr. of about 1:2. It fuses at 85° C., emitting 4 peculiar odour somewhat like that of benzoin. It is easily soluble m acetone, ether, alcohol, amylic alcohol, chloroform, creasote, caustic alka- line solutions, and oil of cloves; but is not dissolved or only partially by other volatile oils, benzol or bisulphide of carbon. By oxidizing agents it acquires a fine blue colour, well shown when a fresh alcoholi¢ solution is allowed to dry up in a very thin layer and this is then _ sprinkled with a dilute alcoholic solution of ferric chloride. Reducing agents of all kinds, and heat produce decoloration. An alcoholic solu- tion may be thus blued and decolorized several times in succession, but it loses at length its susceptibility. This remarkable property of guaiacum was utilized by Schonbein in his well-known researches oD ozone. Chemical Composition—The composition of guaiacum resin WaS ascertained by Hadelich (1862) to be as follows :-— Guaiaconic Acid, . 70 Guaiareiie Aides Te 10 Guaiac Beta-resin, = ; : E ay coon Meee ee ; at Ash constituents, ‘ Z . i é : coe See eer iasee mim andj ie If the mother liquor obtained in the preparation of the potassium t of guaiaretic acid (vide infra) is decomposed by hydrochloric acid, c ay the precipitate washed with water, ether will extract from the ma ¢ adie Acid, a compound discovered by Hadelich, having | ior ce ee O”. It is a light brown, amorphous substance, fusing # > eid t is without acid reaction but decomposes alkaline car bonate’s htt uncrystallizable salts easily soluble in water or alcohol. Jt 3 4 aw uble in water, benzol, or bisulphide of carbon, but dissolves it 2 ether, chloroform, acetic acid or alcohol. With oxidizing agents ! acquires a transient blue tint. choy af Acid, C*H*0*, discovered by Hlasiwetz in 1859, may - bate from the crude resin by alcoholic potash or by que oT wed : the former it produces a crystalline salt; with the latter 20 ng a Pe ous compound : from either the liquid, which contains chiefly 3’ i pongo acid, may be easily decanted. Guaiaretic acid is oP d on na fae ear one of the salts referred to with hydrochloric acid, spe a benzol, chee alcohol. The erystals, which are soluble also mes pears oroform, carbon bisulphide or acetic acid, but noite : desu In water, melt below 80° C., and may be volatilia ue By pa i The acid is not coloured blue by oxidizing ve slighil lo re guaiacum resin with boiling bisulphide of aay yellowish solution is obtained (containing chiefly . RESINA GUAIACI. 105 acid ?), which, on addition of concentrated sulphuric acid, turns — beautifully red. . After the extraction of the guaiaconic acid there remains a substance insoluble in ether to which the name Guaiac Beta-vesin has been applied. It dissolves in alcohol, acetic acid or alkalis, and is precipitated by ether, benzol, chloroform or carbon bisulphide in brown flocks, the composition of which appears not greatly to differ from that of guaia- conic acid. : . Guaiacie Acid, C°H"O*, obtained in 1841 by Thierry from guaiacum wood or from the resin, crystallizes in colourless needles. Hadelich was not able to obtain more than one part from 20,000 of guaiacum resin. Hadelich’s Guaiac-yellow, the colouring matter of guaiacum resin, first observed by Pelletier, crystallizes in pale yellow quadratic octo- hedra, having a bitter taste. Like the other constituents of the resin, it is not a glucoside. The decomposition-products of guaiacum are of peculiar interest. On subjecting the resin to dry distillation in an iron retort and rectify- Ing the distillate, Guaiacene (Guajol of Volckel), CH*°O, passes over a C. as a colourless neutral liquid having a burning aromatic At 205°—210° ©., there pass over other products, Guazacol, C'H*OCH*OH, (methylic ether of pyrocatechin), and Kreosol C'H’.OH(CH®). Both are thickish, aromatic, colourless liquids, which — ecome green by caustic alkalis, blue by alkaline earths, and are similar in their chemical relations to eugenic acid. Guaiacol has been prepared synthetically by Gorup-Besanez (1868) by combining iodide of methyl, CH'l, with pyrocatechin, C°H'\OH)* After the removal by distillation of the liquids just described, there sublime upon the further application of heat pearly erystals of Pyro- yuuiaen, C*H*O%, an inodorous substance melting at 180° C. The same compound is obtained together with guaiacol by the dry distilla- 1on of guaiaretic acid. Pyroguaiacin is coloured green by ferric chloride, and blue by warm sulphuric acid. The similar reactions of e crude resin are probably due to this substance (Hlasiwetz). ‘ eautiful coloured reactions are likewise exhibited by two new acids Which Hlasiwetz and Barth obtained (1864) in small quantity together _ With traces of fatty volatile acids, by melting purified resin of guaiacum ‘ hay potassium hydrate. One of them is isomeric with pyrocatechuic fr Uses—Guaiacum resin is reputed diaphoretic and alterative. It is quently prescribed in cases of gout and rheumatism. dig StUlteration—The drug is sometimes imported in a very foul con- on and largely contaminated with impurities arising from a careless method of collection, : _ Europe either by way of Spain or England, and its use was gradually RUTACE. | RUTACE :. CORTEX ANGOSTUR-. Cortex Cuspurie ; Angostura Bark, Cusparia Bark, Carony Bark ; F. Ecorce d Angusture de Colombie ; G. Angostura-Rinde. Botanical Origin—Galipea Cusparia St. Hilaire (G. officinalis - Hancock, Bonplandia trifoliata Willd., Cusparia trifoliata Engler 1874, Flora Brasil. 113), a small tree, 12 to 15 feet high, with a trunk 3 to 5 inches in diameter, growing in abundance on the ‘mountains of San Joaquin de Caroni in Venezuela, between 7° and 8 N. lat., also according to Bonpland! near Cumana. According t0 Hancock? who was well acquainted with the tree, it is also found in the Missions of Tumeremo, Uri, Alta Gracia, and Cupapui, districts lying eastward of the Caroni and near its junction with the Orinoko. The bark is brought into commerce by way of Trinidad. History—Angostura Bark is said to have been used in Madrid by Mutis as early as 1759* (the year before he left Spain for South America,) but it was certainly unknown to the rest of Europe until much later. Its real introducer was Brande, apothecary to Queen Charlotte, and father of the distinguished chemist of the same name, who drew attention to some parcels of the bark imported into England in 1788." In the same year a quantity was sent to a London drug firm by Dr. Ewer of Trinidad, who describes it® as brought to that island from Angostura by the Spaniards. The drug continued to arrive” diffused. In South America it is known as Quina de Caroni and Cascarilla del Angostwra. ; _ Description—The bark occurs in flattish or channelled pieces, in quills rarely as much as 6 inches in length and mostly shorter. |” flatter pieces are an inch or more in width and } of an inch in thick- ness. The outer side of the bark is coated with a yellowish-grey corky “8 layer, often soft enough to be removeable with the nail, and then (ls playing a dark brown, resinous under surface. The inner side is light brown with a rough, slightly exfoliating surface indicating close adhe- sion to the wood, strips of which are occasionally found attached to it; the obliquely cut edge also shows that it is not very easily detach - 1Humboldt, Reise in die Aequinocti ee @, Gusparit + Aequinoctial- i net from : rare tpn Cie ae ee a edn io a 1804 en imboldt and Bonpland = quently examined his specimen§ meg flowerin cake’ from the Caroni river, that the two were the same. have 300) or g Cain es of the “‘ Cuspa” (1c. 1. assistance of Prof. Oliver, I also coi Indians i re, as it is called by the — examined (1871) Hancock’s plant - x genus tn ar it _to constitute a new paring it with his figure an¢ othe to belong to tha ot Hilaire ascertained it mens, and have arrived at the CON a The eal he ase Galipea. that it is untenable as a distinct spe" Trimen, Med. goa in Bentley and —D. H. ; 942. 2 Observation ants, part 26 (1877). 3 Martiny, Encyklopéadie, 1. (1843) jond x tura Bark T. oo the Orayuri or A ngus- 4+Brande, Experiments ane ed. 179% ree,—Trans. of Medico-Botani- on the Angustura Bark. 1791. 2nd o ~29.—Haneock endeavoured 5 London Med. Journ. x. (1789) eit = en cal Society, 1827 CORTEX ANGOSTURA, _ 107, The bark has a short, resinous fracture, and displays on its transverse edge sharply defined white points, due to deposits of oxalate of calcium. It has a bitter taste and a nauseous musty odour. Microscopic Structure—The most striking peculiarity is the great number of oil-cells scattered through the tissue of the bark. They are not much larger than the neighbouring parenchymatous cells, and are loaded with yellowish essential oil or small granules of resin. Numerous other cells contain bundles of needle-shaped crystals of oxalate of calcium or small starch granules. The liber exhibits bundles — of yellow fibres, to which the foliaceous fracture of the inner bark is due. The structure of the bark under notice has been very minutely described and figured by Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen.’ Chemical Composition—Angostura bark owes its peculiar odour to an essential oil which it was found by Herzog? to yield to the extent of ¢ per cent. It is probably a mixture of a hydrocarbon (C"H") with an oxygenated oil. Its boiling point is 266° C. Oberlin and Schlagdenhautfen obtained 0°19 per cent. of the oil, and found it to be slightly dextrogyre; it assumes a fine red colour when shaken with aqueous ferric chloride, and turns yellow with concentrated sulphuric acid. _ The bitter taste of the bark is attributed to a substance pointed out in 1833 by Saladin and named Cusparin. It is said to be erystalline, — neutral, melting at 45° C., soluble in alcohol, sparingly in water, pre- “ipitable by tannic acid. The bark is stated to yield it to the extent of 1'3 per cent, Herzog endeavoured to prepare it but without success, mt have Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen met with it. The latter ; emusts, on the other hand, isolated an alkaloid Angosturine J HNO™. It is in thin prisms, melting at 85° and yielding a crystal- ed chlorhydrate or sulphate. Angosturine turns red when touched Concentrated sulphuric acid, or green if nitric acid or iodic acid, re other oxydizing substances, have been previously mixed with the Sulphuric acid. The alcoholic solution of the alkaloid is of decidedly e he reaction. A cold aqueous infusion of angostura bark yields of fvundant red-brown precipitate with ferric chloride. Thin slices he bark are not coloured by solution of ferrous sulphate, so that. appears to be absent. : Ses S—Angostura bark is a valuable tonic in dyspepsia, dysentery tonic diarrhoea, but is falling into disuse. x Adulteration—About the year 1804, a quantity of a bark which = = hes to be that of Sbiydhitioe Nua Ponied reached Europe from » and was mistaken for Cusparia. The error occasioned great ag and some accidents, and the use of angostura was In some coun- (which ilocarpus pauciflorus St. 1693. 58, Pl. Ixxv. and Ixxvi. (Flora Brasilice meridionalis, i. 5 Stiles, Pharm. J. vii. (1877) 629; also Similar,” 17) appears also to be very __Lanessan’s French translation of the Phar- macographia, i. (1878) 253. ee! es AURANTIACE. , , used than the drug itself. The leaves afford about 4 per cent. of the nitrate. ‘ The occurrence of another peculiar alkaloid in Pilocarpus has been asserted, but not ultimately proved. The leaves contain about 4 per cent. of essential oil, the prevailing constituent of it being a dextrogyrate terpene, CH", boiling at 178, which forms a crystallized compound C”H"+2HCl melting at 49°5 C, Uses—Pilocarpine being a powerful diaphoretic and sialagogue, _ the leaves of Jaborandi are used to some extent in pharmaceutical preparations. . _ Other Kinds of Jaborandi—This name, as above stated, has originally been given to plants of the order Piperaceae, some of whi are still known in Brazil under the name Jaborandi. The following may be quoted as being used at least in that country: Serronit Jaborandi' Gaudichaud, Piper reticulatum L. (Enckea Miquel), ~ we. citrifoliwm Lamarck (Steffensia Kunth), Piper nodulosum Ink, Artanthe mollicoma Migq. Aubletia trifolia® Richard (Monniera L.) and Xanthoawylwm elegais Engler, belonging to the same order as Pilocarpus itself, are also some times called Jaborandi. _ We are not aware that. other leaves than those of Pilocarpus a tmported to some extent in Europe under the name of Jaborandi. AURANTIACEZ. -FRUCTUS LIMONIS. Lemon; ¥. Citron, Limon ; G. Citrone, Limone. Botanical Origin—Ciitpx,¢ Limonum Risso (C. Medica var. p Linn) a small tree 10 to 15 feet in height, planted here and there in ga? ee in many sub-tropical countries, but cultivated as an object of inguee on the Mediterranean coast between Nice and Genoa, in ae Sicily, Spain, and Portugal. ee ate tree which is supposed to represent the wild state of the ee an lime, and as it seems to us after the examination of numero n tec in the herbarium of Kew, of the citron (Citrus Medvea mite SO, 18. a native of the forests of Northern India, where it occurs 7°" valleys of Kumaon and Sikkim. age . The cultivated lemon-tree is of rather irregular growth, Wee oe . “lege pallid, Sparse, and uneven, not forming the fine, see ae = > ~eae that is so striking in the orange-tree. The youns yea | setae : ull purple; the flowers, which are produced ae part iis ‘om the winter, and are in part hermaphrodite < vad 8 dclege Rae ate corolla externally purplish, internally ies js pal yellow, ovoid, 2 aie that of orange blossom. The te ; Already known to Piso. ee | wned by a nipple. J: E , Je * The original Jaborandi of ie eon ing to Peckolt. Dragendorf’s 1875. 163. FRUCTUS LIMONIS. 115 History—The name of the lemon in Sanskrit is Vimbuka; in Hin- dustani, Limbu, Iimu, or Ninbu. It is probably originally a Cash- mere word, which was transferred to the Sanskrit in comparatively modern times, not in the antiquity.’ From these sounds the Arabians _ a the word Limun, which has passed into the languages of urope. The lemon was unknown to the inhabitants of ancient Greece and Rome; but it is mentioned in the Book of Nabathean Agriculture,” which is supposed to date from the 83rd or 4th century of our era. The introduction of the tree to Kurope is due to the Arabians, yet at what precise period is somewhat doubtful. Arance and Limone are men- tioned by an Arabic poet living in the 11th century, in Sicily, quoted by Falcando The geographer Edrisi,* who resided at the court of Roger II, king of Sicily, in the middle of the 12th century, mentions the lemon (imouna) as a very sour fruit of the size of an apple which was one of the productions of Mansouria on the Mahran or Indus; and he speaks of it in a manner that leads one to infer it was not then known in Europe. This is the more probable from the fact that there ‘sno mention either of lemon or orange in a letter written A.D. 1239 concerning the cultivation of the lands of the Emperor Frederick IL. at Palermo; a locality in’ which these fruits are now produced in large quantity. On the other hand the lemon is noticed at great length by Ibn but of its cultivation in Spain at that period there is no actual mention.® In 1369 at least citron trees, “arbores citronorum,” were planted in *noa,’ and there is evidence that also the lemon-tree was grown on ® Riviera di Ponente about the middle of the 15th century, since ppones and also Citri are mentioned in the manuscript Livre Administration of the city of Savona, under date 1486. The lemon Was cultivated as early as 1494 in the Azores, whence the fruit used ? be largely shipped to England; but since the year 1838 the exporta- tion has totally vintieahy mi ree, Mi ~~ Description—The fruit of Citrus Limonwm as found in the shops” Wala about 2 to 4 inches in length, egg-shaped with a nipple more or wa Prominent at the apex; its surface, of a pale yellow, is even or eget covered with a polished epidermis. The parenchyme within st tter abounds in large cells filled with fragrant essential oil. The wheats of the surface of the rind is due to the oil-cells. The peel, — 4. “2 Varies considerably in thickness but is never so thick as that of ye citron, is internally white and fibrous, and is adherent to the pale- °W pulp. The latter is divided into 10 or 12 segments each contain- Dr. Rice in Vew i ; 7 ita privata dei Genovesi, wp private fuformation pee Geneon eT) Bs 3 63, 98% Geschichte der Botanik, iii. (1856) 8 Gallesio, T'raité du Citrus (1811) 89, 103. a 4 Fe ii tig Soria dei Musulmani di Sicilia, 9 Consul Smallwood, in Consular Reports, , Aberse ‘G - Aug. 1873. 986. bent Praph te @Edrisi, traduite par Jau- 10 "There are many kinds of lemon as well * Ani 836) 162. as of orange which are never seen in com- Tid, 'd-Bréholles, Historia diploma- merce. Risso and Poiteau enumerate 25 apn secundi, Paris, y, (1857) 571. varieties of the former and 30 of the lat- il t Nahrungsmittel von Ebn Bai- ter. See also Alfonso, Coltivazione degli zt von Sontheimer, ii, (1842) 452. Agrumi, Palermo, 2nd edition, 1875. Baytar of Malaga, who flourished in the first half of the 13th century, “e , hereafter. 116 AURANTIACE. ing 2 or 3 seeds. It abounds in a pale-yellow acid juice having a leasant sour taste and a slight peculiar odour quite distinct from that of the peel. When removed from the pulp by pressure, the juice appears as a rather turbid yellowish fluid having a sp. gr. which varies from 1-040 to 1:045, and containing in each fluid ounce from 40 to 46 grains of citric acid, or about 94 per cent.’ In Italy all the fine and perfect fruit is exported; the windfalls and the damaged fruit are used for the production of the essential oil and the juice. About 13,000 lemons of this kind yield one pipe (108 gallons) of raw juice. Sicilian juice in November will contain about 9 ounces of citric acid per gallon, but 6 ounces when afforded by the fruit collected in April. The juice 8 boiled down in copper vessels, over an open fire, till its specific gravity is about 1:239.2 Lemon juice (Succus limonis) for administration as @ medicine should be pressed as wanted from the recent fruit whenever? the latter is obtainable. The peel (Cortew limonis) cut in somewhat thin ribbons from the rie oo is used in pharmacy, and is far preferable to that sold ma ed state. : Microscopic Structure of the Peel.—The epidermis exhibits numerous stomata; the parenchyme of the pericarp encloses large 0 cells, surrounded by small tabular cells. The inner spongy tissue ® built up of very remarkable branched cells, separated by large inter- cellular spaces. A solution of iodine in iodide of potassium impat the cell-walls a transient blue coloration. The outer layers of the parenchymatous tissue contain numerous yellowish lumps of a substance which assumes a brownish hue by iodine, and yields a yellow solution _if potash be added. Alkaline tartrate of copper is reduced by this sub- stance, which probably consists of hesperidin. There also occur an” crystals of oxalate of calcium, belonging to the monoclinic system. The Interior tissue is irregularly traversed by small vascular bundles. rm ft ee Composition—The peel of the lemon abounds in esse lal oil, which is a distinct article of commerce, and will be descr! _ Lemons, as well as other fruits of the genus Citrus, contain 4 pitter Sete aos esperidin, of which E. Hoffmean® obtaine d 5 to 8 per _ fter unripe bitter oranges. He extracted them with dilute aleoh, sh iets had previously been exhausted by cold water. The alcoho : os contain about 1 per cent. of caustic potash; the liquid on ee i on allie idulated with hydrochloric acid, when it yields a yea a raed . Ine deposit of hesperidin, which may be obtained colourless er marc. by recrystallization from boiling alcohol. By dilute sulph™” ee (1 per cent.) hesperidin is broken up as follows:— C?=H*02 — CuAos . CeHO*% Hesperidin. Hesperetin. Glucose. H cts : ; put : esperidin is very little soluble even in boiling water or 12 otter diss ae ae i : ‘he mega coed in hot acetic acid, also in alkaline solutions, oe ng soon yellow and reddish. Pure hesperidin, as prese tab : keel | * R Warkpae ae - Journ, x. (1869)203. 3 Berichte der Deutschen Chem : a “ arm. Journ. v. (1875) — schaft (1876) 26, 685, 693. - FRUCTUS LIMONIS. 117 to one of us by Hoffmann, darkens when it is shaken with alcoholic per- chloride of iron, and turns dingy blackish brown when gently warmed with the latter. Hesperetin forms crystals melting at 223° C., soluble both in alcohol or ether, not in water; they taste sweet. They are split up by potash _ In Phloroglucin and Hesperetic acid, C’°H™O* On addition of ferric chloride, thin slices of the peel are darkened, ae probably to some derivative of hesperidin, or to hesperidin itself. The name hesperidin had also been applied to yellow crystals extracted from the shaddock, Oitrus decumana L., the dried flowers of which afford about 2 per cent. of that substance. It is, as shown in 1879 by E. Hoffmann, quite different from hesperidin as described above; he calls it Naringin and assigns to it the formula C™H*O"+440H?. armgin is readily soluble in hot water or in alcohol, not in ether or chloroform. Its ‘solutions turn brown red on addition of ferric — chloride. : Lemon juice, some of the characters of which have been already noticed, is an important article in a dietetic point of view, being largely consumed on shipboard for the prevention of scurvy. In addition to citric acid it contains 3 to 4 per cent. of gum and sugar, and 2°28 per cent. of inorganic salts, of which according to Stoddart only a minute Preportion is potash. Cossa‘ on the other hand, who has recently studied the products of the lemon tree with much care, has found that he ash of dried lemon juice contains 54 per cent. of potash, besides 15 per cent. of phosphoric acid. toddart has pointed out the remarkable tendency of citric acid to decomposition,? and has proved that in lemons kept from rs raty to July this acid generally decreases in quantity, at first owly, but afterwards rapidly, until at the end of the period it entirely rye to exist, having been all split up into glucose and carbonic acid. iit ik same time the sp. gr. of the juice was found to have undergone és re ight diminution :—thus it was 1:044 in February, 1041 in May, 1027 in July, and the fruit had hardly altered in appearance. rs om Juce may with some precautions be kept unimpaired for months of éh, en years. Yet it is capable of undergoing fermentation by reason 2 Sugar, gum, and albuminoid matters which it contains. °mmerce—Lemons are chiefly imported from Sicily, to a smaller na from the Riviera of Genoa ne fro Spain. From the published mm les of trade, in which lemons are classed together with oranges ond one head, it appears that these fruits are being imported in “sing quantities. ‘The value of the shipments to the United King- (largely exceeding those of any previous year) was Of this sum, £986,796 represents the value of the oranges Avon, WOES imported from Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands and £3 Ron” £155,330 the shipments of the same fruit from Italy ; and “9 those from Malta, me esgin, Meentrated lemon jwice there were exported in 1877 from Messina 1,631,332 ilopradince valued at 9 446,996 lire. The value of noni Chimica Italiana, i ; on juice, oralic acid may be Seat Chem, Soe, xi. (1873) lags tte orang yee aierane after afew daye, is : 8 statement that if potash be — not supported by onr observations. undergo 5, eae - AURANTIACE. concentrated lime juice exported in 1874 from Montserrat was £3,390. From Dominica, 11,285 gallons, value £1,825, were shipped in 1875. Uses—Lemon peel is used in medicine solely as a flavouring ingredient. Freshly prepared lemon juice is often administered with an alkaline bicarbonate in the form of an effervescing draught, or ina free state. Concentrated lemon juice is imported for the purpose of making _ eitrie acid; it is derived not only from the lemon, but also, to a smaller extent, from the lime and bergamot. Lime jwice of the West Indies 1s chiefly used as a beverage; small quantities of it are also exported for the manufacture of citric acid. The culture of Citrus Limetta Risso, the lime, was introduced in Montserrat in 1852. OLEUM LIMONIS. Oleum Limonuwm ; Essential Oil or Essence of Lemon; F. Essence de Citron; G. Citronendl. Botanical Origin—Citrus Liinonwm Risso (see p. 114). : History—The chemists of the 16th century were well acquainted with the method of extracting essential oils by distillation. Besson his work Lart et moyen parfaict de tirer huyles et eawa de tous medi- caments simples et oleogineus, published at Paris in 1571, mention _lemon- (citron) and orange-peel among the substances subjected to | process. Giovanni Battista Porta a learned Neapolitan writer, describes the method of preparing Olewm ex corticibus Citri to co _ im removing the peel of the fruit with a rasp and distilling it 80 wre : minuted with water ; and adds that the oils of lemon and orange MAY be obtained in the same manner, Essence of lemon of two kinds pe ewpressed and distilled, was sold in Paris in the time of Pomet, Re, Production—Essential oil of lemon is manufactured in Sicily, at ggio in Calabria, and at Mentone and Nice in France. The lemons are used while still rather green and unripe, 28 being | richer in oil than when quite mature. Only the small and jrregulat fruit, such as is n oe ted ording the sagen ot worth exporting, is employed for aff rding oe it The process followed in Sicily and Calabria may be thus described; a i Septet in the months of November and December. _, + HCl. % Essential oil of lemons (not the distilled) when long kept deposi a greasy mass, from which we have obtained small crystals appate™ y of Bergaptene (p. 123). ce Commerce—Essence of lemons is shipped chiefly from et” and Palermo, packed in copper bottles called in Italian ramiere © English druggists “ jars,” holding 25 to 50 kilo. or more ; sometimes tin bottles of smaller size, The quantity of essences of lemon, ° aaa and bergamot exported from Sicily in 1871 was 368,800 lb., value . £144,520, of which about two-thirds were shipped to England. their establishment at Reoo; ‘ : Commercts also had a small Keggio. We have 7 Consul Dennis, On the Com écuelle by one of dursclvee ered by the Sicily in 1869, 1870, 1871. (He 15th June 1872p, HM’ Mentone, H.M. Consuls. No. 4. 1873. &e. of from OLEUM BERGAMOTTA. a 121 1877 the export of these essential oils from Messina amounted to 306,948 kilogrammes, valued at 6,130,960 lire. Uses—Kssence of lemon is used in perfumery, and as a flavouring ingredient ; and though much sold by druggists is scarcely employed in medicine. Adulteration—Few drugs are more rarely to be found in a state of purity than essence of lemon. In fact it is stated that almost all that comes into the market is more or less diluted with oil of turpen- tine or with the cheaper distilled oil of lemons. Manufacturers of the essence complain that the demand for a cheap article forces them to this falsification of their product. OLEUM BERGAMOTT#. Oleum Bergamii ; Essence or Essential Oil of Bergamot ; F. Essence de Bergamotte ; G. Bergamottol. Botanical Origin—Citrus Bergamia var. vulgaris Risso et Poiteau,' a small tree closely resembling in flowers and foliage the Bitter Orange. Its fruit is 2} to 3 inches in diameter, nearly spherical, or slightly pear-shaped, frequently crowned by the persistent style ; it _ ls of a pale golden yellow like a lemon,? with the peel smooth and thin, abounding in essential oil of a peculiar fragrance ; the pulp is pale yellowish green, of a bitterish taste, and far less acid than that — of the lemon. _ The tree is cultivated at Reggio in Calabria, and is unknown in a wild state. History—The bergamot is one of the cultivated forms which ‘bound in the genus Citrus, and which constitute the innumerable varieties of the orange, lemon and citron. Whether it is most nearly telated to the lemon or to the orange is a point discussed as early as ~ beginning of the last century. Gallesio’ remarks that it so evi- dently combines the characters of the two that it should be regarded as a hybrid between them. The bergamot first appeared in the tter part of the 17th century. It is not mentioned in the grand Work on orange trees of Ferrari,t published at Rome in 1646, nor In the treatise of Commelyn® (1676), nor in the writings of Lanzont (090)! or La Quintinie (1692).7 So far as we know, it is first noticed M a little book called Le Parfumeur Francois, printed at Lyons in- 693. The author who calls himself Le Sieur Barbe, parfumewr, says : that the Essence de Cedra ow Berga-motte is obtained from the fruits” ra lemon-tree which has been grafted on the stem of a bergamot at 1818, istoire naturelle des Orangers, Paris, 2 Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. hew fn 1. tab. 53, or the same work, Plants, part 31. We on, by Dubreuil, 1873, p. 82. 3 Traité du Citrus, 1811. 118. authors the name given by these 4 Hesperides, seu de malorum, aureorum nite for the sake of convenience and cultura et usu. : in 41 u°% and not because we concur ° Nederlantze Hesperides, Amsterd. 1676. Bervee ¢, pinion that the Bergamot de- _ fol. (an English translation in 1683). woclligg be ranked as a distinct botanical 8 Citrologia, Ferrariz, 1690. 7 Instruction pour les Jardins fruitiers... avec un traité des Orangers, ed. 2, 1692 _ States that the Italians prepare from it the finest essences, which are already, in 1688, a place among the stores of an apothecary of the _ cropped with secon ; In the centre a raised opening which with the outer edge forms . Rapa of cog-wheels moved by a handle, the cover, which is very heavy, ® in the bottom of the dish. The fruits are placed in the machine, 6, 6; _ action above described for about half a minute, when the mac _ About t of an inch high and resemble the backs of knifes. ‘The dish is i oe ADRANTIACEA, pear; he adds that it is got by squeezing small bits of the peel with the fingers in a bottle or globe large enough to allow the hand to enter. Volkamer of Nuremberg, who produced a fine work on the Citron tribe in 1708, has a chapter on the Limon Bergamotta, which he describes as gloria limonwm et fructus inter omnes nobilissimus. He sold at a high price.’ But, as shown by one of us,? the essential oil of bergamot had German town of Giessen. The name Bergamotta was originally applied to a large kind of pear, called in Turkish “beg-armidi,” i.e. prince’s pear? Production—The bergamot is cultivated at Reggio, on low ground near the sea, and in the adjacent villages. The trees are often inter- - maixed with lemon and orange trees, and the soil is well irrigated and The essential oil (Olewmn Bergamotte) is obtained from the full- grown but still unripe and more or less green fruits, gathered in the months of November and December. They are richer in oil than any one of the allied fruits. It was formerly made like that of lemon by the sponge-process, but during the last 20 years this method has been generally superseded by the introduction of a special machine for the extraction of the essential oil. In this machine the fruits are placed ” 1 a strong, saucer-like, metallic dish, about 10 inches in diameter, haviNg tae groove or channel; the dish is fitted with a cover of sim - _ The inner surface both of the dish and cover is rendered rough y 4 series of narrow, radiating metal ridges of blades which are also. furnished with some small openi tflow of Pi choagies 1 penings to allow of the outiow ae oil; and both dish and cover ai arranged in a metallic cylin- der, placed over a vessel to receive the oil. By a simple arrangement made to revolve rapidl ; ++ lving in the groove apialy over the dish, and the fruit lying in the gt pewren the two is earried round, and at the same i is subjected € action of the sharp ridges, which, rupturing the oil-vessels, cause € essence to escape, and set it free to flow out by the small ope or more at a time, according to their size, and subjected to the rotatory ine 18 ra d, they are removed, and fresh ones substituted. About 7,000 Se ape - worked in one of these machines in a day. = from 100 eae = re similar to that of lemon, namely 2} to 3 um nee of bergamot made b a 3 tint than . y the machine is of a greener that obtained by the old sponge-process. During Lone weeks after a: en : ; soe aan ae Taenbervenses, 1713, lib. 3 3 Information, for which I sm indabies the Latin edition.) (We quote from to Dr, Rice.—The name has no Te ts to the town of Bergamo, where < wen ee Flickiger, Documente zur Geschichteder cannot succeed.—F.A.F. Pharmacie, Halle, 1876, 79. extraction it gradually deposits a quantity of white greasy matter (bergaptene), which, after having been exhausted as much as possible by pressure, is finally subjected to distillation with water in order to separate the essential oil it still contains. The fruits from which the essence has been extracted are submitted to pressure, and the juice, which is much inferior in acidity to lemon juice, is concentrated and sold for the manufacture of citric acid. Finally, the residue from which both essence and juice have been removed, is consumed as food by oxen. Description '—Essential oil of bergamot is a thin and mobile fiuid — of peculiar and very fragnant odour, -bitterish taste, and slightly acid reaction. It has a pale greenish yellow tint, due to traces of chloro- phyll, as may be shown by the spectroscope. Its sp. gr. is 0°86 to 0°88; . its boiling point varies from 183° to 195° C. The oil is miscible with spirit of wine (0°83 sp. gr.), absolute alcohol, as well as with erystallizable acetic acid. Four parts dissolve clearly one part of bisulphide of carbon, but the solution becomes turbid if a larger proportion of the latter is added. Bisulphide of carbon itself is incapable of dissolving , clearly any appreciable quantity of the oil. A mixture of 10 drops of the oil, 50 drops of bisulphide of carbon and one of strong sulphuric acid has an intense yellow hue. Perchloride of — imparts to bergamot oil dissolved in alcohol a dingy brown colour, Panuccio’s oil of bergamot examined in the same way as that He lemon (p. 120) deviates 7° to the right, and has therefore a dextrogyre power very inferior to that of other oils of the same class.?_ But it probably varies in this respect, for commercial specimens which we ludged to be of good quality deviated from 6'8° to 10°4° to the right. Chemical Composition—TIf essential oil of bergamot is submitted - to rectification, the portions that successively distill over do not accord im rotatory power or in boiling point, a fact which proves it to be a mixture of several oils, as is further confirmed by analysis. It appears OLEUM BERGAMOTTH = —:128-— to consist of hydrocarbons, CH", and their hydrates, neither of which : ave as yet been satisfactorily isolated. Oil of bergamot, like that of ntine, yields crystals of the composition CH” + 3H?O, if 8 parts ate allowed to stand some weeks with 1 part of spirit of wine, 2 of nitric acid (sp. gr. 12) and 10 of water, the mixture being frequently shaken. No solid compound is produced by saturating the oil with ydrous hydrochloric gas. > ._ the greasy matter that is deposited from oil of bergamot soon after — its extraction, and in small quantity is often noticeable in that of ta etee, is: called Bergaptene or Bergamot Camphor. We have ob- it in fine, white, acicular crystals, neutral and inodorous, by peated solution in spirit of wine. Its composition according to the on of Mulder (1837) and of Ohme (1839) answers to the formula lize, 0°, which in our opinion requires further investigation. Crystal- bergaptene is abundantly soluble in chloroform, ether, or — 1 “oe gpatacters are taken from some at Reggio and also large cultivators of the 1 rgamot presented to one of us bergamot orange. : AS 1872) asa tepkaasiihe by Messrs. 2’ See however Oleum Neroli, p. 127. Uecloetigli, manufacturers of essences _ Inany varieties, es : with the pulp ve we cS URANTIACEZE_ bisulphide of carbon; the alcoholic solution is not altered by ferric salts, Commerce—Kssence of bergamot, as it is always termed in trade, is chiefly shipped from Messina and Palermo in the same kind of bottles as are used for essence of lemon. _ Uses—Much employed in perfumery, but in medicine only ocea- sionally for the sake of imparting an agreeable odour to ointments. Adulteration—Essence of bergamot, like that of lemon, is exten- sively and systematically adulterated, and very little is sent into the market entirely pure. It is often mixed with oil of turpentine, buta _ finer adulteration is to dilute it with essential oil of the leaves or with __ that obtained by distillation of the peel or of the residual fruits. Some has of late been adulterated with petroleum. _____ The optical properties, as already mentioned, may afford some assist- ance in detecting fraudulent admixtures, though as regards oil of tur- pentine it must be borne in mind that there are levogyre as well as rogyre varieties. This latter oil and likewise that of lemon is less soluble in spirit of wine than that of bergamot. CORTEX AURANTII. Bitter Orange Peel; F. Ecorce ou Zestes POranges ameres ; G. Pomeranzenschale. Botanical Origin—Citr-us vulgaris Risso (C. Awrantiwm vat. ¢ amara Linn., CO. Bigaradia Duhamel). ‘The Bitter or Seville or Bigarade Orange, Bigaradier’ of _ - ash 1S a small tree extensively cultivated in the warmer parts - e Mediterranean region, especially in Spain, and existing eer Northern India is the native country of the orange tree. I ikki ge aoe ~ ait Sikkim, and Khasia there peels a wild orange which 18 ag ae parent of the cultivated orange, whether Gweet or is oh Bitter Orange reproduces itself from seed, and is regarded, at east by cultivators, as quite distinct from the Sweet Orange, from whic! Sr von it cannot be distinguished by any important botanical pt fru arian! speaking, it differs from the latter in having t ut rugged on the surface, of a more deep or reddish-orange hue, and lea: ty Sour and bitter. The peel, as well as the flowers ‘Sweet ax are more aromatic than the corresponding parts © ange, and the petiole is more broadly winged. History—The orange was unknown to the ancient Greeks and mans; and its introduction to Eurove j he Arabs, W2% ~ accord Cadi.’ pe is due to the Arad», Alcs pene esio,” appear to have established the tree first in Italy Sicily, and a and Syria, whence it was gradually conveyed to © ne Pam. In the opinion of the writer just quoted, the bi _ range was certainly known at the commencement of the 10th cent ? From the Bas ** bizarra” iitse re me bizarra” beard the Sanskrit Bijouri (2). 1811. 222 1878, 231), or from 2 Traité du Citrus, Paris, CR, MOL : dia; : g alluded to in the Pharmacopeia of Ind 4. ate Bal Es on by any chemical examination pon wast constituent - a medicinal efficacy of bael depends. taining © pulp moistened with cold water yields a red liquid ©? able 5 1 Sirt- hal x on tab. 3 an Re a vie onl toh rg fe Hort tia (1682) e Indi 7 mente. 5 ‘ovalam). ee ——— : lib. vi. : poy Amb. i. tab. 81. 5 Edition 1868, pp. 46 and 441. » LIGNUM QUASSLA, 131 chiefly mucilage, and (probably) pectin which separates if the liquid is concentrated by evaporation. The mucilage may be precipitated by neutral acetate of lead or by alcohol, but is not coloured by iodine. It may be separated by a filter into a portion truly soluble (as proved by the addition of alcohol or acetate of lead), and another, comprehending the larger bulk, which is only swollen like tragacanth, but is far more glutinous and completely transparent. Neither a per- nor a proto-salt of iron shows the infusion to contain any appreciable quantity of tannin,’ nor is the drug in any sense pos- sessed of astringent properties. Uses—Bael is held in high repute in India as a remedy for dysentery and diarrhoea; at the same time it is said to act as a laxative where constipation exists. Adulteration—The fruit of Feronia Elephantum Correa, which has a considerable external resemblance to that of gle Marmelos and is called by Europeans Wood Apple, is sometimes supplied in India for bael. It may be easily distinguished: it is one-celled with a large five- lobed cavity (instead of 10 to 15 cells) filled with numerous seeds. © The tree has pinnate leaves with 2 or 3 pairs of leaflets. We have seen Pomegranate Peel offered as Indian Bael2 SIMARU BEZ#. LIGNUM QUASSIZ. Quassia, Quassia Wood, Bitter Wood; F. Bois de Quassia de la Jamaique, Bois amer; Jamaica Quassiaholz. _ Botanical Origin—Picrena excelsa Lindl. (Quassia excelsa Swartz, imaruba excelsa DC., Picrasma excelsa Planchon), a tree 50 to 60 feet 4 eight, somewhat resembling an ash and having inconspicuous greenish »Wers and black shining drupes the size of a pea. It is common on the plains and lower mountains of Jamaica, and is also found in the . lands of Antigua and St. Vincent. It is called in the West Indies ter Wood or Bitter Ash. . History—Quassia wood was introduced into Europe about the middle of the last century. It was derived from Quassia amara L., a ‘trub or small tree with handsome crimson flowers, belonging to the pn order, native of Panama, Venezuela, Guiana, and Northern Brazil. Weng subsequently found that the Bitter Wood of Jamaica which ; artz and other botanists referred to the same genus, possessed similar 24 “Perties, and as it was obtainable of much ei fe size, it has since the of the last century been generally preferred. The wood of ; pedi called Surinam Quassia, is however still used in France any ermany.® ‘ 1 of Pagar thus at variance with Collas 2 40 bags in a drug sale, 8th May, 1873. i ry, who attributes to the ripe 3 The Pharmacopea Germanica of 1872 de. Bel on cent. of tannin.—Hist. nat. etc. expressly forbids the use of the wood of (1856) e0.090% in Revue Coloniale, . xvi. Picrena in place of Quassia, 132 : _ SIMARUBEA. __ The first to give a good account of Jamaica quassia was Jobn Lindsay,’ a medical practitioner of the island, who writing in 1791 described the tree as long known not only for its excellent timber, but also as a useful medicine in putrid fevers and fluxes. He adds that the bark is exported to England in considerable quantity— for the purposes of the brewers of ale and porter.” Quassia, defined as the wood, bark, and root of Q. amara L,, was introduced into the London Pharmacopeeia of 1788; in the edition of 1809, it was superseded by the wood of Picreena excelsa. In the stock- book of a London druggist (J. Gurney Bevan, of Plough Court, Lombard Street) we find it first noticed in 1781 (as rasure), when it was reckoned as having cost 4s. 2d. per Ib. Description—The quassia wood of commerce consists of pieces of the stem and larger branches, some feet in length, and often as thick asa mans thigh. It is covered with bark externally of a dusky grey or blackish hue, white and fibrous within, which it is customary to strip off and reject. The wood, which is of a very light yellowish tint, is tough and strong, but splits easily. In transverse section it exhibits numerous fine close medullary rays, which intersect the rather obscure and irregular rings resembling those of annual growth of our indigenous woody stems. The centre is occupied by a cylinder of pith of minute size. Ina longitudinal section, whether tangential or radial, the Wi appears transversely striated by reason of the small vertical height © the medullary rays. The wood often exhibits certain blackish markings due t0 mycelium of a fungus; they have sometimes the aspect of delica patterns, and at others appear as large dark patches. It ~ _Quassia has a strong, pure bitter taste, but is devoid of odour. : is always supplied to the retail druggist in the form of ier raspings, the former being obtained in the manufacture of the Bi Cups, now often seen in the shops. it f 0 Microscopic Structure—The wood consists for the most pa elongated pointed cells (libriform), traversed by medullary ray® The of the latter being built up of about 15 vertical layers of cells. single layers contain from one to three rows of cells. The ligneous me thus enclosed by medullary parenchyme, are intersected by pee : tissue constituting the above-mentioned irregular rings. eo pa . Section this parenchyme exhibits numerous crystals of © ore of calcium, and sometimes deposits of yellow resin. The latter a Were in the large vessels of the wood. Oxalate and resin are only solid matters perceptible in the tissues of this drug. : to Chemical Composition—The bitter taste of quassia is dW : ‘m, which was first obtained, no doubt, from the wood of 2 who omara, by Winckler in 1835, It was analysed by Wigget rding £5 the ie it the formula C°H"03, now regarded as doubtful. fr ae tter, quassiin is an irresolvable, neutral substance, crys about om dilute aleohol or from chloroform. It requires for oe ee - Parts Of water, but is not soluble in ether ; it forms am pout zs mpound with tannic acid. Quassia wood. is said to yield 4 2 arm 1 206. tab §, °Y: Soe Biinburgh, si, (1794) Liedig’s Annalen der P. See (1837) 40, OLIBANUM. 133 Es cent. of quassiin. A watery infusion of quassia, especially if a ittle caustic lime has been added to the drug, displays a slight fluor- escence, due apparently to quassiin. Goldschmiedt and Weidel (1877) failed in obtaining quassiin. They isolated the yellow resin which we mentioned above, and stated that it yields protocatechuie acid when melted with potash. Quassia wood dried at 100°C. yielded us 7°8 per cent. of ash. _ Commerce—The quantity of Bitter Wood shipped from Jamaica in 1871 was 56 tons.’ _Uses—The drug is employed as a stomachic and tonic. It is poisonous to flies, and is not without narcotic properties in respect to the higher animals. Substitutes—The wood of Quassia amara L., the Bitter Wood of Surinam, bears a close resemblance, both external and structural, to the drug just noticed ; but its stems never exceed four inches in diameter and are commonly still thinner. Their thin, brittle bark is of a gteyish yellow, and separates easily from the wood. The latter is somewhat denser than the quassia of Jamaica, from which it may be tinguished by its medullary rays being composed of a single or ess frequently of a double Yow of cells, whereas in the wood of verena excelsa, they consist of two or three rows, less frequently of only one. Surinam Quassia Wood is exported from the Dutch colony of Surinam. The quantity shipped thence during the nine months ending 30th Sept., 1872, was 264,675 Ib. eres e bark of Samadera indica Girtn., a tree of the same natural order, owes its bitterness to a principle * which agrees perhaps with iuassin. The aqueous infusion of the bark is abundantly precipitated A tannic acid, a compound of quassiin probably being formed. A Smilar treatment applied to quassia would possibly easier afford d'assin than the extraction of the wood by means of alcohol, as per- formed by Wiggers, BURSERACE#. OLIBANUM. Gummi-resina Olibanum, Thus masculum*; Olibanum, Frank- incense ; F. Encens ; G. Weihrauch. Botanical Origin—Olibanum is obtained from the stem of several ‘Pecies of Boswellia, inhabiting the hot and arid regions of Eastern “og Book, i he analogous sounds in other lan- gre la teers mene Fag: Pe ae as Fo ‘arliam mar Reports h signifying milk: and modern = ent, date 1873. argo parte ae: cave seen the frankincense Rost. van Tonningen, Jahresbericht of trees state that the fresh juice is milky, _ i. (Canstatt) for 1858. 75; Pharm. and hardens when exposed to the air. The ‘The } (1872) 644. 654. . word 7hus, on the other hand, seems to Oliban: MBavos of the Greeks, the Latin be derived from the verb Qvew, fo sacri- um, a8 well as the Arabic Lubin, Ace. fet 134 . BURSERACE. Africa, near Cape Gardafui and of the southern coast of Arabia... Not- withstanding the recent elaborate and valuable researches of Birdwood, the blibanum trees are still but imperfectly known, as will be evident in the following enumeration :— ate 1. Boswellia Carterit Birdw.—This includes the three following forms, which may be varieties of a single species, or may belong to two or more species—a point impossible to settle until more perfect materials shall have been obtained. a. Boswellia No. 5, Oliver, Flora of Tropical Africa, I. (1868) 324, Mohr meddu or Mohr madow of the natives ; meddu, according to Playfair and Hildebrandt, means black. The leaflets are crenate, undulate, and pubescent on both sides. This tree is found in the Somali Country, growing a little inland in the valleys and on the lower part of the hills, never on the range close to the sea. It yields the olibanum called Lubdn Bedowi or Lubdn Sheheri (Playfair). _ Hildebrandt describes the Mohr meddu as a tree 12 to 15 feet high, with a few branches, indigenous to the limestone range of Ahl or Serrut, in the northern part of the Somali Country, where it occurs m elevations of from 3000 to 5000 feet. To this tree belongs the figure 58 in Bentley and Trimen’s Medicinal Plants (Part 20, 1877). b. Boswellia No. 6, Oliver, op. cit., Birdwood, Linn. Trans. XXVly tab. 29.—Sent by Playfair among the specimens of the preceding, and with the same indications and native name. This form, the “ Mohr meddu ” of the Somalis, has obscurely serrulate or almost entire leaflets, velvety and paler below, glabrous above. The figure (which is not given in the reprint) is very much the same as that of the following. Cc. Maghrayt @sheehaz of the Maharas, Birdwood, l. ¢. tab. 30, rinted in Cooke's report, plate I; Carter, Jown. of Bombay Branch of R. Asiat. Soc. ii., tab. 23; B. sacra Fliickiger, Lehrbuch der Pharm —— des Pflanzenreiches, 1867. 31.—Ras Fartak, S.E. coast of wars growing in the detritus of limestone cliffs and close to shore, also hear the village of Merbat (Carter, 1844-1846). nag Birdwood’s figure refers to a specimen propagated in the Victoria Gar dens, Bombay, from cuttings sent there from the Somali country by Playfair. 2. B. Bhau-Dajiana Birdw. 1. e. tab. 31, or plate IL. of the reprint. —Somali Country (P layfair) ; cultivated in Victoria Gardens, Bombay, where it flowered in 1868. The differences between this species and © Carterii are not very obvious. ‘On the Genus Boswellia, wi . : ings sent by * » with descrip- d Ad d from cuttings § yo and figures of three new species.——Linn, Playfair.—3. "A mpbottnieh obtained by he is reprinted’ (ov) 111. 148. ‘This paper J. Carter in 1846, near Ras Fartal, “Ree as an appendix to Cooke’s south-east coast of Arabia, and stil ee R i : eport on the gums, resins, , : ing in Victoria Gardens, Boe mba of the i useum.,”’ Lo: ong i Ju ; nd. 1874.— figured by Carter in Journ. of bore ee on plates are much superior and Broach oF R. Asiatic Soc. ii, (1848) i sateciahe a ete than the reprints. —The tab. 23. anti- vations hari erase Birdwood’s obser- * In the ABavwropédpos agit medi which we also have “ founded, and to quity, the hill region (where “a with i had access, are,—1; i d to be contraste re the cilested uring an expedition cost 'rogion, the, Sabi, See Say in 1862.—2, Growing 2 o mda y — rther on, page 136, i OLIBANUM. 135 3. Boswellia No. 4, Oliver, op. cit—Bunder Murayah, Somali Country (Playfair). Grows out of the rock, but sometimes in the detritus of limestone ; never found on the hills close to the sea, but further inland and on the highest ground. Yields Zwbdn Bedowi and L. Sheheri; was received at Kew as Mohr add, a name applied by Birdwood also to B. Bhau-Dajiana. From the informations due to Captains Miles’ and Hunter and to Haggenmacher’ it would appear that the Beyo or Beyw of the Somalis (Boido, Capt. Hunter) is agreeing with this tree. 4. Boswellia neglecta, 8. Le M. Moore, in Journ. of Botany, xv.(1877) 67 and tab. 185. This tree has been collected by Hildebrandt in the limestone range, Ahl or Serrut, in the northern part of the Somali Country. It occurs in elevations of 1000 to 1800 metres, and attains a height of 5 to 6 metres. Its exudation, according to Hildebrandt, is collected in but small quantity and mixed with the other kinds of olibanum. Moore gives Murlo as the vernacular name of this tree, Hildebrandt calls it Mohi add. In addition to the foregoing, from which the olibanum of com- merce is collected, it may be convenient to mention also the follow- 1. Boswellia Frereana Birdw., a well-marked and_ very distinct species of the Somali Country, which the natives call Yegaar. It abounds in a highly fragrant resin collected and sold as Lubdn Meyeti or Lubdn Mati, which we regard to be the substance originally known as Elemi (see this article). ;. 2. B. papyrifera Richard (Plésslea floribunda Endl.), the “Makar of Sennaar and the mountainous region ascending to 4000 feet above the level of the sea on the Abyssinian rivers Takazze and Mareb. It appears not to grow in the outer parts of north-eastern Africa. Its Tesin is not collected, and stated by Richard* to be transparent ; it consists no doubt merely of resin (and essential oil ?) without gum.” : 3. B. thurifera Colebr. (B. glabra et B. serrata Roxb.), the Salar tee of India, produces a soft odoriferous resin which is used in the country as incense but is not the olibanum of commerce. ‘The tree 1s particularly abundant on the trap hills of the Dekhan and Satpura eee in “ Offizinelle Gewachse,” xiv. e. gives a good ‘figure of ies, _History—The use of olibanum goes back to a period of extreme anti- {uity, as proved by the numerous references ° in the writings of the Bible “ncense, of which it was an essential ingredient. It is moreover well own that many centuries before Christ, the drug was one of the host important objects of the traffic which the Phcenicians® and tians carried on with Arabia. ofessor Diimichen? of Strassburg has discovered at the temple of Journ, R. Geograph. Soc. 22 (1872) x. 29; Matth. ii. 11. 1 eon : . ia his picturesque description of the 5 As forinstance, Exod. xxx. 34; 1Chron. a : 6 Movers, Das phinizische Alterthum, iii. 805, lickiger, Pharm, Journ. viii. (1878) . (1856) 99. 299.—Sprenger, /.c. p. 299, also * Tent. Fi points out the importance of the olibanum figure of lore Abyssinicae, i. (1847) 248; with regard to the commercial relations of 1Re6 ue tree tab, xxxiii. those early periods. © paper quoted in note 2. 7 Diimichen (Joannes), The fleet of an 136 : BURSERACE. Dayr el Bahri in Upper Egypt, paintings illustrating the traffic carried on between Egypt and a distant country called Punt or Pount as early as the 17th century B.c. In these paintings there are representations not only of bags of olibanum, but also of olibanum trees planted in tubs or boxes, being conveyed by ship from Arabia to Egypt. Inserip- tions on the same building, deciphered by Professor D., describe with the utmost admiration the shipments of precious woods, heaps of incense, verdant incense trees,’ ivory, gold, stimmi (sulphide of anti- mony), silver, apes, besides other productions not yet identified. The country Pount was first thought to be southern Arabia, but is now considered to comprehend the Somali coast, together with a portion of the opposite Arabian coast. Punt possibly refers to “Opone,” an old name for Hafoon, a place south of Cape Gardafui. A detailed account of frankincense is given by Theophrastus’ (B¢. 370-285) who relates that the commodity is produced in the country of the Sabzans, one of the most active trading nations of antiquity, occupy- _ Ing the southern shores of Arabia. It appears from Diodorus that the Sabewans sold their frankincense to the Arabs, through whose hands it passed to the Phcenicians who disseminated the use of it in the temples throughout their possessions, as well as among the nations with whom they traded. The route of the caravans from south-eastern Arabia to Gaza in Palestine, has recently (1866) been pointed out by Professor Sprenger. Plutarch relates that when Alexander the Great captured Gaza, 500 talents of olibanum and 100 talents of myrrh were taken, and sent thence to Macedonia. The libanotophorous region of the old Sabswans is in fact the very country visited by Carter in 1844 and 1846, and lying as he states the south coast of Arabia between long. 52° 47’ and 52° 23’ east.” It on also known to the ancients, at least to Strabo and Arrian, 4 € opposite African coast likewise produced olibanum,’ as it 18 now srt almost exclusively ; and the latter states that the drug is ship party to Egypt and partly to Barbaricon at the mouth of the ee 4 b exemplifying the great esteem in which frankincense was h h ey the ancients, the memorable gifts presented by the Magi t po — Saviour will occur to every mind. A few other instances may “ mentioned : Herodotus® relates that the Arabians paid to Dar’ si! of Persia, an annual tribute of 1000 talents of frankincens®.—_, oat remarkable Greek inscription, brought to light in modern yee s om ruins of the temple of Apollo at Miletus, records the gifts 4 hs brother (une by Seleweus IL, king of Syria (n.c. 246-227), and er Antiochus Hierax, king of Cilicia, which included in ad Egyptian Queen from the V7th century before of this god Amon, the lord of the terrestris our era, and ancient Eoypt; 3 ar rade Jyptian military thrones. Never has anything § ” ‘an a. a on @ monument of the seen since the foundation of the world. sa “terrace of the te after a copy taken from the 9 Hist, Plant; lib. iv. & Teme lated from the Gorman et Baheri, trans- Sprenger, /.c. 219. raphie ipzig, 1868,-—Se by Anna Diimichen, 8 See also Sprenger, Die alte Ome Deir-el- Bahari. Leiny; also Mariette-Bey, Arabiens, Bern, 1875. 296, 302 099. ‘In one of the ot 1877, Pl. 6, 7, 8. 4“ Thus transfretanum,” Spreng’ 5 488. erred to in ter iptions they are re- - 5 Rawlinson’s Herodotus, ii. (1 jjbanom thus rendered oe Professor D. has —Sprenger, /.c. 300, alludes to olibal cense-trees brought hirty-one verdant in- being exported to Babylonia act 2, Lond. things from the land of Punt forthe ee ®Chishull, Antiquitates Asiatic® orthe majesty 1758. 65-72. OLIBANUM. . oe two vessels of gold and silver, ten talents of frankincense (A.Bavwrds) and one of myrrh. The emperor Constantine made numerous offerings to the church under St. Silvester, bishop of Rome A.D. 314-335, of costly vessels and fragrant drugs and spices,’ among which mention is made in several instances of Aromata and Aromata in incenswm, terms under which olibanum is to be understood.? ae With regard to the consumption of olibanum in other countries, it is an interesting fact that the Arabs in their intercourse with the Chinese, which is known to have existed as early as the 10th century, carried with them olibanum, myrrh, dragon’s blood, and liquid storax,3 drugs which are still imported from the west into China. The first- named is called Ju-siang, ie. milk perfume, a curious allusion to its Arabic name Lubdn signifying milk. In the year 1872, Shanghai mported* of this drug no less than 1,360 peculs (181,333 Ib.). Collection—The fragrant gum resin is distributed through the leaves and bark of the trees, and even exudes as a milky juice also from the flowers; its fragrance is stated to be already appreciable in a certain istance. Cruttenden,’ who visited the Somali Country in 1843, thus describes the collecting of olibanum by the Mijjertheyn tribe, whose chief port is Bunder Murayah (lat. 11° 43’ N.)®:— “During the hot season the men and boys are daily employed in collecting gums, which process is carried on as follows :—About the end of February or beginning of March, the Bedouins visit all the trees in “lecession and make a deep incision in each, peeling off a narrow strip of bark for about 5 inches below the wound. This is left for a month when a fresh incision is made in the same place, but deeper. d month elapses and the operation is again repeated, after which © gum is supposed to have attained a proper degree of consistency. The mountain-sides are immediately covered with parties of men and oT, who Scrape off the large clear globules into a basket, whilst the ‘rior quality that has run down the tree is packed separately. The gum when first taken from the tree is very soft, but hardens quickly. ; Every fortnight the mountains are visited in this manner, the ee producing larger quantities as the season advances, until the ee of September, when the first shower of rain puts a close to the gathering that year.” So The Informations due to J. M. Hildebrandt, who visited the fo. mali in 1875, are in accordance with Cruttenden’s statements. The mer says, that the latest crops are greatly injured by the rains, the ing partly dissolved by the water. ce t’ describing the collection of the drug in southern Arabia, These r remarkable gifts are enumerated 5 Trans. Bombay Geograph. Soc. vii. Toy ignol in his Liber Pontificalis, Rome, (1846) 121. : — Oleum, » and include beside Olibanum, 6 See sketch of the Somali coast. Pharm. Storax Tantw™ Oleum Cyprium, Balsam, — Journ. viii. (13 Apr. 1878) 806. Saffron a ec Stacte, Aromata cassie, 7 See my paper on Luban Mati and Oh- The Pi epper, banum, Pharm. Journ, viii. (1878) 805, also P, ancient name of Cape Gardafui was Hildebrandt’s note in the ‘‘Sitzungs- im Aromatum. Bericht der Gesellschaft naturforschender l hneider, Ancient Chinese, &c. Freunde zu Berlin,” 19th Nov. 1878, 195.— J 4 BAF. se at the Treaty Ports in 138 BURSERACE:. writes thus :—“ The gum is procured by making longitudinal incisions through the bark in the months of May and December, when the cuticle glistens with intumescence from the distended state of the parts beneath ; the operation is simple, and requires no skill on the part fi | the operator. On its first appearance the gum comes forth white as milk, and according to its degree of fluidity, finds its way to the — ound, or concretes on the branch near the place from which it first - issued, from whence it is collected by men and boys employed to look after the trees by the different families who possess the land in’ which they grow.” According to Captain Miles,' the drug is not collected by the people of the country, but by Somalis who cross in numbers-from ~ the opposite coast, paying the Arab tribes for the privilege. The Arabian Lubdn, he says, is considered inferior to the African. It would even appear that the collection of the drug has ceased In Arabia, and that the names of Luban Maheri or Mascati or Sheehaz, referring to the coast of Arabia between Ras Fartak (52°10 E) and Ras Morbas (54° 34’) are now applied to the olibanum brought there from the opposite African coast.2 Hildebrandt informed one of us (letter dated 26th Dec., 1878) that he has ascertained at Aden, that all the frankincense imported in Aden comes from Africa. _. Description—Olibanum as found in commerce varies rather ¢00- siderably in quality and appearance. It may in general terms described as a dry gum-resin, consisting of detached tears up ue inch in length, of globular, pear-shaped, clavate, or stalactitic form, mixed with more or less irregular lumps of the same size. Some 0 the longer tears are slightly agglutinated, but most are distinct. The predominant forms are rounded—angular fragments being Jess fre- quent, though the tears are not seldom fissured. Small pieces of the translucent brown papery bark are often found adhering to te } ree The “Luban Fasous Bedow ” as exported from the Mijjerthey Amys the eastern part of the Somali Country, is in very ae colour of the drug is pale yellowish or brownish, but the io : ties consist of tears which are nearly colourless or have a gree ue The smallest grains only are transparent, the rest are th ucent and somewhat milky, and not transparent even after ti? Parad of the white dust with which they are always CONE Wh if heated to about 94° C., they become almost tra Ae wane broken they exhibit a rather dull and waxy surface. . s <3 ae the polarizing microscope no trace of ae ', Olibanum softens in the mouth; its taste is terebinthinows eenly bitter, but by no means disagreeable. Its odour is pleasan y t matic, but is only fully developed when the gum-resin 18 ae ut nctant rated temperature. At 100°C. the latter softens We y fusing, and if the heat be further raised decomposition s . ree a um pric yee none Composition—Cold water quickly changes se ts an Pg: whitish pulp, which when rubbed down in a mortar +s not ton. Immersed in spirit of wine, a tear of olibanum * a4 1 Loc, cit Societys — ? nes “1 Journ. of Re Geogrepe On the neighbourhood of Bunder-Mura- ye (i765. ¥ cae OLIBANUM. | 139 altered much in form, but it becomes of an almost pure opaque white. In the first case the water dissolves: the gum, while in the second the aleohol-rémoves the resin. We find that pure olibanum treated with spirit of wine leaves 27 to 35 of gum,’ which forms a thick mucilage with three parts of water. Dissolved in 5 parts of water it yields a neutral solution, which is precipitated by perchloride of iron as well as by silicate of sodium, but not by neutral acetate of lead. It. is consequently a gum of the same class as gum arabic, if not identical with it. Its solution contains the same amount of lime as gum arabic affords. The resin of olibanum has been examined by Hlasiwetz (1867), according to whom it is a uniform substance having the composition C°H®0*, We find that it is not soluble in alkalis, nor have we suc- ceeded in converting it into a crystalline body by the action of dilute alcohol. It is not uniformly distributed throughout the tears; if they are broken after having been acted upon by dilute alcohol, it now and then happens that a clear stratification is perceptible, showing a con- centric arrangement. Olibanum contains an essential oil, of which Braconnot (1808) obtained 5 per cent., Stenhouse (1840) 4 per cent., and Kurbatow (1871-1874) 7 per cent. According to Stenhouse it has a sp. gr. of 0866, a boiling point of 179-4° C.,and an odour resembling that of tur- pentine but more agreeable. Kurbatow separated this oil into two Portions, the one of which has the formula CH", boils at 158° C., and combines with HCl to form crystals; the other contains oxygen. The itter principle of olibanum forms an amorphous brown mass. € resin of olibanum submitted to destructive distillation affords no unbelliferone. Heated with strong nitric acid it develops no peculiar colour, but at length camphretic acid (see Camphor) is formed, which may be also obtained from many resins and essential oils if submitted © same oxidizing agent. Commerce—The olibanum of Arabia is shipped from several small Places along the coast between Damkote and Al Kammar, but the duantity produced in this district is much below that furnished by the “Sa Country in Eastern Africa. The latter is brought to Zeyla, shi ta, Bunder Murayah, and many smaller ports, whence - it 1s Pped to Aden or direct to Bombay. The trade is chiefly in the ee he of Banians, and the great emporium for the drug is Bombay. A Tia M portion is shipped through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb_ to —Von Kremer 2 says to the value of £12,000 annually. The deautity exported from Bombay in the year 1872-73 was 25,100 ewt. Nae ewt. were shipped to the United Kingdom, and 6,184 . ina. Bune s AS a medicine olibanum is nearly obsolete, at. least in Rig € great consumption of the drug is for the incense used Ae Roman Catholic and Greek Churches. *L obtain, s finest ed 32:14 per cent. from the 2 Aegypten, Forschungen itber Land und Bedoya, Of the kind called Fasous Volk, Leipzig, 1963. ic Capt. with which I was presented by 3 Statement of the Trade and Navigation Unter of Aden.—F. A. F. of the Presidency of Bombay for 1872-73, pt. ii. 78. 140 BURSERACEZ. MYRRHA. Gummi-resina Myrrha; Myrrh; F. Myrrhe; G. Myrrhe. Botanical Origin—Ehrenberg who visited Egypt, Nubia, Abyssinia, and Arabia in the years 1820-26, brought home with him specimens of the myrrh trees found at Ghizan (Gison or DhizAn), a town on the strip of coast-region called Tih4ma, opposite the islands of Farsan Kebir and Farsan Seghir, and a little to the north of Lohaia, on the eastern side of the Red Sea, in latitude 16° 40’, and also on the neighbourmg ‘mountains of Djara (or Shahra) and Kara. Here the myrrh trees form the underwood of the forests of Acacia, Moringa, and Euphorbia. Nees von Esenbeck who examined these specimens, drew up from them a description of what he called Balsamodendron Myrrha, which he figured in 1828, After Ehrenberg’s herbarium had been incorporated in the Royal Herbarium of Berlin, Berg examined these specimens, and came oer conclusion that they consist of two species, namely that described and figured by Nees, and a second to which was attached (correctly we must hope) two memoranda bearing the following words:—* Tpsa Myr arbor ad Gison—Martio,” and “ Ex hwiec simillima arbore ad (rt ypse Myrrham efluentem legi2 Hee specimina lecta sunt m montibus Djara et Kara Februario.” This plant Berg named B. Ehrenberquamum Oliver in his Flora of Tropical A frica (1868)* is disposed to consider Berg’s plant the same as B. Opobalsamun Kth., a tree or shrub yield: ing myrrh, found by Schweinfurth on the Bisharrin mountains zi Abyssinia, not far from the coast between Suakin and Edineb. “ Schweinfurth himself does not admit the identity of the two Pi wha however, that the myrrh of commerce is chiefly of “i Captain F. M. Hunter, Assistant Resident of Aden, informed ws" that the Arabian myrth tree, the Didthin, is found not only in We southern provinces of Arabia, Yemen, and Hadramant, probably Se the southern part of Oman, but likewise on the range © hills w ra on the African shore, runs parallel to the Somali coast. c ere 7 who gather the myrrh in Arabia allege that the Arabian <2 Didi identical with that of their own district. Its exudation 18 the ert mtyeE, “Mulmul” of the Somalis, the “Mur” of the Arabs, oF He sag the India fing other myrrh tree, according to Captain Hunter, is gro oie and the districts ithiet “Tarras Phat is between the ib m : parallels, N. lat., and 43° to 50° E. long. This is the “Ham og of the Somalis, which is not found in Arabia, nor in the coast rang? . * Plante Medicinales i a : (1828) tab, 355. » Diisseldorf, ii. : Ce i. ries Geogr. Mittheilung™ 1968 . kien in 1872 to Prof, ns 127. 1977 to RAE. see this ver ere possible that we coul 6 Letters addressed in 1 a of tbe ¥Y Specimen, we received the 7 Bola, Bal, or Bol were 2 __Ehres” Bre ec it could not be found, _ myrrh in the Egyptian antiquity. schrestnag : at, Darstellung u. Be- berg, De Myrrh et Opocalpas® fol. tab, xxix. d. ae ye tea iv. (1863) detectis plantis, Berolin, 1841, 1862, 155, - Zeitung, 16 Mai, MYRRHA. me 4g the Somali country, but only at a considerable distance from the sea- shore. Its exudation is the coarse myrrh, habaghadi of the Somalis and Arabs and “ Baisabole” of the Indians. Hildebrandt has collected the didthin, or didin as he writes, in the coast range alluded to, that is in the Ahl or Serrut Mountains, where the tree is growing on sunny slopes in elevations of 500 to 1,500 metres. He has ascertained that it is identical with Ehrenberg’s tree, Balsamo- dendron Myrrha Nees. It is a low tree of crippled appearance, attain- ing not more than 3 metres. This species must therefore be pointed out as the source of true myrrh of the European commerce. History—(See also further on, Bissabol). Myrrh has been used from the earliest times together with olibanum as a constituent of incense, perfumes, and unguents. It was an ingredient of the holy oil used in the Jewish ceremonial as laid down by Moses: and it was also one of the numerous components of the celebrated Kyphi of the Egyptians, a preparation used in fumigations, medicine, and the process of embalming, and of which there were several varieties. In the previous article we have pointed out (p. 137) several early references to myrrh in connection with olibanum, in which it is observable that the myrrh (when weights are mentioned) is always in _ the smaller quantity. “Of the use of the drug in mediwval Europe there _ are few notices, but they tend to show that the commodity was rare and precious. This myrrh is recommended in the Anglo-Saxon Leech- books to be used with frankincense in the superstitious medical practice of the 11th century. In a manuscript of the Monastery of Rheinau, near Schaffhausen, Switzerland, we also find that, apparently in the 11th century, myrrh as well as olibanum were used in ordeals in the : ott aqua bullientis.”® The drug was also used by the Welsh hysicians of Myddfai” in the 13th century. In the Wardrobe accounts of Edward I. there is an entry under date 6th January, 1299, for gold, trankincense, and myrrh, offered by the king in his chapel on that day, ~ being the Feast of Epiphany.t Myrrh again figures in the accounts of ffroi de Fleuri master of the wardrobe (argentier) to Philippe le ae king of France, where record is made of the purchase of—*4 ences d'estorat calmite” (see Styrax) “et mierre (myrrh) .. . . encenz &t laudanon,” (Ladanum, the resin of Cistus creticus L.)—for the eral of John, posthumous son of Louis X., A.D. 1316. . Gold, silver, silk, precious stones, pearls, camphor, musk, myrrh, and ao are enumerated ® as the presents which the Khan of Cathay sent Pope Benedict XII. at Avignon about the year 1342. The myrrh for this circuitous route to Europe’ was doubtless that of the * Cantic. i. 13, iii a : : kin a ii » lil, 6; Genes. xliii. 11; ueen’s oblation of gold, frankincense, an ray 12, 30, xxiii. 34-36 ; John xix. 39 ; sce is still annually presented on the —— Cookin: Add vii. 17, Feast of Epiphany in the Chapel Royal in “7 ne, eechd C, : don. pad, Soe, 295, 997, —." ay Doiiet d’Areq, Comptes de ? Argenterie dictiones’® Adj urationen, Exorcismen, Bene- des rois de France, 1851. 19. ; x Gesellech sn? in Mittheilungen der antiquar. 6 Yule, Cathay and the way thither, 1. STinalt in Ziirich, xii, (1859) 187. 357. derobey quotidianus Contrarotulatoris Gar- 7 For the costly presents in question Xxx. and 97,” Edwardi I., Lond. 1787. pp. never reached their destination, having been by than’ 27.—The custom is still observed __ all plundered by the way! Sovereigns of England, and th e 142 -BURSERACEA, : ; : during i ith whom the Chinese had constant intercourse durin tks Sia a. Mee: in fact is still somewhat largely consumed in eng 3 at fhe name Myrrh is from the Hebrew and Arabic nor San bitter, whence also the Greek cuvtpva. The ancient Egyp pes a Bal, and the Sanskrit Vola are preserved in the Persian . words Bol, Bola, and Heera-bol, well-known names for tee an Stacte (rraxry), a substance often mentioned by - an ee said by Pliny to be a spontaneous liquid exudation of t Pali it more valuable than myrrh itself. The author of the ee bee Erythrean Sea represents it as exported from Muza in = - a a od _ with myrrh. Theophrastus’ speaks of myrrh as of two} — sees liquid. No drug of modern times has been identified wit havior liquid myrrh of the ancients: that it was a substance Der oo quantity seems evident from the fact that 150 pounds o ve wee the offering of an Egyptian city, were presented to St. Silveste A.D. 314-3354 a The myrrh of the ancients was not always obtaine e ryt The author of the Periplus,’ who wrote about A.D. 64, sg bebe been an export of Abalites, Malao, and Mosyllon (the We - pre modern Berbera), ancient ports of the African coast outst - a of Bab-el-Mandeb; and he even mentions that it is conveye vessels to the opposite shores of Arabia, : tions of Secretion—Marchand* who examined and figured the sections -resiD a branch of three years’ growth of B. Myrrha, represents on ond ula as chiefly deposited in the cortical layers, with a little in aa it Collection—By the Somal tribe myrrh is largely ole flows out, incisions, according to Hildebrandt, being ne tee it From the information given by Ehrenberg to Nees bho d then of @ appears that myrrh when it first exudes is of an oily an olden tint buttery appearance, yellowish white, gradually Se 8 bark like and becoming reddish as it hardens. It exudes from alive by age cherry-tree gum, and becomes dark and of inferior ps fine quality, Although Ehrenberg says that the myrrh he saw was 0 he does not mention it being gathered by the natives. i collected, With regard to the localities® in which the he t myrth 38 _ Cruttenden,’ who visited the Somali coast in 1843, says : i and from brought from the Wadi Nogal, south west of Cape Garda es are found Murreyhan, Ogadain and Agahora ; and that some few ie saw the on the mountains behind Bunder Murayah. Major peer on the _ Myrrh tree in the Adel desert and in the jungle of the Hawash, way from Tajura to Shoa. ; . ion des B ur ' Shanghai imported in 1872, 18,600 Ibs. 6 Recherches sur 1 el a i of myrth.—Reports of Trade at the Treaty _ seracées, Paris, 1868, p- oe Ports in China for 1872, p. 4. 7 Op. cit. at p. 140, no Ocean Highway ma ncent, Commerce’ of the Ancients, ii, *See paper with mapin Journ. 19 (1870) 316.—Muza or Moosa is supposed to April, 1873, also Pharm. Science Pape” be identical with a place still bearing thet 1873. 821, and Hanbury’s name lying about 20 mil kha ; vii. (1848) bib. ix. c, 4, rede a Trans. Bombay Geogr. 50 VN 496; 123. pia (1944) i? 0 Highlands of Aithiop ii. 414. Pa Vignolius, Liber Pontificalis, i, (1724) ° Vincent, Op. cit. ii, 127, 129, 135, MYRRHA. : 148 Vaughan * states that the Somali Country and the neighbourhood of Hurrur (or Harar or Adari, 9° 20’ N., 42° 17’ E.) south west of Zeila are the chief producing districts. It is generally brought to the great fair of Berbera held in November, December, and January, where it is purchased by the Banians of India, and shipped for Bombay. It appears that all these informations rather refer to the Bisabol or Habaghadi variety of myrrh; only the first notice, due to Hildebrandt, ~ applies to true myrrh. Myrrh trees abound on the hills about Shugra and Sureea in the territory of the Fadhli or Fudthli tribe, lying to the eastward of Aden ; myrrh is collected from them by Somalis who cross from the opposite coast for the purpose and pay a tribute for the privilege to the Arabs, who appear to be searcely acquainted with this drug? But a sample of it, received by one of us from Vaughan in 1852, and others we have since seen in London (and easily, recognized), proved it to be somewhat different from typical myrrh, and it is probably afforded by another species than Balsamodendron Myrrha. It would thus appear that there are three different trees affordin "myrrh, namely that just alluded to, secondly the “ Habaghadi,” an thirdly that growing east of Aden. _ Description—Myrrh consists of irregular roundish masses, varying i size from small grains up to pieces as large as an egg, and occasion- ally much larger. They are of an opaque reddish brown with dusty dull surface. When broken, they exhibit a rough or waxy fracture, aving a moist and unctuous appearance, especially when pressed, and a rich brown hue. The fractured, translucent surface often displays characteristic whitish marks which the ancients compared to the light mark at the base of the finger-nails. Myrrh has a peculiar and agree- able fragrance with an aromatic, bitter, and acrid taste. It cannot be finely powdered until deprived by drying of some of its essential oil and water ; nor when heated does it melt like colophony. ater disintegrates myrrh, forming a light brown emulsion, which d under the microscope appears made up of colourless drops, ose are granules of yellow resin. Alcohol dissolves epee , leaving a: -crystalline particles of gum * and Irag- ments of hae Speed non-crystalline p of gu s Chemical Composition—Myrrh is a mixture, in very varying Proportions, of Fir sibistleginane | matters, and essential oil. A fine Specimen of myrrh from the Somali coast, with which Captain. Hunter, s 1877, kindly presented one of us, yielded 27 per cent. of resin. The ndissolved portion is partly soluble in water. © resi dissolves completely in chloroform or alcohol, and the : our of the latter solution is but slightly darkened by perchloride of Ton. It is but partially soluble in alkalis or in bisulphide of ‘carbon. 1 Pharm Viewe - Journ. xii (1853) 226 also S r, Alte Geographie Arabiens, 2 + X1L 4 so Sprenger, ograp: Pe S. B. Miles, in Journ. of R. Geo- 313. a Visite] 1 XU. (1871) 236. ‘The country 3 Druggists who prepare large quantities an y Miles and Munzinger is the of Tincture of Myrrh may utilize this gum ora regi ior,” i rt of mucilage.— cou egio exterior,” the outer for making a common so about producing myrrh of the ancients, | Pharm, Journ. 10 June, 1871, 1001. 10'N. lat. and 57° E. long. See 14 -s BURSERACE. Briickner (1867) found this portion to yield 75°6 per cent. of carbon and 9°5 of hydrogen. The resin which the bisulphide refuses to dissolve, is freely soluble in ether. It contains only 57°4 per cent. of carbon. The resin of myrrh to which, when moistened with alcohol, a small quantity of concentrated nitric or hydrochloric acid is added, assumes a violet hue, but far less brilliant than that displayed by resin of galbanum when treated in a similar manner. But a most intensely violet liquid may be obtained by adding bromine to the resin dissolved in bisulphide of carbon. If the resin of myrrh as afforded by alcohol is warmed with petroleum (boiling at 70°C)., only a small amount of resin is dissolved. This liquid becomes turbid if vapours of bromine are added ; a violet flocculent matter deposits, whereas the just above- mentioned solution in the bisulphide continues clear on addition of bromine. The resin of myrrh is not capable of affording umbelliferone like that of galbanum. By melting it with potash, pyrocatechin and pro- tocatechuie acid are produced in small amount. ___ Myrrh yields on distillation a volatile oil which in operating 25 lb. of the drug, we obtained to the extent of 3 per cent.’ It isa yellowish, rather viscid liquid, neutral to litmus, having a powe odour of myrrh and sp. gr. 0-988 at 13° C2 In a column 50 mm. long, it deviates a ray of light 30-1° to the left. By submitting it to dis tillation, we obtained before the oil boiled, a few drops of a strongly acid liquid having the smell of formic acid. Neutralized with ammonia, liquid produced in solution of mercurous nitrate a whitish precipitate which speedily darkened, thus indicating formic acid, which 1s de- veloped in the oil. Old myrrh is in fact said to yield an acid distillate The oil begins to boil at about 266° C., and chiefly distills over between 270° and 290°, : [ On combustion in the usual way it afforded carbon 84°70, hydrogen ‘ 98. Having been again rectified in a current of dry carbonic acl” " ad a boiling point of 262-263° C., and now afforded® carbon 847 hydrogen 10-26, which would nearly answer to the formula C#H . The results of Ruickholdt’s analysis (1845) of essential oil of myt assign it the formula C"H“O, which is widely different from that indi cated by our experiments. i _ The oil which we rectified displays a faintly greenish hue ; a rie im every proportion with bisulphide of carbon, the solution eh ibiting at first no peculiar coloration when a drop of nitric wei phurie acid is added. Yet the mixture to which nitric acid (120) ‘s added, assumes after an hour or two a fine violet hue whic! . 1-xY persistent, enduring even if the liquid is allowed to dry UPI Lise. capsule. If to the erude oil dissolved in bisulphide of cH ™.. alle mine be added, a violet hue is produced ; and if the solut0™ Owed to evaporate, and the residue diluted with spirit of Ww ‘ assumes a fine blue which disappears on addition of an alkali. anus +1 a Jitile an Pe at got 2°18 per cent.; Bley 2 Gladstone (1863) found the oil a litt of an acid oil. ) from 1°6 to 3°4 per cent, heavier than water. ; poratory by Mr. Fritzsche of ‘Food kindly informed 3 Analyses rformed in ny also Y mel & Co.) that Ipzig (Messrs. Schim- by Dr. Buri, Pebvunty, 1874. A. (1878) large scale yields ag phew hte distilled ona paper on Carvol, Pharm. Journ, ats i ch as 4° : cy (1877) of oil. (Letter dated 13th Fie fis) Ligihe’ Yearbook of Pharmacy MYRRHA. | 145 oil is not much altered by boiling with alcoholic potash, nor does it combine with alkaline bisulphites. The Bitter principle of myrrh is contained in the resin as extracted by alcohol. By exhausting the resin with warm water an acid brown solution is obtained, from which a dark, viscid, neutral mass separates - if the liquid is concentrated ; it is contaminated with a large amount of inorganic matter, from which it may be purified by means of ether. Yet the latter affords also but an amorphous,somewhat brittle brown sub- stance, softening at 80°-90°C. This bitter principle reminds us of that mentioned in our article Elemi, page 151; it is but sparingly soluble in water ; the yellowish solution is intensely bitter, The bitter prin- ciple of myrrh appears to be a glucoside. We have not succeeded in preparing it in a more satisfactory state. Commerce—Myrrh is chiefly shipped by way of Berbera to Aden, and thence either to Europe or to Bombay. The exports of Aden in the fiseal year 1875 to 1876 were 1,439 ewt.; one half of which went to Bombay, one third to the United Kingdom.! The bags or bales which contain the myrrh are opened in Bombay, and the drug is sorted. The better portion goes to Europe, the refuse to China, where it is probably used as an incense.” Uses—Myrrh, though much used, does not appear to possess any very important medicinal powers, and is chiefly employed on account of its bitter, aromatic properties. 1. Bissa Bol (Bhesabol, Bysabole), Habaghadi or Hebbakhade of ¢ Somalis, formerly called Hast India Myrrh’ ge oe uae _ This drug is of African origin, but of the plant which yields it nothing is known. Vaughan‘ who sent a sample from Aden to one of us in 1852, was told by the natives that the tree from which it is collected resembles that affording Heera Bol or true myrrh, but that it 's nevertheless distinct. The drug is exported from the whole Somali coast to Mokha, Jidda, Aden, Makulla, the Persian Gulf, India and ‘ven China.’ Bombay official returns show that the quantity miported thither in the year 1872-73, was 224 ewt., all shipped from Aden, : Some myrrh, no doubt that from the interior of north-eastern attic, the Habaghadi or Baisabole, finds its way by the country of Wagadain (Ugahden or Ogadain) to the small port of Brava wa, Braoua), about 1° N. lat., and to Zanzibar.* This is, possibly, io mation obliging] ied b taining about 15 cwt. were consigned to mae Hunter, July 1877, ee me for sale in London by a friend in China, gg) pymoe » Pharm. Journ. vi, (1876) | who had purchased the drug under the es” notion that it was true myrrh. The com- med. yrrha indica, Martiny, Encyklop. der modity was bad of its kind, and was sold 98, jg)" «—-Rohwaarenkunde, ii. (1854) with difficulty at 30s. per ewt.—D. H. > Pi, : € Guillain, Documents sur Vhistoire, la 5 om. Journ, xii, (1853) 227. géogr. et le commerce de P Afrique orientale 865, 10 packages of this drug con- iil. (1856) 350, a 146 BURSERACE. also the “ Mirra fina,” which is stated, about the year 1502, by Tomé Lopez to be collected (?) in the island of “ Monzambiche.”? According to Vaughan, Bissa Bél is mixed with the food given to milch cows and buffaloes in order to increase the quantity and improve the quality of their milk, and that it is also used as size to impart a ae gloss to whitewashed walls. iles mentions* that myrrh, called there hodthai, is only used in the Somali country, by men to whiten their shields (by means of an emulsion made with the drug), by women to cleanse their hair. Pro- bably hodthai and habaghadi is one and the same thing. Bissa Bol differs from myrrh in its stronger, almost acrid taste and in odour, which, when once familiar is easily recognizable ; fine specimens of the former have the outward characters of myrrh and perhaps are often passed off for it. A good sample of “coarse” habaghadi myrrh as sent in 1877 by Captain Hunter from Aden proved to contain but very little resin. This resin is manifestly different from that of myrrh as already shown by its paler, more reddish colour. The resin of Bissa Bol moreover is but very sparingly soluble in bisulphide of carbon; this solution is not altered by bromine, that of true myrrh, as above stated, assuming a most intense violet colour on addition of bromine Nor is the resin of habaghadi soluble in petroleum ether. Of the gummy substance, which is by far the prevailing constituent of this drug, a small portion only is soluble in water. These extremely mark differences no doubt depend upon a widely discrepant composition of, the resins of the two kinds of myrrh as well as upon a different propo!” tion of gum and resin. The Bissa BOl usually seen is an impure an foul substance, which is regarded by London druggists as well as by the Banian traders in India as a very inferior dark sort of myrrh. 2. Arabian Myrrh—The drug we have mentioned at p. 143s col lected to the eastward of Kien, “is of interest as substantiating the statement of Theophrastus that both olibanum and myrrh grow ag sg Arabia. a e drug, which is not distinguished by any special name in Englis trade, is in irregular masses beldons ixessdiag 1 inches long, 42 having a somewhat gummy-looking exterior. The larger lumps SH formed by the cohesion’ of small, rounded, translucent, extern@ 4 shining tears or drops. The fracture is like that of common myrth, ™ less unctuous and wants the whitish markings. The odour and taste are those of the ordinary drug. Pieces of a semi-transparent papery bark are attached to some of the lumps. We extracted the resin © . sample of this myrrh from the territory of the Fadhli, as sent to us by Captain Hunter. Its solution in bisulphide of carbon or petroleut sper was coloured by bromine as stated above, (p. 144) with regar i olin myrrh (Heerabol) from the Somali Country. ‘The name apP va myrrh from the vicinity of Ras Morbat in the same region. But the resin of another kind of Arabian myrrh, for which we are likewise indebted to Captain Hunter, is not colowred when treated in the sa” : von we myrrh “Hodaidia Jebeli” from north and north- 1 : Wd In Ramusio (see Appendix, R) 239, 2 Journ. of the R. Geogr. Soc. 92 (1872) 64. ELEMI. 147 ELEMI. Resina Elemi; Elemi; F. Résine Elémi ; G. Elemiharz. Botanical Origin—The resin known in pharmacy as Elemi is derived from a tree growing in the Philippines, which Blanco; a botanist of Manila, described in 1845 under the name of Icica who lived in the 4th century before the istian era. Both Dioscorides and Pliny notice it as a production of the island of Chio, the modern Scio. : | Avicenna ‘ described (about the year 1000) two sorts of mastich, the White or Roman (ie. Mediterranean or Christian), and the dark or Nabathwan—the latter probably one of the Eastern forms of the drug Mentioned at p. 165. : Benjamin of Tudela,’ who visited the island of Scio when travelling 5 the East about a.p. 1160-1173, also refers to it yielding mastich, Which in fact has always been one of its most important productions, and from the earliest times intimately connected with its history. Mastich was prescribed in the 13th century by the Welsh “ Meddy- gon Myddvai” as an ingredient of ointments. th In the middle ages the mastich of Scio was held as a monopoly by the Greek emperors, one of whom, Michael Paleologus in 1261, permitted © Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus Il. conceded in 1804 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, “nich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia 1 no esa a of this is very small. On 2 Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, § crushed raisins in proof spiritin | Athen, 1862. 61. ona teBortion of 2 oz. toa pint; we found 3 Hist. Plant. lib. ix. c. 1. to afford Otnce of thetincture so obtained — Lib. ii, ¢. 462. STaing of ak evaporation to dryness 28 5 Wright, Early Travels in Palestine, dark viscid sugary extract. 1848. 77. (Bohn’s series). L 162 ANACARDIACEAE ae _ (the ancient Phocea), north-west of Smyrna, for ten years, renouncing all tribute during that period. The concession was very lucrative, a large revenue being derived from the Contrata del Mastico or Mastich district: and the Zaccaria family, taking advantage of the weakness of the emperor, determined to hold it as long as possible. In fact they made themselves the real sovereigns of Scio and of some of the adjacent - islands, and retained their position until expelled by Andronicus III. in 1329.1 The island was retaken by the Genoese under Simone Vignosi.in 1346; and then by a remarkable series of events became the property of an association called the Maona (the Arabic word for subsidy ot reinforcement). Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled them- selyes in this corporation and settled in the island of Scio ; and in order to express the community of interest that governed their proceedings, some of them relinquished their family names and assumed the general name of Giustiniani2 This extraordinary society played a_part eX actly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa it had its “Oficium Chit”; it had its own constitution and mint, and it engaged in wars with the emperors of Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks, who in turn attacked and ravaged the mastich island and adjacent possessions. : The Giustinianis regulated very strictly the culture of the lentisk and the gathering and export of its produce, and cruelly punished “ offenders. The annual export of the drug was 300 to 400 quintals, which were immediately assigned to the four regions with which the _ Maona chiefly traded. These were Romania (i.e. Greece, Constante _ hople and the Crimea), Occidente (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Vera Turchia (Asia Minor), and Oriente (Syria, Egypt, and agar Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 lire ; in 1417, the price a fixed at 25 lire. In the 16th century, the whole income from the was 30,000 ducats (£13,750), a large sum for that period. - In 1566, the Giustinianis definitively lost their beautiful island, the Turks under Piali Pasha taking it by force of arms under pretext i the customary tribute was not duly paid.? A few years before that event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon ° who testifies from ‘ Friar Jordanus who visited Scio ci i the island of o circa what may be obtained from : 2 1330 (?) noticed the production of mastich, Hispaniola, he mentions—gold and spices: and also the loss of the island by Martino —_and mastich, hitherto found only 1n ae the i —Mirabilia descripta, or Wonders in the island of Scio, and which ee of the Kast, edited by Col. Yule for the _noria sells at its own price, as much a Hakluyt Society, 1863 i i es , ; Highnesses [Ferdinand and Pal Probably partly for the reason that a Se ES “ be shipped. The let al th azzo Giustiniani in Genoa had become date 15 Feb. 1493.—Letters Ae 15. th .. aoety of the Society. In the little Columbus (Hakluyt Society) 1870. Po s — lustiniani,” near the cathedral 4 The ducat being reckoned at 95. ‘the ose Lorenzo, that palace may still be ® For further particulars Tes the trade rea pe there is only a large view of the history of Scio, the Maona, ap : Ho fin Maon: ‘ © which would remind of the of the Genoese in the Levant, see 5 68 Phe tsar wis, told in 1874 by Sig. Canale, Ersch and Grubber’s Lncyclopd arti Heyd aoabaterae of Genoa, that he thought it (Leipzig, 1859) art. Géustinan 3, Ori in the said sat ae pg had resided Colonie commerciali degli Italiam ™ 8 An incidental notice showin t Ae (1866). ; ingularite: : a he value ° Observations de plusieurs sing™ te. here pe Gentes pc letter of Coltmibes a st mémorables tromwes en Greet © of his first voyage to the Thdieg toes ee z MASTICHE. — 163 personal observation to the great care with which the lentisk was cultivated by the inhabitants. When Tournefort? was at Scio in 1701, all the lentisk trees on the island were held to be the property of the Grand Signor, and if any land was sold, the sale did not include the lentisks that might be growing on it. At that time the mastich villages, about twenty in number, were required to pay 286 chests of mastich annually to the Turkish officers appointed to receive the revenue. ‘In the beginning of the present century, when Olivier? paid a visit to the island of Chios, he found 50,000 ocche (one occa= 2°82 |b. avdp. = 1-28 kilogrammes) or somewhat more to be the annual harvest of mastich. The month of January, 1850, was-memorable throughout Greece and the Archipelago for a frost of unparalleled severity which proved very destructive to the mastich trees of Scio, and occasioned a scarcity of the drug that lasted for many years.’ The foregoing statements show that for centuries past Scio or Chios was famed for this resin; there are however a few evidences proving that at least a little mastich used also to be collected in other islands. — Amari‘ quoted an Arabic geographer of the 12th century speaking of il mastice di Pantellaria cavato da’ lentischi e lo storace odorifero.” Pantellaria, Kossura of the ancients, is the small voleanic island south- west of Sicily, not far from Tunis. In a list enumerating the drugs to be met with in 1582 in the fair of Frankfurt * we find even mastich of Cyprus quoted as superior to the common. Cyprian mastich again occurs in the pharmaceutical tariffs of 1612 and 1669 of the same city, and in many others of that time’ . The disuse into which mastich has fallen makes it difficult to under- stand its ancient importance ; but a glance at the pharmacopceias of the U5th, 16th, and 17th centuries shows that it was an ingredient of a g¢ number of compound medicines.’ Secretion—In the bark of the stems and branches of the mastich shrub, there are resin-ducts like those in the aromatic roots of Umbelli- ere or Composite. In Pistacia they may even be shown in the petioles. The wood is devoid of resin, so that slight incisions are sufli- “lent to provoke the resinous exudation, the bark being not very thick, and liable to scale off. . Collection—In Scio incisions are made about the middle of June ethan bark of the stems and principal branches. From these incisions Which are vertical and very close together, the resin speedily flows, and ly, + epee. sss 2 povage into the Levant, i. (1718) 285. 9 Storia dei Musulmani di Sicilia, iii.(1872) oyage dans T Empire é “th rv lie 1801)'139-136. Sees 5 Fliickiger, Documente zur Geschichte der time Span the mercury was for a short Pharmacie, Halle, 1876. 31. 10°C. (14° F.) “In Scio, where 6 Jbid. 41. 65. ee thou, rigs was probably quite as severe, 7 Thus in the London Pharmacopeia 0 to the es have no exact data, the mischief 1632, mastich enters into 24 of the 37 dif- * “entisks varied with the locality, ferent kinds of pill, besides which it 1s pre- dered to th i i i hes and ointments. € e north t scribed in troc ‘ to theo’ elevations, being ikilled deen 8See Unger and Kotsehy, Die Insel More faye ot the trunk, while those in Cypern, Wien, 1865, 424, tion only ured positions suffered destruc- 164 | - ANACARDIACEA, soon hardens and dries. After 15 to 20 days it is collected with much care in little baskets lined with white paper or clean cotton wool. The ground below the trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid on it that the droppings of resin may be saved uninjured by dirt. There is also some spontaneous exudation from the small branches which is of very fine quality. The operations are carried on by women and chjldren and last for a couple of months. A fine tree may yield as much as 8 to 10 pounds of mastich. The dealers in Scio distinguish three or four qualities of the drug, of which the two finer are called kuiord and Arcxape, that collected from the ground zirra, and the worst of all #do00da." Description—The best sort of mastich consists of roundish tears about the size of small peas, together with pieces of an oblong or peat- shaped form. They are of a pale yellow or slightly greenish tint darkening by age, dusty and slightly opaque on the surface but perfectly transparent within. The mastich of late imported has been washed ; the tears aré no longer dusty, but have a glassy transparent appearance. Mastich is brittle, has a conchoidal fracture, a ee terebinthinous balsamic odour. It speedily softens in the mouth, am may be easily masticated and kneaded between the teeth, in this respect differing from sandarac, a tear of which breaks to powder when bitten, _ Inferior mastich is less transparent, and consists of masses of larger size and less regular shape, often contaminated with earthy and ves table impurities. The sp. gr. of selected tears of mastich is about 1:06. They soften at 99° C. but do not melt below 108°. h Mastich dissolves in half its weight of pure warm acetone and t im deviates the ray of polarized light to the right. On cooling, the so tion becomes turbid. It dissolves slowly in 5 parts of oil of net forming even in the cold a clear solution ; it is but little soluble } glacial acetic acid or in benzol. Chemical Composition—Mastich is soluble to the extent of oe 90 per cent in cold alcohol; the residue, which has been ter b asticin or Beta-resin of Mastich, is a translucent, colourless, a i substance, insoluble in boiling alcohol or in solution of caustic a +t but dissolving in ether or oil of turpentine. According to ——_ 18 somewhat less rich in oxygen than the following. ‘eh, pos” The soluble portion of mastich, called Alpha resin of Mast. is sesses acid properties, and like many other resins has the for ts O"H™0%. Hartsen* asserts that it can be obtained in crys tral alcoholic solution is precipitated by an alcoholic solution ba acetate of lead. Mastich contains a very little volatile oil. ». frovl .Commerce—Mastich still forms the principal revenue of Seto “48 ca island the export in 1871 was 28,000 Ib. of picked, and 420° or common. The market price of picked mastich was equal to ent per ——s of common 2s, 10d, The superior quality = 7 Mar- °y, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste, Vienna, 2? ae Gesellsch- zen Griechenlandas, Meee 1862 — en a dey de TEREBINTHINA CHIA. S168 seilles, and a small quantity to England. The common sort is employed in the East in the manufacture of raki and other cordials.’ Uses—Mastich is not now regarded as possessing any important therapeutic virtues, and as a medicine is becoming obsolete. Even in varnish making it is no longer employed as formerly, its place being well supplied by less costly resins, such for example as dammar. Varieties—There is found in the Indian bazaars a kind of mastich which though called Mustagi-rvimt (Roman mastich), is not imported from Europe but from Kabul, and is the produce of Pistacia Khinjuk Stocks, and the so-called P. cabulica St. trees growing all over Sind, Belichistan and Kabul. This drug, of which the better qualities closely approximate to the mastich of Scio, sometimes appears in the European market under the name of Hast Indian or Bombay Mastich. We find that when dissolved in half its weight of acetone or benzol, it deviates the ray of light to the right. The solid resin of the Algerian form of P. Terebinthus L., known as P. atlantica Desf., is collected and used as mastich by the Arab tribes of Northern Africa. TEREBINTHINA CHIA Terebinthina Cypria; Chian or Cyprian Turpentine; F. T érébenthine ow Bawme de Chio ow de Chypres ; G. Chios Terpenthin, Cyprischer Terpenthin. Botanical Origin—Pistacia Terebinthus L. (P. atlantica Desf, — P. palestina Boiss., P. cabulica Stocks), a tree 20 to 40 feet or more in height, in some countries only a shrub, common on the islands and shores of the Mediterranean as well as throughout Asia Minor, extend- ing, as P. palestina, to Syria and Palestine ; and eastward, as P. cabulica, to Belichistan and Afghanistan. It is found under the form called P. atlantica in Northern Africa, where it grows to a large size, and in the Canary Islands. i These several forms are mostly regarded as so many distinct species ; but after due consideration and the examination of a large number of Specimens both dried and living, we have arrived at the conclusion that ey may fairly be united under a single specific name. The extreme Varieties certainly present great differences of habit, as anyone would observe who had compared Pistacia Terebinthus as the straggling bush Which it is in Languedoc and Provence, with the noble umbrageous shag it forms in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. But the different types ar United by so many connecting links, that we have felt warranted in ‘senting from the opinion usually held respecting them. — On the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus, a kind of galls is produced, Which we shall briefly notice in our article Gallae halepenses. * Consul Cumberbatch, Report on Trade _ Deutschen Morgenl. Gesellsch, xxix. 582. therm for 1871.—Raki, derived from 2 Powell, Economic Products of the Punjab, wana kish word sdqiz, for mastich, which, Roorkee, 1868. 411. or homeo to say, would appear to have its 3Guibourt, Hist. d. Drog. iii. (1850) 458; of Pg the Baltic. In the vocabularies | Armieux, Topographic médicale du Sahara, found otPrussian idiom ‘sachis” is Paris, 1866. 58, Meaning resin.—Blau, Zeitschrift der 168 ANACARDIACEA, History—The terebinth was well known to the ancients ; it is the répuwwos of Theophrastus, rep¢BivOos of other authors, and the Alah of the Old Testament." Among its products, the kernels were regarded __ by Dioscorides as unwholesome, though agreeable in taste. By pressing them, the original Oil of Turpentine, repeBivOwov &datoy, a mixture of essential and fat oil was obtained, as it is in the East to the present day. The resinots juice of the stem and branches, the true, primitive turpentine, 6yrivn TepysvOiyn, was celebrated as the finest of all analogous products, and. preferred both to mastich and the pinic resins. To the latter however the name of turpentine was finally applied.’ - _Collection—The resinous juice is secreted in the bark, according to _ Unger,’ and Marchand,‘ in special cells precisely as mastich in P. Lentis- _ cus. That foundin commerce is collected in the island of Scio. To some extent it exudes spontaneously, yet in greater abundance after incisions made in the stems and branches. This is done in spring, and the resin continues to flow during the whole summer; but the quantity is so small that not more that 10 or 11 ounces are obtained from a large tree in the course of a year. The turpentine, hardened by the coolness of _ the night, is seraped from the stem down which it has flowed, or from flat stones placed at the foot of the tree to receive it. As it is, when thus collected, always mixed with foreign substances, it is purified to _ Some extent by straining through small baskets, after having been _liquefied by exposure to the sun, When Tournefort visited Scio in 1701, the island was said to produce scarcely 300 okes or ocche (one occa = 2°82 lb. avdp.); a century later Olivier® stated, that the turpentine was becoming very scarce, 200 ocche only, or even less, being the annual yield. It was then carefully col- ected by means of little earthen vessels tied to the incised stems. The _ trade is asserted to be now almost exclusively in the hands 0 the Jews, who dispose of the drug in the interior part of the Turkish Empire.” és _Description—A specimen collected by Maltass near Smyrna 10 1858 was, after ten years, of a light yellowish colour, scarcely fluid though perfectly transparent, nearly of the odour of melted colophony or mastich, and without much taste. We found it readily soluble ™ spirit of wine, amylic alcohol, glacial acetic acid, benzol, or acetone, the solution in each ‘case being very slightly fluorescent. The alcoholic solution reddens litmus, and is neither bitter nor acrid. Two parts 0 this genuine turpentine dissolved in one of acetone deviate a ray ° polarized light 7° to the right * in a column 50 mm. long. j _ Chian turpentine as found in commerce and believed to be genwin® 18 a soft solid, becoming brittle by exposure to the air; viewed in ™ it appears opaque and of a dull brown hue. If pressed while warm ei q . o* Genesis xii. 6, where the word is ren- RTO im our version plain, cna historical information on the inth may be found in Hehn’s Kultuy- Paris, 1869.150. Plate iii. shows the o ferous ducts of a branch two y eet “087. 5 Voyage into the Levant, 1. (1718) pete: 6 Voy. dans [Empire Othoman, @» pilancen und Hausthiere, Berlin, 1877. (1801) 136. ii, (1856) *U 7 Maltass, Pharm. Journ. XVI (19 Pe — . Kotschy, die Insel Cypern, 540. = telaion ci 8 A solution of mastich made in the * Revision du groupe des Anacardiacées, proportion deviates 3° to the right. - GALLA CHINENSES SEU JAPONICA. 167 between two slips of glass, it is seen to be transparent, of a yellowish brown, and much contaminated by various impurities in a state of fine division. It has an agreeable, mild terebinthinous odour and very little taste. The whitish powder with which old Chian turpentine becomes covered, shows no trace of crystalline structure when examined under the microscope. Chemical Composition—Chian turpentine ‘consists of resin and. essential oil. The former is probably identical with the Alpha-resin of mastich. The Beta-resin or Masticin appears to be absent, for we find that Chian turpentine deprived of its essential oil by a gentle heat, dis- solves entirely (impurities excepted) in alcohol sp. gr. 0°815, which is by no means the case with mastich. The essential oil which we obtained by distilling with water 64 ounces of Chian turpentine of authentic origin, amounted to nearly 144 per cent. It has the odour of the drug; sp. gr. 0:869 ; boiling point 161" C.; it deviates the ray of polarized light 12°1° to the right. In common with turpentine oils of the Conifere, it contains a small amount of an oxygenated oil, and is therefore vividly attacked by sodium. When this reaction is over and the oil is again distilled, it — boils at 157° C. and has a sp. gr. of 0862. It has now a more agree- able odour, resembling a mixture of cajuput, mace, and camphor, and nearly the same rotatory power (11°5° to the right). By saturation with dry hydrochloric acid, it yields a solid compound after some weeks, After treatment with sodium and rectification, the oil was found’ to consist of C 88°75, H 11-40 per cent., which is the composition of oil of turpentine. 3 Uses—Chian Turpentine appears to have exactly the properties of €pinic turpentines ; in British medicine it is almost obsolete. In reece it is sometimes added to wine or used to flavour cordials, in the - same manner as turpentine of the pine, or mastich. GALLAZ CHINENSES SEU JAPONIC. Botanical Origin— The plant which bears this important kind of om 1s Rhus semialata Murray (Rh. Buchi-amela Roxb.), a tree attaining 30 to 40 feet, common in Northern India, China and Japan, ‘seending in the outer Himalaya and the Kasia hills to elevations of 2,500 to 6,000 feet? antoty —In China these galls are probably known and used both Panillyand in dyeing since very long; they are mentioned in the her- in intsaou, written in the middle of the 16th century. They also occur fyer's “Specimen medicine sinice,” Frankfort, 1682, No. 225, under ely ne % pot ou.’ Kampfer* also mentions a tree “ Baibokf, vulgo fer towing on the hills, the pinnate leaves of which he found ~ Provided with an excrescence: “ ‘Exigvor foliorum informi, tu sonny : A berosa, multiplici, tenui,'dura, cava, Galle nostratis usu praestante.” No ". Kraushaar.—F, A. F, gure, Teones Plantar, Indice orientalis, 3 Hanbury, Science Papers, 266. 4 Ameenitates exotice, 1712. 895. 1 "ry plysis performed in my labo- ii. (Madras, 1848) tab. 561, gives a good 2 ight, - 168 7 ANACARDIACEA. doubt this refers to the galls under notice; they began to be imported into Europe about 1724, and are noticed by Geoffroy’ as Oreilles des Indes, but they seem to have soon disappeared from the market. Pereira directed attention to them in 1844, since which time they have formed a regular and abundant article of import both from China and Japan. Formation—Chinese galls are vesicular protuberances formed on the leafstalks and branches of the above-mentioned tree, by the puncture of an insect, identified and figured by Doubleday’ as a species of Aphis, and subsequently named provisionally by Jacob Bell _ A. chinensis. We have no account by any competent observer of their growth ; and as to their development, we can only imagine it from the analogous productions seen in Europe. According to Double- day, it is probable that the female aphis punctures the upper surface of a leaf (more probably leafstalk), the result of the wound being the _ growth of a hollow expansion in the vegetable tissue. Of this cavity the creature takes possession and brings forth a progeny which lives by puncturing the inner surface of their home, thus much increasing the tendency to a morbid expansion of the soft growing tissue 12 an outward direction. Meanwhile the neck of the sac-like gall thickens, the aperture contracts and finally closes, imprisoning all the inmates. Here they live and multiply until, as in the case of the pistacia gall 0 Europe, the sac ruptures and allows of their escape. This, we M4) imagine, takes place at the period when, after some generations wingless and perhaps all female (for the female aphis produces for several generations without impregnation), a winged generation © brought forth of both sexes. These may then fly to other spots, am deposit eggs for a further propagation of their race. ca te The galls are collected when their green colour is changing ” _ yellow ; they are then scalded,! __ Description—The galls are light and hollow, varying 12 Jeng? : from 1 to 24 inches, and of extremely diverse and irregular form. simplest are somewhat egg-shaped, the smaller end being attached © the leafstalk ; but the form is rarely so regular, and more. ones tu- body of the gall is distorted by numerous knobby or horn-like pre in berances or branches ; or the gall consists of several lobes uniting e their lower part and gradually attenuated to the point by whic ' excrescence is attached to the leaf.’ But though the form 18 thus No able, the structure of these bodies is very characteristic. They : striated towards the base, and completely covered on other parts ers a thick, velvety, grey down, which rubbed off on the prominenc® . 18 plays the reddish-brown colour of the shell itself, The latter * Mém. de 0 Académie royale des Sciences 5 We have once met with galls impor Paris, 1724. 324.Also Du Halde, Descrip- from Stisnghal which differed aes tion de ? Empire de la Chine, iii. (La Haye Chinese galls in not being hor n the 615—625. “Des Ou Poey tee. » bat a of an elongated ovat ae having e author quotes numerous medicinal pointed at the upper ends They may applications for these galls, moreover a strong cheesy HS cmosum S. 5 Pharm, Journ vii. (1848) 310, be derived from Distylium rem, scoot lx. 1) 128, et Z., though they do not aped forms * Stanisl. Julien et P. Champi i ed So = ° pion, Jndus- with the depressed peat «ni (Flore — 7 et modernes de V Empire "chinois, figured by Stebold and Zu ( Rear Japonica, tab. 94). GALLE CHINENSES SEU JAPONICA. 169 3; to 35 of an inch in thickness, translucent and horny, but brittle with a smooth and shining fracture. It is rather smoother on the inner sur- face and of lighter colour than on the outer. The galls when broken are generally found to contain a white, downy-looking substance, together with the minute, dried-up bodies of the killed insect.’ The drug as imported from Japan is usually a little smaller and paler; it mostly fetches a better price in the market. Microscopic Structure—The tissue of the galls is made up of thin- walled, large cells irregularly traversed by small vascular bundles and laticiferous vessels. The latter are mostly not branched. The paren- chyme is loaded with lumps of tannic matter and starch, the latter having mostly lost by the treatment with boiling water its granular appearance. The epidermis of the galls is covered with little tapering hairs, consist- ing each of 1-5 cells, to which is due the velvety down of the drug. Chemical Composition—Chinese or Japanese galls contain about 70 per cent. of a tannic acid, which has been first shown by Stein in — 1849 to be identical with that derived from oak galls (see Galle hale- penses), the so-called gallotannic or common tannic acid.’ It is remark- able that this substance, which is by no means widely distributed, is also present in Rhus coriaria, a species indigenous in the Mediterranean region. Its leaves and shoots are the well-known dyeing and tanning material Swmach, ot Stein, however, pointed out at the same time, that in Chinese ga gallotannie acid is accompanied by a small amount, about 4 per cent., of a different tannic matter. Commerce—At present the supplies arrive chiefly from Hankow, from which great trading city the export, in 1872, was no less than 30,949 peculs, equal to 36,844 ewt.; 21,611 peculs, value 136,214 taels (one tael about 6s.) in 1874. In 1877 all China exported not more than 17,515 peculs, A little is also shipped from Canton and Ningpo.” The quantity imported from China into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 8621 ewts., valued at £20,098. In the China trade returns, the drug is always miscalled “ Nut galls,” or “ gallnuts.” Only those called “ Wu- - Pel-tze” are the galls under examination. There are also oak-galls €xported from China resembling those from Western Asia. Japanese Sauls, “Kifushi,” are shipped in increasing quantities at Hiogo.* th Uses—The galls under notice are employed, chiefly in Germany, for ® manufacture of tannic acid, gallic acid, and pyrogallol. ‘See also Schenk, in Buchner’s Reperto- Royal Society, xi. (1862) 402 rium fiir Pharm. v. (1850) 26-27 h 3 Trade at th Treaty Ports of re or short Returns of Trade at the y act of that i ‘ i hina, for 1872. 154; for 1874. ; of Wigge 18 pipe in the Jahresbericht Cc. eo Ho : ; ar at Sse ee also Stenhouse, Proceedings of the wniverselle (Paris, 1878) 116, 146. pa - LEGUMINOSA. LEGUMINOS/. HERBA SCOPARII. Cacumina vel Summitates Scoparti ; Broom Tops ; F. Genét a balais; G. Besenginster, Pfriemenkraut. Botanical Origin—Cytisus Scoparius Link (Spartiwm Scopariwm L., Sarothamnus vulgaris Wimmer), the Common Broom, a woody shrub, 3 to 6 feet high, grows gregariously in sandy thickets and un- cultivated places throughout Great Britain, and Western and temperate Northern Europe. In continental Europe it is plentiful in the valley of the Rhine up to the Swiss frontier, in Southern Germany and in Silesia, but does not ascend the Alps, and is absent from many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, Polonia for instance. According to Ledebour, it 1s found in Central and Southern Russia and on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains. In Southern Europe its place is supplied by other species. Far History—From the fact that this plant is chiefly a native of Western, Northern and Central Europe, it is improbable that the classical authors were acquainted with it; and for the same reason the remarks of the early Italian writers may not always apply to the Species under notice. With this reservation, we may state that broom under the name Genista, Genesta, or Genestra is mentioned in the earliest printed herbals, as that of Passau,’ 1485, the Hortus Sanitats, 1491, the Great Herbal printed at Southwark in 1526, and others. It is likewise the Genista as figured and described by the German botanists and pharmacologists of the 16th century, like Brunfels, Fuchs, Tragus, Valerius Cordus (“Genista angulosa”) and others. Broom was used in ancient Anglo-Saxon medicine* as well as in the Wigs! Meddygon Myddvai.” It hada place in the London Pharmacopela © 1618, and has been included in nearly every subsequent edition. leronymus Brunschwyg gives® directions for distilling a water from the flowers, “ flores geneste”—a medicine which Gerarde relates bee ne by King Henry VIII, « against surfets and diseases there? g. Broom was the emblem of those of the Norman sovereigns of England descended from Geoffry the “Handsome,” or “ P. lantagentt count of Anjou (obitt A.D. 11 50), who was in the habit of wearing the common broom of his country, the “planta genista,” in his helmet. _ Description—The Common Broom has numerous straight ascending ‘wiry branches, sharply 5-angled and devoid of spines. The er 2 which the largest are barely an inch long, consist of 3 obovate leatle on a petiole of their own length. Towards the extremities of the pit ; e leaves are much scattered and generally reduced to a single ries eaflet, nearly Sessile. The leaves when young are clothed on both s with long reddish hairs; these under the microscope are seen eac 1 . is ag , 2 Coparius, Patavie £386. 8 De arte distillandi, first edition 1500 316, TE NG Mie, iii: (1866) Argentorati, cap. xv. HERBA SCOPARII. AGL consist of a simple cylindrical thin-walled cell, the surface of which is beset with numerous extremely small protuberances. The large, bright yellow, odorous flowers, which become brown in drying, are mostly solitary in the axils of the leaves; they have a persistent campanulate calyx divided into two lips minutely toothed, and a long subulate style, curved round on itself. The legume is oblong compressed, 14 to 2 inches long by about $ an inch wide, fringed with hairs along the edge. It contains 10 to 12 olive-coloured albuminous seeds, the funicle of which is expanded into a large fleshy strophiole. They have a bitterish taste, and are devoid of starch. The portion of the plant used in pharmacy is the younger herbaceous branches, which are required both fresh and dried. In the former state they emit when bruised a peculiar odour which is lost in drying. They have a nauseous bitter taste. Chemical Composition—Stenhouse’ discovered in broom tops two interesting principles, Scoparin, C'H*O”, an indifferent or some- what acid body, and the alkaloid Sparteine, C°H™N’, the first soluble in water or spirit and crystallizing in yellowish tufts, the second a colourless oily liquid heavier than water and sparingly soluble in it, boiling at 288° ©. . To obtain scoparin, a watery decoction of the plant is concentrated 80 as to form a jelly after standing for a day or two. This is then washed with a small quantity of cold water, dissolved in hot water and again allowed to repose. By repeating this treatment with the addition of a little hydrochloric acid, the chlorophyll may at length be separated and the scoparin obtained as a gelatinous mass, which dries as an amorphous, brittle, pale yellow, neutral substance, devoid of taste smell. Its solution in hot alcohol deposits it partly in crystals and partly as jelly, which after drying are alike in composition. Hlasiwetz showed (1866) that scoparin when melted with potash is resolved, like rc, re greotin, into Phloroglucin, C°H‘'O’, and Protocatechwic Acid, The acid mother-liquors from, which scoparin has been obtained when concentrated and distilled with soda, yield besides ammonia a very bitter oily liquid, Sparteine. To obtain it pure, it requires to be repeatedly rectified, dried by chloride of calcium, and distilled in a “urrent of dry carbonic acid. It is colourless, but becomes brown by ‘ vot find . Mig ieee to the Pharmacopeia of named gentleman rent thé root, even India, Madras, 1869. 16.—'The author has _— any liquorice property 1» sn the gree? kindly sent us specimens of the root. We fresh, but it is very stroné are also indebted for authentic samples to _ leaves.” Mr. Thwaites of the Royal Botanical Gar- RADIX ABRI. 189 not always well marked. As it is often mixed in the Indian bazaars with true liquorice, he thinks the latter may have sometimes been mistaken for it. Microscopic Structure—On a transverse section the bark ex- hibits some layers of cork cells, loaded with brown colouring matter, and then, within the middle zone of the bark, a comparatively thick layer of sclerenchymatous tissue. Strong liber fibres are scattered through the interior of the cortical tissue, but are not distributed so as to form wedge-shaped rays as met with in liquorice. In the latter the sclerenchyme (thick-walled cells) is wanting. These differences are sufficient to distinguish the two roots. Chemical Composition—The concentrated aqueous infusion of the _ root of Abrus has a dark brown colour and a somewhat acrid taste accompanied by a faint sweetness. When it is mixed with an alkaline solution of tartrate of copper, red cuprous oxide is deposited.after a short time: hence we may infer that the root contains sugar One drop of hydrochloric or other mineral acid mixed with the infusion produces avery abundant flocculent precipitate, which is soluble in alcohol. If | the infusion of Abrus root is mixed with a very little acetic acid, an abundant precipitate is likewise obtained, but is dissolved by an excess. — a This behaviour is similar to that of glyeyrrhizin (see p. 181). : Berzelius observed, so long ago as 1827, that the leaves of Abrus ‘ontain a sweet principle similar to that of liquorice. - a .. ,Uses—The root has been used in the place of liquorice, for which it is in our opinion a very bad substitute. SETA MUCUN&. Dolichi pubes vel sete ; Cowhage, Cow-itch* ; F. Pois a gratter, Powis pouillieux ; G. Juckborsten. Pe Botanical Origin—Mucuna pruriens DC. (Dolichos pruriens L, 1120lobiwm, pruriens Pers., Mucuna prurita Hook.), a lofty climbing Plant? with large, dark purple papilionaceous flowers, and downy throughout the tropical regions of both Africa, India and America. P History—The earliest notice we have found of this plant is that of « ikinson, who in his Theater of Plants, published in 1640, names 1t [ haseolus siliqud hirsutd, the Hairy Kidney-Beane called in Zurrate t] where it groweth, Couhage.” It was subsequently described by Y (1686), who saw the plant raised from West Indian seeds, in the Taen of the Hatton family in Holborn® Rheede figured it in the ge Malabaricus, and it was also known to Rumphius and the er older botanists, We find it even in the pharmaceutical tariff of € county of Niirnberg, a.p. 17143 1 ¥ These names and 8 Hist. Plant. i. 887. ry the following are also i fe Fs — to the entire pods, or ne to the 4Tom. viii. (1700) tab. 35, sub nom. 2B Nai Corana. 3 oes = ichte der Play,’ Bentley and Tri ae 5 Fliickiger, Documente zur Geschic > Part 13 (1876), aoeeee ” harmacie, Halle, 1876. 84. ; joumes in size and shape not unlike those of a sweet pea, common =~ _ Muewna is the Brazilian name of another species mentioned in 1648 4 Syrup or honey in the form of an electuar o- - . LEGUMINOS&. The employment of cowhage as a vermifuge originated in the West Indies, and is quite unknown in the East. In England the drag began to attract attention in the latter part of the last century, when it was strongly recommended by Bancroft in his Natural History of Guiana (1769), and by Chamberlaine, a surgeon of London, who published an essay ‘ descriptive of its effects which went through many editions, It was introduced into the Edinburgh Pharmacopoeia of 1788, and into the London Pharmacopceia of 1809.- At the present day it has been almost discarded from European medicine, but has been allowed a place in the Pharmacopoeia of India (1868). __ The name Cowhage is Hindustani, and in the modern way is written Kiwdnch, which is generally derived from the Sanskrit Kapi-Kachchu, monkey's itch (Dr. Rice); the corruption into Cow-itch is absurd. by Marceraf? _, Description—The pods are 2 to 4 inches long, about 345 of an inch ~ Wide, and contain 4 to 6 seeds; they are slightly compressed and of Bas dark blackish brown. Each valve is furnished with a prominent ridge running from the apex nearly to the base, and is densely covered with rigid, pointed, brown hairs, measuring about 51, of an inch in length. The hairs are perfectly straight and easily detached from the valves, out of the epidermis of which they rise. ‘Tf incautiously touched, they _ enter the skin and occasion an intolerable itching. Microscopic Structure—Under the microscope the hairs are see! to consist of a single, sharply pointed, conical cell, about 35 of an ow in diameter at the base, with uniform brownish walls 5 mkn. thick, _ which towards the apex are slightly barbed. Occasionally a hair shows one or two transverse walls. Most of the hairs contain only air ; others show a little granular matter which acquires a greenish hue on addition of alcoholic solution of perchloride of iron. If moistened with wa acid, no structural peculiarity is revealed that calls for remark. i walls however are somewhat separated into indistinct layers, the Phe ‘Sence of which is confirmed by the refractive power displayed by hairs in polarized light. _ Chemical Composition—The hairs when treated with pee acid and iodine assume a dark brown colour. Boiling solution © Petey does not considerably swell or alter them. They are comple’. decolorized by concentrated nitric acid, testinal Uses—Cowhage is administered for the expulsion of in hich i worms, especially Ascaris lumbricoides and A. vermicularis, W wi elects by reason of its mechanical structure. It is given mixed WY : : 8 © root and seeds are reputed medicinal by the natives of $0 part of India. The pods when young and tender may be cook eaten, Z 1 On the e See ae ; hage, Lend oie. oe or Cow- 2 Hist, Nat. Brasil. 18 SEMEN PHYSOSTIGMATIS. _ | 191, SEMEN PHYSOSTIGMATIS. Faba Calabarica, Faba Physostigmatis ; Calabar Bean, Ordeal Bean — of Old Calabar, Eseré Nut, Chop-nut; F. Feve de Calabar; G. - . Calabarbohne. Botanical Origin—Physostigma venenosum Balfour, a perennial plant resembling the common Scarlet Runner (Phaseolus nultiflorus Lam.) of our gardens, but having a woody stem often an inch or two thick, climbing to a height of 50 feet or more. It grows near ents of the Niger and the Old Calabar River in the Gulf of uinea, The imported seeds germinate freely, but the plant, though it thrives vigorously in a hothouse, has not yet, we believe, flowered in Europe. It has already been introduced into India and Brazil. In the latter country Dr. Peckolt, late of Cantagallo, has raised plants which have blossomed abundantly, producing racemes of about 30 The flower, which is fully an inch across and of a purplish colour, — has the form of Phaseolus, but is distinguished from that genus by two special characters, namely that it has the style developed beyond — half surrounded by a deeply grooved hilum. History—The pagan tribes of Tropical Western Africa compel per- Sons accused of witchcraft to undergo the ordeal of swallowing some Vegetable poison. One of the substances employed in this horrid custom is the seed under notice, which is administered in substance or in the form of emulsion, or even as a clyster. It was first made known | in England by Dr. W. F. Daniell about the year 1840, and subsequently alluded to in ‘a paper read by him before the Ethnological Society in 18462 The highly poisonous effects of the bean were observed in ministered it to frogs. Uropeans. It was moreover customary in Old Calabar to destroy the plant, whenever found, a few only being reserved to supply seeds for judicial purposes, and of these seeds the store was kept in the custody of the native chief, In 1859, the Rev. W. C. Thomson, a missionary - the West Coast of Africa, forwarded the plant to Professor Balfour ® Edinburgh, who figured and described it as a type of a new genus. _ Fraser of Edinburgh (about 1863 or earlier) discovered the specific Power of the seed in contracting the pupil, when the aleoholic extract is “plied to the eye. These myotic effects, counteracting those of atropine 1 Th . b nme of the enus, fr joa, a 3 Edinb. Journ. of Medical Science, XX. : i » Was formed ‘edie is natin thas (1855) 193; Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 470. faok Phe dage is hollow, which is not the 4 Trans. Roy. Soc. of Edinb. xxii. (1861) from Ap l@tns cylindrosperma Welwitsch, Nes | gola, Holmes 2 Ed } '’ 1s Prara Je (1879) 913. and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 6 (1876). » New Phil. J. x1. (1846) 313. flowers each, pendent from the axils of the ternate leaves. ise | : the stigma backwards as a broad, flat, hooked appendage,’ and the seeds _ a8 | 1855 by Christison® in his own person, and in 1858 by Sharpey, who oe fore the seed became an object of commerce, it was regarded by ee a € natives with some mystery and was reluctantly parted with to 305. t. 16-17 ; see also Baillon, //ist. da i é probably the same plant. Plantes, ii. 206. figg. 153-155, and Bentley eae ae LEGUMINOS. and hyoscyamine, were further examined by many other experimenters on mammals or birds. The action of the poison when taken internally was found rapidly to affect the cardiac contractions and finally to paralyze the heart. Description—-The fruit of Physostigma is a dehiscent, oblong legume about 7 inches in length, containing 2 or 3 seeds. The latter, commonly known as Culabur Beans, are 1 to 12 inches long, about § of an inch broad, and 4 to $ of an inch in thickness, weighing on an average twenty seeds, 67 grains each. : They have an oblong, subreniform outline, one side being straight or but slightly incurved, the other boldly arched. The latter is marked by a broad furrow, } of an inch wide, bordered with raised edges, and running from the micropyle, which is a small funnel-shaped depression, quite round the opposite end of the seed. In the middle of this remarkable furrow the raphe is seen as a long raised suture running from end to end. The surface of the seed is somewhat rough, but has a dull polish ; it is of a deep chocolate brown, passing into lighter tint on the ridges bordering the furrow. The latter is black, dull, and finely rugose. When the seed is broken the cotyledons are found adherent to the testa, with a large cavity between them. The air thus included causes the seeds to float on water, but they sink immediately when broken. After digestion for some hours in warm water, the tests having been previously cracked, the whole seed softens and swells 9 that its structure may be easily studied. Each cotyledon is then ae to be marked on the hilum -side by a long ‘shallow furrow, ® one end of which, just below the micropyle, lies the plumule an radicle. A dark brown inner membrane, constituting part of the testa, surrounds the cotyledons. ; The seeds have searcely any taste, or not more than an on! bean; nor in the dry state have they any odour. After being bor! z or when their alcoholic tincture is evaporated, an odour suggesting cantharides is developed. Microscopic Structure—The cotyledons are built up of large globular or ovoid cells, those of the outermost layer being smaller re of rather cubic form. This parenchyme is loaded with starch spa frequently as much as 50 mkm. in diameter, Their interior pee in distinctly stratified than the outer; the hollow centre radiates Various directions around the axis of the ovate granule. ules, light does not show a cross as in other more globular starch en. the but two elliptic curves approaching one another near the axis © granule. Similar starch granules are commonly met with in as of Leguminose. ail __Im the Calabar seeds the starch js accompanied by numer tion _ ticles of albuminous matter becoming distinctly perceptible ye z of lodine, which imparts to them an orange colouration. the shell of the seed is built up of four different layers; vailing layer consists of very long, simply cylindrical cells, packed so 28 to form only one radial row. ‘Tison’ has ent to ascertain in what region of the seed the active Puy * Histoire de la Feve de Calabar, Paris, 1873. 38. the pre densely our ciple SEMEN PHYSOSTIGMATIS. 193 is lodged; and he has arrived at the conclusion that its seat is the granular protoplasmic particles, which alone acquire an orange tint by the action of weak caustic alkalis. Chemical Composition—Jobst and Hesse’ proved in 1863 that the poisonous nature of Calabar bean depends upon an alkaloid, to which they gave the name Physostigmine. It is obtained by the method generally adopted for extracting analogous substances, that is, by preci- pitating one of its salts from an aqueous solution by bicarbonate of sodium, and dissolving out the base with ether or benzol. As extracted by these chemists, physostigmine is an amorphous mass of decidedly alkaline reaction, soluble in much water and in acids. On exposure to the air the solution soon becomes red, or sometimes intensely blue, a partial decomposition of the alkaloid taking place. The red coloration may even be observed in the aqueous infusion of a few cotyledons. It disappears by sulphuretted hydrogen or sulphurous acid, but returns if these reducing agents are allowed to evaporate. Hesse ® ascertained (1867) that physostigmine consists of CH" N*O*; he now obtained it perfectly colourless and tasteless, softening at 40°C., fusing at 45°, but not supporting a heat of 100° C., without decomposition, which is manifested by a red coloration. _ In 1865 Vée and Leven,* by treating the powdered unpeeled seed mnearly the same way, prepared an alkaloid which they called Eserine. It differs from Hesse’s physostigmine in that it forms colourless, rhom- boidal,, tabular crystals of a bitter taste, melting at 90°C. It dissolves easily in ether, alcohol, or chloroform, but very sparingly in water. The t named solution is alkaline, and reddens by exposure to the air. It is assumed by some writers, as Tison,’ that eserine is only the Levis form of physostigmine ; but at present we feel hardly warranted in admitting the identity of the two substances. ack and Witkowski in 1876 ascertained the presence of another alkaloid in the seed, which they called Calabarine. It is nearly insoluble in ether and also very different from physostigmine in its Physiological action, but somewhat similar to strychnine. Calabarine 'S consequently not to be found in those preparations of calabar bean which have been obtained or purified by means of ether. ; Hesse (1878) exhausted the cotyledons of Physostigma with petro- - ~ 195 from the river Gambia in West Africa as a rare sort of Dragon’s Blood, and was described by him in 1757 under the name of Gummi rubrum astringens Gambiense. It had been noticed at least twenty years before ~ as a production of the Gambia, by Moore, factor to the Royal African Company, who says that the tree yielding it is called in the Mandingo language Kano.? Specimens of this tree were sent to England in 1805 by the celebrated traveller Mungo Park, and recognized some years later as identical with the Pterocarpus erinaceus of Poiret. It seems probable that African kino continued to reach England for some years, for we find “Gummi rubrum astringens” regularly valued in the stock of a London druggist® from 1776 to 1792. Dunean in the Edinburgh Dispensatory of 18038, while asserting that no is brought to us from Africa,” admits that some,not distinguishable - from it, is imported from Jamaica. In a later edition of the same work ~ (1811), he says that the African drug is no longer to be met with, and alludes to its place being supplied by other kinds, as that of Jamaica, that imported by the East India Company, and that of New South Wales derived from Eucalyptus resinifera Sm. It will thus be seen that at the smmencement of the present century several substances, produced in widely distant regions, bore the name of Kino. That however which was principally used in the place of the old African drug, was Hast. Indian Kino, the botanical origin of which was shown by Wight and by Royle* (1844-46) to be Pterocarpus Marswpiwm Roxb.,—a tree which, curiously enough, is closely allied to the kino tree of Tropical Africa. his is the drug which is recognized as legitimate kino in all the principal pharmacopceias of Europe. It appears to have been first pre- pared for the European market in the early part of the present century, ona plantation of the East India Company called Anjarakandy, a few thiles from Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast ; but as we learn from our friend Dr, Cleghorn, it was not grown there but on the ghats a short stance inland. | Extraction—Kino is the juice of the tree, dried without artificial eat.” As it exudes, it has the appearance of red currant jelly, but hardens in a few hours after exposure to the air. In the Government rests of the Malabar Coast whence the supplies are obtained, permis- ‘ion to collect. the drug is granted on payment of a small fee, and on . understanding that the tapping is performed skilfully and without -amage to the timber. The method pursued is this :--A perpendicular enon with lateral ones leading into it, is made in the trunk, at the ‘oot of which is placed a vessel to receive the outflowing juice. This Juice soon thickens, and when sufficiently dried by exposure to the sun “it, 18 packed into wooden boxes for exportation. Description—Malabar kino® consists of dark, blackish-red, angular “ea predicat Observati iries, i 4 Journ. v. (1846) 495. ; a) 358. ~~. 2s sited es caraapaeee 5 heaton Forests and Gardens of South bik Tavels into the Inland Parts of Africa, India, 1861, 13.—Also from information 967, "iS Moore, Lond. 1737, pp. 160.209. communicated by him orally. iy 6 Our sample obtained from P/. Marsu- bard | Gurney Bevan, Plough Court, Lom- pium Roxb. on the Sigtr Ghat, Feb. 1868, as Mitte care drug was priced in 1787. was pany a oe ae by ry ®ost 16s., and i 2, 21s. Melvor of Ootacamund.—We find i Re ee agree with commercial East Indian Kino. 196 LEGUMINOS. fragments rarely larger than a pea, easily splitting into still smaller pieces, which are seen to be perfectly transparent, of a bright garnet hue, and amorphous under the microscope. In cold water they sink, but partially dissolve by agitation,forming a solution of very astringent taste, and a pale flocky residue. The latter is taken up when the liquid is made to boil, and deposited on cooling in a more voluminous form. Kino dissolves almost entirely in spirit of wine (‘838), affording a dark reddish solution, acid to litmus paper, which by long keeping sometimes assumes a gelatinous condition. It is readily soluble in solution of caustic alkali, and to a large extent in a saturated solution of sugar. Chemical Composition—Cold water forms with kino a reddish solution, which is at first not altered if a fragment of ferrous sulphate is added. Buta violet colour is produced as soon as the liquid is cautiously neutralized. This can be done by diluting it with common water (con- taining bicarbonate of calcium) or by adding a drop of solution of acetate of potassium. Yet the fact of kino developing an intense violet colour in presence of a protosalt of iron, may most evidently be shown by shaking it with water, and iron reduced by hydrogen. The filtered liquid is of a brilliant violet, and may be evaporated at 100° without turning green ; the dried residue even again forms a violet solution wit water. By long keeping the violet liquid gelatinizes. It is decolor by acids, and turns red on addition of an alkali, whether caustic or bicarbonated. Catechu, as well as crystallized catechin, show the os behaviour, but these solutions quickly turn green on exposure O air. Solutions of acids, of metallic salts, or of chromates produce copious precipitates in an aqueous solution of kino. Ferric chloride forms @ dirty green precipitate, and is at the same time reduced to a ferrous Dilute mineral acids or alkalis do not occasion any decided change ° colour, but the former give rise to light brownish-red precipitates ° Kino-tannie Acid. By boiling for some time an aqueous solution © kinno-tannic acid, a red precipitate, Kino-red, is separated. j _ Kino in its general behaviour is closely allied to Pegu catechu, a” yields by similar treatment the same products, that is to say, 1b aly” Pyrocatechin when submitted to dry distillation, and Is vrotocatech"? eo with Phloroglucin when melted with caustic § Yet in catechu the tannic acid is accompanied by @ considerall! amount of catechin, which may be removed directly by exhaustion W! ether. Kino, on the other hand, yields to ether only a minute perce of a substance, whose scaly crystals display under the microscope. character of Pyrocatechin, rather than that of eatechin, which crystal? s m prisms. The crystals extracted from kino dissolve freely 2 cold wa’ . which is not the case with catechin, and this solution assumes a 2 green if a very dilute solution of ferric chloride is added, and t as red on addition of an alkali. This is the behaviour of ee bs ee rs Pyrocatechin ; but the difference in solubility “PC than : atechin: the crystals afforded by kino being pyrocatechin rathe f We thought pyrocatechin must also occur in the mother-plant ° BIN, 5 197 kino, but this does not prove to be the case, no indication of its presence being perceptible either in the fresh bark or wood.’ Etti (1878) extracted from kino colourless prisms of Kinoin by boiling the drug with twice its weight of hydrochloric acid, about 1:03 sp. gr. On cooling, kino-red separates, very little of it remaining in solution together with kinoin. The latter is extracted by exhausting the liquid with ether, which by evaporation affords crystals of kinoin. They should be re-crystallized from boiling water; they agree with the formula C'H"O*, which is to be regarded as that of a methylated gallic ether of pyrocatechin, viz., C°H* (OCH?) C’H’0". Kinoin by heating it to 130° C. gives off water and turns red: 9 C*H#=0° —_ OH?! CAH". The latter product is an amorphous mass agreeing with kino-red; by heat- ing it at 160-170° it again loses water, thus affording another anhydride. Etti succeeded in preparing methylie chloride, pyrocatechin C°H(OH)*, as well as gallic acid C7H°O°, by decomposing kinoin. _ We have prepared kinoin from Australian kino (see page 198), but failed in obtaining it from Malabar kino, which however Etti states to ve used. Kino affords about 1} per cent of kinoin. The solutions of kinoin turn red on addition of ferric salts. Commercial kino yielded us 1:3 per cent. of ash. Commerce—The quantity of true kino collected in the Madras forests ig comparatively small, probably not exceeding a ton or two ‘nnually. The drug is often shipped from Cochin. . Uses—Kino is administered as an astringent. It is said to be used In the manufacture of wines, and it might be employed if cheap enough 'n tanning and dyeing. Other sorts of Kino. l. Butea Kino, Butea Gum, Bengal Kino, Palas or Pulas Kino, Gum of the Palas or Dhak Tree. ; bee cee JS, a2 exudation from Butea frondosa Roxb. (Leguminosae), a ‘ee of India and Burma, well known under the name of Palas or Dhak, =~ Conspicuous for its splendid, large, orange, papilionaceous flowers.” rding to Roxburgh it flows during the hot season from natural — ures or from wounds made in the bark, as a red juice which soon ardens into a ruby-coloured, brittle, astringent gum. : \ h Authentic specimens of this kino have been placed at our disposa y Mr. Moodeen Sheriff of Madras and by Dr. J. Newton. of Bellary. f at received from the first-named gentleman consists of flattish, angular of eens (the largest about } an inch across) and small drops or tears to ) very dark, ruby-coloured gum, which when held to the light is “pee be Perfectly transparent. The flat pieces have been mostly dried on “aves, an impression of the veins of which they retain on one side, tee —- i tests which he found nec, thank Mr. h ti ocatechin by the tests w b ‘te eanchona WiasGAdtia, Grama, tp sundae it easily evident in dry kino. * ores this point. In the bark 2 See Nees von Esenbeck, Plante medi- Utterly fai ed with fresh liquid kino, he _cinales, Diisseldorf, iii. (1833) tab. 79. ¥ failed to obtain any indication of 198 LEGUMINOS&. — while the other is smooth and shining. The substance has a pure astringent taste, but no odour. It yielded us 1°8 per cent. of ash and contained 13°5 per cent. of water. Ether removes from it a small quantity of pyrocatechin. Boiling alcohol dissolves this kino to the extent of 46 per cent.; the solution which is but little coloured, pro- duces an abundant greyish-green precipitate with perchloride of iron, and a white one with acetate of lead. It may be hence inferred thata tannic acid, probably kino-tannic acid, constitutes about half the weight of the drug, the remainder of which is formed of a soluble mucilaginous substance which we have not isolated in a state of purity. By submit- ting the Butea kino of Mr. Moodeen Sheriff to dry distillation we obtained pyrocatechin. The sample from Dr. Newton is wholly in transparent drops and stalactitic pieces, considerably paler than that just described, but of the same beautiful ruby tint. The fragments dissolve freely and almost completely in cold water, the solution being neutral and exhibiting the same reactions as the former sample. Pe Butea kino, which in India is used in the place of Malabar kino, was long confounded with the latter by European pharmacologists, though : the Indian names of the two substances are quite different. Its ame obtained exclusively from B. frondosa, the allied B. superba. Roxb. — and B. parviflora Roxb. affording a similar exudation. 2. African or Gambia Kino—Of this substance we have a specimen collected by Daniell’ in the very locality whence it was obtained 2 Moore in 1733 (see p. 195), and by Park at the commencement of t 8 present century. The tree yielding it, which still bears the Manding name Kano, and grows to a height of 40 to 50 feet, is Pioronne ervnaceus Poiret, a native of Tropical Western Africa from Sen to Angola. The juices exude naturally from crevices in the bene much more plentifully by incisions ; it soon coagulates, becoming a blood-red and remarkably brittle. That in our possession is 0 us small, shining, angular fragments, which in a_ proper light ain transparent and of a deep ruby colour. In solubility and ere characters, we can trace no difference between it and the kino oO allied Pt, Marsupium Roxb. This kino does not now find its Wel England as a regular article of trade. From the statement 0 the witsch, it appears that the Portuguese of Angola employ it pes name of Sangue de Drago? 3. Australian, Botany Bay, or Eucalyptus Kino.—For some Y i past, the London. drug? ae has Beep abe with co nsiderable quantities of kino fromj Australia; in fact at one period this kino _ the only sort to be purchased. aot ok As it is the produce of numerous species of Eucalyplvys, i * rhe Surprising that it presents considerable diversity of appearance: dark tter qualities closely agree with Pterocarpus kino. They are 3» D reddish brown masses or grains, which when in thin fragments 2° to be transparent, of a garnet red hue and quite amorphous. stance is mostly collected by the sawyers and wood-splitters. found within the trunks of trees of all sizes, in flattened See: as Angola " See his paper On the Kino T'ree of West 2 Madeiras e Drogas medicinacsdt Africa, Pharm. Journ, xiv. (1855) 55. Lisboa, 1862, 37. LIGNUM PTEROCARPI # ~ 199 the otherwise solid wood which are often parallel to the annual rings. In such place the kino, which is at first a viscid liquid, becomes inspis- sated and subsequently hard and brittle. It may also be obtained in a liquid state by incisions in the stems of growing trees: such liquid kino has eccasionally been brought into the London market; it is a viscid treacle-like fluid, yielding by evaporation about 35 per cent. of solid kino.’ Authentic specimens of the kino of 16 species of Hucalyptus sent from Australia by F. von Miiller, have been examined by Wiesner of Vienna. He found the drug to be in most cases readily soluble in water or in spirit of wine, the solution being of a very astringent taste. The solution gave with sulphuric acid a pale red, flocculent precipitate of Kino-tannic Acid ; with perchloride of iron (as in common kino) a dusky greenish precipitate,—except in the case of the kino of E. obliqua zim (Stringy-bark Tree), the solution of which was coloured dark viole Wiesner further states, that Eucalyptus kino affords a little Catechin® and Pyrocatechin. It contains no pectinous matter, but i some varieties a gum like that of Acacia. In one sort, the kino of Z. gigantea, Hook.,* gum is so abundant that the drug is nearly insoluble in spirit of wine. By Etti’s process, as given at page 197, we obtained kinoin from an Australian Kino, which contained numerous fragments of the wood. e noticed that both Australian and Malabar kino emitted a some- me balsamic odour, when they were treated with hydrochloric id. From this examination, it is evident that the better varieties of Euca- lyptus kino, such for instance as those derived from £. rostrata Schlecht. (Red or White Gum, or Flooded Gum of the colonists), E. corymbosa Sm. (Blood-wood) and E. citriodora Hook., possess the pro- Perties of Pterocarpus kino and might with no disadvantage be substi- tuted for it, LIGNUM PTEROCARPI. Lignum Santalinum rubrum, Santalum rubrum; Red Sanders Wood, Ruby Wood; F. Bois de Santal rouge; G. Rothes Sandel- holz, Caliaturholz. t Botanical Origin—Pterocarpus santalinus Linn, fil—A small ree not often exceeding 3} to 4 feet in girth, and 20 to 25 feet in height; it is closely related to Pt. Marswpiwm Roxb., from which it differs ‘ lefly in having broader leaflets always in threes. It is a native of © southern part of the Indian Peninsula, as Canara, Mysore, Travan- Core and the Coromandel Coast, but also occurs in Mindanao, 1n_ the Southern Philippines. In India the districts in which the wood is at Present chiefly obtained are the forests of the southern portion of the . i ; eee ee pr ais Hxhibition,1861.—Jurom’ Re- {Tour opinion this in doubt, i. 2 » OD. n age " oa 4 sterreich. Apotheker- L’Hér (Flor. Austr. iii. 204), Aug. 5, 197), i sn 497; Pharm. Journ, Fd 200 LEGUMINOSA, — Kurnool Hills, Cuddapah and North Arcot (W. and N.W. of Madras), The tree is now being raised in regular plantations.’ | The wood is a staple article of produce, and the felling of the trees is strictly controlled by the forest inspectors. The fine trunk-wood is highly valued by the natives for pillars in their temples and other buildings, as well as for turnery. The stumps and roots are exported to Europe as a dye-stuff, mostly from Madras. History—lIt is difficult to tell whether the appellation Red Sandal- wood used in connexion with Yellow and White Sandal-wood by some of the earlier writers on drugs, was intended to indicate the inodorous dye- wood under notice or the aromatic wood of a species of Santalum. Yet when Marco Polo? alludes to the sandal-wood imported into China, and to the red sandal (“Cendal vermeil”) which grows in the island of Necuveran (Nicobar), it is impossible to doubt that he intended by this latter name some such substance as that under notice. Garcia de Orta, who wrote at Goa in the middle of the 16th century, clearly distinguished the fragrant sandal of Timor from the red inodorous wood of Tenasserim and the Coromandel Coast. It is remarkable that the wood of Pt. santalinus is distinguished to the present day in all the languages of India by names signifying red-colowred sandal-wood, though it has none whatever of the peculiarities of the odorous wood 0 Santalum. Red Sanders Wood was formerly supposed to possess medi- cinal powers: these are now disregarded, and it 1s retained in use only as a colouring agent. : | During the middle ages, it was used as well as alkanet for culinary purposes, such as the colouring of sauces and other articles of f 5 The price in England between 1326 and 1399 was very variable, bu on an average exceeded 83s. per lb. Many entries for the purchase f Red Sanders along with spices and groceries, occur in the accounts 0 the Monastery of Durham, a.p. 1530-34! that Description—The wood found in English commerce is mostly : of the lower parts of the stem and that of the thickest roots the appears in the market in ponderous, irregular logs, rarely exceot in thickness of a man’s thigh and commonly much smaller, 3, 40rd ee length; they are without bark or sapwood, and are externally as in colour. The internal wood is of a deep, rich, blood-red, exhibing transverse section zones of a lighter tint, and taking a fine wipe into At the present day, druggists generally buy the wood rasp early small chips, which are of a deep reddish brown hue, tasteless and 2 without odour. Microscopic Structure—The wood is built up for the greater Pe of long pointed cells, having thick walls (libriform). Throug ligneous tissue, there are scattered small groups of very large ¥' Jess In a direction parallel to the circumference of the stem, there at 1 nd Prices of Poitomel, Report of the Conservator 3 Rogers, Agriculture and &e.— he m” for 1869-70, Madras, 1870. England, 1866, i. 631, ii. 54% “same = bata for figure of the tree, see Flava pa 2 Aen %e a sheep during the ei ica of Southern India of the same peridd was about ls. 6d. P rtees 80°: es Pa es ; 4 Durham Household Book, OORT ind. Pt. indicus Willd de Mareo Polo, 580 1844. 215; also Pegge, Form of Andaman Islands. grows in the adjacent 1780. p.<; “LIGNUM PTEROCARPL | 201 coloured small parenchymatous layers, running from one vascular bundletoanother. The whole tissue is finally traversed by very narrow medullary rays, which are scarcely perceptible to the unaided eye. The parenchymatous cells are each loaded with one crystal of oxalate of _ calcium, which are so large that, in a piece of the wood broken longi- tudinally, they may be distinguished without a lens. The colouring matter is contained especially in the walls of the vessels and the ligneous cells. Chemical Composition—Cold water or fatty oil (almond or olive) abstracts scarcely anything from the wood, and hot water but very little, On the other hand, ether, spirit of wine, alkaline solutions, or concentrated acetic acid, readily dissolves out the colouring matter. Essential oils of bitter almond or clove take up a good deal of the red substance; that of turpentine none at all. This resinoid substance, termed Santalic Acid or Santalin,' is said to form microscopic pris- inatic crystals of a fine ruby colour, devoid of odour and taste, fusing at 104°C, insoluble in water but neutralizing alkalis and forming with them uncrystallizable salts. ‘ ; Weidel (1870) exhausted the wood with boiling water, containing @ little potash, and obtained by means of hydrochloric acid a red preci- pitate, which was redissolved in boiling alcohol and then furnished colowrless crystals of Santal, C°H°O*®. They are devoid of odour or taste, not soluble in water, benzol, chloroform, bisulphide of carbon, and but sparingly in ether. Santal yields with potash a faintly yellow solution which soon turns red and green. The wood afforded Weidel not more than 3 per mille of santal. _ Cazeneuve (1874)? mixed 4 parts of the wood with 1 part of slaked lime, and exhausted the dried powder with ether containing a little alcohol. After the evaporation of the ether, a small amount of colour- less crystals of Pterocarpin was obtained, which were purified by re- crystallization from boiling alcohol. They melt at 83° C., and are abundantly soluble in chloroform, in bisulphide of carbon, very little in cold alcohol, not at all in water. Pterocarpin agrees with the formula C"’H"O°. It yields a red solution with concentrated sulphuric acid, and a green with nitric acid 1'4 sp. gr. By submitting it to destructive distillation pyrocatechin appears to be formed. Franchimont (1879) assigns the formula C"H“0° to another princi- ple of Red Sanders Wood, which he isolated by means of alcohol. It 1s an amorphous substance, melting at 105°. By extracting the wood With a solution of carbonate of sodium, Hagenbach (1872) obtained a a solution. Red Sanders Wood yielded us of ash only 08 T cent. a Commerce—In the official year 1869-70, Red Sanders Wood pro- Uced to the Madras Government a revenue of 26,015 rupees (£2,601). € quantity taken from the forests was reported as 1,161,799 Ib. Gmelin, Chemi i 59; ine. . 1434, and for particulars : formula assigned t renal sciche erg Tea hes pape th Recherche et extraction des alca- re ; the to be doubtful. Weidelin propos- _loides, ete. Paris, 1875. 66. It would — toy 2% formula CHO! points out that — that the author obtained about 4 Pe 28.0 allied to alizarin, C'4H*O*. mille of pterocarpin from the wood. Dictionnaire de Chimie, art. San- 202 | LEGUMINOSA,. Uses—Red Sanders Wood is scarcely employed in pharmacy except for colouring the Compound Tincture of Lavender; but it has numerous uses in the arts. The latter applies also to the wood of Pterocarpus angolensis I)C., which is largely exported from the Frenchr colony of Gaboon ; it is the “Santal rouge d’Afrique of the French,” or Barwood of the English commerce. bie: BALSAMUM TOLUTANUM. Balsam of Tolwu ; F. Bawme de Tolu ; G. Tolubalsam. Botanical Origin—Myroxylon Toluifera H BK. (Toluifera Bal- — samum Miller, Myrospermum tolwiferwm A. Rich.), an elegant and lofty evergreen tree with a straight stem, often as much as 40 to 60 feet from the ground to the first branch. It is a native of Venezuela and New Granada,—probably also of Ecuador and Brazil. History—The first published account of Balsam of Tolu, is that of the Spanish physician Monardes, who in his treatise on the productions of the West Indies, which in its complete form first appeared at Seville in 1574,’ relates how the early explorers of South America observed that the Indians collected this drug by making incisions in the trunk of the tree. Below the incisions they affixed shells of a peculiar black wax to receive the balsam, which being collected in a district near Car- tagena called Yolu, took its name from that place. He adds that it is much esteemed both by Indians and Spaniards, that the latter buy it at a high price, and that they have lately brought it to Spain, where it is considered to be as good as the famous Balsam of Mecca. Francisco Hernandez, who lived in 1561-1577 in Mexico, stated that the balsam of the province of Tolu was thought to be quite as useful as, if not superior to, “balsamum indicum,” 7.e. peruvianum. ne A specimen agreeing with this description was given to Clusius” ™ _ 1581 by Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth, but the drug ap certainly not common till a much later period. In the price-list ° drugs of the city of Frankfort of 1669, Balsamus tolutanwm (sie) 18 expressly mentioned,’ but there can be but little doubt that Bal- samum Americanwm resinoswm® or siccum or durum as occurring 1 many other tariffs of the 17th century, printed in Germany, was f the balsam under notice ;7 in a similar list emanating from the city Basle in 1646,° we noticed B. indicum album, B. peruvianum = ‘Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. 4 Eeoticor. ete. 1605. lib. x. fol. 305. Plants, part 23 (1877) under the name of 5 a alee Journ. vi. (1876) 102. f the Toluifera Balsamum. Though the change 6 Pharmaceutical tariff (“Taxa”) _ of names may be justified by the strict city of Wittenberg 1632 (in the Hamburé rules of priority, we are of opinion that at library). ichte der present it would be fraught with more of 7 Fliickiger, Documente zur Geschic: a inconvenience than advantage.— Myroxy- Pharmacie, Halle, 1876. 49. 50. as punetatum Klotzsch, a tree stated to Balsamum Peruvianum first occurs 1D ©” Ow nearly all over the northern part of tariff of the city of Worms of uth America, is referred to the same = Documente, p. 39; Pharm. Journ. = the te ie by Bentley and Trimen. 8Contained in the Medicine Tarif, ourstods tate Hn <> varied 8e bg de library of the British Sera clude samo de Tolu, §, cap. del Bal- —pether in one volume ee ): et Basle * Nova Plantarum, animal. et mj Schweinfurt 1614, Bremen 9) > 1665, mexicanorum. Historia, ae te ae 1647, Rostock 1659, C raerae fe a - Rome, 1651. fol. 53. : 4 Frankfort on Main 1669 (quote BALSAMUM TOLUTANUM. | 203 B. sicewm,—the last with the explanatory words, “trocknev Balsam in der Kiirbsen” (i.e. in gourds), meaning probably balsam of Tolu. As to the tree, of which Monardes figured a broken pod, leaflets of it, marked 1758, exist in Sloane’s herbarium. Humboldt and Bonpland saw it in several places in New Granada during their travels (1799- 1804), but succeeded only in gathering a few leaves. Among recent collectors, Warszewicz, Triana, Sutton Hayes, and Seemann were successful only in obtaining leaves. Weir in 1863 was more happy, for by causing a large tree of nearly 2 feet diameter to be felled, he procured good herbarium specimens including pods, but no flowers. Owing to this tree having been much wounded for balsam, its foliage and fruits were singularly small and stunted, and its branches over- grown with lichens. That which botanists had failed to do, has been accomplished by an ornithologist, Mr. Anton Goering, who, travelling in Venezuela to col- lect birds and insects, made it a special object, at the urgent request of one of us (H.), to procure complete specimens of the Balsam of Tolu tree. By dint of much perseverance and by watching for the proper season, Mr. Goering obtained in December 1868 excellent flowering specimens and young fruits, and subsequently mature seeds from which plants have been raised in England, Ceylon and Java. Extraction—The most. authentic information we possess on this subject is derived from Mr. John Weir, plant collector to the Royal _ Horticultural Society of London, who when about to undertake a journey to New Granada in 1863, received instructions to visit the locality producing Balsam of Tolu. After encountering considerable difficulties, Mr. Weir succeeded in observing the manner of collecting the balsam in the forest near Plato, on the right bank of the Mag- dalena. Mr. Weir’s information! may be thus summarized :— : The balsam tree has an average height of 70 feet with a straight trunk, generally rising to a height of 40 feet before it branches. The m is collected by cutting in the bark two deep sloping notches, meeting at. their lower ends in a sharp angle. Below this V-shaped eut, the bark and wood is a little hollowed out, and a calabash of the Size and shape of a deep tea-cup is fixed. This arrangement is repeated, 80 that as many as twenty calabashes may be seen on various parts of the same trunk. When the lower part has been too much wounded to Sive space for any fresh incisions, a rude scaffold is sometimes erected, ie & new series of notches made higher up. The balsam-gatherer goes tom time to time round the trees with a pair of bags of hide, slung over the back of a donkey, and empties into them the contents of the calabashes, In these bags the balsam is sent down to the ports Where it is transferred to the cylindrical tins in which it reaches wrope. The bleeding of the trees goes on for at least eight months of . © year, causing them ultimately to become much exhausted, and thin In foliage, t Tn some districts, as we learn from another traveller, it is customary 9 let the balsam flow down the trunk into a receptacle at its base, omed of the large leaf of a species of Calathea. rom the observations of Mr. Weir, it appears that the balsam tree — ‘Journ. of the R. Hort. Soc., May 1864; Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 60. 204 LEGUMINOSA, is plentifully scattered throughout the Montafia around Plato and other small ports on the right bank of the Magdalena. He states that he saw at least 1,500 tb. of the drug on its way for exportation. From another source, we know that it is largely collected in the valley of the Sinu, and in the forests lying between that river and Cauca. None is collected in Venezuela. Description—Balsam of Tolu freshly imported is a light brown, slow-flowing resin, soft enough to be impressible with the finger, but viscid on the surface.’ By keeping, it gradually hardens so as to be brittle in cold weather, but it is easily softened by the warmth of the hand. Thin layers show it to be quite transparent and of a yellowish brown hue. It has a very agreeable and delicate odour, suggestive of benzoin or vanilla, especially perceptible when the resin is warmed, or when its solution in spirit is allowed to evaporate on paper. Its taste is slightly aromatic with a barely perceptible acidity, though its alcoholic solution decidedly reddens litmus, ___ In very old specimens, such as those which during the last century reached Europe in little calabashes? of the size and shape of an orange, the balsam is brittle and pulverulent, and exhibits when broken a sparkling, erystalline surface. This old balsam is of a fine deep amber tint and superior fragrance. When Balsam of Tolu is pressed between two warmed plates of glass so as to obtain it in a thin even layer, and then examined with a lens, it exhibits an abundance of crystals of cinnamic acid. Balsam of Tolu dissolves easily and completely in glacial acetic acid, acetone, aleohol, chloroform or solution of caustic potash; it is less soluble in ether, scarcely at all in volatile oils, and not in benzol or bisulphide of carbon. The solution in acetone is devoid of rotatory power in polarized light. Chemical Composition—-The balsam consists partly re amorphous resin, not soluble in bisulphide of carbon, which is sup to be the same as the dark resin precipitated by the bisulphide from balsam of Peru, Scharling (1856) assigned the formula CHO" to that part of the balsam which is soluble in potash. ic and If ‘Tolu balsam is boiled with water, it yields to it cinnamic 7 benzoic acid, which we have (1877) perfectly succeeded in separating PY repeated recrystallization from water; we have before us good ead mens of either, showing not only different melting points (133° C. am 121°C), but as to our crystals of benzoic acid, isolated from the aera as stated above, we find that they also do not evolve bitter almond when mixed with sulphuric acid and chromate of potassium. The act May also be removed by boiling bisulphide of carbon. P ic _ Busse ® showed that benzylic ethers of both benzoic and cinnam _ acid are also constituents of the balsam, the cinnamate of benzy 1 being present in larger quantity. of , Upon distilling the balsam with water, it affords 1 per pct bs olene, O"H, boiling at about 170°C. This liquid rapidly ese oxygen from the air, By destructive distillation, the balsam affords tt 3 ” i of Eiri bats it nv ee very fluid into 2 The gourds, ‘‘ Kiirbsen, of the list yay of New York.—Sept. f : ; pi wis.F Ak, se tiie Deutschen Chemischen Ges sellschaft, 1876. 833. FETA re a ere tat le WEA ny PAE a a a BALSAMUM PERUVIANUM. : 205 same substances as those obtainable from balsam of Peru, among which Phenol and Styrol have been observed. Commerce—The balsam is exported from New Granada, packed in cylindrical tins holding about 10 lb. each. The quantity shipped from Santa Marta in 1870 was 2,002 lb.; in 1871, 2,183 lb.; in 1872, 1,206 Ib. In 1876 from the port of Savanilla 27,180 kilogrammes are stated to have been exported. _ Uses—Balsam of Tolu has no important medicinal properties. It is chiefly used as an ingredient in a pleasant-tasting syrup and in lozenges. Adulteration—We have twice met with spurious Balsam of Tolu, but in neither instance did the fraudulent drug bear any great resem- blance to the genuine. Colophony, which might be mixed with the balsam, can be detected by warm bisulphide of carbon which dissolves it, but removes from the pure drug almost exclusively cinnamic and benzoic acid. BALSAMUM PERUVIANUM. Balsam umindicum nigrum ; Balsam of Peru; F. Baume de Pérou, Baume de San Salvador ; G. Perubalsam. Botanical Origin—M. yroxylon Pereire Klotzsch (Myrospermum Pereiree Royle), a tree attaining a height of about 50 feet, and throw- ing out spreading, ascending branches at 6 to 10 feet from the ground.’ It is found in a small district of the State of Salvador in Central America (formerly part of Guatemala), lying between 13°35 and 14°10 | N. lat., and 89° and 89°-40 W. long., and known as the Costa del Balsamo or Balsam Coast. The trees grow naturally in the dense forests; those from which the balsam is obtained are, if in groups, sometimes enclosed, in other cases only marked, but all have their distinct owners. They are occasionally rented for a term of years, or contract is made for — the produce of a certain number. : The principal towns and villages around which balsam is produced, are the following :—Juisnagua, Tepecoyo or Coyo, Tamanique, Chiltiua- , Talnique, Jicalapa, Teotepeque, Comasagua and Jayaque. All the ands on the Balsam Coast are Indian Reservation Lands. The Balsam of Peru tree was introduced in 1861 into Ceylon, where it . . . 4 flourishes with extraordinary vigour. ‘We are n re i M. Pereire is i _hot yet prepared to accept the opimion of Baillon, that Mf. sere s eoneomatd identical sie M. Toluiferd, songs we admit they are very closely related. g to our observations, the two trees exhibit the following differences :— M. Toluifera. M. Pereire. _ wine tall and a branching at 40 Trunk throwing off ascending branches roun, Pooeg from the ground, and forming a at 6 to 10 feet from the ground. 'sh crown of foliage. alyx rather tubular. Calyx widely cup-shaped, shallow. F mes dense, 3 to 44 inches long. Racemes loose, 6 to 7 inches long. Pr ery scarcely narrowed towards the Legume much narrowed towards the en. stalk-end. See also Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, part 10 (1876), Toluifera Pereira. 206 - LEGUMINOSA History—aAs in the case of Balsam of Tolu, it is to Monardes of Seville that we are indebted for the earliest description of the drug under notice. Ina chapter headed Del Balsamo; he states that at the time he wrote (1565) the drug was not new, for that it had been received into medicine immediately after the discovery of New Spain. As the conquest of Guatemala took place about 1524, we may conclude that the balsam was introduced into Europe soon afterwards. Monardes further adds, that the balsam was in such high estimation that it sold for 10 to 20 ducats (£4 10s. to £9) the ounce ; and that when taken to Rome, it fetched even 100 ducats for the same quantity. The inducement of such enormous prices brought plenty of the drug to Europe, and its value, as well as its reputation, was speedily reduced. The description given by Monardes of extracting the balsam by _ boiling the chopped wood of the trunk and branches, raises a doubt as to whether the drug he had in view was exactly that now known ; but he never was in America, and may have been misinformed. Evidence that _ our drug was in use, is afforded by Diego Garcia de Palacio, who, in his capacity of Auditor of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala, wrote an account to Philip IT., king of Spain, describing the geography and pro- _ductions of this portion of his majesty’s dominions. In this interesting document, which bears date 1576 and has only recently been published, Palacio tells the king of the great balsam trees of Guaymoco and of the coasts of Tonala,® and of the Indian method of promoting the exudation of the balsam by scorching the trunk of the tree. Prior to the conquest of the country by the Spaniards and for a short time after, balsam formed part of the tribute paid to the Indian chiefs of Cuscatlan, whom 1t was presented in curiously ornamented earthen jars. The idea of great virtues attaching to the balsam is shown by the fact that, in consequence of representations made by missionary Pt ¢ in Central America, Pope Pius V. granted a faculty to the Bishops ° the Indies, permitting the substitution of the balsam of Guatemala for that of Egypt, in the preparation of the chrism used in the ves Catholic Church. This document, bearing date August 2, 1571, 18 st preserved in the archives of Guatemala. ; f In the 16th century, the balsam tree grew in the warm regions ‘i Panuco and Chiapan in Mexico, whence it was introduced into the famous gardens of Hoaxtepec near the city of Mexico, described PY Cortes in his letter to Charles ¥, in 1552.5 the A rude figure of the tree, certainly a Myroxylon and probably Species under notice, was published in the Thesaurus Rerum Me edvcarwn Nove Hispania of Hernandez,’ who also says that it had been tan eo joned 1 Occurring in the first book of the work Squier, the very same as those mention juoted in the Appendix, which was pub- with admiration by Palacio. =m hes : jginal ~—— Separately at Seville in 1565, 4 It may be found in extenso m ree Squier, Documents and Relations con- Latin in Pharm. Journ. ii. (1861) 1876. 204: pple: 5 the Discovery and Conquest of as in Hanbury’s Science Papers, English merica, New York, 1859. —Frantzits, ®Clavigero, Hist. of Mexico, San Salvador und Honduras i : i. (1787 32. 379. 1576, Botkin, 1875, 8s im Jahre a Pad ed. 1651. fol. The ancient name of the Balsam Coast; book written in the town of Mexico, in the uaymoco 18 a village between Sonsonate the same time also the title given ™ and San Salvador, The pillars of wood of Appendix. Myroxylon in the church are, perhaps, says 51; the gree" = BALSAMUM PERUVIANUM. 207 ferred to the “Hoaxtepecences hortos” of the Mexican kings “ deliti- arum et magnificentize gratia.” ogee’ Balsam of Peru was well known in German pharsacy in the begin- ing of the 17th century (see article Balsamwm Tolutanwm). The exports of Guatemala being shipped chiefly at Acajutla, were formerly carried to Callao, the port of Lima, whence they were trans- ‘mitted to Spain. This circumstance led to the balsam acquiring the misleading name of Pew, and in part to the notion that it was a produc- tion of South America. : The history of Balsam of Peru was much amplified by a communica- tion of the late Dr. Charles Dorat, of Sonsonate, Salvador, in 1860 to the American Journal of Pharmacy, and by still further information accom- panied by drawings and specimens, transmitted to one of us in 1863." These statements have lastly been confirmed again on the spot by Mr. | Theophilus Wyss, a Swiss apothecary, established in San Miguel la Union, San Salvador? : Extraction of the Balsam—Early in November or December, or after the last rains, the stems of the balsam trees are beaten with the — back of an axe, a hammer or other blunt instrument, on four sides, a similar extent of bark being left unbruised between the parts that are beaten. The bark thus injured soon cracks in long strips, and may be easily pulled off. It is sticky as well as the surface below it, and there 1s-a slight exudation of fragrant resin, but not in sufficient quantity to be worth collecting. To promote an abundant flow, it is customary, five or six days after the beating, to apply lighted torches or bundles of burning wood to the injured bark, whereby the latter becomes charred. About a week later,the bark either drops or is taken off, and the stem commences to exude the balsam. This is collected by placing rags (of any kind or colour), so as entirely to cover the bare wood. As these rags in the course of some days become saturated with the exudation, they are collected, thrown into an earthen vessel of water, and gently boiled and stirred until they appear nearly clean, the balsam separating and sinking to the bottom. This process goes on for some hours, the exhausted rags being from time to time taken out, and fresh ones thrown in. As the rags are temoved they are wrung out in asort of rope bag, and the balsam so saved is added to the stock. When the boiler has cooled, the water is decanted, and the balsam is poured into tecomates or gourds, ready for the market. The balsam prepared by means of rags is termed “ balsamo de trapo;” - little balsam of inferior quality is also produced, according to Wyss, by boiling the bark with water. This method affords “ Tacuasonte ” or lsamo de cascara,” which is sometimes mixed with the balsamo de rapo. Tacuasonte means prepared without fire. } The Indians work a tree a second year, by bruising the bark that was left untouched the previous year, As the bark is said to be renewed in the short space of two years, it js possible to obtain from the same ree an annual yield of about 2 Ib. of balsam for many years, provided ‘Hanbury j . ris exhibition, p. 33, BRMRS laid eines Pinos ies meee cabanas gives s ** Detalla tick a Wochtueee with map, inSchweizerische — moyen d’extraire et travailler le Balsamo (Libre Aho fiir Pharmacie, 1878. 219 negro du Salvador, which are farfrom satis- in i Baron Pharm. Soc., London).— factory.—F. A. F. ogue of the contributions of 203 | -LEGUMINOS, a few years of rest be occasionally allowed. Clay or earth is sometimes smeared over the bare wood. The trees sometimes exude spontaneously a greenish gum-resin of slightly bitter taste, but totally devoid of balsamic odour. It has been analyzed by Attfield (see opposite page). Secretion of the Balsam—No observations have yet been made as to the secretion of the balsam in the wood, or the part that is played by the operation of scorching the bark. Neither the unscorched bark nor the wood, as we have received them, possess any aromatic odour. The old accounts speak of a very fragrant resin, far more valuable than the ordinary balsam, obtained by incisions. We have made many inquiries for it, but without the least success. Such a resin 1s easily obtainable from the trunk of M. Tolwifera. Description—Balsam of Peru is a liquid having the appearance of molasses, but rather less viscid. In bulk it appears black, but when examined in a thin layer, it is seen to be of a deep orange brown and perfectly transparent, It has a balsamic, rather smoky odour, which is fragrant and agreeable when the liquid is smeared on paper and warmest. It does not much affect the palate, but leaves a disagreeable burning sensation in the fauces, _The balsam has a sp. gr. of 1-15 to 116. It may be exposed es air for years without undergoing alteration or depositing crystals. [ts not soluble in water, but yields to it a little cinnamic and traces © benzoic acid; from 6 to 8 parts of crystallized carbonate of sodium are “required to neutralize 100 parts of the balsam. It is but partl J and to a small extent dissolved by dilute alcohol, benzol, ether essential or fatty oils, not at all by petroleum-ether. The “a? mixes readily with glacial acetic acid, anhydrous acetone, absolu aleohol or chloroform. Its rotatory power is very insignificant. Chemical Composition—The peculiar process by which bale Y Peru is obtained, causes it to contain 2 variety of substances not en in the more natural resin of MV yroxylon Tolwifera ; hence the two ec though derived from plants most closely allied, possess very eg properties. - sulphide of Three parts of the balsam mix readily with one part of bisulp : of a carbon, yet a further addition of the latter will cause the separa” t brown flocculent resin. If the balsam be mixed with thrice its Wes of bisulphide, a coherent mass of dark resin, sometimes amounting of about 38 per cent. of the balsam, is precipitated. The bisulpht tion carbon forms then a perfectly transparent brown liquid. If this s? : is shaken with water, the latter removes Cinnamic and Benzote acl 8. separate them, ammonia is cautiously added, yet not in peace solution of cinnamate and benzoate thus obtained and duly spl r0- yields both these acids in white crystals on addition of acetic OF y chloric acid. tated _ The resin Separated by means of bisulphide of carbon as aT ae of is a black brittle amorphous mass, having no longer the specific Jution the balsam. It is soluble in caustic alkalis, also in alcohol ; the 80 s "By saturating the acid aqueous liquid forms the whole mixture into an an vapaumonia, itassumes a transient bright from which the einnamein again SP" yellow hue ; an excess of ammonia trans- _— but imperfectly. - BALSAMUM PERUVIANUM. 209 in the latter which may be considerably purified by charcoal, reddens litmus, and is abundantly precipitated by an alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead. Kachler (1869) by melting this resin with potash obtained about 2 of its weight of proto-catechuic acid.’ By destructive distillation, it furnishes benzoic acid, styrol, C*H*, and toluol, C’H®. As to the solution obtained with bisulphide of carbon, it forms, after the bisulphide has evaporated, a brownish aromatic liquid of about 11 sp. gr, termed Cinnamein. This substance may also be obtained by distillation, yet less easily, on account of its very high boiling point, about 300° C. Cinnamein, C“H“O*, is resolved by concentrated caustic lye into benzylic alcohol, C7H“O?, and cinnamic acid, C°H*O’, whence it follows that cinnamein is Benzylic Cinnamate. This is, according to Kraut (1858, 1869, 1870) and to Kachler (1869, 1870), the chief constituent of the balsam. The former chemist obtained from it nearly 60 per cent. cinnamein. Kachler assigns to the balsam the following composition : 46 per cent. of cinnamic acid, 32 of resin, 20 of benzylic aleohol. These latter figures however are not quite consistent: 46 parts of cinnamic acid (molecular weight = 148) would answer to 73 parts of benzylic cinnamate ; and 20 parts of benzylic alcohol require on the other hand only (mol. weight = 108) 27-4 parts of cinnamic acid in order to form nzylic cinnamate (mol. = 238). oe : Benzylic cinnamate, prepared as above stated, is a thick liquid, miscible both with ether or alcohol, not concreting at — 12° C., boiling at 305° C., yet under ordinary circumstances not without decomposition. By .©Xposure to air, it slowly acquires an acid reaction; by prolonged action of potash, especially in an alcoholic solution, toluol is also formed. o this process, cinnamate of potassium finally forms a crystalline mass, While an oily mixture of benzylic alcohol and _toluol, the so-called — erwvun,” constitutes the liquid part of the whole. h Grimaux (1868) has artificially prepared benzylic cinnamate by ating an alkaline cinnamate with benzylic chloride. Thus obtained, ut substance forms crystals, which melt at 39° C., and boil at 225 to oC. They consequently differ much from cinnamein. : Delafontaine (1868) is of the opinion, that cinnamein contains besides nzylic cinnamate, cinnamylic cinnamate, O*H"O", the same substance as described under the name of styracin in the article Styrax liquida. States that he obtained benzylic and cinnamylic alcohol when he oo cinnamein by an alkali. The two alcohols however were Parated only by fractional distillation. “4 bark tom the preceding investigations it must be concluded, that me atte of the tree contains resin and probably benzylic cinnamate. a . a ile, no doubt altered by the process of collecting the balsam, w ra uci dk owed on the Balsam Coast. To this are probably due the free * in the balsam and its dark colour. a other point of considerable interest is the fact, that the tree exudes “i containing according to Attfield 77-4 per cent. of resin, ents 1S Non-aromatic and devoid of cinnamic acid, and therefore rely distinct from balsam of Peru. The leaves of the tree contain : oil, dragyg 7208 resins as benzoin, guaiacum, other substances are capable of affording » myrrh, etc., the same acid. yrrh, ete., and many 2 Pharm. Journ, v. (1864) 248. 18) OU MINDSA. -Commerce—The balsam is shipped chiefly at Acajutla. It used formerly to be packed in large earthenware jars, said to be Spanish wine-jars, which, wrapped in straw, were sewed up in raw hide. These packages have of late been superseded by metallic drums, which have _ the advantage of being much less liable to breakage. We have no exact statistics as to the quantity exported from Central America. In the catalogue of San Salvador (quoted above, page 207, note 2) p. 39, the value of the balsam exported in 1876 from that country is stated to have been 78,189 dollars. The value of tobacco amounted to 69,717 dollars, that of coffee to 1} millions of dollars, indigo to 2} millions. Uses—Occasionally prescribed in the form of ointment as a stimu lating application to old sores, sometimes internally for the relief a , asthma and chronic cough. It is said to be also employed for scenting soap. Adulteration—We have before us a sample of an adulterated balsam, which, we are told, is largely prepared at Bremen. It 1s less aromatic, less rich in acids, and contains usually much less than 38 per cent. of resin separable, as above stated, by means of bisulphide of carbon. At first sight however the adulterated drug is not so easily recog Other sorts of Balsam of Peru. . The value anciently set upon balsam for religious and medicinal uses, led to its being extracted from the pods and also from epee longer employed for the purpose; and many of the products 80 obtain have attracted the attention of pharmacologists." Parkinson wil ting in 1640 observes that—*there have been divers other sorts of ee called Balsamum for their excellent vertues, brought out of the Wes Indies, every one of which for a time after their first bringing wae’ great account with all men and bought at great prices, but as gret : : nh Pereirw. This, when pressed out, forms a golden yellow, semi-fiuid neutral resin Myroaocarpin, C*H™O%, in thin colourless prisms, ie se _ or more in length. We have succeeded in extracting 1t pe 7 a. the pods. This White Balsam, which is distinctly mentione ae : ple artic’, hever prepared for the market, A large jar of it was sent to a 1850" Guzman* and Wyss state that it ‘3 known in the country ® . ll A fragrant balsamic resin is collected, though in but very Ne : ee of ~ substance, accompanied by herbarium and other specimens, 8 capt; sented to one of us (H.) by Mr. J. Correa de Méllo of Campinas & : page a 1 Qui . we Hist. des Drog. iii, (1850) $In the Catalogue alluded to, * Pharm. Journ, x, (1851) 286, _— ve SEMEN BONDUCELLA ~—>_—sQ it is a resin having a general resemblance to Balsam of Tolu, but of somewhat deeper and redder tint, and greater hardness. Pressed be- tween two slips of warmed glass, it does not exhibit any crystals. In a treatise on Brazil written by a Portuguese friar about 1570- 1600,! mention is made of the “ Cabueriba” (Cabwre-iba), from which a much-esteemed balsam was obtained by making incisions in the stem, — and absorbing the exudation with cotton wool, somewhat in the same way as Balsam of Peru is now collected in Salvador. This tree is Myrocarpus frondosus Allem., now called Cabriwva preta. The genus is closely allied to Myroaylon. Another fragrant oleo-resin, which has doubtless been confounded with that of a Myroxylon, is obtained in Central America from liquidambar styraciflua L., either by incision or by boiling the bark. SEMEN BON DUCELL&. Semen Guilandine ; Bonduc Seeds, Grey Nicker Seeds or Nuts ; F. Graines de Bonduc ou du Cniquier, Pois Quéniques, Pois Guénic. Botanical Origin—Cwsalpinia Bonducella Roxb. (Guilandina Bonducella L.), a prickly, pubescent, climbing shrub? of wide distribu- tion, occurring in Tropical Asia, Africa and America, especially near the sea. The compressed, ovate, spiny legume is 2 to 3 inches long, and i one or two, occasionally three or four, hard, grey, globular 8, The plant is often confounded with C. Bonduc Roxb., a nearly ed but much rarer species, distinguished by being nearly glabrous, ving leaflets very unequal at the base, no stipules, erect bracts, and yellow seeds, History—«Pati-K aranja,’ stinking Karanja, in Susruta (1. 223,1) is cage plant under notice. The word Bunduk, occurring in the writings of the Arabian and Persian physicians, also in Constantinus Africanus, 7 ostly signifies huzel-nut.2 One of these authors, Ibn Baytar,* who ee in the 13th century, further distinguished a drug called “ste Hindi (indian hazel-nut), giving a description which indicates it plainly as the seed under notice. Both Bunduk andBunduk Hindi She am erated in the list of drugs of Noureddeen Mohammed Abdullah iazy,’ physician to the Mogul emperor Shah J ehan, A.D. 1628-1661. Bie ac pods of C. Bonducella were figured by Clusius in 1605, under © tame of Lobus echinodes, and the plant both by Rheede ® and umphius. Piso and Marcoraf (1648) noticed it in Brazil and gave te account of it with a bad woodcut, under the designation of “umbsy (now Inimboja), or in Portuguese Silva do Praya. their sn cent times, Bonduc seeds have been employed on account of ‘elr tonic and antiperiodic properties by numerous European practi- 1 has, His Pilgrj . 4 imer’s translation, i. 177. | Saran ugrimes, iv. (1625) 1308. Sontheimer’s tran , . Pighf: 30 Bentley” and” Trimen, diet, __* Ulfas Udwiye,transated by Giadwin, any, (1877). 1793. No. 543. 551. : roma gore also means a little ball or a ° Hort, Malab. ii. (1679) tab. 22, sub ne. Bunduk Hindi is frequently | nom. Careiti. gi Arecaqat bic authors to denote also 212 - - LEGUMINOSAZ. tioners in the East, and have been included in the Pharmacopwia of India, 1868. ; Description—The seeds are somewhat globular or ovoid, a little compressed, 34; to 38; of an inch in diameter and weighing 20 to # grains. They are of a bluish or greenish grey tint, smooth, yet marked by slightly elevated horizontal lines of a darker hue. The umbilicus is surrounded by a small, dark brown, semilunar blotch opposite the ‘micropyle. The hard shell is from j, to 2; of an inch thick, and contains a white kernel, representing from 40 to 50 per cent. of the weight of the seed. It separates easily from the shell, and consists of the two cotyledons and a stout radicle. When a seed is soaked for some hours in cold water, a very thin layer can be peeled from the sur- face of the testa. The kernel is bitter, but with the taste that is _ common to most seeds of the family Leguminose. Microscopic Structure—The outer layer of the testa, the epidermis above alluded to, is composed of two zones of perpendicular, - closely packed cells, the outer measuring about 130 mkm., the inner 100 mkm. in length and only 5 to 7 mkm, in diameter. The walls of these cylindrical cells are thickened by secondary deposits, which ee transverse section show usually four or more channels running down nearly perpendicularly through the whole cell. : + ti not The spongy parenchyme, which is covered by this very distin outer layer, is made up of irregular, ovate, subglobular or somew elongated cells with large spaces between them, loaded with brow? masses of tannic matter, assuming a blackish hue when touched “bib perchloride of iron. The thick walls of these cells frequently exh oy chiefly in the inner layers, undulated outlines. The tissue of the ledons is composed of very large cells, swelling considerably 12 yest and containing some mucilage (as may be ascertained when thin suc are examined in oil), small starch granules, fatty oil, and a little album nous matter, Chemical Composition—According to the medical reports alluded to in the Pharmacopeia of India (1868), Bondue seeds, and still mow the root of the plant, act as a powerful antiperiodic and tonic. The active principle has bat yet been adognaiely examined. perhaps occur in larger proportion in the bark of the root, which 18 : be more efficacious than the seeds in the treatment of inte ver. . _ In order to ascertain the chemical nature of the principle Ae seeds, one ounce of the kernels? was powdered and exhauste f the slightly acidulated alcohol. The solution after the evaporation 5 1 alcohol was made alkaline with caustic potash, which did n° stely _ duce a precipitate. Ether now shaken with the liquid, comp : ingly _ Yemoved the bitter matter, and yielded it in the form of an ‘ phous white powder, devoid of sisiins properties. it# - pitter eS qa ONES EN ST GE aU aE Tage aS ke os Sa ee ae rere: gs aaa ds Re ee ab Ie ae wale x es Ne — in water, but readily in alcohol, forming inten ad solutions ; an aqueous solution is not precipitated by tanm? gulphuri¢ 2 produces a yellowish or brownish solution with concentrated 1 : A 1 ie re Bazaar Medicines, Travancore, * Kindly furnished us by -~ ~ LIGNUM HEMATOXYLL 213 acid, which acquires subsequently a violent hue. Nitric acid is without manifest influence. From these experiments, we may infer that the active principle of the Bonduc seed is a bitter substance not possessing basic properties. Uses—The powdered kernels either per se, or mixed with black pepper (Pulvis Bonducelle compositus Ph. Ind.), are employed in ndia against intermittent fevers and as a general tonic. The fatty oil of the seeds is sometimes extracted and used in India ; it was shown at the Madras Exhibitions of 1855 and 1857. LIGNUM HAMATOXYLI. Lignum Campechianum v. Campescanum ; Logwood, Peachwood ;— F. Bois de Campeche, Bois dInde; G. Campecheholz, Blawholz. Botanical Origin—Hemuatoxylon campechianum L., a spreading tree’ of moderate size, seldom exceeding 40 feet in height, native of the bay of Campeachy, Honduras and other parts of Central America. It was introduced into Jamaica by Dr. Barham? in 1715, and is now completely naturalized in that and other of the West Indian Islands. History—Hernan Cortes in his letter to the Emperor Charles V., ving an account of his expedition to Honduras in 1525,” refers to the — ndian towns of Xiculango and Tabasco as carrying on a trade in cacao, cotton cloth, and colowrs for dyeing,—in which last phrase there may be an allusion to logwood. We have sought for some more definite notice of the wood in the Historia de las Indias of Oviedo,’ the first chronicler of America, but without much success. _ Yet the wood must have been introduced into England in the latter half of the 16th century, for, in 1581, an Act of Parliament 5 was passed, abolishing its use and ordering that any found should be forfeited and burned. In this Act the obnoxious dye is described as “a certain kind of ware or stuff called Logwood alias Blockwood . . . of late years brought into this realm of England.” The object of this measure was to protect the public against the bad work of the dyers, who, it seems, were unable at that period to obtain durable colours by the use of logwood. Eighty years later the art of dyeing had so far improved that logwood was again permitted,° the colours produced by it being declared as lasting and serviceable as those made by any other sort of dyewood whatsoever. Soe The wood is mentioned by De Laet (1633) as deriving its name — m the town of Campeachy, whence, says he, it is brought in great plenty to Europe. a medicine, logwood was not employed until shortly before the ‘Fig. j : : sah ie in Bentle d ‘1851-55, 4to., and may refer in particular Plante, part 5 (1876). oe to tom. i. lib. ix. c. 15, 11. lib. xxxi. c. 8 ie ta Americanus, Kingston, Jamaica, and c. wet Appendix : Fernandez. ith, 593 Eliz. c. 9. ee Letter of He 1 fi, c. 11. sect. 26 (A.D, yzf Cortes to th 643-14 Car. ii. c. 11. sect. - tag sant V. td (Hakluyt 1662), by which the Act of Elizabeth was , » 43. repealed. Re first edition bears date 1535. We + Novus Orbis, 1633. 274 and 265. used the modern one of Madrid, ‘ ; — | Fi principle C of this 4 State and called Hématine. The very interesting properties 1 by 0- 4 —2i4 sarees LEGUMINOS:. year 1746, when it was introduced into the London Pharmacopeiaunder— the name of Lignum tinctile Campechense. Description—The tree is fit to be felled when about ten years old; the dark bark and the yellowish sap-wood are chipped off, the stems cut into logs about three feet long, and the red heart-wood alone exported. By exposure to air and moisture, the wood acquires exter- nally a blackish red colour; internally it remains brownish red. It splits well, although of a rather dense and tough texture. The transverse section of a piece of logwood exhibits to the naked eye a series of very narrow concentric zones, formed by comparatively large pores, and of small parenchymatous circles separated by the langer and darker rings of the proper woody tissue. The numerous medul- ary rays are visible only by means of a lens. The wood hasa pleasant our, : For use in pharmacy, logwood is always purchased in the form of chips, which are produced by the aid of powerful machinery. The oo chips have a feeble, seaweed-like odour, and a slightly sweet, astringent taste, better perceived in a watery decoction than by chewing the dry wood, which however quickly imparts to the saliva its brilliant colour. Microscopic Structure—Under a high magnifying power, the Concentric zones are seen to run not quite regularly round the centre, _ butina somewhat undulating manner, because they do not corres as In our indigenous woods, to regular periods of annual growth. 4 vascular bundles contain only a few vessels, and are transversely unl by small lighter parenchymatous bands. The latter are made Up large, cubic, elongated or polygonal cells, each loaded with a ¢ _ Oxalate of calcium. The large punctuated vessels having frequenty 150 mkm. diameter, are surrounded by this woody parenchyme, Wil the prevailing tissue of the wood js composed of densel} P prosenchyme, consisting of long cylindrical cells (libriform) th : dark red-brown walls having small pores. pee The medullary rays are of the usual structural character, runnin transversely in one to three straight rows; in a longitudinal section, the single rays show from 4 to 40 rows succeeding each other perpen Soy No regular arrangement of the rays 18 Stabler ae an F a. tudinal section i ial directi colourin e made in a tangential direction. The 4 the veel is chiefly contained in the walls of the ligneous tissue ani and sometimes occurs in crystals of a greenish hue within the latter, oT in clefts of the wood. Chemical Composition—Logwood was submitted to ca ber a evreul as early as the year 1810, since which period all pe ie tions to a knowledge of the drug refer exclusively to it6 Ee Hematoxylin, which Chevreul obtained in @ ee : 1842) and Hesse (1858-59), chiefly examined by Erdmann (1842) Erdmann obtained from logwood 9 to 12 per cent. of crys In 8 a ematoxylin, which he showed to have the formula C“H"O* — : er eee pure state it is colourless, crystallizing with 1 or with 3 equiva agy i water, and is readily soluble in hot water or in alcohol, but sP® ' Annals de Chimie, Ixxxi. (1812) 128. LIGNUM HAIMATOXYLL . * 9i8 in cold water or in ether. It has a persistent sweet taste like liquorice. The crystals of hematoxylin acquire a red colour by the action of sun- light, as likewise their aqueous solution. They are decomposed by ozone but not by pure and dry oxygen. In presence of alkalis, ! _ hematoxylin exposed to the air quickly yields dark purplish violet - solutions, which soon acquire a yellowish or dingy brownish colour ; — in analytical chemistry hematoxylin is used as a test for is. By the combined action of ammonia and oxygen, dark violet crystalline scales of Hamatein, C“H"O* + 3 OH®, are produced.’ They show a fine green hue, which is also very sceiadiity observable on the surface of the logwood chips of commerce. Hematein may again — on into hematoxylin by means of hydrogen or of sulphurous aci . _ Hematoxylin separates protoxide of copper from an alkaline solu- tion of the tartrate, and deviates the ray of polarized light to the right. l. It is not decomposed by concentrated hydrochloric acid ee melting hematoxylin with potash, pyrogallol (pyrogallie acid, C7H°O*) is obtained. Alum and the salts of lead throw down precipitates from solutions of hematoxylin, the latter being of a bluish-black colour. ood affords upon incineration 3-3 per cent. of ash. The colouring matter being abundantly soluble in boiling water, an ract of Logwood is also prepared on & large scale. It occurs in commerce in the form of a blackish brittle mass, taking the form of the _ Wooden chest into which it is put while soft. The extract shares the chemical properties of hematoxylin and hematein: whether it also contains gum requires investigation. . Production and Commerce—The felling and shipping of logwood in Central America have been described by Morelet,? who states that in the woods of Tabasco and Yucatan the trade is carried on in the most trational and reckless manner. By advancing money to the natives, or furnishing them with spirits, arms, or ple the proprietors of the Woods engage them to fell a number of trees in proportion to their debts. . This is done in the dry season, the rain iod being taken for the . , 7 peri ing e€ : eS shipment of the logs, which are conveyed chiefly to the island of Carmen In the Laguna de Terminos in South-western Yucatan, and to Frontera on the mouths of the Tabasco river, at which places European ships receive cargoes of the wood. oe In 1877 the export of Laguna de Terminos amounted to 528,605 : _ (one quintal=46 kilogrammes), that from Port-au-Prince, — _ “ayti, in 1872, nearly to 90,000 tons. Four sorts of logwood are found in the London market, namely Cam- “achy, quoted? at £8 10s. to £9 10s. per ton; Honduras, £6 10s. — — lis.; St. Domingo, £5 15s. to £6; Jamaica, £5 2s. 6d. to £5 10s. Th imports into the United Kingdom were valued in 1872 at £233,035. : fb uantities imported during that and the previous three years were OWs :— 3 1869 1870 1871 1872 50,453 tons. 62,187 tons. 39,346 tons. 46,039 tons. a 2 ique centrale, Vile de Bale ob Yoccton Poe ion? Pe 3 Public Ledger, 23 Feb. 1874. i Benedikt, j : formula CHa soigeet them the — LEGUMINOSE. In 1876 the import was 64,215 tons, valued at. £415,857. The largest quantity is supplied by the British West India Islands. Ha burg also imports annually about 20,000 tons of logwood. Uses—Logwood in the form of decoction is occasionally adminis in chronic diarrhoea, and especially in the diarrhcea of children. have occurred in which its use has been followed by phlebitis. employment in the art of dyeing is far more important. . Adulteration—The woods of several species of Cesalpinia imported under the name of Brazil Wood and used for dyeing red, bear an . external resemblance to logwood, with which it is said they are some times mixed in the form of chips. They containa fo Libera a ‘ ing principle called Brasilin, C"H™O’, or, according to Liebermann and Burg (1876), C’°H“O*, which affords with alkalis red and not bluish or purplish solutions, and yields trinitrophenol, C*H’(NO*)OH (picri¢ -acid), when boiled with nitric acid, while hematoxylin yields oxalic — acid only. The best source for brasilin is the wood of Cosalpuni Sappan L.,a tree of the East Indies, well known as Bakam, bi gail _ Wood, Lignum Brasile, Verzino of the Italians, an important obj of commerce during the middle ages.) FOLIA SENN. a Senna Leaves ; F. Fewilles de Séné; G. Sennesblitter. _. Botanical Origin—The Senna Leaves of commerce are afforded ~ _ by two species of Cassia? belonging to that section of the genus si is distinguished by having leaves without glands, axillary ea — elongating as inflorescence advances, membranaceous bracts whi . | the young raceme conceal the flower buds but drop off during flower ing, and a short, broad, flat legume. high The senna plants are low perennial bushy shrubs, 2 to 4 feet ns _ having pari-pinnate leaves with leaflets unequal at the base, and pre flowers. The pods contain 6 or more seeds in each, suspended on 2 hate valves by long capillary funicles. These run towards the Pe saat end of the seed, but are curved at their attachment to the hilum J below. The seeds are compressed and of an obovate-cuneate oF oo ewes at the narrower end. | “he species in question are the following :— : : - 1. Cassia acutifolia Delile‘—a shrub ebook 2 feet high, with Hy a subterate or obtusely angled, erect or ascending branches, ere oy zigzag above, glabrous at least below. Leaves usually 4-5-J0 y es ne' leaflets oval or lanceolate, acute,mucronate,usually more or less dist! Cassia 1 See Yule, Marco Polo, ii. (1874). 369. of the recent Revision of the Genus 1871. a Some writers have removed these plants by Bentham (Linn. Tran Olivet on the —— — to a a genus named = 503) and of the labours 0 of Tropica! enna, but such subdivision is repudiated same subject in his Flora by the Principal botanists, The intricate ica, ii. (1871) 268-282. oer: y of the senna plants has been well mon the pete of the seed, Rhee out by J. B. Batka in his memoir _Pharm. Journ. ix. (1850) pact I Se ‘itled Monographie der Cassien-Grappe 4 Synonyms—C. Senna B. Bisch-3 sass (Prag, 1866), of which wehave made _ceolata, Nectoux ; ©. lenitiva ee use, e have also had the advantage —acutifolia Batka. _ FOLIA SENN. . 2a puberulous or at length glabrous, pale or subglaucous at least beneath, ssile: Stipules subulate, spreading or reflexed, 1-2 lines long. emes axilliary, erect, rather laxly many-flowered, usually consider- ably exceeding -the subtending leaf. Bracts membranous, ovate or obovate, caducous. Pedicels at length 2-3 lines. Sepals obtuse, mem- _ branous. Two of the anterior anthers much exceeding the rest of the fertile stamens. Legume flat, very broadly oblong, but slightly curved Es Boas’ obliquely stipitate, broadly rounded at the extremity with a thinute or obsolete mucro indicating the position of the style on the ° a edge; 14-21 inches long, 3-1 inch broad; valves chartaceous, obsoletely or thinly puberulous, faintly transverse-veined, unappendaged. . Seeds -obovate-cunieate, compressed ; cotyledons plane, extending the large diameter of the seed in transverse section.’ _ _ The plant is a native of many districts of Nubia (as Sukkot, Mahas, _ Dongola, Berber), Kordofan and Sennaar; grows also in Timbuktu and _ SoKoto, and is the source of Alexandrian Senna. “aaa. C. augustifolia Vahl’—This species is closely related to the teding, the general description of which is applicable to 1t with the following exceptions. In the present plant the leatlets, which are usually 5-8-jugate, are narrower, being oval-lanceolate, tapering from the middle towards the apex ; they are larger, being from one to nearly : inches long, and are either quite glabrous or furnished with a very scanty pubescence. ‘The legume is narrower (7-8 lines broad), with the base of the style distinctly prominent on its upper edge. é s The plant abounds in Yemen and Hadramaut in Southern Arabia ; ye it is also found on the Somali coast, in Sind and the Punjab. In ~ Some parts of India it is now cultivated for medicinal use. The uncultivated plant of Arabia supplies the so-called Bombay Senna of commerce, the true Senna Mekhi of the Kast. The cultivated and more luxuriant plant, raised originally from Arabian seeds, furnishes the 7 imnevelly Senna of the drug market. History— According to the elaborate researches of Carl Martius,” a knowledge of senna cannot be traced back earlier than the time of the 5 der Serapion, who flourished in the 9th or 10th century ; and it is in fact to the Arabian physicians that the introduction of the drug to Yestern Europe is due. Isaac Judzeus,* who wrote probably about A.D. 850-900 and who was a native of Egypt, mentions senna, the best kind of which he says is that brought from Mecca. mee _ Senna (as Ssinen or Ssenen) is enumerated among the commodities liable to duty at Acre in Palestine at the close of the 12th century. 7 oa in 1542, a pound of senna was valued in an official tariff® at Sols, the same price as r or ginger. The Arabian at the Rize: AP sbyestiad of Europe used both the S and leaves, preferring however the former. The pods (Folliculi "e) are still employed in some countries. Prof borrow the above description from Peat Omnia, Lugd. 1515, lib. 2. Prac- i tices, c. 39, : é np inonyms—C. lanceolata Roxb; C. 5 Recueil des eegans des Croisades, . Lis.; cinalig Roxb.; Lois, ii. (1843) 177. * sngustifolia a anata ees * Fontanon, Edicts et Ordonnances des bi Versuch einer Monographie der Sennes- Roys de France, éd. 2, ii. (1585) 349. ", Leipz. 1867, . ~ 918 3 -- LEGUMINOSAE. Cassia obovata Coll.’ was the species first known to botanists, and it~ was even cultivated in Italy for medicinal use during the first half of the 16th century. Hence the term Italian Senna used by Gerarde and others. In the records of the “Cinque savii alla mercanzia” at Venice we found an order bearing date 1526 to the effect that Senna leaves of Tuscany were inadmissible; the same was applied in 1676 to the drug from Tripoli in Barbaria, that from Cairo being exclusively permitted. Production—According to Nectoux,? whose observations relate to Nubia at the close of the last century, the peasants make two senna harvests annually, the first and more abundant being at the termination _ of the rains—that is in September; while the other, which in dry — seasons is almost nil, takes place in April. : The gathering consists in simply cutting down the shrubs, and exposing them on the rocks to the burning sun till completely dry. The drug is then packed in bags made of palm leaves holding about a quintal each, and conveyed by camels to Es-souan and Darao, whence it _ 1s transported by water to Cairo. By many travellers it is stated that — Senna jebeli, ie. mowntain senna (C. acutifolia), fds its way to ‘the ports of Massowhah and Suakin, and thence to Cairo and Alexandria. Cassia obovata, which is called by the Arabs Senna baladi, i.e. mndi- genous or wild senna, grows in the fields of durra (Sorghwm) at Ka and Luxor, and in the time of Nectoux was held in such small esteem that it fetched but a quarter the price of the Senna jebelt brought _* by the caravans of Nubia and the Bisharrin Arabs. 1t is not now collected. 2 es i Description—Three kinds of senna are distinguished in English commerce :— 1. Alexandrian Senna—This is furnished by Cassia acutifolia __ and is imported in large bales. It used formerly always to arrive a very mixed and dirty state, containing, in addition to leaflets of senna, a variable proportion of leafstalks and broken twigs, pods and flowe!®; besides which there was almost invariably an accompaniment of the leaves, flowers and fruits of Solenostemma Argel Hayne (p. 220), not 0 mention seeds, stones, dust and heterogeneous rubbish. Such a drug required sifting, fanning and picking, by which most of these impurities could be separated, leaving only the senna contaminated with leaves ° argel. But Alexandrian Senna has of late been shipped of much quality. Some we have recently seen (1872) was, as taken from . _ original package, wholly composed of leaflets of C. acutifolia in & hho preserved condition ; and even the lower qualities of senna are never how contaminated with argel to the extent that was usual a lew years ago, Z | The leaflets, the general form of which has already been described + 40 Ian glaucous shrub with obovate Si j ralized) in the Sindh and Gujerat and (natural ee rounded and mucronulate, West Indies. : Its leaflets (also po ape style, aud eaiiea alee SF wager ped occasionally be picked out of Alexan : ng the middle of each Senna. ¢ babe by dimes of crest-shaped ridges 2 Voyage dans la Haute Egypt « Sh - widel P distrib hed oon seeds. It is more des observations sur les diverses caper the an uted in the Nile region than Séné qui sont répandues dans le er species, and is also found in Paris, 1808. fol. FOLIA SENN. 219 (p. 216), are ? to 1} inches long, rather stiff and brittle, generally a little incurled at the edges, conspicuously veined, the midrib being often brown. They are covered with a very short and fine pubescence which is most dense on the midrib. The leaves have a peculiar opaque, light yellowish green hue, a somewhat agreeable tea-like. odour, and a mucilaginous, not very marked taste, which however is sickly and nauseous in a watery infusion. 2. Arabian Moka, Bombay or East Indian Senna—This drug — is derived from Cassia augustifolia, and is produced in Southern: Arabia. It is shipped from Moka, Aden and other Red Sea ports to Bombay, and thence reaches Europe. * Arabian senna is usually collected and dried without care, and is mostly an inferior commodity, fetching in London sometimes as low a price as $d. to }d. per tb. Yet so far as we have observed, it is never adulterated, but consists wholly of senna leaflets, often brown and decayed, mixed with flowers, pods, and stalks. The leaflets have the form already described (p. 217); short adpressed hairs are often visible on their under surface. 3. Tinnevelly Senna—Derived from the same species as the last, but from the plant cultivated in India, and in a state of far greater — luxuriance than it exhibits in the drier regions of Arabia where it _ grows wild. It is a very superior and carefully collected drug, consist- ing wholly of the leaflets. These are lanceolate, 1 to 2 inches in length, of a yellowish green on the upper side, of a duller tint on the under, © Be glabrous or thinly pubescent on the under side with short adpressed airs. The leaflets are less rigid in texture than those of Alex- andrian senna, and have a tea-like, rather fragrant smell, with but — little taste, _ tinnevelly senna has of late fallen off in size, and some importa- tions in 1873 were not distinguishable from Arabian senna, except from having been more carefully prepared. The drug is generally shipped — m Tuticorin in the extreme south of India. . Chemical Composition—The analysis of senna with a view to the isolation of its active principle has engaged the attention of nume- tous chemists, but as yet the results of their labours are not quite Satisfactory, : fe Ludwig (1864) treated an alcoholic extract of senna with charcoal, and obtained from the latter by means of boiling alcohok two bitter Principles, Sennacrol, soluble in’ ether, and Sennapicrin, not dissolved — = by ether, : ‘Dragendorff and Kubly (1866) have shown the active substance of “nna to be a colloid body, easily soluble in water but not in strong alcohol, en a syrupy aqueous extract of senna is mixed with an qual volume of alcohol, and the mucilage thus thrown down has been removed, the addition of a further quantity of alcohol occasions the fall of @ dark brown, almost tasteless, easily alterable substance, which is Indued with purgative properties. It was further shown that this Precipitate was a mixture of calcium and magnesium salts of phosphoric ~ and a peculiar acid. The last named, separated by hydrochloric ie has been called Cathartic Acid; it isa black substance which in Mouth is at first insipid, but afterwards tastes acid and somewhat 990 "> EEOUMINOSA astringent. In water or strong alcohol it is almost insoluble, and me entirely so in ether or chloroform; but it dissolves in warm dilute alcohol. From this solution it is precipitable by many acids, but not by tannic. ates Groves’ in 1868, unaware of the researches of Dragendorff and Kubly, arrived at similar results as these chemists, and proved con- clusively that a cathartate of ammonia possesses in a concentrated form the purgative activity of the original drug. The exactness of the chief facts relative to the solubility in weak alcohol of the active principle of senna set forth by the said chemists, was also remarkably supported by the long practical experience of T. and H. Smith of Edinburgh’ her When cathartic acid is boiled with alcohol and hydrochloric acid, it is resolved into sugar and Cathartogenic Acid. __ The alcoholic solution from which the cathartates have been separated contains a yellow colouring matter which was called Chrysorein by Bley and Diesel (1849), but identified as Chrysophan® by Martius, Batka and others. Dragendorff and Kubly regard the identity of the two substances as doubtful. . The same alcoholic solution which contains the yellow colouring matter just described, also holds dissolved a sugar which has been named Catharto-mannite. It forms warty crystals, is not susceptible of alcoholic fermentation, and does not reduce alkaline cupric tartrate. The formula assigned to it is C®H“O*. ge Senna contains tartaric and oxalic acids with traces of malic acid, The large amount of ash, 9 to 12 per cent., consisting of earthy al alkaline carbonates, also indicates the presence of a considerable quantity of organic acids. _ Commerce—Alexandrian Senna, the produce of Nubia and the regions further south, was formerly a monopoly of the Egyptian Govern- _ ment, the enjoyment of which was granted to individuals in return for a stipulated payment: hence it was known in continental pews Séné de la palte, while the depots were termed paltes and those W 1 farmed the monopoly paltiers All this has long been abolished, an the trade is now free, the drug being shipped from Alexandria. The Arabian senna is brought into commerce by way of Bombay. the quantity of senna imported thither from the Red Sea and Aden ® ae _ year 1871-72 was 4,195 ewt., and the quantity exported during same period, 2,180 ewt2 Uses—Senna leaves are extensively employed in medicine ®§ ® purgative. Le A ; Adulteration—The principal contamination to which senna 38 . present liable arises from the presence of the leaves of Solenostemr Argel Hayne, a plant of the order Asclepiadee, 2 to 3 feet high, wee ing in the arid valleys of Nubia. Whether these leaves are used for direct purpose of adulteration, or under the notion of impr’ It drug, or in virtue of some custom or prejudice, is not very eviden > harm. Journ. x. (1869) 196. 5 Statement of the Trade ané Nat 5 Lid. 315, of the Presidency of Bombay for See Art. Radix Rhei. t. ii, 21. 98. “From Italian appaltare, to let or farm. oe FRUCTUS CASSLE FISTULA, aes is certain however that druggists have been found who prefered senna that contained a good percentage of argel. Nectoux, to whom we owe the first exact account of the argel or hargel plant,’ describes it as never gathered with the senna by accident or carelessness, but always separately. In fact he saw, both at Esneh and Phile, the original bales of argel as well as those of senna: and at Boulak near Cairo, at the beginning of the present century, the argel ot to be regularly mixed with senna in the proportion of one to our. The leaves of argel after a little practice are very easily recognized; but their complete separation from senna by hand-picking is a tedious operation. They are lanceolate, equal at the base, of the same size as senna leaflets but often larger, of a pallid, opaque, greyish-green, rigid, thick, rather crumpled, wrinkled and pubescent, not distinctly veined. They have an unmistakeably bitter taste. The small, white, star-like flowers, or more often the flower buds, in dense corymbs are found in plenty in the bales of Alexandrian senna. ‘The slender, pear-shaped follicles, when mature 1} inches long, with comose seeds are less fre- quent. It has been shown by Christison? that argel leaves administered — se have but a feeble purgative action, though they occasion griping. t is plain therefore that their admixture with senna should be deprecated. ; The leaves or leaflets of several other plants were formerly mixed occasionally with senna, as those of the poisonous Coriaria myrtifolia L., a Mediterranean shrub, of Colutea arborescens L.,a native of Central and Southern Europe, and of the Egyptian Tephrosia Apollinea Delile. e have never met with any of them.’ FRUCTUS CASSLZ FISTULA. Cassia Fistula ; Purging Cassia; F. Casse Canefice, Fruit du Caneficer ; : G, Rohrencassie. Botanical Origin—Cussia Fistula L. (Cathartocarpus Fistula Pers., Bactyrilobium Fistula Willd.) a tree indigenous to India, ascending to 4000 feet in the outer Himalaya, but now cultivated or subspontaneous ~ In Egypt, Tropical Africa,‘ the West Indies and Brazil. It is from 20 to 30 feet high (in Jamaica even 50 feet) and bears long pendulous racemes of beautiful fragrant, yellow flowers. Some botanists have established or this tree and its near allies a separate genus, on account of its elongated, cylindrical indehiscent legume, but by most it 1s retained in € genus Cassia, History—The name Casia or Cassia was originally applied ex- “sively to a bark related to cinnamon which, when rolled into a tube or Pipe, was distinguished in Greek by the word cdpryé, and in Latin by that of fistula. Thus Scribonius Largus,’ a physician of Rome during 0 : is Se Dp. cit. (See p, 218). 4Schweinfurth found it in 6° N. lat. an * Dispensator A a 2. 1BAS. 850. 28-29° E. long., in the country of the Dor, les The reader will find figures of these where the tree may also be indigenous. ves contrasted with Senna in Pereira’s 5 Compositiones Medicamentorum, cap. 4. ‘™. of Mat, Med, ii, part ii (1853) 1866. sec. 36. Rar ay oe! 222 = LEGUMINOSA. the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius, with the latter of whom he is said _ to have visited Britain, .D. 43, uses the expression “ Casiw rufer fistu- larum” in the receipt for a collyrium. Galen! describing the different varieties of cassia, mentions that called Gizi? (yiGers) as being quite like cinnamon or even better; and also names a well-known cheaper sort, having a strong taste and odour which is called Jistula, because it is rolled up like a tube. Oribasius, physician to the Emperor Julian in the latter half of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, describes Cassia fistula as a bark of which there are several varieties, having pungent and astringent properties (“omnes cassie fistule vires habent acriter exalfacientes et stringentes”), and sometimes used in the place of cinnamon. _ It is doubtless the same drug which is spoken of by Alexander Trallianus* as Kaclas cipry€ (casia fistula) in connexion with costus, pepper and other aromatics ; and named by other Greek writers as acia cupryyadne (casia Jistularis). Alexander still more distinetly calls it also Kagta atyurria’ Ba. The tree under examination and its fruit were exactly described in the beginning of the 13th century by Abul Abb’s Annabati of Sevilla; the fruit, the Cassia Fistula of modern medicine, is noticed by Joannes Actuarius, who flourished at Constantinople towards the close of the 13th century ; and as he describes it with particular minuteness,’ it 18 evident that he did not consider it well known. The drug 18 mentioned by several writers of the school of Salernum.. The tree would appear to have found at an early period its way to America, if we are correct in referring to it the Cassia Fistula enumerated by Petrus Martyr among the valuable products of the New World.’ The drug was a familar remedy in England in the time of Turner, 1568. The tree was figured in 1553 by the celebrated traveller Belon who met with it in the gardens of Cairo, and in 1592 by Prosper Alpinus who also saw it in Egypt. __ Description—The ovary of the flower is one-celled with gers ovules, which as they advance towards maturity become separated y the growth of intervening septa. The ripe legume is cylindrical, dat chocolate-brown, 1} to 2 feet long by ? to 1 inch in diameter, with @ strong short woody stalk, and a blunt end suddenly contracted ae point. The fibro-vascular column of the stalk is divided into the broad parallel seams, the dorsal and ventral sutures, running down t whole length of the pod, The sutures are smooth, or slightly stra! longitudinally ; one of them is formed of two ligneous bundles coalescing 1 De Antidot. it he cena adjicimus, atque quippiam pete _? Noticed likewise among thecommodities nominate casiw. Est autem frue orem liable to duty at Alexandria in the 2nd cen. fistulus et oblongus, nigrum intus se a -—Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, concretum gestans, qul handquage i ‘ : continuitate coaluit, sedex intervie’. « Physica Hildegardis, Argent. 1533, 227. bus lignosisque membranulis dirim Libri xu, J. Guinterio interprete, Basil., habens ad speciei propagationem, | ae e me ka ag quedam seminalia, silique ili 7; edendl, pendix). fae § edition (quoted in the ap- _—_ innotuit, adsimilia.” — Methodus schi lib, v. ¢. 2. + saaulll, 7 Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, iii. (1856). I 3 De nuper sub D. Carolo repertis inst Ts Basil. 1521. fect cee Sl ventrem mollire ® Herball, part. 3. 20. 8, pruna, et precipué Damas- - FRUCTUS CASSLE FISTULA. 293 byanarrow line. Ifthe legume is curved, the ventral suture commonly occupies its inner or concave side. The valves of the pods are marked by slight transverse depressions (more evident in small specimens) corresponding to the internal divisions, and also by inconspicuous transverse veins. Each of the 25 to 100 seeds which a legume contains, is lodged in a cell formed by very thin woody dissepiments. The oval, flattish seed from 3%; to 345 of an inch long, of a reddish-brown colour, contains a large embryo whose yellowish veined cotyledons cross diagonally, as seen on tranverse section, the horny white albumen. One side is marked by a dark line (the raphe). A very slender funicle attaches the seed to the ventral suture. In addition to the seeds, the cells contain a soft saccharine pulp which in the recent state fills them up, but in the imported pods appears only as a thin layer, spread over the septum, of a dark viscid substance of mawkish sweet taste. It is this pulp which is made use of in pharmacy. Microscopic Structure—The bands above described . running along the whole pod, are made up of strong fibro-vascular bundles mixed with sclerenchymatous tissue. The valves consist of parenchymatous cells, and the whole pod is coated with an epidermis exhibiting small tabular cells, which are filled with dark granules of tannic matter. A few stomata are also met with. The thin brittle septa of the pod are composed of long ligneous cells, enclosing here and there crystals of oxalate of calcium. : The pulp itself, examined under water, is seen to consist of loose cells, not forming a coherent tissue. They enclose chiefly granules of buminoid matters and stellate crystals of oxalate of calcium. The cell Wall assumes, on addition of iodine, a blue hue if they have been previously washed by potash lye. The seeds are devoid of starch, but y leld a copious amount of thick mucilage, which surrounds them like a — halo if they are macerated in water. chemical Composition—No peculiar principle is known to exist either in the woody or the pulpy portion of cassia fistula. The pulp Contains sugar in addition to the commonly occurring bodies noticed in the previous section, Uses—The pulp separated from the woody part of the pods by crushing the latter, digesting them in hot water, and evaporating the Strained liquor, is a mild laxative in common domestic use in the South of Europe; but in England scarcely ever now administered except an the form of the well-known Lenitive Electuary (Confectio sennce) of which it is an ingredient. Commerce—Cassia fistula is shipped to England from the East and West, Indies, but chiefly from the latter. The pulp per se has been Vcasionally imported, but it should never be employed when the *sumes for preparing it can be obtained. Substitutes—The pods of some other species of Cassia share the structure above described and have been sometimes imported. hone WS there were imported into Leg- and Tamarinds.—-Consular Reports, 1873, m 1 1871, 103 tons of Cassia Fistula parti. : 224 _ - LEGUMINOS:. Those of C. grandis L. f. (C. brasiliana Lamarck), a tree of Central _ America and Brazil, are of much larger size, showing when broken transversely an elliptic outline, whose longer diameter exceeds an inch. The valves have very prominent sutures and transverse branching veins. ‘The pulp is bitter and astringent. é The legumes of Cassia moschata H BK., a tree 30 to 40 feet high, growing in New Granada and known there as Cafiafistola de purgar, bear a close resemblance to those of Cassia Fistula L., except that they are a little smaller and rather less regularly straight. They contain a Sweetish astringent pulp of a bright brown hue. When crushed and exposed to the heat of a water-bath, they emit a pleasant odour like a wood. The pulp is coloured dark blackish green by perehloride of iron, TAMARINDI PULPA. Tamarindus, Fructus Tamarindi; Tamarinds; F. Tamarins; G. Tamarinden. Botanical Origin—Tamarindus indica L.—The tamarind Is & large handsome tree, growing to a height of 60 to 80 feet, and having abruptly pinnate leaves of 10 to 20 pairs of small oblong leaflets, con- _ Stituting an abundant and umbrageous foliage. Its purplish flower buds and fragrant, red-veined, white blossoms, ultimately assuming a yellow- ish tinge, contribute to its beautiful aspect and cause it to be generally — cultivated in tropical countries. ‘ f. indica appears to be truly indigenous to Tropical Africa between 12° N. and 18°S, lat. It grows not only in the Upper Nile regions (Sennaar, Kordofan, Abyssinia), but also in some of the remotest tb tricts visited by Speke, Grant, Kirk, and Stanley, and as far sou as the Zambesi. According to F. von Miiller” it occurs in Trop! Australia, : 3 It is found throughout India, and as it has Sanskrit names it may even be really wild in at least the southern parts of the peninsals. et grows in the Indian islands, and Crawfurd® has adduced reasons to a ' that it is probably a true native of Java. The medizeval Arabian authors describe it as growing in Yemen, India, and Nigritia. ss The tamarind has been naturalized in Brazil, Ecuador and Mex! : Hernandez,‘ who resided in the latter country from 1571 to 1579, — of it as “nuper ... ad eas oras translata.” It abounds in the ct Indies where it was also introduced together with ginger rae _ Spaniards at an early period. The tree found in these islands ze shorter and fewer-seeded pods than that of India, and hence pe . merly regarded as a distinct species, Tamarindus occidentalis Gartn- : 8 History—The tamarind was unknown to the ancient SS and Romans; nor have we any evidence that the Egyptians : 8. ? Hanbury in Linn Trans. xxiv. 161 V . alie, Melb., 1866. . : ‘ ‘ égétation de [ Austratie, 5. p- 26; Pharm. Journ. y. (1864) 348; * Dict, of Indian Islands, 1856. eer e Science Papers, p. 318 4 Now ~ a et ova plantarum, & “Exposition intercoloniale, — Notes sur la ralium historia, Rome, 1651. 83. TAMARINDI. PULPA( 6 OS acquainted with it,’ which is the more surprising considering that the tree appears indigenous to the Upper Nile countries, and that its fruit is held in the greatest esteem in those regions.” The earliest mention of tamarind oceurs in the ancient Sanskrit writings where it is spoken of under several names.*> From the Hindus, it would seem that the fruit became known to the Arabians, who called it Tamare-hindi, i.e. Indian Date. Under this name it was mentioned by Isaac Judzeus,t Avicenna,> and the Younger Mesue,° and also by Alhervi,’ a Persian physician of the 10th century who describes it as —- of the flavour of a Damascene plum, and containing fibres and stones. It was doubtless from the Arabians that a knowledge of the tamarind, as of so many other eastern drugs, passed during the middle ages into Europe through the famous school of Salernum. Oxyphanica (Ogv- goivxa) and Dactyli acetosi are names under which we meet with it in the writings of Matthzeus Platearius and Saladinus, the latter of whom, as well as other authors of the period, considered tamarinds as the fruit ofa wild palm growing in India. The abundance of tamarinds in Malabar, Coromandel, and Java was reported to Manuel, king of Portugal, in the letter of the apothecary Pyres* on the drugs of India, written in Cochin, January 27th, 1516. A correct, description of the tree was given by Garcia de Orta about fifty years later. Preparation—-Tamarinds undergo a certain preparation before being brought into commerce. Tn the West Indies, the tree matures its fruit in June, July and August, and the pods are gathered when fully ripe, which is known by the fragility of the outer shell. This latter, which easily breaks between the finger and thumb, is then removed, and the pods deprived of shelly ‘fagments are placed in layers in a cask, and boiling syrup 1s poured over them till the cask is filled. When cool, the cask is closed and is then ready for sale. Sometimes layers of sugar are placed tween the fruits previous to the hot syrup being added.’ t Indian tamarinds are also sometimes preserved with sugar, but usually they are exported without such addition, the outer shell being removed and the fruits being pressed together into a mass. : In the Upper Nile regions (Darfur, Kordofan, Sennaar) and in bia, the softer part of tamarinds is, for the sake of greater perman- nce and convenience of transport, kneaded into flattened round cakes, 4 to 8 inches in diameter and an inch or two thick, which are dried in the sun, They are of firm consistence and quite black, externally — ‘Sit Gardner Wilkinson (Anci 3 das, ed. Hessler, i. iana, i Ancient Eqyp- Susrutas Ayurvedas, ed. ' pete, i 1841, 78) says that sununfin aon (1844) 141, iii. (1850) 171. " n found in the tombs of Thebes ; 4 Opera Omnia, Lugd. 1515, lib. ii. Prac- nies consulting Dr. Birch and the collee- tices, c. 41. eee ~S in the British Museum we have ob- 5 Opera, Venet. 1564, ii. 339. 20 confirmation of the fact. ° Opera, Venet. 1561. 52. oe of Prov; Speaks of it as an invaluable gift 7 Fundamenta Pharmacologic, ed. Selig- Nord. vidence: Reisen und Entdeckungen in mann, Vindob. 1830, 49. ae 614. sane Centralafrica, Gotha, 1858. 1. 8 Journ. de Soc. Pharm. Lusit. ii, (1838) ; ii, 334. 400; iv. '173.—The same 36,—See also Appendix. ®Lunan, Hortus Jamaicensis, ii. (1814) (1872) 23. 224; Macfadyen, Flora of Jamaica, 1837. 335. a ae _ LEGUMINOSA. strewn with hair, sand, seeds and other impurities; they are largely consumed in Egypt and Central Africa, and sometimes find their way to the south of Europe as Lgyptian Tamarinds, Description—The fruit is an oblong, or linear oblong, strictly com- pressed, curved or nearly straight, pendulous legume, of the thickness of the finger and 8 to 6 inches in length, supported by a woody stalk. It has a thin but hard and brittle outer shell or epicarp, which does not split into valves or exhibit any very evident sutures. Within the epicarp is a firm, juicy pulp, on the surface of which and starting from the stalk are strong woody ramifying nerves; one of these extends along the dorsal (or concave) edge, two others on either side of the ventral (or convex) edge, while between these two there are usually 2, 3, or 4 less regular and more slender nerves,—all running towards the apex and throwing out branching filaments. The brownish or reddish pulp has usually an acid taste, though there are also sweetish varieties. The seeds, 4 to 12 in number, are each of them enclosed in a tough, membraneous cell (endocarp), surrounded by the pulp (sarcocarp).. They are flattened and of irregular outline, being roundish, ovate, or obtusely four-sided, about 55, of an inch long by 3, thick, with the edge broadly keeled or more often slightly furrowed. The testa is of a rich brown, marked on the flat sides of the seed by a large scar or oreole, of rather duller polish than the surrounding portion which is somewhat y _ striated. The seed is exalbuminous, with thick hard cotyledons ® short straight included radicle, and a plumule in which the pinnation the leaves is easily perceptible. a Tamarinds are usually distinguished in trade as West Indian a Last Indian, the former being preserved with sugar, the latter without _L. West Indian Tamarinds, Brown or Red Tamarinis—* bright reddish brown, moist, saccharine mass consisting of the P My. internal part of the fruit, usually unbroken, mixed with more oF me syrup. It has a very agreeable and refreshing taste, the natural aci¢ cA of the pulp being tempered by the sugar. It is this form of tam that is usually found in the shops. 2. East Indian Tamarinds, Black Tamarinds.—These ae from the last. described in that they are preserved without the us? sugar. They are found in the market in the form of a firm, clam black mass, consisting of the pulp mixed with the seeds, sting) fibres, and some remains of the outer shell. The pulp has @ acid taste. dian Notwithstanding the rather uninviting appearance of est oe tamarinds, they afford a good pulp, which may be satisfactorily tinent making the Confectio Senne of pharmacy. In fact, on the cont” this sort of tamarind alone is employed for medicinal purpose . . a 2 . Microscopic Structure—The soft part of tamarind consists Oe s tissue of thin-walled cells of considerable size, which is trave od long fibro-vascular bundles. In the former a few very small * pably granules are met with, and more numerous erystals, which are tg bitartrate of potassium. oe etened tam’ Chemical Composition—Water extracts from unswe hs aii : rinds, sugar together with acetic, tartaric and citric acids, BALSAMUM GOPAIBA. 227 being combined for the most part with potash. The neutralized solution reduces alkaline cupric tartrate after a while without heat, and therefore probably contains grape sugar. On evaporation, cream of tartar and sugar crystallize out. The volatile acids of the fatty series, the presence of which in the pulp has been pointed out by Gorup- Besanez, have not been met with by other chemists. Tannin is absent as well as oxalic acid. We have ascertained that in East Indian tamarinds, citric acid is present in but small quantity. No peculiar principle to which the laxative action of tamarinds can be attributed is known. The fruit-pulp diffused in water forms a thick, tremulous, somewhat glutinous and turbid liquid. It was examined as early as the year 1790 _ by Vauquelin under the name of “ vegetable jelly,’—the first described among the pectic class of bodies. The hard seeds have a testa which abounds in tannin, and after long boiling is easily separated, leaving the cotyledons soft. hese latter have a bland mucilaginous taste, and are consumed in India as food during times of scarcity. _,Commerce—Tamarinds are shipped in comparatively small quan-_ tities from several of the West Indian islands, and also from Guayaquil. The export from the Bombay Presidency in the year 1871-72 was 6286 ewt., which quantity was shipped chiefly to the Persian Gulf, Sind, and ports of the Red Sea? 128,144 centners were re-exported in 1877 from Trieste. Uses—In medicine, tamarinds are considered to be a mild laxative ; they are sometimes used to make a refrigerant drink in fever. In hot countries, especially the interior of Africa, they are regarded as of the highest value for the preparation of refreshing beverages. ¢ Black Tamarinds are said to be used in the manufacture of BALSAMUM COPAIBA. Copaiba ; Balsam of Copaiba or Copaiva, Balsam Capivi ; F. Baume ow Oléo-résine de Copahu ; G. Copaivabalsam. a Botanical Origin—The drug under notice is produced by trees longing tothe genus Copaifera, natives of the warmer’ countries of South America. Some are found in moist forests, others exclusively ™ dry and elevated situations. They vary in height and size, some she Umbrageous forest trees, while others have only the dimension of “tubs ; it is from the former alone that the oleo-resin is obtained. cart, © ‘ollowing are reputed to furnish the drug, but to what extent ~~, ntributes is not fully known. const PUtfera officinalis L. (C, Jacquin Desf.), a large tree of the hot the ; region of New Granada as far north as Panama, of Venezuela and Island of Trinidad. oo. a — Felapa , SMéamensis Desf, a tree of 30 to 40 feet high, very closely Telated to the preceding, native of Surinam, Cayenne, also of the Rio 2 : is i i ‘ a6 ~ ment of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay, 1871-72, pt. ii, 65. 3 LEGUMINOSA. Negro between Manaos and Barcellos (Spruce). According to Bentham it seems to be the same species as the C. bijuga of Hayne.’ 3. CO. coriacea Mart. (C. cordifolia Hayne), a large tree found in the : pean or dry woods of the Brazilian provinces of Bahia and iauhy. 4. C. Langsdorfii Desf? (C. nitida Hayne, C. Sellowii Hayne, ? ¢. Jussiewi Hayne), a polymorphous species, varying in the form and size of leaflets, and also in dimensions, being either a shrub, a small bushy tree, or a large tree of 60 feet high. Bentham admits, besides the type, three varieties —(. glabra (C. glabra Vogel), y. grandifolia, 6. laaa (C. laa Hayne). The tree grows on dry campos, caatingas and other places in the provinces of 8. Paulo, Minas Geraes, Goyaz, Mato Grosso, Bahia and Ceara; it is therefore distributed over a vast area. Accord- ing to Gardner, the Brazilian traveller, it yields an abundance of _ balsam. ; In addition to these species, must be mentioned a tree described by _ Hayne and commonly cited under the name of Copaifera multiywga, 8 a special source of the drug shipped from Para.* As its name implies, it 1s remarkable for the number of leaflets (6 to 10 pairs) on each © But it is only known from some leaves in the herbarium of Martius which Bentham, who has examined them, informs us are unlike those of any Copaifera known to him, though certainly the leaflets are dot with oil-vessels as in some species. In the absence of flowers fruits, there is no sufficient evidence to prove that it belongs even the genus Copaifera. It is not mentioned by Martius in his System Materice Medice Brasiliensis (1843) as a source of the drug. History—Among the early notices of Brazil is a treatise ie Portuguese friar who had resided in that country from 1570 to 1600. The manuscript found its way to England, was translated, a published by P urchas° in 1625. Its author notices many of the na’ re productions of the country, and among others Cupayba which he scribes as a large tree from whose trunk, when wounded by @ et incision, there flows in abundance a clear oil much esteem as medicine, a. Balsam. Cope. yvw is already enumerated in the 6th edition % Pharmacopcea of Amsterdam, A.D. 1636. Path Father Cristoval d’Acuiia,’ who ascended the Amazon’ from : arriving at Quito in 1638, mentions that the country affords se? io Cassia fistula, excellent sarsaparilla, and the oils of Andirova (C@ ‘- guianensis Aublet, Meliacew), and Copaiba, as good as curing wounds. va Piso and Maregraf’ who in 1636 accompanied the Count of 4 «Alle Arten geben mehr oder et : Balsam, und den meisten gle Copaifer® : Provinz Para vorkommende i (1826) : multijuga.”—Hayne, ID epee. | p- 239-244) ad- Lond. jv. is doubtful as “8 Pilgrimes and Pilgrimag® 1625) 1308. : lL oe x4 Pears Journ. vi. (1876) Moe pio de 7 Nuevo Deseubrimiento oe 0. Lansdorffii, is to be written ; see Pharm. las Amazonas, Madrid, 1 i, : roa 56, * MS. attached t : . . Havin: ed to specimens in the Kew 8 Hist, Nat. Brasilie, Marcgraf, 130. BALSAMUM COPAIBA. . | * 229 to the Dutch establishments. in Brazil, each give an account of the Copaiba and the method of obtaining its oleo-resin. The former states that the tree grows in Pernambuco and the island of Maranhon, whence the balsam is conveyed in abundance to Europe. 6 The drug was formerly brought into European commerce by the Portuguese, and used to be packed in earthen pots pointed at the lower end; it often arrived in a very impure condition.’ In the London Pharmacopceia of 1677, it was called Balsamwm Capivi, which is still its most popular name. Secretion—Karsten states that he observed resiniferous ducts, frequently more than an inch in diameter, running through the whole stem. He is of the opinion that the cell-walls of the neighbouring parenchyme are liquefied and transformed into the oleo-resin.2?, We are not able to offer any argument in favour of this opinion. In the vessels already alluded to, the balsam sometimes collects in so large a quantity, that the trunk is unable to sustain the inward pressure, and bursts. This curious phenomenon is thus referred to in a letter addressed to one of us by Mr. Spruce:—“I have three or four times heard what the Indians assured me was the bursting of an old capivi-tree, distended with oil. It is one of the strange sounds that sometimes disturb the vast solitudes of a South American forest. It resembles the boom of a distant cannon, and is quite distinct from the crash of an old tree falling from decay which one hears not unfrequently,” : A similar phenomenon is known in Borneo. The trunks of aged trees of Dryobalanops aromatica contain large quantities of oleo-resin or Camphor Oil,’ which appears to be sometimes secreted under such Pressure that the vast trunk gives way. “There is another sound, says Spenser St. John,‘ “ only heard in the oldest forests, and that is as ifa mighty tree were rent in twain. I often asked the cause, and was assured it was the camphor tree splitting asunder on account of the accumulation of camphor in some particular portion.” Extraction—Balsam Capivi is collected by the Indians on the banks — of the Orinoco and its upper affluents, and carried to Ciudad Bolivar _ (Angostura); some of this balsam reaches Europe by way of Trinidad. But it is obtained much more largely on the tributaries of the Cais- quiart and Rio Negro (the Siapa, Icanna, Uaupés, ete.) and is sent down Para. Most of the northern tributaries of the Amazon, as the Trombetas and Nhamunda, likewise furnish a supply. According to Spruce, in the Amazon valley it is the tall virgin forest, Caaguact of the Brazilians, Monte Alto of the Venezuelans, that yields most of the oils and gum-resins, and not the low, dry caatingas, or the riparial orests. The same observant traveller tells us that in Southern Vene- Zuela, Capivi is known only as el Aceite de palo (wood-orl), the name alsamo being that of the so-called Sassujras Oil, obtained from a Species of Nectandra. alsam Copaiba is also largely exported from Maracaibo where, . i ayaimont de Bomare, Dict. d’ Hist. Nat. 3 Motley in Hooker's Journ, of Botany, “i asdndlh iv. (1852) 201. | "Botanische Zeitung, xv. (1857) 316. ‘Life in the Forests of the Far East, ii, (1862) 152. ee -LEGUMINOS. |. according to Engel,’ it is produced by C. officinalis, the Canime of the natives. The finest sort, called by the collectors white copaiba, is met with in the province of Para, where Cross? saw a tree of a circumference of _more than 7 feet at 3 feet from the ground. Its trunk was clear of branches to a height of at least 90 feet. ‘The collector commenced the work by hewing out with his axe a hole or chamber in the trunk about a foot square, at a height of two feet from the ground. The base or _ floor of the chamber should be carefully and neatly cut with a gentle upward slope, and it should also decline to one side, so that the balsam on issuing may run in a body until it reaches the outer edge. Below the chamber a pointed piece of bark is cut and raised, which, enveloped - with a leaf, serves as a spout for conveying the balsam from the tree to _ the tin® The balsam, continues Cross, came flowing in a moderate sized cool current, full of air bubbles. At times the flow stopped for several - minutes, when a singular gurgling noise was heard, after which followed arush of balsam. When coming most abundantly a pint jug would have been filled in the space of one minute. The whole of the wood cut through by the axeman was bedewed with drops of balsam; the bark is apparently devoid of it. Trees of the largest size in good condition will sometimes yield four “ potos,” equal to 84 English imperial pints. Description—Copaiba is more or less viscid fluid, varying in tint from a pale yellow to a light golden brown, of a peculiar aromatic, not unpleasant odour, and a persistent, acrid, bitterish taste. Pard copal newly imported is sometimes nearly colourless and almost as fluid 8s water.’ The balsam is usually quite transparent, but there are varieties which remain always opalescent. Its sp. gr. varies from 0940 to 0°993, according as the drug contains a greater or less proportion of vola- tile oil. Copaiba becomes more fluid by heat; if heated ina test-tube to 200° C. for some time, it does not lose its fluidity on cooling. It is sometimes slightly fluorescent. It dissolves in ‘several times its we of alcohol 0°830 sp. gr, and generally in all proportions in_ absolute alcohol,” acetone, or bisulphide of carbon, and is perfectly soluble 0 4” equal volume of benzol. Glacial acetic acid readily dissolves the resi _but not the essential oil. sae ___Copaiba that is rich in resin of an acid character, unites with the oxides of baryum, calcium, or magnesium, to forma gradually hardening mass, provided a small proportion of water is present. Thus 8 t0 parts of balsam will combine as a stiff compound when gently bho ‘aay part of moistened magnesia ; and still more easily with lime aryta, : : Buignet has first shown (1861) that copaiba varies in its optical power. A sample from Trinidad examined by one of us was strong’y : : Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft fiir Erdkunde garded by the dealers with suspicion, oh ted 2u Berlin, v. (1870) 435. not of opinion that it was Sop rie very for Indi to the Under Secretary of State 5 Such is the case with aes of 0s or “ndia, on the investigation and collect. authentic specimens collected for wricz, bub ing of plants and seeds of the india-rubber in Central America by De Warsze re trees of Pard and Cea; “ had no reason aco ra, and Balsa f th les which we haa ne ountof i pr March 18778: ns sapponeatalienall left cet as i car figure in the above Report. white residue when treated with : € saw such as this which h . 1 sp. gr. 0°796. imported into London in 1873 ; ae ie BALSAMUM COPAIBA. tg ee dextrogyre, and also several samples imported in 1877 from Maturin (near Aragua, Venezuela),and Maracaibo into Hamburg, whereas we found Para balsam to be levogyre.' The Para and Maranham balsams are regarded in wholesale trade as distinct sorts, and experienced druggists are able to distinguish them apart by odour and appearance, and especially by the greater consistence of the Maranham drug. Maracaibo balsam is reckoned as another variety, but is now rarely seen in the English market. West Indian copaiba is usually said to be of inferior quality, but except that it is generally opalescent, we know not on what precise grounds. Chemical Composition—The balsam is a solution of resin in Volatile oil; the latter constitutes about 40 to 60 per cent. of the balsam, according to the age of the latter and its botanical origin. The oil has the composition C”H™; its boiling point is 245° C. or even higher. It smells and tastes like the balsam, and dissolves in from 8 to 30 parts of aleohol 0°830 sp. gr. The oil exhibits several modifications differing i optical as well as in other physical properties, but numerous samples ofthe drug, either dextrogyre or levogyre, invariably afforded us essential oils deviating to the left; their sp. gr. varies from about 0°88 to 0°91. After the oil of copaiba has been removed by distillation, there remains — a brittle amorphous resin of an acid character soluble both in benzol and amylic alcohol, and yielding only amorphous salts. Sometimes copaiba contains a small amount of erystallizable resin-acid, as first pointed out in 1829 by Schweitzer. By exposing a mixture of 9 parts of copaiba and two parts of aqueous ammonia (sp. gr. 0°95) to a tempera- ture of — 10° C,, Schweitzer obtained crystals of the acid resin termed Copaiviec Acid. They were analysed in 1834 by H. Rose, and exactly jeasured and figured by G. Rose. Hess (1839) showed that Rose’s and 's own analyses assign to copaivic acid the formula C”H™O*. It agrees with Maly’s abietic acid from colophony in composition, but not in any other way. Copaivic acid is readily soluble in alcohol, and especially in warmed copaiba itself ; much less in ether. We have before us crystals, no doubt of copaivic acid, which have been spontaneously deposited in an authentic specimen of the oleo-resin of Copaifera officinalis from — Trinidad, which we have kept for many years. The crystals may be easily dissolved by warming the balsam; on cooling the liquid, they again make their appearance after the lapse of some weeks. After ‘Teerystallization from alcohol they fuse at 116-117 C°., forming an- joel transparent mass which quickly crystallizes if touched with ol. An analogous substance, Oxycopaivic Acid, C*H*O*, was examined in rises by H. von Fehling, who bait pees it as a deposit in Paré Copaiba. ig lastly Strauss (1865) extracted Metacopaivic Acid, CO? H*O%, from. ] . balsam imported from Maracaibo. He boiled the latter with soda- ye, which separated the oil; the heavier adjacent liquid was then mixed with chloride of ammonium, which threw down the salts of the Torphous resin-acid, leaving in solution those of the metacopaivie acid. © latter acid was separated by hydrochloric acid and recrystallization alcohol. We succeeded in obtaining metacopaivic acid by washing — ; Fliickj . to : iger in Wiggers and H y 2 Or 18 to 65 per cent., sp. gr. 0°915 Jahresbericht for 1867-162, and for 1868.140. 0°995, according to Siebold (1877). 232 ao ok EEGUMINOS A the balsam with a dilute solution of carbonate of ammonium, and pre- cipitating by hydrochloric acid.. The precipitate dissolved in dilute alcohol yields the acid in small crystals, but to the amount of only about one per cent. These resin-acids have a bitterish taste and an acid reaction ; their salts of lead and silver are crystalline but insoluble ; metacopaivate of _ sodium may be crystallized from its watery solution. Commerce—The balsam is imported in barrels direct from Paré and Maranham, sometimes from Rio de J aneiro, and less often from Demerara, Angostura, Trinidad, Maracaibo, Savanilla, and Cartagena. It often reaches England by way of Havre and New York. In 1875 there were exported 10,150 kilogrammes from Savanilla, 99,800 Ib. from Ciudad Bolivar (Angostura), and 65,243 kilos. from Para. Uses—Copaiba is employed in medicine on account of its stimulant action on the mucous membranes, more especially those of the urino- genital organs. _ Adulteration—Copaiba is not unfrequently fraudulently tampered with before it reaches the pharmaceutist; and owing to its naturally variable composition, arising in part from its diverse botanical origim, its purity is not always easily ascertained. The oleo-resin usually dissolves in a small proportion of ab ee alcohol: should it refuse to do so, the presence of some fatty oil other than castor oil may be surmised. To detect an admixture of this pit _ one part of the balsam should be heated with four of spirit = bb (sp. gr. 0°838). On cooling, the mixture separates into two portions, upper of which will contain any castor oil present, dissolved in alco and the essential oil. On evaporation of this upper layer, castor i may be recognized by its odour ; but still more positively by heating a _ With caustic soda and lime, when cenanthol will be formed, the ee of which may be ascertained by its peculiar smell. By the latter an admixture of even one per cent. of castor oil can be proved. “ewise The presence of fatty oil in any considerable quantity 1s like i made evident by the greasiness of the residue, when the ae deprived of its essential oil by prolonged boiling with water. ly be The admixture of some volatile oil with copaiba can most y, ee detected by the odour, especially when the balsam is dropped on 4 ied of warmed metal. Spirit of wine may also be advantageously. 9 oil for the same purpose. It dissolves but very sparingly the on e of copaiba : the resins of the latter are also not abundantly “— in it. Hence, if shaken with the balsam, it would remove # ' the larger portion of any essential oil that might have been § 3, eet € recognition of Wood Oil if mixed with copaiba, see pase note 1. Substitutes—Under this head two drugs deserve mention, Gurjun Balsam or Wood Oil, described at p. 88, and ‘a wil Oleo-resin of Hardwickia pinnata Roxb.—The tree, which a large size, belongs to the order Leguminose and is nearly os & dense Copaifera. According to Beddome: it is very common 10 we in moist forests of the South Travancore Ghats, and has also been 0°” Flora Sylwatica for Southern India, Madras, part 24 (1872), 255. namely GUMMI ACACL&, Cae aay South Canara. The natives extract the oleo-resin in exactly the same method as that followed by the aborigines of Brazil in the case of copaiba,—that is to say, they make a deep notch reaching to the heart of the trunk, from which after a time it flows out. This oleo-resin, which has the smell and taste of copaiba, but a much darker colour, was first examined by one of us in 1865, having been sent from the India Museum as a sample of Wood Oil; it was sub- quently forwarded to us in more ample quantity by Dr. Bidie of Madras. It is a thick, viscid fluid, which, owing to its intense tint, looks black when seen in bulk by reflected light; yet it is perfectly transparent. Viewed in a thin layer by transmitted light, it is light yellowish-green, in a thick layer vinous~red,—hence is dichromic. It is not fluorescent, nor is it gelatinized or rendered turbid by bein heated to 130° C., thus differing from Wood Oil. Broughton * obtain by prolonged distillation with water an essential oil to the extent of 25 per cent. from an old specimen, and of more than 40 per cent., from one recently collected. The oil was found to have the same composi- tion as that of copaiba, to boil at 225°C., and to rotate the plane of polarization to the left. The resin*® is probably of two kinds, of which one at least possesses acid properties. Broughton made many attempts, but without success, to obtain from the resin crystals of | copaivie acid. The balsam of Hardwickia has been used in India for gonorrheea, — and with as much success as copaiba. GUMMI ACACIA. Gummi Arabicum; Gum Arabic; F. Gomme Arabique; G. Arabisches Gummi, Acacien-Gummi, Kordofan Gumm. Botanical Origin—Among the plants abounding in mucilage, humerous Acaciz of various countries are in the first line. The species ‘Particularly known for affording the largest quantities of the finest gum arabie is Acacia Senegal* Willdenow (syn. Mimosa Senegal bg Ae Verek Guillemin et Perrottet), a small tree not higher than 20 feet, sTowing abundantly on sandy soils in Western Africa, chiefly north of — the river Senegal, where it constitutes extensive forests. It is called y the negroes Verek, The same tree is likewise found in Southern Nubia, Kordofan, and in the region of the Atbara in Eastern Africa, Where it is known as Hashab. It has a greyish bark, the inner layers — ‘It may be further distinguished from Sabi Se: as well as from SoeRIEA if tested ae i ollowing simple manner:—Put into i 19 drops of bisulphide of carbon and “Top of the oleo-resin, and shake them be Then add one drop of a mixture ne Ppa Parts of strong sulphuric and . ¢ (1°42) acids. After a little agitation appearance of the respective mixtures as follows :— with tea Colour faint reddish brown, deposit of resin on sides of tube. Sete Oil—Colour intense purplish-red, ming violet after some minutes. Oleo-resin of Hardwickia—No percept- ible alteration ; the mixture pale greenish yellow. : oe By this test the presence i copaiba of one-eighth of its volume of Wood Oil may be easily shown. : : . cit, ay i ter ‘ azlett, Madras Monthly Journ. of Med. Science, June 1872. 4Figures in Guillemin and Perrottet Flore Senegamb. tent, 1830, p. 246, tab. s 56; also Bentley and Trimen, Med, Plants, part 17 (1877). : 984 LEGUMINOSA. of which are strongly fibrous, small yellowish flowers densely arranged in spikes 2 to 3 inches long, and exceeding the bipinnate leaves, and a broad legume 3 to 4 inches in length containing 5 to 6 seeds. According to Schweinfurth,’ it is this tree exclusively that yields the fine white gum of the countries bordering the Upper Nile, and especially of Kordofan. He states that only brownish or reddish sorts of gum are produced by the Talch, Talha or Kakul, Acacia stenocarpa Hochstetter, by the Ssoffar, A. fistula Schweinf. (A. Seyal Delile, var. Fistula), as well as by the Ssant or Sont, A. nilotica Desfont (A. arabica Willd.). These trees grow in north-eastern Africa; the last- named is, moreover, widely distributed all over tropical Africa as faras Senegambia,” Mozambique and Natal, and also extends to Sindh, Gujarat*® and Central India. We find even the first sort, “ Karami, of gum exported from the Somali coast,‘ to be inferior to good common Arabic gum. Hildebrandt (1875) mentions that gum is there largely collected from Acacia abyssinica Hochst. and A. glaweophylla Steudel. History—The history of this drug carries us back to a remote anti _ quity. The Egyptian fleets brought gum from the gulf of Aden as \ Says that gum is got from the forest of the Thebaie Akanthe. early as the 17th century B.c. Thus in the treasury of king Rhampsinit (Ramses III.) at Medinet Abu, there are representations of gum-trees, together with heaps of gum. The symbol used to signify gum, is read Kami-en-punt. i.e. gum from the country of Punt. ‘This, in all proba- bility, includes both the Somali coast as well as that of the opposite parts of Arabia (see article Olibanum, p. 136). Thus, gum 1s of frequent occurrence in Egyptian inscriptions; sometimes mention }s made of gum from Canaan. The word kami is the original of the Greek «éupr, whence through the Latin our own word gum. : The Egyptians used gum largely in painting ; an inscription exisls which states that in one particular instance a solution of Kame (gum) was used to render adherent the mineral igment called chesteb,® the name applied to lapis lazuli or to a glass ipaeee blue by cobalt. d Turning to the Greeks, we find that Theophrastus in the 3rd an 4th century B.C. mentioned K dup as a product of the Egy ptian Ak any of which tree there was a forest in the Thebais of Upper Egyp Strabo also, in describing the district of Arsinde, the modern Fayim, Celsus in the Ist century mentions Gummi acanthinum; Dios- corides and Pliny also describe Egyptian gum, which the latter values at 3 denarii [2s.] per Ib. s tern In those times gum no doubt used to be shipped from north-east had Africa to Arabia; there is no evidence showing that Arabia itself har _ ever furnished the chief bulk of the drug. The designation gun 4 | Aufsihlung und Beschreibung der Aca- ~ 4 As presented to me by Capt. H ‘cien- Artendes Nilgebiets. —Linnaa, i. (1867) of kana, July 1877.—F.A.F. michel pee, With 21 plates. Schweinfurth’s * We have to thank Professor Dimi observations are strongly confirmed by an for most of the information a i account of the commerce of Khartum in Egypt, which may be partly foun ee eee fiir Erdkunde, ii. (1867, own works, and partly in those of Be Sun Ebers, and Lepsius. : ie der * The A. Adansonii Guill et Perr. is the 6 Lepsius, ‘Abhande der Ahan 126. mene Oe Wissensch. zu Berlin for 1871, P- 3The * Kikar” of the “4 # ‘achen “‘ Babul” or ** Babur ” of Cantal, . ee GUMME AGAGEH. =~ = Cogs occurs in Diodorus Siculus (2, 49) in the first century of our era, also in the list of goods of Alexandria mentioned in our article on Galbanum. Gum was employed by the Arabian physicians and by those of the school of Salerno, yet its utility in medicine and the arts was but little appreciated in Europe until a much later period. For the latter purpose at least the gummy exudations of indigenous trees were occasionally resorted to, as distinctly pointed out about the beginning of the 12th century, by Theophilus or Rogker:* “gummi quot exit de arbore ceraso vel pruno.” During the middle ages, the small supplies that reached Europe were procured through the Italian traders from Egypt and Turkey. Thus_ Pegolotti? who wrote a work on commerce about A.D. 1340, speaks of gum arabic as one of the drugs sold at Constantinople by the pound not by the quintal. Again, in alist of drugs liable to duty at Pisa in 1305,° and in a similar list relating to Paris in 1349, we find mention of gum arabic. It is likewise named by Pasi,’ in 1521, as an export from Venice to London. | Gum also reached Europe from Western Africa, with which region the Portuguese had a direct trade as early as 1449. Production—Respecting the origin of gum in the tribe Acacia, no : 0 Waele have been made similar to those of H. von Mohl on traga- canth, _ It appears that gum generally exudes from the trees spontaneously, 'n sufficient abundance to render wounding the bark superfluous. The omali tribes of East Africa, however, are in the habit of promoting the outflow by making long incisions in the stem and branches of the tree.’ In Kordofan the lumps of gum are broken off with an axe, and collected in baskets, The most valued product, called Hashabi gum, from the province of ejara in Kordofan, is sent northward from Bara and El Obeid to Dabbeh on the Nile, and thence down the river to Egypt; or it reaches the White Nile at Mandjara. A less valuable gum, known as Hashabi el Jesire, comes from Sennaar on the Blue Nile ; and a still worse from the barren table-land of Takka, lying between the eastern tributaries of the Blue Nile and the Atbara and Mareb ; and from the highlands of the Bisharrin Arabs between Khartum and the Red Sea. This gum is transported by way of th artum or El Mekheir (Berber), or by Suakin on the Red Sea. Hence, Ga kind of gum is known in Egypt as Sumagh Savakumi (Suakin : According to each er’ a better sort of gum is produced along the Samhara coast towards revues. and is shipped at Massowa. Some of "reaches Egypt by way of Jidda, which town being in the district of in wud diversarum artium, Ilg’s edition 4 Ordonnances des Rois de France, ii. (1729) Perse ad Fol ’S Quellenschriften fiir Kunst- 310. ; es 5 = 2 Deller yur, (1874) 60. 5 Tarifa de pesi e misure, Venet. 1521. : ea Decima e di varie altre qraverze 204. First edition, 1503. se dal commune di Firenze, iii, (1766) 6 See, however, Miller, Academy of a Bonain: Vienna, Sitzungsberichte, June 1875. Pisa, rea Statuti inediti deila citta di 7 Vaughan (Drugs of Aden), Pharm, » “renze, iii, (1857) 106. 114. Journ. xii. (1853) 226. 8 Private information to F.A.F. __ In moist air, it slowly absorbs about 6 per cent of water. ce empyreumatic taste, when it is kept for months at a temperature 236, _ LEGUMINOS#. | Arabia called the Hejaz, the gum thence brought receives the name of Samagh Hejazi ; itis also called Jiddah or Gedda Gum. The gums of Zeila, Berbera and the Somali country about Gardafui, are shipped to Aden, or direct to Bombay. A little gum is collected in Southern Arabia, but the quantity is said to be insignificant.’ In the French colony of Senegal, gum, which is one of its principal productions, is collected chiefly in the country lying north of the river, by the Moors who exchange it for European commodities. The gather- ing commences after the rainy season in November when the wind begins to set from the desert, and continues till the month of July. The gum is shipped for the most part to Bordeaux. The quantity annually imported into France since 1828 from Senegal is varying from between 14 to 5 millions of kilogrammes. Description—Gum arabic does not exhibit any very characteristic forms like those observable in gum tragacanth. The finest white gum of Kordofan, which is that most suitable for medicinal use, occurs m lumps of various sizes from that of a walnut downwards. They are mostly of ovoid or spherical form, rarely vermicular, with the surface m the unbroken masses, rounded,—in the fragments, angular. They are traversed by numerous fissures, and break easily and with a vitreous fracture. The interior is often less fissured than the outer portion. At 100° C. the cracks increase, and the gum becomes extremely friable. __ The finest gum arabic is perfectly clear and colourless; inferior kinds have a brownish, reddish or yellowish tint of greater oT Jess intensity, and are more or less contaminated with accidental impurities such as bark. The finest white gum turns black and assumes 42 about 98°C., either in an open vessel, or enclosed in a glass tube, after _ having been previously dried over sulphuric acid or not. kee An aqueous solution of gum deviates the plane of polarization m _ to the left in a column 50 mm. long; but after being long et? becomes strongly acid, the gum having been partly converted gt sugar, and its optical properties are altered. An alkaline solution o” cupric tartrate is not reduced by solution of gum even ata bo unless it contains a somewhat considerable proportion of sugar, = table by alcohol, or a fraudulent admixture of dextrin. ‘od in : We found the sp. gr. of the purest pieces of colourless gum dr: a _ the air at 15°C., to be 1-487: but it increases to 1°525, if the gu = be at 100°. nite git of __. The foregoing remarks apply chiefly to the fine white 5... _ Kordofan, the Picked Turkey Suir or W, hite Sennaar Gum of draget the The other sorts which are met with in the London market ar © following bie ex 1. Senegal Gum—aAs stated above, this gum is an important ari : of the French trade with Africa, but is not much used in Its colour is usually yellowish or somewhat reddish, and the ae which are of large size, are often elongated or vermicular. Mor Senegal gum never exhibits the numerous fissures seen 10 Ko gum, so that the masses are much firmer and less easily broken. 1Vaughan, /.c. GUMMI ACACIA, 237 every other respect, whether chemical or optical, we find’ Senegal gum and Kordofan gum to be identical ; and the two, notwithstanding their different appearance, are produced by one and the same species of Acacia, namely Acacia Senegal. 2. Suakin Gum, Talea or Talha Gum, yielded by Acacia steno- carpa, and by A. Seyal var. Fistula, is remarkable for its brittleness, which occasions much of it to arrive in the market in a semi-pulveru- lent state. It is a mixture of nearly colourless and of brownish gum, with here and there pieces of a deep reddish-brown. Large tears have a dull opaque look, by reason of the innumerable minute fissures which penetrate the rather bubbly mass. It is imported from Alexandria. 3. Morocco, Mogador or Brown Barbary Gum—consists of tears | of moderate size, often vermiform, and of a rather uniform, light, dusky brown tint. The tears which are internally glassy become cracked on the surface and brittle if kept in a warm room; they are perfectly soluble in water. The above mentioned Acacia nilotica is supposed to be the source of the cum exported from Morocco, and also from Fezzan. Gums of various kinds, including the resin Sandrac, were exported from Morocco in the year 1872 to the extent. of 5110 ewt., a quantity much below the average. 7 _ 4. Cape Gum—This gum, which is uniformly of an amber brown, — 's produced in plenty in the Cape Colony, as a spontaneous Rae Sloweuns of Acacia horrida Willd. (A. Karroo Hayne, A. capensis Bureh.), a large tree, the Doornboom, Wittedoorn or Karrédoorn of the Cape colonists, the commonest tree of the lonely deserts of South Africa. The Blue Book of the Cape Colony, published in 1873, states the export of gum in 1872 as 101,241 Ib. _ > East India Gum—The best qualities consist of tears of various — “izes, sometimes as large as an egg, internally transparent and vitreous, — ofa pale amber or pinkish hue, completely soluble in water. This gum Is largely shipped from Bombay, but is almost wholly the produce of 1ca; the imports into Bombay from the Red Sea ports, Aden and the African Coast in the year 1872-73, were 14,352 cwt. During the ‘ame year the shipments from Bombay to the United Kingdom amounted to 4,561 ewt? 6. Australian Gum, Wattle Gum—This occurs in large hard — Slobular tears and lumps, occasionally of a pale yellow, yet more often of an amber or of a reddish-brown hue. It is transparent and entirely Soluble in water ; the mucilage is strongly adhesive, and said to be less — lable to crack when dry than that of some other gums. The solution, *specially that of the darker and inferior kinds, contains a little tannin, oy derived from the very astringent bark which is often attached & gum. . pe A. pyenantha Benth. ; A. decurrens Willd. (A. mollissima Willd, A. dealbate, Link), Black or Green Wattle-tree of the colonists, and A. Hmalophyla A. Cunn., are the trees which furnish the gum arabic of sinks fs lat ; ra lickiger, in the Jahresbericht of Wig- of the Presidency of Bombay for 1872-73, e Sets and Husemann, 1869. 149. pt. ii. 34. 77. Ras toh Consular Reports, August, 1873. 917. 4P, von Miiller, Select Plants for indus- * Statement of the Trade and Navigation trial culture in Victoria, 1876 ; 2. 4. é | ae 8 LEGUMINOS2. Chemical Characters and Composition—At ordinary tem- peratures gum dissolves very slowly and without affecting the thermo- meter in an equal weight of water, forming a thick, glutinous, slightly opalescent liquid, having a mawkish taste and decidedly acid reaction. At higher temperatures the dissolution of gum is but slightly accele- rated, and water does not take up a much larger quantity even at 100°. The finest gum dried at 100° C. forms with two parts of water a mucilage of sp. gr. 1149 at 15° C. : This solution mixes with glycerine, and the mixture may be evapo- rated to the consistence of a jelly without any separation taking place. Solid gum in lumps, on the contrary, is but little affected by concen- trated glycerine. In other liquids, gum is insoluble or only slightly soluble, unless there is a considerable quantity of water present. Thus 100 parts of spirit of wine containing 22 volumes per cent. of aleohol, dissolve 57 parts of gum; spirit containing 40 per cent. of alcohol _ takes up 10 parts, and spirit of 50 per cent. only 4 parts. Aqueous alcohol of 60 per cent. no longer dissolves gum, but extracts from it 4 _ small quantity (4 to + per cent. according to the variety) of resi _ colouring matter, glucose, calcium chloride, and other salts. Neutral acetate of lead does not precipitate gum arabic mucilage; but the basic acetate forms, even ina very dilute solution, a precipitate of definite constitution. : Soluble silicates, borates, and ferric salts render gum solution turbid, or thicken it to a jelly. It is nota compound of gum with any of these substances which is formed, but in the cases of the first, basic silicates separate. No alteration is produced by silver salts, mercuric chloride or iodine. Ammonium oxalate throws down the lime contained in @ solution of gum. Gum dissolves in an ammoniacal solution of cupt¢ oxide. Acted upon by nitric acid, mucic acid is produced. a Small, air-dried lumps of gum lose by desiccation over concentra' sulphuric acid (or by heating them in the water-bath) 12 to 16 per cent. of water. If gum independently of its amount of lime, be presente by the formula C¥H"O" +3 H20, the loss of 3 molecules of water ¥ correspond to a decrease in weight of 13:6 per cent.; in care y selected colourless pieces, we have found it to amount to 1314 Me cent. At a temperature of about 150° C., gum parts with another moe cule of water, and partly loses its solubility and assumes a brownish ee and empyreumatic taste. Gum already by keeping it for a week & temperature not exceeding 95° OC. gradually acquires a decidedly pre? _ Teumatic taste. We have also observed, on the other hand, a fine ws ; gum affording an imperfect solution which was glairy, like the mué sie _ of marsh-mallow, but in no other respect could we find that 1t _ from ordinary gum. On exposing it for some days to a temperature 95° C., it afforded a solution of the usual character. ae : en gum arabic is dissolved in cold water and the solution a slightly acidulated with hydrochloric acid, alcohol produces it s | Deepitate of Arabin or Arabic Acid. It may be also prepared, Placing @ solution of gum (1 gum + 5 water), acidulated with hy “ae chlorie acid, on a dialyser, when the calcium salt will diffuse out, leave behind a solution of arabin. are | Solution of arabin differs from one of gum in not being precipita! by alcohol. Having been dried, it loses its solubility, merely swe " ~ GUMMI ACACLH. - 939 in water, but not dissolving even at a boiling heat. If an alkali is added, it forms a solution like ordinary gum. Neubauer who observed these facts (1854-57) showed that gum arabic is essentially an acid calcium salt of arabic acid. Arabic Acid dried at 100° C. has the composition C?H”O", and gives up H?O when it unites with bases. It has however a great tendency to form salts containing a large excess of acid. An acid calcium arabate of the composition (C°H"0")? Ca + 3 (C°H”O" + 5 OH") would afford by incineration 4°95 per cent. of calcium carbonate. Nearly this amount of ash is in fact sometimes yielded by gum. The most carefully selected colourless pieces of it yield from 2°7 to 4 per cent. of ash, consisting mainly of calcium carbonate, but containing also carbonates of potassium and magnesium. Phosphoric acid appears never to occur in gums. See: Natural gum may therefore be regarded as a salt of arabie acid having a large excess of acid, or perhaps as a mixture of such salts of calcium, potassium and magnesium. It is to the presence of these bases, which are doubtless derived from the cell-wall from which the gum exuded, that gum owes its solubility. : _ It still remains unexplained why certain gums, not unprovided with mineral constituents, merely swell up in water without dissolving, — thus materially differing from gum arabic. There is also a marked difference between gum arabic and many other varieties of gum or mucilage, which immediately form a plumbic compound if treated with neutral acetate of lead. The type of the swelling, but not really soluble gums, is Tragacanth, but there are a great many other substances of the same class, some of them perfectly resembling gum arabic in external appearance. The name of Bassora gum has also been applied to the latter kinds, Commerce—The imports of Gum Arabic into the United Kingdom have been as follows :-— 1871 1872 76,136 cwt., value £250,088. 42,837 ewt., value £123,080. : country whence by far the largest supplies are shipped, is Pp Uses—Gum is employed in medicine rather as an adjuvant than a8 possessing any remedial powers of its own. : Substitutes—A great number of trees are capable of affording sums more or less similar to gum arabic. There is to be mentioned for instance Prosopis glandulosa Torrey, a tree growing from 30 to 40 feet in height, occurring very abundantly in Texas, and extending as far west as the Colorado and the gulf of California. It is universally known by its Mexican name Mesquite. It belongs to the same suborder of the Mimose like the Acacize tribe of the Adenantherew. esqwite gum agrees not with the fine description, but with the inferior *orts of gum arabic, and is sometimes used in America,’ since 1854, In the manufacture of confectionery and the arts. : Feronia Gum or Wood Apple Gum. This is the produce of Feronia * See Proceedings of Am. Pharm. Assoc. 1875. 647; Am. Journ. of Pharm. 1878. 480. 5 ee -LEGUMINOSA. Hlephantum Correa, a.spiny tree, 50 to 60 feet high, of the order of Aurantiacee, common throughout India from the hot valleys of the — Himalaya to Ceylon, and also found in Java. There exudes from its _ bark abundance of gum, which appears not to be collected for exporta- tion per se, but rather to be mixed indiscriminately with other gum, as that of Acacia. Feronia gum sometimes forms small roundish transparent, almost colourless tears, more frequently stalactitic or knobby masses, of a brownish or reddish colour, more or less deep. In an authentic sample, for which we are indebted to Dr. Thwaites of Ceylon, horn-shaped pieces about 4 an inch thick and two inches long also occur. Dissolved in two parts of water, it affords an almost tasteless _ maucilage, of much greater viscosity than that of gum arabie made in the same proportions. The solution reddens litmus, and is precipitated like gum arabic by alcohol, oxalate of ammonium, alkaline silicates, perchloride of iron, but not by borax. Moreover, the solution of Feronia gum is precipitated by neutral acetate of lead or caustic baryta, but not by potash. If the solution is completely precipitated by neutral acetate of lead, the residual liquid will be found to contain a small quantity of a different gum, identical apparently with gum arabic, inasmuch as it is not thrown down by acetate of _ lead. If the lime is precipitated from the Feronia mucilage by _ oxalate of potassium, the gum partially loses its solubility and forms turbid liquid. ‘ F. rom the preceding experiments, it follows that a larger portioD of Feronia gum is by no means identical with gum arabic. The former, when examined in a column of 50 mm. length, deviates the rays of polarized light 0°-4 to the right,—not to the left as gum arabic. This was, we believe, the first instance of a dextrogyre gum ;' Scheibler has _ _ afterwards shown (1873) that there are also dextrogyre varieties among _ are of two species, namely :— the African gum from ‘Sennar. Gum arabic may be combined with oxide of lead; the compound (arabate of lead) contains 30°6 per cent, of oxide of lead, whereas the plumbic compound of Feronia gum, ee = at 110° C, yielded us only 14°76 per cent. of PbO, The formula (C aE ye b+2(C"H"0") supposes 14-2 per cent. of oxide of lead. erohia gum repeatedly treated with fuming nitric acid p mer abundant crystals of mucie acid. We found our sample of the gum ead per cent. of water, when dried at 110°C. It left 3°55 per cent. of ash. Ls CATECHU. ——— Catechu nigrum; Black Catechu, Pequ Catechw, Cutch, Terra Japonica ; F. Cachou, Cachou brun ow noir ; G. Catecht 2 Botanical Origin—The trees from which this drug is manufactured R 1. Acacia Catechu Willd. (Mimosa Catechu L. fil., M. , Su oxb.”), a tree 30 to 40 feet high, with a short, not very straight a as distinct 1 eae ee PP eae. Pharm. Journ. x. (1869). gard Mimosa (Acacia) Sundirs ntley and 7 we ‘ from A. Catechu.—Fig. 1 = Some Indian botanists, as Beddome, re- Trimen, part 17. ~CATECHU. - Konig ied ee meee | 4to 6 feet in girth, straggling thorny branches, light feathery foliage, and dark grey or brown bark, reddish and fibrous internally. ; It is common in most parts of India and Burma, where it is highly yalued for its wood, which is used for posts and for various domestic purposes, as well as for making catechu and charcoal, while the astrin- gent bark serves for tanning. It also grows in the hotter and drier parts of Ceylon. .A. Catechu abounds in the forests of Tropical Eastern Africa; it is found in the Soudan, Sennaar, Abyssinia, the Noer country, and Mozambique, but in none of these regions is any astringent extract manufactured from its wood. 2. A. Suma Kurz! (Mimosa Suma Roxb.), a large tree with a red heartwood, but a white bark, nearly related to the preceding but not — having so extensive a geographical range. It grows in the South of India (Mysore), Bengal and Gujerat. The bark is used in tanning, and catechu is made from the heart-wood. _ The extract of the wood of these two species of Acacia is Catechu in the true and original sense of the word, a substance not to be con- founded with Gambier, which, though very similar in composition, is widely diverse in botanical origin, and always regarded in commerce as a distinct article. History—Barbosa in his description of the East Indies in 1514° - mentions a drug called Cacho as an article of export from Cambay to . This is the name for Catechw in some of the languages of Southern India.’ About fifty years later, Garcia de Orta gave a particular account of the same drug “under its Hindustani name of Kat, first describing the tree and then the method of preparing an extract from its wood, This latter substance was at that period made up with the flour of a cereal wsine coracana Girtn.) into tablets or lozenges, and apparently not sold in its simple state : compositions of this kind are still met with in India. In the time of Garcia de Orta the drug was an important article of traffic to Malacca and China, as well as to Arabia and Persia. Notwithstanding these accounts, catechu remained unknown in Europe until the 17th century, when it began to be brought from apan, or at least said to be exported from that country. It was known about 1641 to Johannes Schroder, and is quoted at nearly the same time in several tariffs of German towns, being included in the simples ae of mineral origin.® : In 1671, catechu was noticed as a useful medicine by G. W. Wedel © of Jena,’ who also called attention to the diversity of opinion as to Its ne dis, Forest Fl ib. iii “Est et genus terre p ora of North- Western 1649. lib. iii. 516. et genus é whi Central India, fond 1378 187, from _ exotice, colore purpureum, punctulis albis ch excellent work we also borrow the intertextum, ac sisitum contraxisset, sapore “scription of A. Catechu, austeriusculum, masticatum liquescens, Tublished by th i bdulcemque post se relinquens saporem, Tana. 1866, : 191. ae ee Catechil vocal seu Terram > gomegried Ae 8 Tamil and Canarese, in which ac- _—Particulam hujus obtinut a * harmbcopts’ str § to modern apalitie ria wank nostrate curiosissimo Dn. Matthia Bansa.” Sheri 9 * or Kédchu.— Moodeen The Pisce 7 dated F apaer > 1641. 3g PPh to Ph i i 6 Pharm. Journ. vi. (15) 22. : saa at eicgeniree fase 7 Usus novus Catechu seu Terre Japonice, 4477, um Historia, ed. Clusius, 1574. —Hphemerides Nat. Cur. Dec. i, ann. 2 + Ppa Writes the word Cate. (1671) 209. armacopria medico-physica, Ulme, Q ‘ 249 = -LEGUMINOSA:. mineral or vegetable nature. Schréck' in 1677 combated the notion of its mineral origin, and gave reasons for considering it a vegetable sub- stance. <. ROSACEA brown fibrous prosenchyme. The liber is crossed in a radial direction — by numerous broad medullary rays of the usual structure. The paren- chymatous portion is loaded both with very large single crystals, and crystalline tufts of calcium oxalate. There is also an abundance of small starch granules, and brown particles of tannic matters. Thin slices of the bark moistened with perchloride of iron, assume a blackish coloration. Chemical Composition— The bitterness and odour of the fresh bark depend no doubt on the presence of a substance analogous to amygdalin, which has not yet been examined. Hydrocyanic acid and essential oil are produced when the bark is distilled with water, and _ must be due to the mutual action of that substance alluded to, and some ’ principle of the nature of emulsin. From the fact that an extract of the bark remained bitter although the whole of the essential oil and hydiv- eyanic acid had been removed, Proctor inferred the existence of another substance to which the tonic properties of the bark are perhaps due. The fresh bark was found by Perot! to yield 4 per mille of hydr- cyanic acid in April, 1 per mille in June, and 1°4 in October. The best time for collecting the bark is therefore the autumn. Uses—In America, wild cherry bark is held in high estimation for its mildly tonic and sedative properties. It is administered most appt priately in the form of cold infusion or syrup, the latter being a strong cold infusion, sweetened ; a fluid extract and a dry resinoid extract are _ also in use. The bark is said to deteriorate by keeping, and should be preferred when recently dried. : FOLIA LAURO-CERASI. Common Laurel or Cherry-lawrel Leaves; F. Feuilles de Lawrier- cerise ; G. Kirschlorbeerblatter. Botanical Origin—Prunus Lawro-cerasus L.,a handsome evergre? shrub, growing to the height of 18 or more feet, is a native of ee u: casian provinces of Russia (Mingrelia, Imeritia, Guriel), of the sal of North-western Asia Minor, and Northern Persia. It has been ™ of duced as a plant of ornament into all the more temperate peas _ Europe, and flourishes well in England and other parts, where _ Winter is not severe and the summer not excessively hot and dy: History—Pierre Belon, the French naturalist, who travelled in i East between 1546 and 1550, is stated by Clusius? to have disco a the cherry-laurel in the neighbourhood of Trebizond. Thirty ¥ later, Clusius himself obtained the plant through the Imperial ae “ad dor at Constantinople, and distributed it from Vienna to the gardens Germany. Since it is mentioned by Gerarde? as a choice pu like 1t must have been cultivated in England prior to 1597. Ray, 2° Gerarde calls the plant Ch erry-bay,states that it is not knowD to medicinal properties. iety In 1781, Madden of Dublin drew the attention of the Royal Scie) | Pharm. Journ, xviii. (1852) 109 3 Herball (1636) 1603. * Rariorum Plantarum Historia, 1601. 4. 4 Hist. Plant ii. (1693) 1549. FOLIA LAURO-CERASI. | “955 of London’ to some cases of poisoning that had occurred by the use of a distilled water of the leaves. This water he states had been for many years in frequent use in Ireland among cooks, for flavouring puddings and creams, and also much in vogue with dram drinkers as an addition to brandy, without any ill effects from it having been noticed. The fatal cases thus brought forward occasioned much investigation, but the true nature of the poison was not understood till pointed out by Schrader in 1803 (see art. Amygdale amare, p. 248, note 2). Cherry- laurel water, though long used on the Continent, has never been much prescribed in Great Britain, and had no place in any British Pharma- copeeia till 1839. Description—The leaves are alternate, simple, of leathery texture and shining upper surface, 5 to 6 inches long by 13 to 2 inches wide, oblong or slightly obovate, attenuated towards either end. The thick leafstalk, scarcely half an inch in length, is prolonged as a stout midrib to the recurved apex. The margin, which is also recurved, is provided with sharp but very short serratures, and glandular teeth, which become more distant towards the base. The under side, which is of a paler colour and dull surface, is marked by 8 or 10 lateral veins, anastomosing towards the edge. Below the lower of these and close to the midrib, are from two to four shallow depressions or glands, which in spring exude a saccharine matter, and soon assume a brownish colour. By the glands with which the teeth of the serratures are provided, a rather resinous substance is secreted.2 The fresh leaves are inodorous until they are bruised or torn, when they instantly emit the smell of bitter almond oil and hydrocyanic acid. When chewed they taste rough, aromatic and bitter. Microscopic Structure—The upper surface of the leaf is consti- tuted of thin cuticle and the epidermis made up of large, nearly cubic cells. The middle layer of the interior tissue exhibits densely packed small cells, whereas the prevailing part of the whole tissue is formed of larger, loose cells, Most of them are loaded with chlorophyll; some enclose crystals of oxalate of calcium. _ Chemical Composition—The leaves when cut to pieces and sub- mitted to distillation with water, yield Bitter Almond Oil and Hydro- cyanie Acid, produced by the decomposition of Laurocerasin. This * 2 amorphous yellowish substance isolated by Lehmann (1874) in © endorff’s laboratory. He extracted the leaves with boiling alcohol, and purified the liquid by gently warming it with hydroxide of lead. tom the liquid, crude laurocerasin was precipitated on addition of ether ; it was again dissolved repeatedly in alcohol and precipitated by — ether. The yield of the leaves is about 14 per cent. Laurocerasin is readily soluble in water, the solution deviates the plan of polarization the left, yet not to the same amount as amygdalin. The molecule of laurocerasin, C”H" NO”, would appear to —_— those of amygdalin, O”, amygdalic acid, C"H"O" and 7 OH’. The proportion of hydrocyanie acid in the distilled water of the leaves has been the subject of many researches. Among the later are those of Broeker (1867), who distilled a given weight of the leaves 2, hil. Trans, Xxxvii. (for 1731-32) 84. fiir wissenschaftliche Botanik, x. (1875) Reinke, in Pringsheim’s Jahrbiicher 129. _ 256— eS ROSACEZ. grown in Holland under precisely similar circumstances, in each month of the year. The results proved that the product obtained during the — winter and early spring was weaker in the acid in the proportion of 17 to 24, 28, or 30, the strongest water being that distilled in July and - August. This chemist found that a stronger product was got when the leaves were chopped fine, than when they were used whole. According to Christison; the buds and very young leaves yield ten times as much essential oil as the leaves one year old. We have ascertained that leaves collected in January when they were thoroughly frozen yielded a distillate containing about ten times less of hydrocyanie acid than in summer. The product obtained from the leaves collected in January, but previously dried for several days at 100° C (212° F), still proved to contain both essential oil and hydrocyanic acid. The unwounded leaves of the cherry-laurel in vigorous vegetation have been shown by our friend Prof. Schaer, not to evolve naturally a trace of hydrocyanic acid, though they yield it on the slightest puncture. We are ignorant of the mode of distribution in the living - tissue of the lauro-cerasin, and of the substances causing its decompo- 8,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea-level2 We have never 20 sition, and how these two bodies are packed so as to prevent the slightest mutual reaction. The leaves may be even dried at 100 : Pe es powdered without the evolution of any odour of hydrocyanie acid, but the latter is at once developed by the addition of a little water ; om tilling its presence is proved by means of all the usual tests in the drops of the product. | saith _ Besides the substances concerned in the production of the essential oil, the leaves contain sugar which reduces cupric oxide in the cold, small quantity of an iron-greening tannin, and a fatty bis: substance. _ Schoonbroodt (1868) treated the aqueous extract of the fresh leaves with alcoholic ether, which yielded } per mille of bitter, 20 erystals; these quickly reduced cupric oxide, losing their bitterness. ___ Bougarel (1877) isolated from the leaves under notice and sever” ‘others, Phyllinic acid, a erystalline powder melting at 170° ©. arel _ Uses—The leaves are only employed for making cherry water (Aqua Lauro-cerasi), the use of which in England 18 genera'y superseded by that of the more definite hydrocyanic acid. FLORES KOSO. Flores Brayerw, Cusso, Kousso, Kosso. Botanical Origin—Hugenia abyssinica Willd. (Brayer? 0 feet, minthica Kunth), a handsome tree growing to a height sabe n found throughout the entire Solent of Abyssinia at an mee it i ing in any botanic garden. The tree® is remarkable for its ota t foliage and fine panicles of flowers, and is generally P about the Abyssinian villages. 1 2 rp ensatory, 1842. 592. from Madagascar to ais e rench section of the International of 1878. Trimen, Med. ‘irican Association contributed Kousso 3 Fig. in Bentley and Plants, part 5 (1876). FLORES KOSO. = 257 History—The celebrated Bruce’ during his journey to discover the source of the Nile, 1768-1773, found the koso tree in Abyssinia, ob- — served the uses made of it by the natives, and published a figure of it in the narrative of his travels. It was also described in 1799 by Willdenow who called it Hagenia in honour of Dr. K. G. Hagen of Konigsberg. The anthelmintic virtues of koso were investigated by Brayer, a French physician of Constantinople, to which place parcels of the dru are occasionally brought by way of Egypt, and he published a smal pamphlet on the subject.? Several scattered notices of koso appeared in 1839-41, but no supply of it reached Europe until about 1850, when a Frenchman who had been in Abyssinia obtained a large stock (1,400 Ib., it was said), a portion of which he endeavoured to sell in London at 35s. per ownce! The absurd value set upon the drug pro- duced the usual result: large quantities were imported, and the price gradually fell to 3s, or 4s. per lb. Koso was admitted a place in the British Pharmacopceia of 1864. _ _Description—The flowers grow in broad panicles, 10 to 12 inches in length. They are unisexual, but though male and female occur on the same tree, the latter are chiefly collected. The panicles are either loosely dried, often including a portion of stalk and sometimes a leaf, or they are made into cylindrical rolls, kept in form by transverse ligatures, Very often the panicles arrive quite broken up, and with the flowers in'a very fragmentary state. They have a herby, some- what tea-like smell, and a bitterish acrid taste. ee The panicle consists of a zigzag stalk, which with its man, branches is clothed with shaggy simple hairs, and also dotted over wit minute stalked glands; it is provided at each ramification with a ge sheathing bract. At the base of each flower are two or three rounded veiny membranous bracts, between which is the turbinate calyx, having ten sepals arranged in a double series. In the male, the outer series consists of much smaller sepals than the inner; in the female, the outer in the ultimate development become enlarged, obovate and spreading, so that the whole flower measures Y 2 an inch across. In both, the sepals are veiny and leaflike. The petals are minute and linear, inserted with the stamens in the throat of the calyx. These latter are 10 to 25 in number, with anthers in the female flower, effete. The carpels are two, included in the caly- “imal tube; and each surmounted by a hairy style. The fruit is an obovate one-seeded nut, ; 0s as seen in commerce has a light brown hue, with a reddish m the case of the female Aowers, so that panicles of the latter are “ometimes distinguished as Red Koso. . Chemical Composition—Wittstein (1840) found in koso, together with the substances common to most vegetables (wax, sugar, and gum), ; Travels, y 1790 for sale in London. Pharm. Journ, x. * Notice sur 2 Mis 1851 15; reprinted in Pereira’s Elem. of famille des Rosacéen, emploien anne te Mat. Med, &. part 2 (1858) 1815,—Also Paris, 1822. The reader should Meyer-Ahrens, Die Bliithen des Kosso- consult the excellent notice by Pereira baumes, Ziirich, 1851. 90 pp. also ec a ROSACEA. 24 per cent. of tannin, and 6:25 of ait acrid bitter resin, which was : observed by Harms (1857) to possess acid properties. : The researches of Pavesi (1858), and still more those of Bedall have made us acquainted with the active principle of the drug, which has been named Kowssin or Kosin. It may be obtained by mixing the flowers with lime, exhausting them with alcohol and then with water; the solutions mixed, concentrated, and treated with acetic acid, deposit the kosin. Weare indebted to Dr. Bedall fora specimen of it, which we find to consist chiefly of an amorphous, resinoid substance, from which we got a few yellow crystals by means of glacial acetic acid. Mr. Merck favoured us with kosin prepared in his laboratory at Darmstadt. It is a tasteless substance of a yellow colour, forming fine crystals of the rhombic system,—readily soluble in benzol, bisulphide _ of carbon, chloroform or ether, less freely in glacial acetic acid, and in- soluble in water. We found a solution of kosin in 20 parts of chloroform to be destitute of rotatory power. Of alcohol, sp. gr. 0°818, 1000 parts _- dissolve at 12° C. only 2°3 parts of this kosin. It is abundantly soluble in alkalis, caustic or carbonated, yet has nevertheless no acid reaction, and may be precipitated from these solutions by an acid without having undergone any alteration. It is then however a white amorphous mass, which yields the original yellow crystals by re-solution m boiling alcohol, in which it dissolves readily. The analysis which we have performed of kossin assigns it the formula C*H™O™. Kosin fuses at 142°°C., and remains after cooling an amorphous, transparent yellow mass; but if touched with alcohol, it immediately assumes the form of stellate tufts of crystals. This may be repeated . 4 pleasure, kosin not being altered by cautious fusion. : ; Kosin is not decomposed by boiling dilute acids. It upset strong sulphuric acid, giving a yellow solution which becomes turbid by the addition of water, white amorphous kosin being thrown down. ** the same time a well-marked odour exactly like that of Locust Beans due to isobutyrie acid, CH CH®.CH.COOH, is evolved. It vote appear that in all probability kosin is a compound ether of that a " It is very remarkable that the active principle of fern-root, the ni acid (see Rhizoma Filicis), by decomposition yields butyric acie. the sulphuric solution of kosin is allowed to stand for a wee ip gradually assumes a fine red ; and then yields, on addition of much bs af an amorphous red mass which after drying is not soluble in bisulphiee carbon, and may thus be purified. We have not succeeded in 0 this red derivative of kosin in a crystalline state.” oes In its anthelmintic action, kosin is nearly allied with filieie act ; Distillation with water separates from the flowers df koe stearoptene-like oil having the odour of koso, and traces of vale and and acetic acid. No such body as the Hagenic Acid of Viale Latini (1852) could be detected by Bedall. Commerce—Koso is brought to England by way of Aden of prope sppsane also to reach Leghorn, probably carried thither direc syP =f &o8 : Ph. pes Bri Es ted fir — *Flckiger and Buri, Yearbook of 208 : Vi, ) 481; xi, (1862 1875. 19. maci® wt : ® Buchheim, Archiv der Pha (1876) 417. Bombay; m PETALA ROSH GALLICA, — 259 Uses—The drug is employed solely as a vermifuge, and is effectual for the expulsion both of Tenia soliwm and of Bothriocephalus latus. The Abyssinian practice is to administer the flowers in substance in a very ample dose, which is sometimes attended with alarming and even fatal results. The notion that the action of the drug is partially mechanical and due to the hairs of the plant, prevails in England, and has led to the use of an unstrained infusion of the coarsely powdered flowers. This remedy, from the quantity of branny powder (2 to 4 drachms) that has to be swallowed, is far from agreeable; and as it occasions strong purgation and sometimes vomiting, it is not often prescribed. The fruit of the koso tree, a small indehiscent achene, is stated by M. Th. von Heuglin? to act even more powerful than the flowers; he calls it (or the seed ?) Kosala. It would appear that the fruits have been used as an anthelmintic two centuries ago in Abyssinia.” Dragendorff (1878) found them to be rich in fatty matters, but devoid of an alkaloid. PETALA ROSE GALLIC. Flores Rose: rubra: ; Red Rose Petals, Rose Leaves, True Provins Roses; F. Pétales de Roses rouges, Roses de Provins ; G. Essigrosenblitter. Botanical Origin—Rosa gallica L., a low-growing bush, with a creeping rhizome throwing up numerous stems. The wild form with single flowers occurs here and there in the warmer parts of Europe, including Central and Southern Russia, and Greece; also in Asia Minor, Armenia, Kurdistan, and the Caucasus. But the plant passes into so many varieties, and has from a remote period been so widely cultivated, that its distribution cannot be ascertained with any exactness. Asa garden plant it exists under a multitude of forms. History—The use in medicine of the rose dates from a very remote period. Theophrastus® speaks of roses being of many kinds, ineluding some with double flowers which were the most fragrant; and he also alludes to their use in the healing art. Succeeding writers of every age down to a recent period have discussed the virtues of the rose,® which a ahtid is scarcely now admitted to possess any special medicinal operty. : One of the varieties of R. gallica is the Provins Rose, so called from having been long cultivated at Provins, a small town about 60 miles South-east of Paris, where it is said to have been introduced from the East by Thibaut VL, Count of Champagne, on his return from the Crusades, A.D. 1241, But it appears that he went then to Navarre and — In later times never resided in the Champagne. Be this as it may, — Provins became much celebrated not only for its dried rose-petals, but ‘Johnston in his Travels in Southern ®Jobi Ludolfi Historia ethiopica, Fran- Abyssinia (1844), speaki lib. i. cap. ix. ‘ ng of koso, saysits cofurti, 1681. lib. Pp. ae fects are “dreadfully nc a in 4It has been found in quasi-wild state - “bree, he adds, it is barely tolerated, at lwoodin Surrey.—Seemann s Journ. dislean —— remedy equally efficient for oP Tee a age oa wi i i . vi. c. 6. Koso would ‘sti hia hat Ao ype 6 Consult in particular the learned essay Reise nach Abessini ¢ D’Orbessan contained in his Mélanges = ee ee historiques, ii. (1768) 297-337. i. ere Rosso: ae _ also for the conserve, syrup and honey of roses made from them,—com- positions which were regarded in the light of valuable medicines.’ It is recorded that when, in A.D. 1310, Philippe de Marigny, arch- bishop of Sens, made a solemn entry into Provins, he was presented by the notables of the town with wine, spices, and Conserve of Roses ; and presents of dried roses and of the conserve were not considered beneath the notice of Catherine de Medicis, and of Henry IV? We find that Charles Estienne, in 1536, mentions both the Rose purpuree odoratissime, which he says are called Provinciales, and those known to the druggists as incarnate,—the latter we presumea | pale rose® Rose rubew are named as an ingredient of various cotl- pound medicines by Valerius Cordus.‘ Production—The flowers are gathered while in bud and just _ before expansion, and the petals are cut off near the base, leaving the paler claws attached to the calyx. They are then carefully and rapidly dried by the heat of a stove, and having been gently sifted to remove loose stamens, are ready for sale. In some districts the petals are dried entire, but the drug thus produced is not so nice. In England, the Red Rose is cultivated at Mitcham, though now | only to the extent of about 10 acres. It is also grown for use in Oxfordshire and Derbyshire. At Mitcham, it is now called Damask Rose, which is by no means a correct name. The English dried roses command a high price. ; There is a much more extensive cultivation of this rose on the _ continent at Wassenaar. and Noordwijk in Holland; in the vicinity Hamburg and Nuremberg in Germany, and in the villages round Paris and Lyons. Roses are still, we believe, grown for medicinal use Provins, but are no longer held in great esteem. pies in There appears to be a considerable production of dried roses Persia, judging from the fact: that in the year 1871-72, 1163 ewt. wa" exported from the Persian Gulf to Bombay.” _ Description—The petals adhere together loosely in the form of little cones, or are more or less crumpled and separate. ait preserved, they are crisp and dry, with a velvety surface of an 1m urplish crimson, a delicious rosy odour, and a mildly astringent e white basal portion of the petals should be nearly absent. making the confection, the petals are required in a fresh state. ,Chemical Composition—Red rose petals impart to ether, wither losing their colour, a soft yellow substance, which is a mixture 0 “body, fat and Quercitrin. Filhol has shown (1864) that it is the latter and not tannic acid, of which the petals contain but a trace, chemist duces the dark greenish precipitate with ferric salts. The same®™ 1 found in the petals 20 per cent. (?) of glucose which, togetnes ion colouring matter and gallic acid, is extracted by alcohol after exha hortens ? Pomet, Hist, des Dro : lus), De ao gues, 1694, part i. 3 Stephanus (Carolus), 477) 416), oe Speaks of the roses of Hoving hitelies, Paitin; 1536, 29 (in a ing “‘hautes en couleur, c’est 4 dire d’un 4 Dispensatorium, 1548. rouge noir, velouté . . . tras astringentes,” 5 Statement of the Trade and 1871-72 . Porn Légendes, curiosités et traditions of the Presidency of Bombay vies : tg Champagne et de la Brie, Paris, 1860, _pt. ii. 43. ama a a aS Sa RL PETALA ROSA CENTIFOLLE. 961 by ether. According to Rochleder (1867), the gallic acid in red roses is accompanied by quercitannic acid. : The colouring matter which is so striking a constituent of the petals, is according to Senier an acid, which appears to form crystallizable — salts with potassium and sodium.’ An infusion of the petals is pale red, but becomes immediately of a deep and brilliant crimson if we add to it an acid, such as sulphuric, hydrochloric, acetic, oxalic, or tartaric. An alkali changes the pale red, or the deep crimson in the case of the acidulated infusion, to bright green. Uses—An infusion of red rose petals, acidulated with sulphuric acid and slightly sweetened, is a very common and agreeable vehicle for some other medicines. The confection made by beating up the petals with sugar, is also in use. PETALA ROSE CENTIFOLIE. Flores Rose pallide v. incarnate ; Provence Rose, Cabbage Rose ; F. Pétales de Roses piles ; G. Centifolienrosen. Botanical Origin—Roswa centifolia L—This rose grows in a wild state and with single flowers in the eastern part of the Caucasus.” Cul- tivated and with flowers more or less double, it is found under an infinity of varieties in all the temperate regions of the globe. The particular — variety which is grown in England for medicinal use, is known in English gardens as the Cabbage Rose, but other varieties are cultivated or similar purposes on the Continent. At. centifolia L. is very closely allied to R. gallica L.; though issier maintains the two species, there are other botanists who regard them as but one. The rose cultivated at Puteaux near Paris for drug- ts’ use, and hence called Rose de Puteaua, is the Rosa bifera of © outé, placed by De Candolle though doubtfully under RB. damascena, History—We are unable to trace the history of the particular | variety of rose under notice. That it is not of recent origin, seems evident from its occurrence chiefly in old gardens. The Rosa pallida of the older English writers on drugs* was called Damask Kose, but that name is now applied at Mitcham to Rosa gallica L., which has very deep-coloured flowers. | Production—The Cabbage Rose is cultivated in England to a very Small extent, rose water, which is made from its flowers, being procur- able of better quality and at a lower cost in other countries, especially in the south of France. At Mitcham, whence the London druggists ave long been supplied, there are now (1873) only about 8 acres Planted with this rose, but a supply is also derived from the market gardens of Putney, Hammersmith and Fulham. _Description—The Cabbage Rose is supplied to the druggists in the fresh State, full blown, and soled off close below the calyx. A complete ' Yearbook } i sentalis, ii. (1872) 676. hol j Pharm. ; 2 Boissier, Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 64 per in J sth de oa has | poe} 3 As Dale, Pharmacologia, 1693. 416, 7 Smelin, Chemistry, xvi. (1864) 522. : 202 ROSACEAi. description is scarcely required: we need only say that it is a large and very double rose, of a beautiful pink colour and of delicious odour, The calyx is covered with short sete tipped with a fragrant, brown, viscid secretion. The petals are thin and delicate (not thick and leathery as in the Tea Roses), and turn brown on drying. In making rose water, it is the custom in some laboratories to strip _ the petals from the calyx and to reject the latter; in others, the roses are distilled entire, and so far as we have observed, with equally good result. | Chemical Composition—In a chemical point of view, the petals of _ R&R. centifolia agree with those of R. gallica, even as to the colouring matter. Enz in 1867 obtained from the former, malic and tartaric acid, tannin, fat, resin, and sugar. : In the distillation of large quantities of the flowers, a little essential oil is obtained. It is a butyraceous substance, of weak rose-like, but not very agreeable odour. It contains a large proportion of inodorous stearoptene. For further particulars see remarks under the head Attar of Rose. Uses—Cabbage roses are now scarcely employed in pharmacy for any other purpose than making rose water. .A syrup used to be pre pared from them, which was esteemed a mild laxative. OLEUM ROS. Attar or Otto! of Rose, Rose Oil; F. Essence de Roses ; G. Rosendl. Botanical Origin—Rosa damascena Miller, var—This is the 10 _ cultivated in Turkey for the production of attar of rose; it 184 : Shrub with semi-double, light-red (rarely white) flowers, of mode size, produced several on a branch, though not in clusters. ae specimens sent by Baur? which flowered at Tiibingen, were exam by H. von Mohl and named as above. hat it f. damascena is unknown in a wild state. Koch asserts : rth- was brought in remote times to Southern Italy, whence it spn ward. In the opinion of Baker® Rosa damascena is to be referte an Rosa gallica (see p. 259 above); it must be granted that the Oe tioned in foot-note 2,as grown with one of us, approaches very ar ca. History—Much as roses were prized by the ancients, no pre saat _ Such as rose water or attar of rose was obtained from them. The es that bore the name of Rose Oil (sdd.vov éAator) is stated by Dioscom™ to be a fatty oil in which roses have been steeped. In Europe® ruin, preparation was in use down to the last century, Olewm nd in x Tosatwm or rosacewm, signifying an infusion of roses in olive 0 London Pharmacopoeia of 1721. : p. H. _, Attar or Otto is from the word itr sig- father of Dr. Baur of Constantinople— icht yng an 8 aes the oil is called 3 Wiggers u. Husemann, ; Sh itr-yaghi i.e. Perfume-oil, and for 1867. 350. also Ghyil-yaghi i.e, Rose-oil, : 4 Dendrologie, i. (1869) 250. ‘ae — g plant followed by excellent 5 Journ. of Botany, Jan. 1875. 8. } 4 6 . * 2 to me by DT. oe been conned ates Lib. i. c. 53 OLEUM- ROSA = = — = 268 The first allusion to the distillation of roses we have met with, is in _ the writings of Joannes Actuarius, who was physician to the Greek emperors at Constantinople towards the close of the 13th century. Rose water was distilled at an early date in Persia; and Nisibin, a town north-west of Mosul, was famous for it in the 14th century.? Kampfer speaks* with admiration of the roses he saw at Shiraz (1683-4), and says that the water distilled from them is exported to other parts of Persia, as well as to all India; and he adds as a singular fact, that there separates from it a certain fat-like butter, called #ttr gyl, of the most exquisite odour, and more valuable even than gold. The commerce to India, though much declining, still exists; and in the year 1872-73, 20,100 gallons of rose water, valued at 35,178 rupees (£3,517), were imported into Bombay from the Persian Gulf.* Rose oil itself is no longer exported from Persia, as it still used to be from Shiraz in the time of Niebuhr (1778). Rose water was much used in Europe during the middle ages, both in cookery and at the table. In some parts of France, vassals were compelled to furnish to their lords so many bushels of roses, which were consumed in the distillation of rose water.’ The fact that a butyraceous oil of delicious fragrance is separable from rose water, was noticed by Geronimo Rossi® of Ravenna in 1582 (or in 1574?) and by Giovanni Battista Porta’ of Naples in 1589; the latter in his work on distillation says—‘ Omnium difficillime extractionis est tosarum oleum atque in minima quantitate sed suavissimi odoris.”* The oil was also known to the apothecaries of Germany in the be ere of the 17th century, and is quoted in official drug-tariffs of that time. Angelus Sala, about 1620, in describing the distillation of the oil speaks of it as being of “. . . candicante pinguedine instar Spermatis Ceti.” - In Pomet’s time (1694) it was sold in Paris, though, on account of its high priee, only in very small quantity. The mention of it by Homberg in 1700, and in a memoir by Aublet™ (1775) respecting the distillation of roses in the Isle of France, shows that the French perfumers of the last century were not unacquainted with true rose oil, but that it was a tare and very costly article. aee tay The history of the discovery of the essence in India, is the subject of — an interesting and learned pamphlet by Langlés,” published in 1804.° He tells us on the authority of oriental writers, how on the occasion of the Inarriage of the Mad emperor Jehan Ghir with Nur-jehan, A.D. 12, a canal in the garden of the palace was filled with rose water, and the princess observing a certain scum on the surface, caused it to be collected and found it of admirable fragrance, on which account itre- ceived the name of Atar jehanghiri, ie. perfume of Jehan Ghir. In later Sid ecs'p Biillatitii rosarum liquoris a Magie Naturalis libri ax, Neap. 1589. e Methodo Medendi, lib. v. ¢. 4. . aga + * Voyage d’ Ibn Batoutah ss ae Defré- 8 De Distillatione, Rome (1608) 75. mery, ii. (1854) 140, ' 9 Flitckiger, Documente ur Geschichte Amenitates, 1712. 373. der Pharm. Halle, 1876. 37- 38. 40. tatement of the T’ 2 Vavigqati 10 Observations sur les hur € om of the Presidency of Bonbuy fox 1872-73, Meén. de? Acad. des Sciences, 1700. 206. | ee a 52, 2 Hist.des Plantes de la Guiane. Frangoise,i. - Grand d’ ; ‘e privée. Mémoires, p. 125. = rangi i (S15) at ats shes ay Bechorchen sur la découverte del Essence eronymi Rubei Rav. illati de Rose, Paris, 1804. Ravennee, 1582, ng av. De Destillati one, ; — | ROSACEA. _ times, Polier" has shown that rose oil is prepared in India by simple distillation of the flowers with water. But this Indian oil has never been imported into Europe as an article of trade. As.already stated, the supplies at present come from European Turkey ; but at what period the cultivation of the rose and manufacture of its oil were then introduced, is a question on which we are quite in the dark. There is no mention of attar in the account given by Savary* in 1750 of the trade of Constantinople and Smyrna, but in the first years of the present century some rose oil was obtained in the Island of _ Chios as well as in Persia.’ ; In English commerce, attar of rose was scarcely known until the _ commencement of the present century. It was first included in the British tariff in 1809, when the duty levied on it was 10s. per ounce. In 1813 the duty was raised to 11s. 10jd.; in 1819 it was 6s., and in 1828, 2s. per ounce. In 1832 it was lowered to Is. 4d. per lb., in 1842 to ls. and in 1860 it was altogether removed. oe : On searching a, file of the London Price Current, the first mention of “Otto of Rose” is in 1813, from which year it is regularly quoted. The price (in bond) from 1813 to 1815, varied from £3 to £5 5s. pet ounce. The earliest notice of an importation is under date 1-8 July, _ 1813, when duty was paid on 232 ounces, shipped from Smyrna. Production—The chief locality for attar of rose, and that by which European commerce is almost exclusively supplied, is a small tract af country on the southern side of the Balkan mountains, the “Tekne 9 Kazanlik or Kisanlik, an undulated plain famous for its beauty, ®& _ picturesquely sketched by Kanitz® and many other travellers. - principal seat of the trade is the town of Kizanlik, in the valley of the Tunja. The other important districts are those of Philippopli, _ Zaghra, Yeni Zaghra, Tchirpan, Giopea, Karadsuh-Dagh, Kojun-Tepe, Pazandsik. North of the Balkans, there is only Travina to be mer tioned as likewise producing attar. All these places with } were estimated in 1859 to include 140 villages, having 2,500 stills. a ‘The rose is cultivated by peasants in gardens and open fields, which it is planted in rows as hedges, 3 to 4 feet high. The - localities are those occupying southern or south-eastern. slopes. q the tations in high mountainous situations generally yield less, anc in oil is of a quality that easily congeals. The flowers attain perfecho April and May, and are gathered before sunrise ; those not wante immediate use are spread out in cellars, but are always US Jest _ distilling the same day. The apparatus is a copper still of the simP description, connected with a straight tin tube, cooled by being en through a tub fed by a stream of water. The largest establish ig -“Fabrika,” at Kizanlik has 14 such stills. The charge for 4 “ 25 to 50 tb. of roses, from which the calyces are not remover. for : * seh is first runnings are returned to the still; the second portion, Mer C. Tecelved in glass flasks, is kept at a temperature not lower than Asiatick Researches, i. (1788) 332. 6 Donau-Bulgarien, ii. (1877) sage = a Dict. de Commerce, iv. 548. A figure of a still is given, P. sat environs sis “Tok ne bg UEmpire Othoman, map of the Tekne of ia a i . * : i ry . : Information: hy! 39, v. (1807) 367. will be found in Ze lin, Xie (1876) N i ur Erdkunde xu Ber by Mr, Seldon of the Statistical Giese aft fir Brdleunde _ the Custom Honse. : . OLEUM ROSA. : BG for a day or two, by which time most of the oil, bright and fluid, will have risen to the surface. From this, it is skimmed off by means of a small tin funnel having a fine orifice, and provided with a long handle. There are usually several stills together. The produce is extremely variable. According to Baur,! whose in- teresting account of attar of rose is that of an eye witness, it may be said to average 0°04 per cent. Another authority estimates the average yield as 0:037 per cent. The harvest during the five years 1867-71 was reckoned to average somewhat below 400,000 meticals,? or 4226 lb. avoirdupois; that of 1873, which was good, was estimated at 500,000 meticals, value about £70,0003 Roses are cultivated to a considerable extent about Grasse, Cannes and Nice in the south of France; and besides much rose water, which is largely exported to England, a little oil is produced. The latter, which commands a high price, fuses less easily than the Turkish. There is a large cultivation of the rose for the purpose of making Tose water and attar, at Ghazipur on the Ganges, Lahore, Amritsar and other places in India, but the produce is wholly consumed in the — country. The species thus cultivated is stated by Brandis * to be R. damascena. Medinet Fayum, south-west of Cairo, supplies the great demand of Egypt for rose vinegar and rose water. Tunis has also some celebrity for similar products, which however do not reach Europe. A recent traveller’ states that the rose grown there, and from which attar is obtained, is Rosa canina L., which is extremely fragrant; 30 lb. of the flowers afford about 1} drachms, worth 15s. When at Genoa, in 1874, one of us (F.) had the opportunity of ascertaining that excellent oil of rose is occasionally imported there from Tunis. : The butyraceous oil which may be collected in distilling roses in land for rose water is of no value as a perfume. Description—Oil of rose is a light-yellow liquid, of sp. gr. 0°87 to 0:89, By a reduction of temperature, it concretes owing to the separa- tion of light, brilliant, platy erystals of a stearoptene, the propor- tion of which differs with the country in which the roses have been 8town, the state of the weather during which the flowers were gathered, and other circumstances less well ascertained. The oil produced in the ans solidifies, according to Baur, at from 11 to 16°C. In some *Periments made by one of us® in 1859, the fusing point of true Turkish attar was found to vary from 16 to 18°; that of a sample from dia was 20° C.; of oil distilled in the south of France, 21 to 23°, of an oil produced in Paris, 29°; of oil obtained in distilling roses for rose Water in London, 80 to 32° C. 3 : From these data, it appears that a cool northern climate is not Conducive to the production’ of a highly odorous oil; and even in ' Pha : ia, 1874. 200.—D. Forbes Wat- 2 Consular Reports Bharat meh Parlia- aa. “Gatal of the Indian Department, ei ys 1872.—The metical, miskal_ or Vienna — = songs aon Mowe Sramines, equal to about 3 dwt. troy=4794 iia Fo ors und Tripolis, Leipzig, 1870. 6 Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. xviii. (1859). 3 Consular R ports Baie 3 a — 504-509, Science Papers, 172. me, Aug. 1873. 1090 orest Flora of North-western and ee SS mare Bulgaria experience shows that the oil of the mountain districts holds a larger proportion of stearoptene than that of the lowlands. Turkish oil of rose is stated by Baur to deviate a ray of polarized light 4° to the right, when examined in a column of 100 mm. The oil from English roses which we examined exhibited no rotation. Chemical Composition—Rose oil is a mixture of a liquid con stituent containing oxygen, to which it owes its perfume, and the solid hydrocarbon or stearoptene already mentioned, which is entirely desti- tute of odour. The proportion which these bodies bear to each other _ is extremely variable. From the Turkish oil, it may be obtained to the _ extent of 18 per cent., and from French and English to 35, 42, 60 or even 68 per cent. _ Though the stearoptene can be entirely freed from the oxygenated — oil, no method is known for the complete isolation of the latter. As obtained by Gladstone,’ it had a sp. gr. of 0'881 and a boiling point of 216° O. With regard to the stearoptene of rose oil, the analyses of Théodore de Saussure (1820) and Blanchet (1833) long since showed its com- position to accord with the formula C"H”. The experiments of one of us” confirm this striking fact, which assigns to the stearoptene in question a very exceptional place among the hydrocarbons of volatile _ Oils, all of which are less rich in hydrogen. Rose stearoptene separates when attar of roses is mixed with alcoho We have isolated it also from oil obtained from Mitcham TOSES, diluting the oil with a little chloroform and precipitating with g _ acetic acid or spirit of wine, the process being several times repeated. ei _ Stearoptene was lastly maintained for some days at 100° C.; obtained, it is inodorous, but when heated evolves an offensive a like that of heated wax or fat. At 32:5° it melts; at 150° vapour aoe -eVolved; at 272° ©. it begins to boil, soon after which it turns brown Mnicroscope, these crystals from their refractive power make a crystals, showing all the well-known reactions. _ extremely similar hydrocarbons, answering to the gener and then blackish. Stains of the stearoptene on paper do not disappeat by the heat of the waterbath and the relapse of some days. f If cautiously melted by the warmth of the sun, the stearoptene a on cooling microscopic crystals of very peculiar shape. Most of ¥ have the form of truncated hexahedral pyramids, not however pei to the rhombohedric system, as the angles are evidently not equa’; many of them are oddly curved, thus § Examined under the po a object. as some Rose stearoptene is a very stable body, yet by boiling it ee into days with fuming nitric acid, it is slowly dissolved, and convert oxalic various acids of the homologous series of fatty acids, and into 0 acid. Among the former, we detected butyric and valerianic. chief product is however succinic acid, which we obtained ™ tt = € same products are obtained even much easier. by ae paraffin with nitric acid; it yields however less of succinic act same general behaviour and appearance of paraftin is in fact nearly ries of as that of rose stearoptene. But what is called paraffin, 18 4 penne al formu" y 147. * Journ. of Chem. Soc. x. (1872) 12, ? Fliickiger, Pharm. Journ. *- pat as OLEUM ROS (2 2 C"H™*? (n being equal to more than 16), the separation of which has not yet been thoroughly effected. The fusion point of the different. kinds of paraffin generally ranges from 42 to 60° C., yet one sort from the bituminous shale of Autun, prepared and examined by Laurent,’ melts at 33° C., and in this respect agrees with our stearoptene. It is therefore possible that the latter actually belongs to the paraffin series. We have not ascertained the correctness of Baur’s strange experi- ments (1872, Jahresbericht der Pharm. p. 460), by which he believes to have converted the liquid part of rose oil into the stearoptene by means of a current of hydrogen. Commerce—Formerly attar of rose came into commerce by way of Austria ; it is now shipped from Constantinople. From the interior, it is transported in flattened round tin bottles called kunkwmas, holding from 1 to 10 lb. which are sewed up in white woollen cloth. These sometimes reach this country, but more commonly the attar is trans- ferred at Constantinople to small white glass bottles, ornamented with gilding, imported from Germany. Uses—Attar of rose is of no medicinal importance, but serves occasionally as a scent for ointments. Rose water is sometimes made with it, but is not so good as that distilled from the flowers. Attar is much used in perfumery, but still more in the scenting of snuff. Adulteration—No drug is more subject than attar of rose to adulteration, which is principally effected by the addition of the volatile oil of an Indian grass, Andropogon Schenanthus L. This oil, which is called in Turkish Idris yaghi, and also Entershah, and is more or less known to Europeans as Geraniwm Oil, is imported into Turkey for this express purpose, and even submitted to a sort of purification before being used.2 It was formerly added to the attar only in Constantinople, but now the mixing takes place at the seat of the manufacture. : It is said that in many places the roses are absolutely sprinkled with it before being placed in the still. As grass oil does not solidify by cold, its admixture with rose oil renders the latter less disposed to crystallize. Hence arises a preference among the dealers in Turkey for _ attar of the mountain districts, which, having a good proportion of stearoptene, will bear the larger dilution with grass oil without its tendency to crystallize becoming suspiciously small. Thus, in the circular of a commercial house in Constantinople, dated from Kizanlik, °ceur the phrases—* Extra strong oil,’—“ Good strong con gealing out, —~* Strong good freezing oil; ”—while the 3rd quality of attar is spoken | of as a “ not congealing oil.” The same circular states the belief of the Writers, that in the season in which they wrote, “not a single metical of wnadulterated oil” would be sent away. : : z e chief criteria, according to Baur, for the purity of rose oil are : —l. Lemperature at which crystallization takes place: a good oil should congeal well in five minutes at a temperature of 12°5 C. 2. Manner of erystallizing—The crystals should be light, feathery, shin- ing plates, filling the whole liquid. Spermaceti, which has been Sometimes used to replace the stearoptene, is liable to settle down in a solid cake, and is easily recognizable. Furthermore, it melts at 50°C. “Ann, de Chim, et de Phys. liv. (1833) 394, ? For particulars, see Baur (p. 262, noe __ which they were collected in ancient times when garden fruits were - 75 368 : ROSACEA. and so do most varieties of paraffin. The microscopic crystals of the . _ latter are somewhat similar to those of rose stearoptene, yet they may be distinguished by an attentive comparative examination. FRUCTUS ROSE CANINA. Cynosbata ; Fruit of the Dog-rose, Hips ; F. Fruits de Cynorrhodon ; G. Hagebutten. Botanical Origin—Rosa canina L., a bush often 10 to 12 feet high, found in hedges and thickets throughout Europe except Lapland and Finland, and reaching the Canary Islands, Northern Africa, Persia and Siberia ; universally dispersed throughout the British Islands.’ History—The fruits of the wild rose, including other species besides R. canina U.., have a scanty, orange, acid, edible pulp, on account 0} few and scarce. Galen? mentions them as gathered by country people in his day, as they still are in Europe. Gerarde in the 16th century remarks that the fruit when ripe—“ maketh most pleasant meats and banqueting dishes, as tarts and such like.” Though the pulp of hips preserved with sugar which is here alluded to, is no longer brought 0 table, at least in this country,’ it retains a place in pharmacy @ useful ingredient of pill-masses and electuaries. _ Description—The fruit of a rose consists of the bottle-shaped calyx, become dilated and succulent by growth, and sometimes crown with 5 leafy segments, enclosing numerous dry carpels or achenes, re taining each one exalbuminous seed. The fruit of R. canina called am), 1s ovoid, about } of an inch long, with a smooth, red, shining ae It is of a dense, fleshy texture, becoming on maturity, especially at frost, soft and pulpy, the pulp within the shining skin being of an _ orange colour, and of an agreeable sweetish subacid taste. The = interior cavity contains numerous hard achenes, which, as well 4s walls of the former, are covered with strong short hairs. al For medicinal use, the only part required is the soft orange P Ps which is separated by rubbing it through a hair sieve. Microscopic Structure—The epidermis of the fruit is made Pe tabular cells containing red granules, which are much more - of dant in the pulp. The latter, as usual in many ripe fruits, cons ls isolated cells no longer forming a coherent tissue. Besides these pe there occur small fibro-vascular bundles. Some of the cells 4 _ tufted crystals or oxalate of calcium ; most of them however ate They with red granules, either globular or somewhat elongated. turned assume a bluish hue on addition of perchloride of iron, and are blackish by iodine. The later colouration reminds one of that en a by starch granules under similar circumstances ; yet on reece krish, very dilute solution of iodine, the granules always exhibit a er ples isi teoe eT oka Leg Sacre ev nae ee rates jmowicls seaker, Journ. of Linn. Soc, Bot. xi. Lindl.and R. cinnamomeaL.— Manto Nicg! beard an Primitie Flore Amurensis, 1809. a very _ the ‘Armag Crum facultatibus, li, c. 14, 3 In Switzerland and ae Sill in us re ture of hips better fruit is afforded oe csi agreeable conjiture SEMEN CYDONLE ~ 269 _ not a blue tint, so that they are not to be considered as starch granules. The hairs of the pulp are formed of a single, thick-walled cell, straight or sometimes a little crooked. Chemical Composition—The pulp examined by Biltz (1824) was found to afford nearly 3 per cent. of citric acid, 7'7 of malic acid, besides citrates, malates and mineral salts, 25 per cent. of gum, and 30 of uncrystallizable sugar. Uses—Hips are employed solely on account of their pulp, which mixed with twice its weight of sugar, constitutes the Confectio Rosw canine of pharmacy. SEMEN CYDONIZA. Quince Seeds, Quince Pips; F. Semences ow Pepins de Coings; G. Quittensamen. Botanical Origin—Pirus Cydonia L. (Cydonia vulgaris Pers.), the quince tree, is supposed to be a true native of Western Asia, from the Caucasian provinces of Russia to the Hindu Kush range in © Northern India. But it is now apparently wild also in many of the countries which surround the Mediterranean basin. : In a cultivated state, it flourishes throughout temperate Europe, but is far more productive in southern than in northern regions. Quinces ripen in the south of England, but not in Scotland, nor in St. Petersburg, or in Christiana. History—The quince was held in high esteem by the ancients, who considered it an emblem of happiness and fertility; and, as such, it was dedicated to Venus, whose temples it was used to decorate. Some antiquarians maintain that quinces were the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. The name Cydonia alludes to the town of Kydon, now Canea, in Creta; in the Talmud quinces are called Cretan apples. Porcius Cato in his graphic description of the management ch Roman farmhouse, alludes to the storing of quinces both cultivated — and wild; and there is much other evidence to prove that from an early period the quince was abundantly grown throu hout Italy. tlemagne, A.D. 812, enjoined its cultivation in central Europe.’ At What period it was introduced into Britain is not evident, but we ve observed that Baked Quinces are mentioned among the viands : served at the famous installation feast of Nevill, archbishop of York in 14662 The use of mucilage of quince seeds has come to us through the — bians ; it is still met with in Turkestan. . Description—The quince is a handsome fruit of a golden yellow, m shape and size resembling a pear. It has a very agreeable and powerful smell, but an austere, astringent taste, so that it is not catable in the raw state. In structure, it ee = aes or @ pear in having many seeds in each cell, instead of only two. The fruit is, like apple, 5-celled, with each cell containing a SIN Mtasaintn Giomandic Meioricn. 2LLeland, De rebus Britannicis Collect- : ; Legum, i. (1835) 187. anea, vi. (1774) 5. age ae 7 oP ROSA ORAS double row of closely-packed seeds, 8 to 14 in number, cohering by _ _ a soft mucilaginous membrane with which each is surrounded, drying, they become hard, but remain agglutinated as in the ce The seeds have an ovoid or obconic form, rather flattened and 3-sided by mutual pressure. From the hilum at the lower pointed end, the raphe passes as a straight ridge to the opposite extremity, which is slightly beaked and marked with a scar indicating the chalaza. The edge opposite the raphe is more or less arched accord- ing to the position of the individual seed in the cell. The testa encloses two thick, veined cotyledons, having a straight radicle directed towards the hilum. Quince seeds have a mahogany-brown colour, and when unbroken a simply mucilaginous taste. But the kernels have the odour and taste of bitter almonds, and evolve hydrocyanic acid when comminuted and oe mixed with water. Microscopic Structure—The epidermis of the seed consists of _ one row of cylindrical cells, the walls of which swell a in the pre- _ Sence of water and are dissolved, so as to yield an abundance of mucilage. This process can easily be observed, if thin sections of the seed are examined under glycerine, which acts on them but slowly. Chemical Composition—The mucilage of the epidermis 1s a sent in such quantity, that the seed easily coagulates forty times a weight of water. By complete exhaustion, the seeds afford abou 20 per cent. of dry mucilage, containing considerable quantities : ~ ealetum salts and’ albuminous matter, of which it is not easily =< deprived. When treated with nitric acid, it yields oxalic acid ter a short treatment with strong sulphuric acid it is pi blue by iodine. Tollens and Kirchner (1874) assign to it the ee _ CYH™O™, regarding it as a compound of gum, C”H”0", and ae CHO’, less one molecule of water. : ickened Quince mucilage has but little adhesive power, and is not thi so by borax. That portion of it which is really in a state of gener or which may be separated by filtration, is precipitable by metallic longer by alcohol. The latter precipitate after it has been dried is no m2 dissolved by water either cold or warm. Quince mucilage 18, 0 whole, to be regarded as a soluble modification of cellulose. pe ___The seeds on distillation with water afford a little hydrocyanic 2% and, probably, bitter almond oil. Commerce—Quince seeds reach England from Hamb urg ; and are frequently quoted in Hamburg price-currents as Russian ; they are @ = _ brought from the south of France and from the Cape of — y ee Jand from Afghanistan. hey are largely imported into India from the Persian Gulf, Uses—A decoction of quince seeds is occasionally used _ de muleent external application in skin complaints. It is also som tives added to eye-lotions. Quince seeds are in general use among the eee of India as a demuleent tonic and restorative. They have been useful by Europeans in dysentery. _ ss STYRAX LIQUIDUS. 271 - HAMAMELIDE, STYRAX LIQUIDUS: Balsamum Styracis ; Inquid Storax; F. Styrax liquide ; G. Fliissiger Stora. Botanical Origin—Liquidambar orientalis Miller (L. imberbe Aiton, a handsome, umbrageous tree resembling a plane, growing to the height of 30 to 40 feet or more,? and forming forests in the extreme south-western part of Asia Minor. In this region the tree occurs in the district of Sighala near Melasso, about Budrum (the ancient Halicar- nassus) and Moughla, also near Giova and Ulla in the Gulf of Giova, and lastly near Marmorizza and Isgengak opposite Rhodes. It also grows in the valley of the El-Asi (the ancient Orontes), as proved by a specimen in the Vienna herbarium, collected by Gédel, Austrian Consul at Alexandretta. In this locality it was seen by Kotschy in 1835, but mistaken for a plane. The same traveller informed one of us that he believed it to occur at Narkislik, a village near Alexandretta. _ _The tree is not known to grow in Cyprus, Candia, Rhodes, Kos, or indeed in any of the islands of the Mediterranean.’ History—Two substances of different origin have been known from aremote period under the name of Styrax or Storax, namely the resin of Styrax officinalis L. (see further on), and that of Liguidambar orventalis Miller, the latter commonly distinguished as Liquid Storax. _ According to Krinog of Athens, who has carefully investigated the history of the drug,‘ the earliest allusions to Liquid Storax occur in the Writings of Aétius and of Paulus Aigineta,’ who name both Storag and Liquid Storaz (ripa évypos). Of these Greek physicians, who lived _ Tespectively in the 6th and 7th centuries, the second also mentions the tes of Zuyia, which is regarded by Krinos as synonymous with the _ latter substance.’ es We find in fact the term Sigia frequently mentioned by Rhazes (10th * The feminine gender of Styrax has muse for a long time. In Greek it otes the tree, as also does sometimes same opinion is adopted by Boissier, Flora — Orientalis, ii. (1872) 8319. 4 [lepl ripaxos, diarpiBy papyaxo- © masculine gender, the neutral being oe to the resin, In Latin the resin 2 F generis (Dr. Rice). PRR Balt good figure of L. orientalis, see 1867) pit Icones Plantarum (3rd. series, a ! also Bentley and Trimen, Medi- pnts: part 27 (1877). Viebiar’ fine old trees existing at the con- of Antiphoniti on the north coast of Pa ho” and at that of Neophiti near Pho, specimens of which were distri- Y Kotschy as Liquidambar imberbis ‘ aces in all points with the American plant, pres L., and not with the Asiatic . , \otschy has told me that they have amples’, been planted, and that no other ex- exist in the island,—D, H. The O19, or Hanbury, Science Papers, ypapixh, tv ’A0jvats, 1862.—This pamphlet is also the subject of a paper of Prof. Planchon, Journ, de Pharm. 24 (1876) 172. — 5 Medice Artis Principes post Hippo- cratem et Galenum, Par. 1567.—Aéti tetr. 4, serm. 4, c. 122; P. Aigineta, De re med. 6 The foliage of the Liquidamabar much resembles that of the common maple (Acer campestre L.); hence the two trees as well as the plane (Platanus orientalis L.) are confounded under one name,—Zvyds or Zvyia. So Styrax officinalis L., from the resemblance of its leaves to those of Pirus Cydonia L., is known in Greece as ’Aypia xvdworja, i.e, wild quince. ae century) as signifying Liquid Storax. This and other Arabian physicians were also familiar with the same substance under the name of Miha (may'a), and also knew how and whence it was obtained! A curious account of the collecting of Liquid Storax from the tree 4ygia, and from another tree called Stowrika, is given in the travels through Asia Minor to Palestine of the Russian abbot of Tver in AD. 1113-11152 The wide exportation and ancient use of Liquid Storax are very remarkable: even in the first century, as appears by the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, Storax, by which term there can be but little doubt Liquid Storax was intended, was exported by the Red Sea to India. Whether the Storax and Storax Isaurica offered to the Church of Rome under St. Silvester, A.D. 314-335, by the emperor Constantine,’ was Liquid Storax or the more precious resin of Styrax officinalis L, is a point we cannot determine, That the Chinese used the drug was a fact known to Garcia de Orta (1535-63): Bretschneider* has shown from Chinese sources that, together with olibanum and myrrh, it was imported by the Arabs into China during the Ming dynasty, 4). 1368-1628. This trade is still carried on: the drug is conveyed by way of the Red Sea to Bombay, and thence shipped to China. returns show that the quantity thus exported from Bombay in the year 1856-57 was 13,328 Ib. Inthe time of Kampfer (1690-92), Liquid Storax was one of the most profitable articles of shipment to Japan. Liquid Storax is known in the East, at least in the price-currents am trade statistics of Europeans, by the strange-sounding name 0 Rost Malloes (Rosa Mallas, Roswm Alloes, Rosmai), a designation for use in the time of Garcia de Orta. Clusius® considered it to be Arable which, however, the scholars whom we have consulted do not allow. Others identify it with Rasamala, the Malay name for Alting@ excelsa. (See further on.) : estion The botanical origin of Liquid Storax was long a perplexing qu t his to pharmacologists. It was correctly determined by Krinos, a information on the subject published in a Greek newspaper in ager? repeated by Kosté in 1855," attracted no attention in Western er The question was also investigated by one of the authors of the pres’ r work, whose observations, together with a figure of Liquidam orientalis Miller, were published in 1857.5 4 Method of Extraction—The extraction of Liquid Storax 18 ewe on in the forests of the south-west of Asia Minor, chiefly by 2 ‘hed wandering Turcomans called Yuruks, The process has been desert on the authority of Maltass and McCraith of Smyrna, and of nee British Consul at Rhodes. The outer bark is said to be first remor” from the trunk of the tree and rejected; the inner is then scraj ; . a off with a peculiar iron knife or scraper, and thrown into pits until cae Ibn Baytar, Sontheimer’s transl. ii. 539. of the Arabs, etc., Lond. 1871. 19. 5 353. * Noroff, Pélerinage en Terre Sainte de 5 Hist. of Japan, ed. Scheuchzer, PIg rene TUsse Daniel, St. Pétersb. 164, 6 Hroticorum Libri, 945. Mee ond N 4 cer been kindly abstracted 1 *Bryyerpldov Sappaxodoyias, anaes xvi. (1857) f. Heyd of Stuttgart. Kwort, 1855. 356. * Vignolius, Liber Pontifete, Rome, i 8 Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. ‘Papers (1724) 94.—The ancient Isauria was in 417, 461, and iv. (1863) 436; Scien’ £8 Cilicia, the country of Styraa officinalis L. 127-150. * On the knowledge possessed by the Chinese 9 Hanbury, /.c. STYRAX LIQUIDUS. oe sufficient quantity has been collected. It is then boiled with water in a large copper, by which process the resin is separated, so that it can be skimmed off. This seems to be performed with sea water; some chloride of sodium can therefore be extracted from the drug. The boiled bark is put into hair bags and squeezed under a rude lever, hot water being added to assist in the separation of the resin, or as it is termed yagh, ie. oil. Maltass states that the bark is pressed. in the first instance per se, and afterwards treated with hot water. In either case the products obtained are the opaque, grey, semi-fluid resin known as liquid Storax, and the fragrant cakes of foliaceous, brown bark, once common’ but now rare in European pharmacy, called Cortex Thymiamatis. We are indebted to M. Felix Sahut of Montpellier for a specimen of the bark of Liquidambar orientalis, cut from the trunk of a fine tree on his property at the neighbouring village of Lattes. The bark which is covered with a very thick corky layer and soaked in its own fragrant resin, shows no tendency to exfoliate. The investigations of Unger * in Cyprus are consequently to us inexplicable; he asserts that the bark scales off, like that of the plane, by continued exfoliation, which is not the case with that of M. Sahut’s tree. Description—Liquid Storax is a soft viscid resin, usually of the consistence of honey, heavier than water, opaque and greyish brown. It always contains water, which by long standing rises to the surface. In one sample that had been kept more than 20 years, the resin at the - bottom of the bottle formed a transparent layer of a pale golden brown. When liquid storax is heated, it becomes by the loss of water dark brown and transparent, the solid impurities settling to the bottom. Spread out in a very thin layer, it partially dries, but does not wholly lose its stickiness. “When free from water (which reddens litmus) it issolves in alcohol, spirit of wine, chloroform, ether, glacial acetic acid, bisulphide of carbon, and most of the essential oils, but not in the most Volatile part of petroleum (“ petroleum ether”). It has a pleasant balsamic smell, especially after it has been long kept ; when recent, it 18 contaminated with an odour of bitumen or naphtalian that is far om agreeable. Its taste is sharply pungent, burning and aromatic. en the opaque resin is subjected to microscopic examination, small brownish granules are observed in a viscid, colourless, transparent liquid, besides which large drops of a mobile watery liquid may be dis- nguished. In polarized light, numerous minute crystalline fragments with a few larger tabular crystals are obvious. But when thin layers of the resin are left on the object glass in a warm place, feathery or ‘pleular crystals (styracin) shoot out on the edge of the clear liquid, While in the large, sharply-defined drops above mentioned, rectangular les and short prisms (cinnamic acid) make their - 1 ena On applying more warmth after the water is evaporated, al the substances unite into a transparent, dark-brown, thick liquid, which exhibits no crystalline structure on cooling, or only after a very long time. Among the fragments of the bark occurring in the crude resin, liber fibres are uently observable, “It is no “ bani” 2 Unger u. Kotschy, Die Jnsel Cypern. met with in Pref ee 1871. de Flnckioer, Wien, i865. 410. mente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie, 26. $ a HAMAMELIDEZ. Chemical Composition—The most abundant constituent of Styrax is probably the Storesin, C*H”(OH)’, discovered in 1877 by W. von Miller, or rather cinnamic ethers of it and of an isomeric substance. Storesin is an amorphous substance melting at 168° C., readily soluble in petroleum ether. Several other compound ethers have also been ~ observed in the drug, as for instance cinnamic ether of phenylpropy, cinnamic ether of ethyl, cinnamic ether of benzyl, and especially cinna- mate of cinnamyl, C’H’O*.C’H®, the so-called Styracin. This substance, _ discovered by Bonastre in 1827, can be removed by ether, benzol or alcohol, after the separation from the resin of the cinnamic acid; it insoluble in water, and volatile only in super-heated steam. Tt ! lizes in tufts of long rectangular prisms, which melt at 38° C, but it frequently does not solidify in a crystalline form, or only after a long time, or remains as an oily liquid. In its pure state it is inodorous and tasteless. By concentrated solution of potash, it is resolved into® cinnamate, and cinnamic alcohol (Styrone) CHO, which latter 1s not present in Liquid Storax. The cinnamic acid may be extracted a small extent by boiling water, more completely by means ¢ a boiling solution of carbonate of sodium, as it is present ™ the drug partly in the free state. Its compound ethers may? decomposed by caustic lye. The yield of cinnamic acid according!y varies from 6 to 12 per cent.—or even, according to Lowe, as mue & _ 23 per cent. of crystallized cinnamic acid can be obtained. Tne id dissolves abundantly in ether, alcohol, or hot water, slightly m ‘a water ; it is inodorous, but has an acrid taste. It fuses at 133 C, d boils at 290° C.; at a dull red heat it is resolved into carbonic acid 3 styrol, which latter is therefore related to it in the same perme" benzol (benzene) to benzoic acid. Liquid styrax is in fact the source of cinnamic acid. haps Another constituent of styrax is a fragrant substance, pé _ ethylwanillin, occurring in but small quantity. -, Alcohol Laubenheimer (1872) has shown that probably B enzylie fas 208 : C7H"O, boiling at 206° C., likewise occurs in Liquid Storax; it been found by Miller. The latter chemist also showed ne vat : _ removes from the drug a little benzoic acid ; he observed moreov = substance similar to eaoutchoue among the constituents of liquid aie There is further to be mentioned as having been met wit on “ti Storax a hydrocarbon, C%H8, first prepared by Simon in te solid. exists in the resin as a liquid, and also in a polymeric form as @ of The former called Styrol, Cinnamene, or Cunnamel, has a Hi iy i 0924, and a boiling point of 146°C. It is a colourless, mob a which may be obtained by distilling with water liquid er a odour and burning taste of which it possesses. When heated con- siderable time to 100°, or for a shorter period to 200 Cet ' verted without change of composition into the colourless, eo r ether: solid Metastyrol, which, unlike styrol, is not soluble in alcoho! © 0 It has a sp. gr. of 1054, and may be cut with a knife. SB init heating, it can be converted into its original liquid form. artificially Styrol is to be regarded as phenylated ethylene ; it can ted hy- obtained by shaking powdered ‘cinnamic acid with eee id, drobromie acid, when crystalline hydrobromated yeni ¥, parts C*H’.CH?.CHBr.COOH, is formed. One part of the latter, 19 STYRAX LIQUIDUS. _- ~ ae water, and a little more carbonate of sodium than the quantity required for saturation are mixed. The bromhydrocinnamate of sodium partly — splits up immediately, even at 0°, according to the following equation C°H*.CH?.CHBr.COONa = CO?+ NaBr + C°H’.CH.CH2. Bromhydrocinnamate of sodium. Styrol. 24 parts of bromhydrocinnamie acid, recrystallized from boiling bisulphide of carbon, yield about 7 parts of styrol; no other method affords as much as this. Styrol has been discovered in Styrax, but is not regularly, and at — all events to a minute amount only, found in the drug of the present day. We have no explanation for the strange fact that it was appar- ently more abundantly met with in former times. Lastly there has been found in Liquid Storax, by J. H. van t’Hoff (1876), about 0-4 per cent. of an essential oil, probably C°H™O ; Miller also pointed out a compound ether of probably the same (alcoholic) substance as occurring in styrax. ; By the action of oxidizing agents, as nitric or chromic acids, or per- oxide of lead, the cinnamyl compounds are easily reduced, carbonic acid and water being evolved; and at the same time benzoic acid, bitter almond oil, and hydrocyanic acid are produced. These compounds are in fact abundantly evolved when 6 parts of Liquid Storax are gently warmed with 1 p. of caustic soda, and then mixed with 3 p. of perman- — ganate of potassium dissolved in 20 p. of water. We have examined several samples of Liquid Storax of average quality, and found by exposure of small quantities to the heat of the steam bath, that it lost from 10 to 20 per cent. of water. The remainder treated with aleohol yielded a residue amounting to 13 to 18 per cent., consisting chiefly of fragments of bark and aii tea? impurities. The percentage of the drug soluble in alcohol, to which is due its therapeutic value, thus amounts to 56 to 72. This part, as may be inferred from the foregoing statements, consists chiefly of storesin, the various com- pound ethers above mentioned, of cinnamic acid and of styracin, no doubt in greatly varying proportions. : Commerce—The annual production of Liquid Storax was estimated - by Campbell in 1855 as about 490 ewt. for the districts of Giova and Ulli, and 300 ewt. for those of Marmorizza and Isgengak. The drug is < Cloez (1870) states to be dextrogyre. These oils are shipped to extent from Australia to Europe, probably as adulterants of other essential oils, CARYOPHYLLI. Cloves ; F. Gérofles, Clous de Girofles ; G. Gewtirenelken. Us Botanical Origin—Lugenia caryophyllata Thunberg (Canyon aromaticus L.), a beautiful evergreen tree, 30 to 40 feet high, cere minal & gigantic myrtle, bearing numerous flowers grouped in sm - gn ich tricotomous cymes. The flower has an inferior ovary abous | So long, cylindrical, of a crimson colour, dividing at the top into ebud and 4 round concave petals larger than the calyx, imbricated va | like a globe, but at length spreading and soon dropping off. five small : e clove-tree is said to be strictly indigenous only in oe it, islands constituting the proper Moluccas, namely Tarnati, Ti fi of the fe yan and Bachian.* These form a chain on the west side © Hist, des Drog. iii 2 ds, the SS * Blue Book of eg Sie ar “a Straits tk at ‘islands east 0 Settlements for 187] Singapor i , e, 1872, west of New Guinea. * Though these are the Selieal Moluccas CARYOPHYLLL 281 large island of Jilolo, where, strange to say, the tree appears not to exist in a wild state (Crawfurd). According to Rumphius, it was introduced into Amboyna before the arrival of the Portuguese, and is still cultivated there and in the neighbouring islands of Haruku, Saparua and Nusalaut, also in Sumatra and Penang. It is likewise now found in Malacca, the Mascarene Islands, the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on the eastern coast of Africa, and the West Indies. The tree which is grown for the spice appears to be a cultivated variety, of lower stature and more aromatic than the wild form. : History’—The Greek name Kapvdé¢vaA)oyr is supposed to refer to the ball-like petals of the bud, which, as above described, might be compared toasmall nut (xapvoy). But the name is very variably written, as yapovupovr, cappovpovr, yapopada,? whence it becomes probable that it is not really Greek, but an Asiatic word hellenized. Cloves have been long known to the Chinese. Mr. Mayers, late Chinese Secretary to the British Legation at Pekin, has communicated to us the interesting fact that they are mentioned by several Chinese Writers as in use under the Han dynasty, B.c. 266 to A.D. 220, during which period it was customary for the officers of the court to hold the — spice in the mouth before addressing the sovereign, in order that their breath might have an agreeable odour.’ : ; ay Sanskrit name is “Zavanga,’ whence the vernacular Hindustani “ U a g.” The first European author to mention Caryophyllon is Pliny, who describes it, after er, as a grain resembling that spice but longer and _ more brittle, pent aee in India, and aapoter for the sake of its odour. It is doubtful whether this description really refers to cloves. ., By the 4th century, cloves must have become well known in ae if credence can be placed in a remarkable record preserved by Vignoli,’ which states that the emperor Constantine presented to St. Silvester, — bishop of Rome, A.D. 314-335, numerous vessels of gold and silver, meense and spices, among which last were 150 pounds of Cloves—a vast quantity for the period. a é ; Kosmas Indicopleustes, in his Topographia Christiana written about A.D. 547, states in the account of Taprobane (Ceylon) that silk, aloes [-wood], cloves (KapvogvdAov) and sandal wood, besides other produc- tions, are imported thither from China, and other emporia, and trans- — iutted to distant regions. Alexander Trallianus,’ who was a friend of ? > sis . vili. 8; Cant. iv. 13; viii, 2. 127. 133. - , ieee GRANATEA, by the ancients, and among the Romans was in common use for tanning 4 leather,’ as it still is in Tunis. : Description—The fruit of the pomegranate tree is a spherical, somewhat flattened and obscurely six-sided berry, the size of a common orange and often much larger, crowned by the thick, tubular, 5- to 9-toothed calyx. It hasa smooth, hard, coriaceous skin, which when the fruit is ripe, is of a brownish yellow tint, often finely shaded with red. Membranous dissepiments, about 6 in number meeting in the axis of the fruit, divide the upper and larger portion into equal cells. Below these a confused conical diaphragm separates the lower and smaller halt, which in its turn is divided into 4 or 5 irregular cells. Each cell isfilled _ with a large number of grains,crowded on thick spongy placenta, which in the upper cells are parietal but in the lower appear to be cent The grains, which are about 4.an inch in length, are oblong or obconical and many-sided, and consist of a thin transparent vesicle containing a ate saccharine, red, juicy pulp, surrounding an elongated angulat see | The only part of the fruit used medicinally is the peel, (ore Granati of the druggists, which in the fresh state is leathery. When dry as imported, it is in irregular, more or less concave fragments, ae of which have the toothed, tubular calyx still enclosing the stamens a style. It is +5 to #5 of an inch thick, easily breaking with a sho corky fracture ; externally it is rather rough, of a yellowish brown reddish colour. Internally it is more or less brown or yellow, aM honey-combed with depressions left by the seeds. It has hardly any odour, but has a strongly astringent taste. ee Microscopic Structure—The middle layer of the peel consists large thin-walled and elongated, sometimes even branched cells, among which occur thick-walled cells and fibro-vascular bundles. Bot outer and the inner surface are made up of smaller, nearly nee densely packed cells. Small starch granules occur sparingly throug the tissue, as well as crystals of oxalate of calcium. ae Chemical Composition—The chief constituent is tannin, Wer an aqueous infusion of the dried peel produces with perchloride 0 : an abundant dark blue precipitate. The peel also contains sugar Ye ; little gum. Dried at 100° C. and incinerated, it yielded us >? PY cent. of ash. a Uses—Pomegranate peel is an excellent astringent, NOW as obsolete in British medicine. Waring? asserts that when com in with opium and an aromatic, as cloves, it is a most useful sige y the chronic dysentery of the natives of India, as well as in CORTEX GRANATI RADICIS. Pomegranate-root Bark; F. Ecorce de racine de Grenadier G. Granatwurzelrinde. Botanical Origin— unica Granatwm L., see page 289. eA History—In addition to the particulars regarding the — i. LS ase Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, Berlin, 2 Pharm. of India, 1868. 93. 447- CORTEX GRANATI RADICIS, 291 tree given in the preceding article, the following which concern the drug under notice may be stated. A decoction of the root of the pomegranate was recommended by Celsus,’ Dioscorides? and Pliny? for the expulsion of tape-worm ; but the remedy had fallen into complete oblivion, until its use among the Hindus attracted the notice of Buchanan‘ at Calcutta about the year 1805. This physician pointed out the efficacy of the root-bark, which was further shown by Fleming and others. Pomegranate root is known to have been long used for a similar purpose by the Chinese.® Though the medicine is admitted to be efficient, and is employed with advantage in India where it is easily procured both genuine and fresh, it is hardly ever administered in England, the extract of male- fern being generally preferred; but it has a place in several continental pharmacopceias. Description—The bark occurs in rather thin quills or fragments, 3 to 4 inches long. Their outer surface is yellowish grey, sometimes marked with fine longitudinal striations or reticulated wrinkles, but more often furrowed by bands of cork, running together in the thickest pieces into broad flat conchoidal scales. The inner surface, which is smooth or marked with fine strie and is of a greyish yellow, has often strips of the tough whitish wood attached to it. The bark breaks short and granular; it has a purely astringent taste, but scarcely any odour. Microscopic Structure—On a _ transverse section, the liber is seen to be the prevailing part of the cortical tissue. The former consists of alternating layers of two kinds of cells—one of them loaded with tufted crystals of oxalate of calcium, the other filled with starch granules and tannic matter. The bark is traversed by narrow medullary rays, and very large sclerenchymatous cells are scattered through the liber. Touched with a dilute solution of a persalt of Iron, the bark assumes a dark blackish blue tint. Chemical Composition—The bark contains, according to Nhe come roder (1824), more than 22 per cent. of tannic acid, which geese: (1867) has ascertained to consist for the most part of a peculiar eg Pe called Punico-tannie Acid, C*H“O"; when boiled with aint a8 phuric acid, it is resolved into Ellagic Acid, O“H*0®, and sugar, Punico- tannic acid is accompanied by common tannic acid, gt 2 rem of sulphuric acid, gallic acid, which appears sometimes to Paes the bark. If a decoction of pomegranate bark is bey nA acetate of lead, and the lead is separated from the filtered liquid, “A — - evaporation yields a considerable —— of mannite, 151s probably the Punicin or Granatin of former observers. _ The bimnieide power is due, according to Tanret — - tye herine, CH®NO, a liquid dextrogyre alkaloid, boiling at 180° to 185° ©. eat be obtained colourless by evaporating its ethereal solution ie vacuum, but in the open air becomes yellow. Pelletierine, so called in 2 pe, Metlcina, lib. iv. c. 17. Beng Med. and Surg. Journ., iii. be , | ‘Lib, xiii °. 60, : 5 Debeaux, Pharmacie et Mat, Méd, des Chinois, 1865. 70. _ or entirely of the bark of the stem or branches, characterized by its 292 ? CUCURBITACE, honour of Pelletier, is readily soluble in water, alcohol or chloroform, and has a somewhat aromatic odour. Several of its salts are erystal- lizable, yet extremely hygroscopic. The yield of the root bark was _ about } per cent. of the alkaloid, or about 2 per cent. of crystallized sulphate from trees grown near Troyes, in the Champagne. Uses—A decoction, followed by a purgative, is stated by Waring’ and others to be most efficient for the expulsion of the tape-wort. The fresh bark is said to be preferable to the dried. Adulterations—The commercial drug frequently consists partly less abundant cork-formation, which exhibits longitudinal bands ot ridges of light brownish cork, but not conchoidal exfoliations. The middle cortical layer is somewhat more developed, and contains i: the outer cells deposits of chlorophyll. The cambial zone is not dis- tinetly observable. Such bark is reputed to be less active than that of the root, but we are not aware that the fact has ever proved. . The bark of Buawus sempervirens and of Berberis vulgaris ate somewhat similar to the drug under notice, but their decoctions are not affected by salts of iron, CUCURBITACEA. FRUCTUS ECBALLUII. Fructus Elaterii; Elaterium Fruit, Squirting Cucumber, Bog Cucumber ; F. Concombre purgatif ow sawvage ; G. Spronggw Botanical Origin—Eeballiwm? Elaterium A. Richard (Homans 2 Elateriwm 1..), « coarse, hispid, fleshy, decumbent plant withou drils, having a thick white perennial root. It is common throug. the Mediterranean region, extending eastward as far as ie is Russia and Persia, and westward to Portugal. It succeeds W Central Europe, and is cultivated to a small extent for medi at Mitcham and Hitchin in England. a History—Theophrastus mentions the plant under notice name of Lixvos aypios. It is also particularly noticed by : Jateriu e who explicitly deseribes the singular process for making o3 (€Aarijpiov), which was almost exactly like that followe present day. ivated __ The Wild or Squirting Cucumber was well known and a ) in gardens in England as early as the middle of the 16th cen 1} inch Description—The fruit is ovoid-oblong, nodding, abies 7 white long, hispid from numerous short fleshy prickles terminaling “ elongated points. It is attached by a long scabrous pore ature; and green while young, becoming slightly yellowish when ™ i. 190. 1 Indian Annals of Med. Sei i Iusion to the expulsion of (1959); Pharmacopecta of India, 1968 93° _‘rvoneously writin Ba 2 Ecballium from éxBé\Xw, I expel, in 3’ Turner's Herball, 1569, _ FRUCTUS ECBALLIL — 293 3-celled and contains numerous oblong seeds lodged in a very bitter succulent pulp. The fruit when ripe separates suddenly from the stalk, and at the same moment the seeds and juice are forcibly expelled from the aperture left by the detached peduncle. This interestin, phenomenon’ is due to the process of exosmosis, by which the juice of the outer part of the fruit gradually passes through the strong contractile tissue which lines the central cavity, until the pressure becomes so great that the cell gives way at its weakest point. This point is that at which the peduncle is articulated with the fruit; and it is the sudden and powerful contraction of the elastic tissue when relieved from pressure that occasions the violent expulsion of the contents of the central cavity. For the preparation of the officinal elaterium, the fruit has to be employed while still somewhat immature, for the simple reason that it would be impossible to gather it so as to retain its all-important juice if left till quite ripe. When it is sliced longitudinally as in making elaterium, some of the juice is expelled by virtue of the endosmotic action already described, as can easily. be seen on examining the con- tracted lining of the sliced fruit. Pereira observes? that if the juice of a fruit is received ona plate of glass, it is seen to be nearly colourless and transparent. In a few minutes however, by exposure to the air, it becomes slightly turbid, and small white coagula are formed in it. By slow evaporation, minute thomboidal crystals make their appearance : these are elaterin. _ Hot, dry weather favours the development of the active principle of — the drug.’ Microscopic Structure—The middle layer of the fruit is built up of large somewhat thick-walled cells, traversed by a few fibro-vascular bundles. The former abound in small starch grains, and also contain granules of albuminous matter. Chemical Composition—The experiments of Clutterbuck (1819) proved that the active properties of the elaterium plant reside chiefly, though not exclusively, in the juice that surrounds the seeds ; and it is to this juice and to the medicinal product which it yields, that the attention of chemists has been hitherto directed. _ are ee The juice obtained by lightly pressing the sliced fruits is at first — greenish and slightly turbid. After having been set aside a few hours, it yields a deposit, which has to be collected on calico, rapidly drained with gentle pressure between layers of bibulous paper and porous bricks, and dried ina warm place. The substance thus obtained is the Hlatervwm of pharmacy. The method recommended by Clutterbuck? involves no pressi The juice of the sliced fruit is saved, and the pulp, cae out by the thumb of the operator, is thrown on a sieve and slightly washed with pure water. From these liquors, elaterium 1s deposited. *Thave not yet seen Yule’s the : paper on “Tmigcence of ‘this fruit in the Journ. of Pre ysiology, 1877. The struc- ture of the testa of the seed is explained Fy eiekel, in the Botanische Zeitung, 1876. * Elem. of Mat, Med. ii. (1853) 1745. Having had to procure elaterium fruits Iitcham in the very fine summer of eg er told that the people occupied in slicing the fruits had never suffered so severely from their work as in that year.— ‘4 There is a genus of Cucurbitacee founded — by Linneus, also called Hlaterium. 5 Lond, Med. Repository, xii. (1820) 1. 294 GUCURBITACEA, Elaterium occurs in irregular cake-like fragments, light, friable, and — opaque ; when new, of a bright pale green, becoming by age greyish and — : exhibiting minute crystals on the surface. It has a herby tea-like odour and a very bitter taste. The produce is extremely small: 2401h, - of fruit gathered at Mitcham, 10th August 1868, yielded 43 ounces of elaterium = 0°123 per cent. Elaterium consists, according to Pereira, of Elaterin, to which the activity of the drug is due, contaminated with green colouring matter, cellular tissue, and starch, together with a little of the residue of the bitter liquor from which these substances were deposited. Yet, in our _ opinion, this description is not applicable to the best varieties of elater- tum. We have examined elaterium carefully prepared in the labora- tory of Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, London, and a fine specimen _ imported from Malta. Both are devoid of starch, as well as of cellular tissue, but were seen to be largely made up of crystals. The fins sample contained 12 per cent. of water, and yielded after drying, 54 per cent. of ash. : _ The most interesting principle of elaterium is Elaterin, CH, discovered about the year 1831 by Morries, and independently by — Hennell. The best method of obtaining it, according to our experience, — is to exhaust elaterium with chloroform. From this solution, & re crystalline deposit of elaterin is immediately separated by addition : ether. It should be washed with a little ether, and recrystallized from a4 chloroform. We have thus obtained 336 per cent. of pure elaterm from the above-mentioned elaterium of London, and 27°6 per cent, from that of Malta. Elaterin crystallizes in hexagonal scales or prisms; ’ has an extremely bitter, somewhat acrid taste. It is readily Pues ae alcohol, amylic alcohol, bisulphide of carbon, or chloroform. he alcoholic solutions are neutral and are not precipitated by tannin, 1F — : by any metallic solution. It is but very little coloured by cold concer trated sulphuric acid. : - Elaterin is the drastic principle of Ecballiwm ; if to its hou alcoholic solution, solid caustic potash is added, the liquid thus ob neg - 1s stated by Buchheim (1872) to be no longer precipitable by Wee™ The elaterin is then in fact converted into an acid body, which may separated by supersaturating the solution with a mineral acid. . te principle thus obtained has been found by Buchheim to be devold® drastic power. a | _ The fresh juice of the fruits was found by Kohler (1869) to page Z 95 per cent. of water, 3 to 3-5 of organic and 1 to 1°6 of in stituents. The same chemist observed that the percentage of € th 0 _ gradually diminished as the season advanced, until in the mon) September he was unable to obtain any of it whatever. ballium, — : Walz (1859) found in the juice of the fruits and herb of Eebatt ble as well as in that of Cucumis Prophetarum L., a second erys iin oF _ bitter principle, Prophetin, and the amorphous substances Beha ae Elateric Acid, Hydro-elaterin, and Elateride, all of bea mal ‘it further examination,’ Prophetin is a glucoside,—not 80 t °37 pet principles. The four together constitute, according to Walz, ntage cent. of elaterium, which moreover contains about the same perce of pectic matter. e *Gmelin’s Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 335-367. FRUCTUS COLOCYNTHIDIS, 295 _ Uses— Squirting cucumbers are only employed for making _elaterium, which is a very powerful hydragogue cathartic.’ Elaterin is not employed in medicine, but seeing how much elaterium is liable to vary from climate or season, it might probably be introduced into use with advantage. FRUCTUS COLOCYNTHIDIS. Colocynth, Coloquintida, Bitter Apple; F. Coloquinte ; G. Coloquinthe. Botanical Origin—Citrullus Colocynthis Schrader (Cucumis Colo- eynthis L.)\—The colocynth gourd is a slender scabrous plant with a perennial root, native of warm and dry regions in the Old World, over which it has an extensive area. Commencing eastward, it occurs in abundance in the arid districts of the Punjab and Sind, in sandy places on the Coromandel coast, in Ceylon, Persia as far north as the Caspian, in Arabia (Aden), Syria, and in some of the Greek islands. It is found in immense quantities in Upper Egypt and Nubia, spreading itself over sand hillocks of the desert after each rainy season. It further extends throughout North Africa to Morocco and Senegambia, in the Cape de Verd Islands, and — on maritime sands in the south-east of Spain and Portugal. Finally, it 1s said to have been collected in Japan. History—Colocynth was familiar to the Greek and Roman, as wel as to the Arabian physicians; it also occurs in Susruta (“Indravaruni”); and if we may judge by the mention of it in an Anglo-Saxon herbal of the 11th century? was not then unknown in Britain. The drug was collected in Spain at an early period, as is evident from an Arabic calendar of A.D. 9613 : “3 The plant has been long cultivated in Cyprus, and its fruit is mentioned in the 14th century as one of the more important products of the island.t Tragus (1552) figured the plant, and stated that the fruit is imported from Alexandria. Description—The colocynth plant bears a gourd of the size and shape of an orange, having a smooth, marbled-green surface. It is Sometimes imported simply dried, in which case it 1s of a brown colour; but far more usually it is found in the market peeled with a knife and dried. It then forms light, pithy, nearly white balls, which consist of the dried internal pulp of the fruit with the seeds imbedded mit. This pulp is nearly inodorous, but has an intensely bitter taste, ls by reason of its dust when the drug 1s slightly handled. e balls are generally more or less broken; when dried too slowly they have a light brown colour. ‘ : The seeds are disposed in vertical rows on 3 thick parietal placentae, Which project to the centre of the fruit, then divide and turn back, forming two branches directed towards one another. Owing to this Structure, the fruit easily breaks up vertically into 3 wedges in each of which are lodged 2 rows of dark brown seeds. The seeds, of which a 3 Le Calendrier de Cordoue, publié par R. 5 Cocka: saa SRO Ma tate, Hist, de Cite de Chypre, 325, yne, decchdowe, etc,, i. (1865) ss. ss 61) 498. ’ : : : Viole uteerbuck says 4 of a grain purges 296 CUCURBITACEA:’ fruit contains from 200 to 300, are of flattened ovoid form, 33, of an inch long by 3%; broad, not bordered. The testa which is hard and thick, having its surface minutely granulated, is marked on each side of its more pointed end by two furrows directed towards the i hilum. The seed, as in other Cucurbitacee, is exalbuminous, and has thick oily cotyledons, enclosing an embryo with short straight radicle directed towards the hilum. _ Colocynth fruits are mostly supplied by wholesale druggists, broken _ up and having the seeds removed, the drug in such case being called Colocynth Pulp or Pith. Microscopic Structure—The pulp is made up of large thin- walled parenchymatous cells, their outer layer consisting of rows of — smaller cells more densely packed. The tissue is irregularly traversed by fibro-vascular bundles, and also exhibits numerous large inter- _ cellular spaces. The cells contain but an insignificant amount of minute granules, to which neither iodine nor a persalt of iron imparts any coloration. The tissue is not much swollen by water, although one part of the pulp easily retains from 10 to 12 parts of water like a sponge. Chemical Composition—The bitter principle has been isolated in 1847 by Hiibschmann._ He observed that alcohol removes from the fruit a large amount of resin. By submitting this solution to distilla tion, the bitter principle remains partly in the aqueous liquid, partlym the resin, from which the “ Colocynthin” is to be extracted by boiling water. The whole solution was then concentrated and mixed yl carbonate of potassium, when a thickish viscid liquid separa q Hubschmann dried it and redissolved it in a mixture of 1 part Gas alcohol and 8 parts of ether. After treatment with charcoal, the : . ~ vents were distilled and the remaining bitter principle per means of water. This on evaporating afforded 2 per cent. of the pm of a yellow extremely bitter powder, readily soluble in water or eee not in pure ether, Colocynthin is precipitated from its aqueous soll b by carbonate of potassium. Colocynthin was further extra A Lebourdais (1848) by evaporating the aqueous infusion of ne with charcoal, and exhausting the dried powder with boiling alcoho _ _ Again, another method was followed by Walz (1858). He pee alcoholic extract of colocynth with water, and mixed the solution 4 with neutral acetate of lead, and subsequently with basic aceta lead. From the filtered liquid the lead was separated by means ‘Ssulphuretted hydrogen, and then tannic acid added to 1t latter caused the colocynthin to be precipitated; the precipitate thin and dried was decomposed by oxide of lead, and finally the colocyn™" was dissolved out by ether. ‘ tufts, Walz thus obtained about } per cent. of a yellowish mass pa ; which he considered as possessing crystalline structure and % +s he gave the name Colocynthin. . He assigns to it the | C*°H“O%, which in our opinion requires further investigation. alz by cynthin is a violent purgative ; it is decomposed according to a boiling dilute hydrochloric acid, and then yields Colocynthein, t and grape sugar, The same chemist termed Colocynthitin tha 1 Schweizerische Zeitschrift fiir Pharmacie, 1858, 216. part of ~— HERBA HYDROCOTYLES. > gage the alcoholic extract of colocynth which is soluble in ether but not in water. Purified with boiling alcohol, colocynthitin forms a tasteless crystalline powder. The pulp perfectly freed from seeds and dried at 100° G., afforded us 11 per cent of ash; the seeds alone yield only 2°7 per cent. They have, even when crushed, but a faint bitter taste, and contain 17 per cent. of fat oil. The fresh leaves of the plant if rubbed emit a very unpleasant smell, Commerce—The drug is imported from Mogador, Spain and Syria. Uses—In the form of an extract made with weak alcohol, and combined with aloes and scammony, colocynth is much employed as a purgative. The seeds, roasted or boiled, are the miserable food of some of the poorest tribes of the Sahara.' The people of the Berber upon the Nile make a curious application — for the tar they obtain from the fruit. The latter is heated in an earthen vessel with a hole in it; the tar drips through to another vessel and is fit for smearing leather water-bags. The bad smell of the — tar (and of the leaves) prevents the camels from cutting open the water-bags.* Substitutes—Cucumis trigonus Roxb. (C. Pseudo-colocynthis Royle), a plant of the plains of Northern India, with spherical or elongated, sometimes obscurely trigonous, bitter fruits, prostate rooting stems, and deeply divided leaves, resembles the colocynth gourd and has been mistaken for it. Another species named by Royle C. Hardwickii, and known to the natives of India as Hill Colocynth, has oval oblong bitter fruits, but leaves entirely unlike those of the Citrullus — Colocynthis, UMBELLIFERA. HERBA HYDROCOTYLES. Indian Hydrocotyle, Indian Pennywort ; ¥. Bevilacqua. _ Botanical Origin— Hydrocotyle asiatica L., asmall creeping herb,® with slender jointed stems, common in moist places throughout tropical Asia and Africa, ascending in Abyssinia to elevations of 6,000 feet. It also occurs in America from South Carolina to Valdivia, in the West Indies, the islands of the Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia. ; History—Hydrocotyle is called in Sanskrit mandika-parnt, in indi khulakhudi. The former name denotes various lants, but is — thought to refer in Susruta to the plant under notice (Dr. Rice). It was known to Rheede! by its Malyalim name of Codagam (or Kutakan), and also to Rumphius.’ It has been long used medicinally by the "See my pa ; . ; Grant expedition, Journ. Linn. Soc. xxix. : per on Cucumis Colocynthis rant expedition, Parse Fe dieapiageh oY, ren Tow a a Ai aged eties and Trimen, Afed. v der Pj i 5 * Fig. in P AR, harmacie, 201 (1872) 235. Penta ot 2, ; 877. Se , Gran 8 d 4 Hort. Mal, x. tab. : oe 5 Herb, Amboin. v. 169. ie ;; ‘ : : Z ; : 4°°8 ” German 0 rf 9°°] The rotatory power is due to the hydrocarbon contained in the oil; we ascertain that anethol from oil of anise is devoid of it. Fennel fruits contain sugar, yet their sweetness or bitterness depends on the essential oil rather than on the presence of that body. The albumen of the seed contains fixed oil, which amounts to about 12 per cent. of the fruit. Uses—Fennel fruits are used in medicine in the form of distilled water and volatile oil, but to no considerable extent. The chief con- sumption is in cattle medicines, and of the oil in the manufacture of cordials. FRUCTUS ANISI. Anise, Aniseed; F. Fruits @ Anis vert; G. Anis. _ _ Botanical Origin—Pimpinella Anisum L., an annual plant, 1s indigenous to Asia Minor, the Greek Islands and Egypt, but nowhere to be met with undoubtedly growing wild. It is now also cultivated vi many parts of Europe where the summer is hot enough for ripening its fruits, as well as in India and South America. It is not grown 1D Britain, History—Anise, which the ancients obtained chiefly from Crete and e sypt, is among the oldest of medicines and spices.2 It is mentione resi Theophrastus, by the later writers Dioscorides and Pliny, as well as y Edrisi,? who enumerates anise “sorte de graine douce” among the products of Tunisia, In Europe we find that Charlemagne (A.D. 812) commanded that anise should be cultivated on the imperial farms ermany. The Anglo-Saxon writings contain frequent allusions to the ney of dill and cumin, but we have failed to find in them any reference soa nor in the Meddygon Myddfai. or pet atent of Pontage granted by Edward I. in 1305 to raise funds Pairing the Bridge of London, enumerates Anise (anisiwm,) among Epo oaitice liable to toll. There are entries for it under the name 4 41s vert in the account of the expenses of John, king of France, | ae . his abode in England, 1359-60;* and it is one of the spices of | € Grocers’ Company of London had the weighing and oversig porte the soo ore omens re- quoted in the article Fructus Carui, P- 305, ments in 1872, ae $860 kilo, (504), a ae R.], Chronicles of London ‘ings: 10 ee s : ms a s oT Bolick Area, Comptes de V Argenterie scription,” etc., des Rois de France, 1851. 206. 220. i — FRUCTUS ANISI. 311 from 1453.’ By the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV., A.p. 1480,2 it appears that the royal linen was perfumed by means of “lytill bagges of fustian stuffed with ireos and anneys.” Anise seems to have been grown in England as a potherb prior to 1542, for Boorde in his Dyetary of Helth, printed in that year,’ says of it and fennel,—* these herbes be seldom vsed, but theyr seedes be greatly oceupyde.” In common with all other foreign commodities, anise was enormously taxed during the reign of Charles L., the duties levied upon it amounting to 75s. per 112 tb.* Description—Anise fruits, which have the usual characters ot the order, are about 2, of an inch in length, mostly undivided and attached to a slender pedicel. They are of ovoid form, tapering towards the summit, which is crowned by a pair of short styles rising from a thick stylopode; they are nearly cylindrical, but a little constricted towards the commissure. Each fruit is marked by 10 light-coloured ridges which give it a prismatic form; these as well as the rest of the surface of the fruit, are clothed with short rough hairs. The drug has a greyish brown Ue, a spicy saccharine taste, and an agreeable aromatic smell. Microscopic Structure—The most striking peculiarity of anise fruit is the large number of oil-ducts or vittee it contains; each half of the fruit exhibits in transverse section nearly 30 oil-ducts, of which the 4 to 6 in the commissure are by far the largest. The hairs display 4 simple structure, inasmuch as they are the elongated cells of the epidermis a little rounded at the end. _ Chemical Composition—The only important constituent of anise ls the essential oil (Oleum Anisi), which the fruits afford to the extent of 3 per cent. from the best Moravian sort; Russian anise yields from 25 to 27 per cent., the German 2°3 per cent.© This oil is a colourless liquid, having an agreeable odour of anise and a sweetish aromatic te; its sp. gr. varies from 0°977 to 0983. At 10° to 15° C,, it solidi- *s to a hard crystalline mass, which does not resume its fluidity till e temperature rises to about 17° C. a il of anise resembles the oils of fennel, star-anise, and tarragon, in that it consists almost wholly of Anethol or Anise-camphor described in the previous article (p. 309). This fact explains the rotatory power « ol of anise being inferior to that of fennel. Oil of German anise, distilled by one of us, examined under the conditions stated, page 310, deviated only 1°°7, but to the left. Franck (1868) found oil of Saxon anise deviating 1°-1 to the right. | . Production and Commerce—Anise is produced in Malta, about te in Spain, in Touraine and Guienne in France, in Puglia (Southern Italy), in several parts of Northern and Central Germany, emia and Moravia. The Russian provinces of Orel, Tula and °ronesh, south of Moscow, also produce excellent anise, and in uthern Russia, Charkow is likewise known for the production of : 1 : C Herbert, Hist. of the twelve Great Livery Society, 1870. 281. 10 24.8 & London, 1834, 310. * Rates of Marchandizes, 1635. : ted NeW Nicos, 5 Laboratory notes obligingly furnished 181, Y N. H. Nicolas, Lond. 1830. bf Meats, Bobimmel & ee, Leipaig. 3 ‘ "Reprinted for the Early English Text (1878) 312 | - UMBELLIFERZ. this drug. In Greece, anise is largely cultivated under the name of yAucdvucoy, and it is much grown in Northern India. Considerable quantities are also now imported from Chili. The drug is, on the whole, always of a remarkably uniform appearance. Uses—Anise is an aromatic stimulant and carminative, usually administered in the form of essential oil as an adjunct to other medicines, It is also used as a cattle medicine. The essential oil is largely consumed in the manufacture of cordials, chiefly in France, Spain, Italy, and South America. Adulteration—The fruits of anise are sometimes mixed with those of hemlock, but whether by design or by carelessness we know not. Careful inspection with a lens will reveal this dangerous adulteration. We have known powdered anise also to contain hemlock, and have detected it by trituration in a mortar with a few drops of solution of potash, a sample of pure anise for comparison being tried at the Same time, The essential oil of aniseed may readily be confounded with that of Star-anise, which is distilled from the fruits of the widely different Iiicium anisatum. As stated at p- 22, these oils agree so closely 0 their chemical and optical properties, that no scientific means are known for distinguishing them. RADIX SUMBUL. Sumbul Root; F. Racine de Sumbul, Sambola ow Sambula; G. Moschuswurzel. Botanical Origin—Ferula Swmbul Hooker fil. (Zuryangwi vw Kauffmann’), a tall perennial plant discovered in 1869 by @ Russian traveller, Fedschenko, in the mountains of Maghian near Pianjakent, in the northern part of the Khanat of Bukhara, nearly 40 N. lat., and 68° to 69° E. long. From Wittmann’s statements (1876) it would ‘appear that the Sumbul plant abounds far east from that country, in the coast province of the Amoor. A living plant trans —— from the former district to the Botanical Garden of ox oe there in 1871, another in 1875 at Kew, where the plant a r flowering. ; History—The word swmbul, which is Arabic and signifies an ea - what circumstances, or at what period it came to be applied to the i notice, we know Bek ON or. are we better i 7 as to © Austory of sumbul root, which we have been unable to trace by means of any of the works at our disposal. All we can say is, that x mn ‘fed first introduced into Russia about the year 1835 as a su ; shal or musk, that it was then recommended as a remedy !0 era, and that it began to be known in Germany in 1840, and ten years afterwards in England A ‘ the British P. harmacopeia in eee ss Tt was admitted into * Nouv. Mém. de la Soe. i: . Med. de M Ms oc. imp, des Nat. Also in Bentley and Trimen, “"°™ Ce ER Mb Ms yap ed in Henley RADIX SUMBUL. oe 313 Description—The root as found in commerce consists of transverse slices, 1 to 2 inches, rarely as much as 5 inches in diameter, and an inch or more in thickness; the bristly crown, and tapering lower portions, often no thicker than a quill, are also met with. The outside is covered by adark papery bark; the inner surface of the slices is of a dirty brown, marbled with white, showing when viewed with a lens an abundant resinous exudation, especially towards the circumference. The interior is a spongy, fibrous, farinaceous-looking substance, having a pleasant musky odour and a bitter aromatic taste. Microscopic Structure—The interior tissue of sumbul root is very irregularly constructed of woody and medullary rays, while the cortical part exhibits a loose spongy parenchyme. The structural peculiarity of the root becomes obvious, if thin slices are moistened with solution of iodine, when the medullary rays assume by reason of the starch they contain an intense blue. The structure of the root differs from the usual arrangement by the formation of independent secondary cambial zones with fibro-vascular bundles within the original cambium. Similar peculiarities are also displayed by the roots of Myrrhis odorata, Con- volvulus Scammonia, Ipomoea Turpethum and others.’ Large balsam- ducts are also observable in Sumbul as well as in the roots of many other Umbelliferse.2 Chemical Composition—Sumbul root yields about 9 per cent. of a soft balsamic resin soluble in ether, and } per cent. of a dingy bluish essential oil. The resin has a musky smell, not fully developed until after contact with water. According to Reinsch (1848), it dissolves in strong sulphuric acid with a fine blue colour, but in our experience with a crimson brown. The same chemist states that when subjected to dry distillation, it yields a blue oil. — : Solution of potash is stated to convert the resin of sumbul into a crystalline potassium salt of Swmbulamic Acid, which latter was ob- tained in a crystalline state by Reinsch in 1843, but has not been further examined. Sumbulamic acid, which smells strongly of musk, appears to be a different substance from Sumbulic or Swmbulolic Acid, the potassium salt of which may be extracted by water from the above- mentioned alkaline solution. Ricker and Reinsch (1848), assert that the last-mentioned acid, of which the root contains about } per cent., 1s none other than Angelic Acid, accompanied, as in angelica root, by a little valerianic acid. All these substances require further investigation, as well as the body called Sumbulin, which was prepared by Murawjeff (1853), and is said to form with acids, crystalline salts. j _ Sommer has shown (1859) that by dry distillation, sumbul resin Yields Umbelliferone, which substance we shall further notice when describing the constituents of galbanum. Uses—Prescribed in the form of tincture as a stimulating tonic. Adulteration—Bombay Sumbul, or “ Boi,’ is the root of Dorema mmoniacum (see article Ammoniacum, Pp. 324), which is largely im- ported into Bombay, being used there in the Parsee fire temples as an * See A. de B tomie, 1877. 623. lished in Russian in 1870, an Italian trans- 2 The pane eten Forget dl itd hero lation with two plates has appeared in the root have been elaborately studied byTchis- Nuovo Giornale Botanico for Oct. 1873. tiakoff, of whose observations, first pub- 298. ak | UMBELLIFERAE, ~ incense.' The largest roots, for which we are indebted to Professor Dymock, are three inches in diameter at the crown, by 8 inches in length. They are easily distinguished from the Sumbul by their decidedly yellowish hue as well as by the absence of any musky odour. We extracted by alcohol, from the root dried at 100° C., 26 per cent. of a resin identical with that afforded by commercial Ammoniacum. Bombay Sumbul agrees with the Indian Sumbul as described by Pereira.’ ASAFCETIDA. Gunmi-resina Asafeetida vel Assafetida; Asafetida; F. Asafetida; G. Asant, Stinkasant. Botanical Origin—Two perennial umbelliferous -plants are now generally cited as the source of this drug; but though they are both capable of affording a gum-resin of strong alliaceous odour, it has not n proved that either of them furnishes the asafcetida of commerce. The plants in question are :— ee 1. Ferula Narthex Boiss. (Narthex-Asafetida Falconer), a gigantic herbaceous plant, having a large root several inches in thickness, the crown of which is clothed with coarse bristly fibres; it has an erect stem attaining 10 feet in height, throwing out from near its base upwards a regular series of branches bearing compound umbels, each branch proceeding from the axil of a large sheathing inflated petiole, the upper of which are destitute of lamina. The radical leaves, 1} feet long, are bipinnate with broadly ligulate obtuse lobes. It has a large flat fruit with winged margin. When wounded, the plant exudes 4 =e ¥ ae having a a smell of asafcetida. It cesar i W in early spring, rapidly throwing up its foliage, which dies aw at the beginning of keer It Soak oct pares till the root has acquired a considerable size and is several years old. fo \'f arthex, which now exists in several botanic gardens and has flowered twice in that of Edinburgh, was discovered by Falconer ™ 1838, in the valley of Astor or Hasora (35° N. lat., 74°30 E. long, north of Kashmir? = 2. Ferula Scorodosma Bentham et Hooker (Scorodosma foetidum — punse; Ferula Assa fotida L. in Boissier, Flora orientalis ii, 994)—I2 | re of leaf, in the bristly summit of the root, and in general aspect, 8 plant resembles the preceding; but it has the stem (5 to 7 feet ug ) nearly naked, with the umbe 8, which are very numerous, colle cted a - om Summit; and the few stem-leaves have not the voluminous te petioles that are so striking a feature in Narthex.. : es Ake € vitte of the fruit are conspicuous,—in Scorodosma almos coe + bat the development of these organs in feruloid plants varies bly, and has been rejected by Bentham and Hooker as afford- Z ing no im me rate ae tas et character. Scorodosma is apparenvy ae harm, Journ. vi ence ® Elements of dws (1875) 321. ®We refrain from citing localities ™ 208 ; also Bentley. fet ii. p. 2 (1857) Tibet, Beluchistan and Persia, where plan 2 479, : Yourn. ix. (1878) supposed to agree with that of Falcon have been found by other collectors. ASAFCRTIDA. — 315 F. Scorodosma was discovered by Lehmann in 1841, in the sandy deserts eastwards of the Sea of Aral, and also on the hills of the Karatagh range south of the river Zarafshan,—that is to say, south- east of Samarkand. In 1858-59, it was observed by Bunge about Herat. At nearly the same period, it was afresh collected between the Caspian and Sea of Aral, and in the country lying eastward of the latter, by Borszezow, a Russian botanist, who has made it the subject of an elaborate and valuable memoir: The most detailed account of the asafcetida plant we possess is that of the German traveller Engelbert Kiimpfer, who in 1687 observed it in the Persian province of Laristan, between the river Shar and the town of Kongtin, also in the neighbourhood of the town of Dusgan or Disgun, in which latter locality? alone he saw the gum-resin collected. He states that he found the plant also growing near Herat. Kampfer has given figures of his plant which he calls Asa fetida Disgunensis, and his specimens consisting of remnants of leaves, a couple of mericarps (in a bad state) and a piece of the stem a few inches long, are still preserved in the British Museum. These materials have been the subject of much study, in order to determine which of the asafcetida plants of modern botanists should be identified with that of Kampfer. Falconer and Borszezow have arrived i turns at the conclusion that his own plant accords with Kampfer’s. But Kimpfer's figures agree well neither with Narthex nor with Scoro- dosma. The plant they represent does not form, it would seem, the branching pyramid of the Narthex (as it flowered at Edinburgh), hor has it the multitude of umbels seen in Borszczow’s figure of Scorodosma Whether Kampfer’s plant is really identical with either of those we have noticed, and whether the discrepancies observable are due to care- less drawing, or to actual difference, are points that cannot be settled without the examination of more ample specimens. ; Great allowance must be made for the period of growth at which these plants have been observed, Kampfer saw his plant when quite Mature, and not when its stem was young and flowering. Narthex is scarcely known except from specimens grown at Edinburgh, those ob- | tained by Falconer in Tibet having been gathered when dry and Withered. Even Borszczow’s plant appears never to have been seen by any botanist while its flower-stem was in a growing state. History—Whether the substance which the ancients called Laser was the same as the modern Aasafetida, is a question that has been often discussed during the last three hundred years, and it is one upon which we shall attempt to offer no further evidence. Suffice it to say at Laser is mentioned along with products of India and Persia, among the articles on which duty was levied at the Roman custom house of exandria in the 2nd century. : “Hingu,” doubtless meaning Asafcetida, occurs in many Sanskrit Works, especially in epic poetry, but also in Susruta. ' Die P. harmaceutisch-wichti laceen dosma in part 24. der Aralo-Caspischen Wide th pesca 2 Which we cannot find on any map. Piha 40, eight lates.—In the Medi- 3 Kampfer figures his plant with about 6 coal Plants of ey and Trimen, Nar- umbels on a stalk, while Scorodosma, as _ thex ‘is figured in part 29 and Scoro- represented by Borszczow, has at least 25. 316 - UMBELLIFERA, Asafcetida was certainly known to the Arabian and Persian geo- graphers and travellers of the middle ages. One of these, Ali Istakhri, a native of Istakir, the ancient Persepolis, who lived in the 10th century, states* that it produced abundantly in the desert between Sistan and Makran, and is much used by the people as a condiment. The region in question comprises a portion of Beluchistan. The geographer Edrisi,? who wrote about the middle of the 12th century, asserts that asafcetida, called in Arabic Hiltit, is collected largely in a district of Afghanistan near Kaleh Bust, at the junction of the Helmand with the Arghundab, a locality still producing the drug. Other Arabian writers as quoted by Ibn Baytar,’ describe asafoetida in terms which show it to have been well known and much valued. Matthzeus Platearius, who flourished in the second half of the 12th century, mentions asafcetida in his work on simple medicines, known as Corea instans, which was held in great esteem during the middle ages. It is also named a little later by Otho of Cremona; who remarks that the more fcetid the drug, the better its quality. Like other productions of the Kast, asafcetida found its way in European commerce during the middle ages through the trading cities of Italy. It is worthy of remark that it is much less frequently mentioned by the older writers than galbanum, sagapenum and opopanax. In the 13th century, the “ Physicians of Myddfai,” in Wales,’ considered asafvetida eo one of the substances which every physician “ought to know and e. Collection—The collecting of asafcetida on the mountains about om in Laristan in Persia, as described by Kampfer, is performed us:— The peasants repair to the localities where the plants abound, about the middle of April, at which time the latter have ceased growing, and teir leaves begin to show signs of withering. The soil surrounding the plant is removed to the depth of a span, so as to bare a portion of the eek thane leaves are then pulled off, the soil is replaced, and over it are ie Sergio and other herbage, with a stone to keep them . oe ole Ins’ a * 2 soy a pif by the heat of hes sees in this way to prevent injury to pont. forty days later, that is towards the end of May, the people return, the men being armed with knives for cutting the root, and br iron spatulas for collecting the exuded juice. Having first removed the caves and earth, a thinnish slice is taken from the fibrous crown of the oat two days later the juice is scraped from the flat cut surface. ¢ root is again sheltered, care being taken that nothing rests on it. : ad tation is repeated twice in the course of the next few days, # very thin slice being removed from the root after each scraping. The Phinnee £2; String the rt cutting is called shir, i.e. milk, and 8 wards, more milky and less esteemed than that obtained after- is not sold in its natural state, but is mixed with soft ea 1 * Buch der ~ sl translated by Mordt- 4 Choulant, Macer Floridus, Lips. 1832. i 159 *G P Widyies , : bert, i. (1836) so vis, traduite par Jan. a eeetygon Myadjai,, 282. $81 ee imer’s t : ibli i ices at the end), Sontheimer’s trans], 1, (1840) 84, gies camara ae? a pees 535-552. . - ASAFCITIDA. : 317, (terra limosa) which is added to the extent of an equal, or even double, weight of the gum-resin, according to the softness of the latter. After the last cutting,the roots are allowed to rest 8 or 10 days, when a thicker exudation called pispaz, more esteemed than the first, is obtained by a similar process carried on at intervals during June and July, or even latter, until the root is quite exhausted. The only recent account of the production of asafcetida that we have met with, is that of Staff-surgeon H. W. Bellew, who witnessed the collection of the drug in 1857 in the neighbourhood of Kandahar." The frail withered stem of the previous year with the cluster of newly- sprouted leaves, is cut away from the top of the root, around which a trench of 6 inches wide and as many deep, is dug in the earth. Several deep incisions are now made in the upper part of the root, and this operation is repeated every 3 or 4 days as the sap continues to exude, which goes on for a week or two according to the strength of the plant. The juice collects in tears about the top of the root, or when very abundant flows into the hollow around it. In all cases as soon as incisions are made, the root is covered with a bundle of loose ~ twigs or herbs, or even with a heap of stones, to protect it from the drying effects of the sun, The quantity of gum-resin obtained is variable ; some roots yield scarcely half an ounce, others as much as two pounds, Some of ‘the roots are no larger than a carrot, others attain the thickness of a man’s leg. The drug is said to be mostly adulterated before it leaves the country, by admixture of powdered gypsum or flour. The finest sort, which is generally sold pure, is obtained solely “from the node or leaf-bud in the centre of the root- head.” At Kandahar, the price of this superior drug is equivalent to from 2s, 8d.-to 4s. 8d. per tb, while the ordinary sort is worth but from 1s. to 2s, During a journey from North-western India to Teheran in Persia, through Beluchistan and Afghanistan, performed in the spring of 1872, the same traveller observed the asafcetida plant in great abundance on many of the elevated undulating pasture-covered plains and hills of Afghanistan, and of the Persian province of Khorassan. He states that the plant is of two kinds, the one called Kamd-i-gawt which is grazed by cattle and used asa potherb, and the other known as Kamd--angtiza Which affords the eum-resin of commerce. The collecting of this last is almost exclusively in the hands of the western people of the Kakarr tribe, one of the most numerous and powerful of the Afghan clans, who, when thus occupied, spread their camps over the plains of Kandahar to the confines of Herat.” ; Wood, in his journey to the source of the Oxus, found asafcetida to be largely produced in a district to the north of this, namely the moun- around Saigan or Sykan (lat. 35° 10, long. 67° 40), where, says he, the land affording the plant is as regularly apportioned out and as carefully guarded as the cornfields on the plain.’ . Description—The best asafcetida is that consisting chiefly of slightly or not agglutinated tears. This is the Kandahari-Hing of the * Journal 9 ies London. 1874. 101. 102. 286. 321. &e. Lond. 1862, oo ee ee 3 Wood, Journey to the Source of the River __* Bellew, From the Indus to the Tigris, Orus, new ed. 1872, 131. 318 UMBELLIFERA. Bombay market, which is not always to be met with in Bombay, and even there is only used-by wealthy people as a condiment. It is not 3 paige to Europe. The best sort shipped to Europe is the Anguzeh- i-Lari, coming from Laristan by way of Afghanistan and the Bolan Pass to Bombay. It shows agglutinated tears, or when freshly im- ported, it forms a clammy yet hard yellowish-grey mass, in which opaque, white or yellowish milky tears, sometimes an inch or two long, are more or less abundant. Sometimes asafcetida is imported as a fluid honey-like mass, ap- parently pure. We presume that such is that of the first gathering, which Kampfer says is called milk. The drug is often adulterated with earthy matter which renders it very ponderous; it must be granted that an addition of such matters may often be necessary in order to enable the drug to be transported. This earthy or stony asafoetida constitutes at Bombay a distinct article of commerce under the name of Hingra. By exposure to air, asafcctida acquires a bright pink and then a brown hue. The perfectly pure tears display when fractured a con- choidal surface, which changes from milky white to purplish pink in the course of some hours. If a tear is touched with nitric acid sp. gr. 1:2, it assumes for a short time a fine green colour. : When asafcetida is rubbed in a mortar with oil of vitriol, then diluted with water and neutralized, the slightly coloured solution exhibits 4 bluish fluorescence. The same will be observed, to some extent, if tears of the drug are immersed in water and a little ammonia is added. ‘The tears of asafcetida when warmed become adhesive, but by cold are rendered so brittle that they may be powdered. With water they _ easily form a white emulsion. The drug has a f : ; ic bitter acrid sabato cana. ul and persistent alliaceous odour ae Composition—Asafvetida consists of resin, gum = essential oil, in varying proporti esi ally amounting Sue one elf proportions, but the resin generally _ As to the oil, we have repeatedly obtained from 6 to 9 per cent. by distilling it from common copper stills. It is light yellow, has a re- pulsive, very pungent odour of asafcetida, tastes at first mild, then Te but does not stimulate like oil of mustard when applied to She skin. It is neutral, but after exposure to the air acquires an acid — and different odour ; it evolves sulphuretted hydrogen. In the 3 h state, the oil is free from oxygen ; it begins to boil at 135° to 140 2. = oe with continued evolution of hydrogen sulphide, so that we di z a pecened in preparing it of constant composition, the amount 0 ead varying from 20 to 25 per cent. We found it to have a sp. 9 ° sakiey 25’, and a strong dextrogyrate power. If one drop of it #8 ola float on water it assumes a fine violet hue by vapours 0 The essential oil of asafceti : : istillation . cetida submitted to fractional distilla Mi Pots 300°, a considerable proportion of a most beautifully blue om. By very cautiously oxidizing the crude oil, we obtain a small ; : Sodiuini oF pokes extremely deliquescent crystals of a sulphonie acid. um decomposes the oil with evolution of gas, forming - ASAFCETIDA, 2 319 potassium sulphide ; the residual oil is found to have the odour of cin- namon. The resin of asafoetida is not wholly soluble in ether or in chloroform, but dissolves with decomposition in warm concentrated nitric acid. It 3 contains a little Ferulaic Acid, C°H®( Gy" )CH.CH.COOH, dis- covered by Hlasiwetz and Barth in 1866, crystallizing in iridescent needles soluble in boiling water; it is homologous with Hugetic Acid, 3 CoH? (on ) Me cat which is to be obtained by adding CO? to the molecule of eugenol (page. 284). genol (pag ) Odin Ferulaic acid may be obtained from vanillin, on | OF (see article Vanilla). Fused with potash, ferulaic acid yields oxalic and carbonic acids, several acids of the fatty series, and protocatechuic acid. The resin itself treated in like manner after it has been previously freed from gum, yields resorcin; and by dry distillation, oils of a green, blue, violet or red tint, besides about } per cent. of Umbelliferone, C°HS8O*. The mucilaginous matter of asafcetida consists of a smaller part soluble in water and an insoluble portion. The former yields a neutral _ solution which is not precipitated by neutral acetate of lead. The — insoluble part is readily dissolved by caustic lye and again separates on addition of acids. _ Commerce—The drug is at the present day produced exclusively in Afghanistan. Much of it is shipped in the Persian Gulf for Bombay, whence it is conveyed to Europe; it is also brought into India by way - of Peshawur, and by the Bolan pass in Beluchistan. : _1n the year 1872-73, there were imported into Bombay by sea, chiefly from the Persian Gulf, 3367 ewt. of asafcetida, and 4780 ewt. of the impure form of the drag called Hingra. The value of the latter is scarcely a fifth that of the genuine kind. The export of asafcetida from mbay to Europe is very small in comparison with the shipments to other ports of India. Uses—Asafcetida is reputed stimulant and antispasmodic. It is in great demand on the Continent, but is little employed in Great Britain. Among the Mahommedan as well as Hindu population of India, it is generally used as a condiment, and is eaten especially with the various ee known as dal. In regions where the plant grows, the fresh ves are cooked as an article of diet. Adulteration—The systematic adulteration, chiefly with earthy matter already pointed out, may be estimated by exhausting the drug with aleohol and incinerating the residue. Allied Substances. Hing from Abushahir, also in Bombay simply called Hing. ong the natives of Bombay, a peculiar form of asafcetida is in use that commands a much higher price than those just described ; it is also the only kind admitted there in the government sanitary establish- 320 UMBELLIFERZ. ments. This is the Abushaheree Hing, imported from Abushir (Bender Bushehr) and Bender Abassi on the Persian Gulf. It is the product of Ferula alliacea Boiss (F. Asafetida Boiss. et Buhse, non Linn.) dis- covered in 1850 by Buhse, and observed in 1858-59 by Bunge in many places in Persia. This Hing is collected near Yezd in Khorassan, and also in the province of Kerman, the plant being known as angiiza, the _ same name that is applied to Scorodosma. _ Abushaheree Hing is never brought into European trade.” It forms _ analmost blackish brown, originally translucent, brittle mass, of extremely feetid alliaceous odour, containing many pieces of the stem with no _ admixture of earth. Guibourt, by whom it was first noticed,’ was con- vineed that it had not been obtained from the root, but had been cut from the stem. He remarks that Theophrastus alludes to asafcetida (as he terms the Silphiwm* of this author) as being of two kinds,—the one of the stem, the other of the root; and thinks the former may be the sort under notice. Vigier,’ who calls it Asafetida nauséeua, found it to contain in 100 parts, of resin and essential oil 37:5, and gum 23'7. We find the odour of the Hing much more repulsive than that of common Asafcetida. The former yields an abundance of essential oil, which differs by its reddish hue from that of asafcetida. The oil of Hing, as distilled by one of us (1877) has also a higher specific gravity, namely, 102 at 25°C. We find also its rotatory power stronger; it deviated 38°8 to the right, when examined in a column of 100 milli- metres in length. The oil of common asafcetida deviated 13°5 under the same conditions, - By gets warming the Abushaheree Hing with concentrated hydrochloric acid, about 1:12 sp. gr., it displays simply a dingy brown hue. By shaking it with water and a little ammonia no fluorescence 1s produced. In all these respects there is consequently a well-marked difference between the drug under examination and common asafctida. f P. teterrima Kar. et Kir., a plant of Soungaria, is likewise remarkable or its intense alliaceous smell; but the plant is not known as the source of any commercial product,’ GALBANUM. Gummi-resina Galbanum ; Galbanum ; F. Galbanwm; G. Mutterhar2. Botanical Origin—The uncertainty that exists as to, the planta which furnish asafcetida, hangs over those which produce the nearly allied drug Galbanum, J udging from the characters of the latter, _ €an scarcely be doubted that it is yielded by umbelliferous plants ae t two species, which are probably the following :7— 1 oer 4S ioe : Sheva Orientalis, ii. (1872) 995, 5 Gommes-résines des Ombelliferes (these), "sented toone gfe art it Was kindly pre- Paris, 1869. 32. > aoe one Ne (H.) by Mr. D. 8, Kemp 6 Borszezow, op. cit, 13-14. ‘ same druy in co 1 aVe also examined the 7 The following in addition have at va" fiether Phat Indian Museum, and _ oustimes been supposed to afford galbanum: ness of Pree Specimens bythekind- —Verulago galbanifera Koch, @ natty die Dymock. See his notes the Mediterranean region and ae (1877) 103" (1875) 103, and viii, aval Opoidia pobontes bi ae +5 i Drogues, iii ersian plant of doubtful genus; 4 Hist, Pe rum, ” sie 223. Galbanum L.,a shrubby umbellifer of South : 7S ca, bes. | tee ne i eres e Teer A GALBANUM. = ag 1, Ferula galbaniflua Boiss. et Buhse,'—a plant with a tall, solid stem, 4 to 5 feet high, greyish, tomentose leaves, and thin flat fruits, 5 to 6 lines long, 2 to 3 broad, discovered in 1848 at the foot of Dema- wend in Northern Persia, and on the slopes of the same mountain at 4,000 to 8,000 feet, also on the mountains near Kushkik and Churchurii (Jajarid?). Bunge collected the same plant at Subzawar. Buhse says that the inhabitants of the district of Demawend collect the gum resin of this plant which is Galbanwm ; the tears which exude spontane- ously from the stem, especially on its lower part and about the bases of the leaves, are at first milk-white, but become yellow by exposure to light and air. It is not the practice, so far as he observed, to wound the plant for the purpose of causing the juice to exude more freely, nor is the gathering of the gum in this district any special object of industry.” The plant is called in Persian Khassuih, and the Mazan- deran dialect Boridsheh. 2. F. rubricaulis Boiss. (F. erubescens Boiss. ex parte, Aucher easice. n. 4614, Kotschy n. 666).—This plant was collected by Kotschy in gorges of the Kuh Dinar range in Southern Persia, and probably by Aucher-Eloy on the mountain of Dalmkuh in Northern Persia. Borszezow,* who regards it as the same as the preceding (though Boissier® places it in a different section of the genus), says, on the authority of Buhse, that it occurs locally throughout the whole of Northern Persia, is found in plenty on the slopes of Elwund near Hamadan, here and there on the edge of the great central salt-desert of — Persia, on the mountains near Subzawar, between Ghurian and Khéf, West of Herat, and on the desert plateau west of Khaf. He states, though not from personal observation, that its gum-resin, which con- stitutes Persian Galbanum, is collected for commercial purposes around Hamadan. F. rubricaulis Boiss. has been beautifully figured by Berg* under the name of F. erubescens. History—Galbanum, in Hebrew Chelbenah, was an ingredient of © Mcense used in the worship of the ancient Israelites,” and is men- tioned by the earliest writers on medicine as Hippocrates and Theo- Phrastus* Dioscorides states it to be the juice of a Narthex growing in Syria, and describes its characters, and the method of purifying it by hot water exactly as followed in modern times. We find it mentioned in the 2nd century among the drugs on which duty was levied at the man custom house at Alexandria’ Under the name of Kinnah it Was well known to the Arabians, and through them to the physicians of the school of Salerno. Beane : ._ +2 the journal of expenses of John, king of France, during his capti- vity in England, a.p. 1359-60, there is an entry for the purchase of 1 Ib. Auf atihlung der in einer Reise durch Pranskaukasien und Persien gesammelten a a ae Mém. de la Soc. imp, des Benth, loscou, xii. (1860) 99.—Fig. in 2B, Sie Trimen, Med. Plants, part 16. deg N, Lc. ; also Bulletin de la Soc. imp. Spe 1 Moscou, xxiii. (1850) 548. Oriental; Plantarum novarum presertim ‘Op wm, ser, ii, fase, 2 (1856) 92. 5 Fy, 36 (see p. 315, note 1), Orientalis, ii, (1872) 995. ® Berg u. ag Offizinelle Gewiichse, i tab, 31 5. : “y acter xxx, 34.—Jes. Sirach xxiv. 18. —In imitation of the ancient Jewish custom, Galbanum is a component of the incense used in the Irvingite chapels in = dig —Theophr. Hist. Plant, ix. a : . : ®Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, U1. (1807 692. 322 _ UMBELLIFERZ. of Galbanum which cost 16s., 1 lb. of Sagapenum (Serapin) at the same time costing only 2s.’ In common with other products of the Kast, these drugs used to reach England by way of Venice, and are mentioned among the exports of that city to London in 1503.2 . An edict of Henry IT. of France promulgated in 1581, gives the prices per lb. of the gum resins of the Umbellifere as follows :—Opopa- nax, 32 sols, Sagapenum 22 sols, Asafcetida 15 sols, Galbanum 10 sols, Ammoniacum 6 sols 6 deniers.’ Description—Galbanum is met with in drops or tears, adhering inter se into a mass, usually compact and hard, but sometimes found so soft as to be fluid The tears are of the size of a lentil to that ofa hazel-nut, translucent, and of various shades of light brown, yellowish or faintly greenish. The drug has a peculiar, not unpleasant, aromatic odour, and a disagreeable, bitter, alliaceous taste. In one variety, the tears are dull and waxy, of a light yellowish tint when fresh, but becoming of an orange brown by keeping; they are but little disposed to run together, and are sometimes quite dry and loose, with an odour that somewhat reminds one of savine. In recent importations of this form of galbanum, we have noticed a considerable admixture of thin transverse slices of the root of the plant, an inch or more in diameter. Chemical Composition—Galbanum contains volatile oil, resin and mucilage. The first, of which 7 per cent. may be obtained by distillation with water, is a colourless or slightly yellowish liquid, partly consisting of a hydrocarbon, C"H", boiling at from 170° to 180°, This oil affords easily crystals of terpin, OH" +3 OH?, if it is treated as mentioned in the article Oleum Cajuputi; it also affords the crystallized compound _CH™+HClL But the prevailing part of oil of galbanum consists of hy bons of a much higher boiling point. The crude oil has a en : ea taste, and deviates the ray of polarized light t right. : The resin, which we find to constitute about 60 per cent. of the . U8» 18 very soft, and dissolves in ether or in alkaline liquids, even aK, of lime, but only partially in bisulphide of carbon. When heated for some time at 100° C.’ with hydrochloric acid, it yields Umbelliferone, C'H°O', which may be dissolved from the acid liquid by jeans of ether or chloroform ; it is obtained on evaporation in colour less acicular crystals. Umbelliferone is soluble in hot water; its Swiation exhibits, especially on addition of an alkali, a brilliant blue orescence which is destroyed by an acid. If a small fragment of ju 1s immersed in water. , the fluorescence is immediately pro uced by a drop of ammonia,’ The same phenomenon takes place wit asafcetida, not at all with ammoniacum ; it is probably due to traces of Uumbelliferone pre-existing in the former drugs. By boiling the umber : des ist Aroq, Comptes de l Argenterie beautifully shown by dipping epee é multiplied by 3 to civ, lous paper into water which ee al present value, ¥* to give anotionof _an hour or two on lumps of gal cry ? Pasi ; a Ps ing it. A strip of this paper P - 1521 "264 (ees te Pesi e Misure, Venet, a test tube of water with a drop of am foishing oo : tion, iy * n, 1503). moni: il etwas sb blue solut y Roisde renise aval Ordonnances des Thatantig losing its pe ee on the addition * This (1585) 388. of a drop of hydrochloric acid. property of umbelliferone may be GALBANUM. _ —-g98 liferone with concentrated caustic lye, it splits up into resorcin, carbonic acid and formic acid. Umbelliferone is also produced from many other aromatic umbelli- ferous plants, as Angelica, Levisticwm and Meum, when their respec- tive resins are submitted to dry distillation. According to Zwenger (1860) it may be likewise obtained from the resin of Daphne Mezereum L. The yield is always small; it is highest in galbanum, but even in this does not much exceed 0'8 per cent. reckoned on the crude drug. By submitting galbanum-resin to dry distillation, there will be obtained a thick oil of an intense and brilliant blue,’ which was noticed as early as about the year 1730 by Caspar Neumann of Berlin. It isa liquid having an aromatic odour and a bitter acrid taste ; in cold it deposits crystals of umbelliferone, which can be extracted by repeatedly shaking the oil with boiling water. A small amount of fatty acids is also removed at the same time. Submitted to rectification the crude oil at first yields a greenish portion and then the superb blue oil. Kachler (1871) found that it could be resolved by fractional distillation into a colourless oil having the formula CH", and a blue oil to which he assigned the composition CHO, boiling at 289°C. As to the hydrocarbon, it boils at 240° C., and therefore differs from the essential oil obtained when galbanum is distilled with water. The blue oil, after due purification, agrees, according to Kachler, with the blue oil of the flowers of Matricaria Chamomilla L. Each may be transformed by means of potassium into a colourless hydrocarbon, CH; or by anhydride of phosphoric acid into another product, CH", likewise colourless, The latter, as well as the former hydrocarbon, if diluted with ether, and bromine be added, assumes for a moment a fine blue tint; the colourless oil as afforded by the drug on distillation with water assumes also the same coloration with bromine. By fusing galbanum-resin with potash, Hlasiwetz and Barth (1864) obtained crystals (about 6 per cent.) of Resorcin or M: eta-Dioaybenzol, ther with acetic and volatile fatty acids. The name of this remark- able substance alludes to Orcin, which had been extracted in 1829 by Robiquet from lichens. The formula of Resorcin, C’H‘(OH)*, shows at ence its relations to Orcin, C°H*CH'(OH)*. Resorcin has been ascer- tained to be frequently produced by melting other resins with potash ; it has also been prepared on a large scale for the manufacture of the brilliant colouring matter called Zosin. Galbanum-resin treated with rere acid yields Trinitroresorcin C'H(NO*)(OH)’, the so-called Yphnic Acid, _if galbanum, or still better its resin, is very moderately warmed with Concentrated hydrochloric acid, a red hue is developed, which Ms violet or bluish if spirit of wine is slowly added. Asafcetida ed in the same way assumes a dingy greenish colour, and oe i acum is not altered at all. This test probably depends sash 1e big of resorcin, which in itself is not coloured by hydrochloric othe but assumes a red or blue colour if sugar or mucilage or certain ‘Sea Substances are present. It is remarkable that ammoniacum, erie yielding resorcin when fused with ere gear ve found i i - ice-stone; the oil is then y Mem-csin wit carly powdered pum sbundatly obtainable | 324 - UMBELLIFERA, red colour when warmed with hydrochloric acid. The mucilage of galbanum has not been minutely examined. Commerce—Galbanum is, we believe, brought into commerce chiefly from Eastern Europe. It is stated that considerable quantities reach Russia by way of Astrachan and Orenburg. Uses—Galbanum is administered internally as a stimulating expec- torant, and is occasionally applied in the form of plaster to indolent swellings. Allied Substances. Sagapenum—This is a gum-resin which, when pure, forms a tough softish mass of closely agglutinated tears. It differs from asafcetida in forming brownish (not milk-white) tears, which when broken do not acquire a pink tint; also in not having an alliaceous odour. A good specimen presented to us by Professor Dymock of Bombay (1878) re- minds in that and other respects rather of galbanum. We find this Sagapenum to be devoid of sulphur but containing umbelliferone ; it is extremely remarkable for the intense and permanent purely blue colour it acquires in cold when the smallest fragment of the drug is immersed in hydrochloric acid 1-13 Sp. gr. _ Sagapenum, which in medieval pharmacy was often called Sera- Prnrun, 1s so frequently mentioned by the older writers that it must have been a plentiful substance. At the present day it can scarcely be procured genuine even at Bombay, whither it is sometimes brought m Persia. The botanical origin of the drug is unknown. AMMONIACUM. sae pean Ammoniacum; Ammoniacum or Gum Ammoniacum; EF. Gomme-résine Ammoniaque ; G. Ammoniak-gunmiharz. _ Botanical Origin.—Dorema Ammoniacum, Don, a perennial pase with a stout, erect, leafless flower-stem, 6 to 8 feet high, dividing towal\ its upper part into numerous ascending branches, along which are ' posed on thick short stalks, ball-like simple umbels, scarcely half an oe hg of very small flowers. The aspect of the full-grown plant is there; iol very unlike that of Ferula. The Dorema has large compo” eaves with broad lobes, The whole plant in its young state is cove wih a tomentum of soft, stellate hairs, which give it a greyish look, bu a disappear as it ripens its fruits. The withered stems long se — . and occurring in immense abundance and overtopping the othe egetation of the arid desert, having a striking appearance.” The 10? described in the article on Sumbul, p. 313. ich ‘he plant occurs over a, wide area of the barren regions of bint -ersia is the centre, According to Bunge and Bienert, its north-westel Wards feats to be Shahrud (S.K. of Asterabad), whence it extends east hse the deserts south of the Sea of Aral and the Sir-Daria. | Matt. xxiii, 23 ; ‘ockaynes a . *Xill. 23,—where it has been ren- 4 Leechd &e., edited by Cockayn” Wickit ab ~ English translators from 1864-66 ae sapeiale Herbarium a versions, the ale But in other —_eii, dating about A.D. 1050, in vol. i. PP ® Heldreich, Nahe ly, translated. 219, 235, 237. 281. 293. 1870. (1862) 40. Ulepflanzen Griechenlands 5 Popular Names of British Pais hy Botan . : ® Volume of Vocabularies, edi Berlin, ote ik d. spiiteren Griechen, Wright, 1857. 30. FRUCTUS CORIANDRIL 329 an essential oil, the largest proportion of which was found by Gladstone (1864-1872) to be a hydrocarbon, CH", to which he gave the name Anethene. This substance has a lemon-like odour, sp. gr. ‘846, and boils at 172°C. It deviates a ray of polarized light strongly to the right. Nietzki (1874) ascertained that there is, moreover, present another hydrocarbon, CH”, in a very small proportion, which boils at 155-160°. A third constituent of oil of dill is in all probability identi- cal with carvol (see page 307); we prepared from the former immed- lately the erystals (C’H"O)2SH?. Uses—The distilled water of dill is stomachic and carminative, and frequently prescribed as a vehicle for more active medicines. The seeds are much used for culinary and medicinal purposes by the people of India, but are little employed in Continental Europe. FRUCTUS CORIANDRI. Semen Coriandri; Coriander Frwits, Coriander Seeds, Corianders ; F. Fruits de Coriandre ; G. Koriander. Botanical Origin—Coriandruwm sativum L., a small glabrous, annual plant, apparently indigenous to the Mediterranean and Caucasian regions, not known growing wild, but now found as a cornfield weed throughout the temperate parts of the Old World. It is cultivated in many countries, and has thus found its way even to Paraguay. In England the cultivation of coriander has long been carried on, but only to a very limited extent. History—Coriander appears to occur in the famous Egyptian papyrus Ebers ; it is also mentioned, under the name of Kustumburu, in early Sanskrit authors, and is also met with in the Scriptures.’ _ The plant owes its names Keoproy, Kopiavvor, and Kopidvépor, or also in the middle ages, KoArdydpor, to the offensive odour it exhales when handled, and which reminds one of bugs,—in Greek Kopvs. This» character caused it to be regarded in the middle ages as having poison- ous properties. The ripe fruits which are entirely free from the feetid — smell of the growing plant, were used as a spice by the Jews and the omans, and in medicine from a very early period. Cato, who wrote on agriculture in the 8rd century B.c., notices the cultivation of coriander, Pliny states that the best is that of Egypt. it is of fre- quent occurrence in the book “De opsoniis et condimentis of Apicius Ceelius, about the 3rd century of our era. Coriander is also in uded in the list of Charlemagne, alluded to pages 92, 98, etc. orlander was well known in Britain prior to the Norman Conquest, oe often employed in ancient Welsh and English medicine and ery. Cultivation—Coriander, called by the farmers Col, is cultivated in the eastern counties of England, especially in Essex. It is sometimes sown with caraway, and being an annual is gathered and harvested the tst year, the caraway remaining in the ground. The seedling plants are hoed so as to leave those that are to remain in rows 10 to 12 inches Se ce eh toe SE 2 330 -UMBELLIFERZ. apart. The plant is cut with sickles,and when dry the sced is thrashed out on a cloth in the centre of the field. On the best land, 15 ewt, per acre is reckoned an average crop.’ Description—The fruit of coriander consists of a pair of hemi- spherical mericarps, firmly joined so as to form an almost regular globe, measuring on an average about + of an inch in diameter, crowned by the stylopodium and calycinal teeth, and sometimes by the slender diverging styles. The pericarp bears on each half, 4 perfectly straight sharpish ridges, regarded as secondary (juga secundaria); two other ridges, often of darker colour, belonging to the mericarps in common, the separation of which takes place in a rather sinuous line. The shallow depression between each pair of these straight ridges is occu- pied by a zig-zag raised line (jugum primariwm), of which there are therefore 5 in each mericarp. It will thus be seen that each mericarp has 5 (zig-zag) so-called primary ri dges, and 4 (keeled and more pro- minent) secondary, besides the lateral ridges which mark the suture or line of separation. There are no vittze on the outer surface of the pericarp. Of the 5 teeth of the calyx, 2 often grow into long, pointed, persistent lobes ; they proceed from the outer flowers of the umbel. Though the two mericarps are closely united, they adhere only by the thin pericarp, enclosing when ripe a lenticular cavity. On each side of this cavity, the skin of the fruit separates from that of the seed, displaying the two brown vitte of each mericarp. In transverse se- tion, the albumen appears crescent-shaped, the concave side being towards the cavity. The carpophore stands in the middle of the latter as a column, connected with the pericarp only at top and bottom. Corianders are smooth and rather hard, in colour buff or light brow2. They have a very mild aromatic taste, and, when crushed, a pec f t smell. When unripe, their odour, like that of the fresh plant, is offensive. The nature of the chemical change that occasions this alteration in odour has not been made out. The Indian corianders shi : ize and of alonpated tare rianders shipped from Bombay are of large size Microscopic Structure—The structural peculiarities of coriander fruit chiefly refer to the pericarp. Its middle layer is made up of thiek oe ligneous prosenchyme, traversed by a few fibro-vascular bundles Which in the zig-zag ridges vary exceedingly in position. __Chemical Composition—The essential oil of coriander has @ com position indicated by the formula C“H*O, and is therefore isomerl¢ “Sie _ if the elements of water are abstracted by phos pet e, it is co : i n 0 a odour, Cups according to Kawalier (1852), into a _ ___+he fruits yield of volatile oil from 07 to 1°1 per cent. ; as the vitte — as well protected by the woody pericarp, sovlandees should be br oe fies being submitted to distillation. Trommsdorff (1835) found ~ to afford 13 per cent. of fixed oil. € fresh herb distilled in J uly when the fruits were far from ™P% yielded to one of us (F.) from 0:57 to 1:1 per mille of an oe Possessing in a high degree the disagre allud eet isagreeable odour already alludec This oil wag found to deviate the ray of polarized light 1:1° to the right Baker, in Morton’s Cyclopedia of Agriculture, i, (1855) 545. FRUCTUS CUMINL - — when examined in a column 50 mm. long. The oil distilled by us from ripe commercial fruit deviated 5°1° to the right. Production and Commerce—Coriander is cultivated in various parts of Continental Europe, and, as already stated, to a small extent in England. It is also produced in Northern Africa and in India. In 1872-73, the export of coriander from the province of Sind! was 948 ewt.; from Bombay’ in the same year 619 ewt. From Caleutta® there were shipped in 1870-71, 16,347 ewt. Uses—Coriander fruits are reputed stimulant and carminative, yet are but little employed in medicine. They are however used in veteri- nary practice, and by the distillers of gin, also in some countries in cookery. FRUCTUS CUMINI. Fructus vel Semen Cymini ; Cumin or Cummint Fruits, Cummin _ Seeds; F. Graines de Cumin; G. Mutterkiimmel, Kreuzkiimmel, Langer oder Réimischer Kiimmel, Mohrenkiimmel. _ Botanical Origin.—Cuminum Cyminum L., a small annual plant, indigenous to the upper regions of the Nile, but carried at an early period by cultivation to Arabia, India and China, as well as to the countries bordering the Mediterranean. ‘The fruits of the plant ripen _. a8 far north as Southern N orway; but in Europe, Sicily and Malta alone produce them in quantity. History—Cumin was well known to the ancients; it is alluded to by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah,’ and is mentioned in the gospel of Mat- thew* as one of the minor titheable productions of the Holy Land. Under the name Kvuvov, it is commended for its agreeable taste by Diosvorides, in whose day it was produced on the coasts of Asia Minor and Southern Italy. It is named as Cuminwm by Horace and Persius; cribonius Largus, in the first century of our era, mentions Cuminum ethiopicum, silvaticum and thebaicum. During the middle ages, cumin was one of the spices in most common use. Thus in A.D. 716, an annual provision of 150 Ib. of cumin for the monastery of Corbie in N ormandy, was not thought too large a supply. ‘isi mentioned cumin as a product of Morocco (see article Fructus _ Carui, p. 305), Algeria and Tunisia. It was in frequent use in England, its average price between 1264 and 1400 being a little over 2d. per tb. Cumin is enumerated in the Liber albus’ of the city of London, Compiled in 1419, among the merchandize on which the king levied the Mmpost called scavage. It is mentioned” in 1453 as one of the articles Cummin, Ray (1693) and in modern trade- " Statement of the Trade and Navigation ‘ lists and price-currents. of Sind f 1873. 36. or the year 1872-73, Karachi, 2 . ; Ditto for Bombay, 1872-78. ii. 90. nual Volume of Trade, etc. for the gal Presidency, 1870-71. 121. am omyne in Wicklif’s Bible (1380), Com- ee rit ‘Tyndale’s (1534), Commyn in Cran- inde (1539), Cummine in the Authorised (1636. (1611), Cumin in Gerarde’s Herbal ) and Paris’s Pharmacologia (1822), 5 Ch, pig 6 Ch, xxiii. 23. : 7 Pardessus, Diplomata, etc., Paris, 1849. rs eee Hist, of Agriculture and Prices in England, 1876. i. 631, ii. 543-547. or: 9 Munimenta Gildhalle Londoniensis, edited by Riley, i. (1859) 224. ' 10 Herbert, Hist. of the Great Livery Companies of London, 1834. 114. 332 UMBELLIFERZ. ofwhich the Grocers’ Company had the weighing and oversight, and was classed in 1484 in the same way in the German warehouse in Venice.’ Description—The fruit, the colour of which is brown, has the usual structure of the order ; it is of an elongated ovoid form, tapering towards each end, and somewhat laterally compressed. The mericarps, which do not readily separate from the carpophore, are about } of an inch in length and +5 of an inch in greatest breadth. Each has 5 primary ridges which are filiform, and scabrous or muriculate, and 4 secondary covered with rough hairs. Between the primary ridges is a single elongated vitta, and 2 vittee occur on the commissural surface. A transverse section of the seed shows a reniform outline. There is a form of C. Cyminwm in cultivation, the fruit of which is perfectly glabrous. Cumin has a strong aromatic taste and smell, far less agreeable than that of caraway. Microscopic Structure—The hairs are rather brittle, sometimes mm. in length, formed of cells springing from the epidermis. The er consists of groups of cells, vertically or laterally combined, and enclosed by a common envelope; the smaller of but a single cell ending in a rounded point. The whole pericarp is rich in tannic matter, striking with salts of iron a dark greenish colour, . The tissue of the seed is loaded with colourless drops of a fatty oil; the vitte with a yellowish-brown essential oil. But the most striking contents of the parenchyme of the albumen consist of transparent, colourless, spherical grains, 7 to 5 mkm. in diameter, several of which are enclosed in each cell. Under a high magnifying power, they show a central cavity with a series of concentric layers around it, frequently traversed by radial clefts. Examined in polarized light, these grains display exactly the same cross as is seen in granules of starch, althoug. their behaviour with chemical tests at once proves that they are by no means that substance; in fact iodine does not render them blue, ey intensely brown. Grains of the same character, assuming sometimes a crystalloid form, occur in most umbelliferous fruits, and in many seeds of other orders, All these bodies are composed of albuminous a0 fatty matters; the more crystalloid form as met with in the seeds 0 bhi and in the fruit of parsley, is the body called by Hartig Chemical Composition—Cumin fruits yielded to Bley (1829) opel fat oil, 13 per cent. of resin (2), 8 of mucilage and gum, *? . a buminous matter, and a large amount of malates. Their peculiat, _ Strong, aromatic smell and taste, depend on the essential oil of whi ey afford as much as 4 per cent. It contains about 56 per cent.° Cuminol (or Cuminaldehyde), cH bar a li qui d of sp. gr. 0:972, oe point 237° C. It has also been met with, in 1858, by TrapP ie oul of Cicuta’ virosa, By boiling cuminol with potash in alcoho solution, cuminalcohol, C*H#4 ora , as well as the potassium salt of ore acid, C*H* | ae , are formed. 1 Thomas, Fontego dei Todeschi in Venezia, 1874. 252. FLORES SAMBUCI. 833 The oil of cumin, secondly, contains a mixture of hydrocarbons. That which constitutes about one half of the crude oil has been first obtained in 1841 by Gerhardt and Cahours, just from the oil under notice, and therefore called Cymene (or also Cymol). It is a liquid of 0873 sp. gr. at 0° (82° F.), boiling at 175°; neither cymene nor cuminol have the same odour and taste as the crude oil. Many other plants have been noticed as containing cymene among the constituents of their essential oils. Thus for instance Cicuta virosa L., Carwm Ajowan (page 304), Thymus vulgaris (see art. Folia Thymi), Eucalyptus globulus Labill. Cymene, cH a (Propylmethyl-benzol), may also be artificially obtained from a large number of essential oils having the composition C*H", or C°H™O, or C°H"O, or OHO. It differs very remarkably from the oils of the formula CH", inasmuch as cymene yields the erystallizable cymensulphonic acids when it is warmed with concen- trated sulphuric acid. Lastly, there is present in the oil of cumin a small amount of a terpene, C"H™, boiling at 155:8° C., as stated in 1865 by C. M. Warren, and in 1873 by Beilstein and Kupffer. The dextrogyrate power of cuminol is a little less strong than that of cymene; artificial cymene is optically inert. Commerce—Cumin is shipped to England from M ogador, Malta and Sicily. In Malta there were in 1863, 140 acres under cultivation with this crop ; in 1865, 730 acres, producing 2766 ewt. The export of cumin from Morocco? in 1872 was 1657 ewt.; that from Bombay in the year 1872-73 was 6766 ewt.;? and 20,040 ewt. from Caleutta‘ in the year 1870-71. Uses—Cumin is sold by druggists as an ingredient of curry powders, but to a much larger extent for use in veterinary medicine. CAPRIFOLIACE. FLORES SAMBUCI. Elder Flowers; F. Fleurs de Sureau; G. Holunderbliithe, Fliederblumen. Botanical Origin—Sambucus nigra L—a large deciduous shrub or small tree, indigenous to Southern and Central Europe (not in Russia), Western Asia, the Crimea, the regions of the Caucasus and Southern Siberia. It is believed to be a native of England and Ireland, but not to be truly wild in Scotland. In other northern parts of Europe, as Norway and Sweden, the elder appears only as a plant introduced there during the middle ages by the monks: a. History—The Romans, as we learn from Pliny, made use in and adisticat Tables relating to the Colonial of the ees Soar for 158 , iM 0: . * ” # il, 5 xi, 618, pepe the United Kingdom, pt. tt aent Volume of ie ~ for the onsular Reports «; B Presidency for 1870-71, 121, only 380 dei. e > Aug. 1873, 917 >; im 1876 7 ubeler, Pp Sdanzenwelt Norwegens Statement of the Trade and Navigation (1873-75) 253. 884 CAPRIFOLIACEE. medicine of the plant under notice as well as of the Dwarf Elder (S. Ebulus 1.) Both kinds were employed in Britain by the ancient English? and Welsh? leeches, and in Italy in the medicine of the school of Salernum. Description—The elder produces in the early summer, conspicuous, many-flowered cymes, 4 to 5 inches in diameter, of which the long peduncle divides into 5 branches, which subdivide once or several times by threes or fives, ultimately separating by repeated forking into slender, furrowed pedicels about } of an inch long, each bearing a single flower. In the second or third furcations, the middle flower remains short-stalked or sessile, and opens sooner than the rest. In like manner, on the outermost small forks only one of the florets is usually long- | stalked. The whole of this inflorescence forms a flattish umbelliform cyme, perfectly glabrous and destitute of bracts. 3 he calyx is combined with the ovary and bordered with 4 or 4 small teeth. The corolla, which is of a creamy white, is monopetalous with a very short tube and 5 spreading ovate lobes. The stamens which are about as long as the divisions of the corolla and alternate with them, are inserted in the tube of the latter. The yellow pollen which thickly powders the flowers, appears under the microscope “A ahi The projecting ovary is crowned by a 2- or 3-lobed sessile gma, For use in pharmacy, tlie part of the flower most desirable 1s the corolla, to obtain a good proportion of which the gathered cymes are left for a few hours ina large heap; the mass slightly heats, the corollas detach themselves, and are separated from the green stalks by shaking, _ rubbing, and sifting ; they require to be then rapidly dried. This done, _ they become much shrivelled and assume a dull yellow tint. When fresh, they have a sweet faint smell, which becomes stronger and some- what different by drying, and is quite unlike the repulsive odour of the fresh leaves and bark. Dried elder flowers have a bitterish, slightly gummy flavour. On the Continent they are sold with the stalks, in entire cymes. : Chemical Composition—Elder flowers yield a very small per centage of a butter-like essential oil, lighter than water, and smelliNg _ strongly of the flowers ; it is easily altered by exposure to the alt. : 1s accompanied by traces of volatile acids. es : | odour to: lard Uses—Elder flowers are only employed in British medicine for g an aromatic distilled water, and for communicating @ pleasan (Unguentum Sambuci). The flowers of Sambucus canadensis L4 indigenous in the United States, which are extremely ‘Similar to those of our eo. of the latter are tint to oil or fat, as in —s = Leechdoms, ete. of Karly England edited species, appear to be more sometimes used for giving @ uti the Olewm viride and Unguentum Sam fragrant. fine green 2 spi ddfai see Appen The Physicians of My ( i ‘flowers Cockayne, iii. (1866) 324.347. Ace the as GiNlett | ord- used sage, rue, mallow, and ¢ 5. Boulas bein Gillett (p. xxxii.), : dgtedinabe of a gargle. Meddyg™ to England by the po neve been brought §=—Myddvai, 219. 403. par the battleficld acy and planted on 3 For further information, 8¢¢ men. In Norfolk j se! of Meir coun ; Cy, ae tases Med. Plants, anewort fot e name 0 ig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. sn Mood Wilder (blood elder). part 21 (187). Rate ee, Nees oe See ee etre ee ee | ee Feb ~ GAMBIER. . 335 foliorwm of the shops. The bark, once much employed, is now obsolete. RUBIACEA. GAMBIER. Catechu pallidum, Extractum Uncarie ; Gambier, Pale Catechu, Gambier Catechu, Terra Japonica; F. Gambir, Cachow jaune ; G. Gambir. Botanical Origin—l. Uncaria Gambier Roxb. (Nauclea Gambir Hunter) a stout climbing shrub, supporting itself by means of its flower- stalks which are developed into strong recurved hooks.’ It is a native of the countries bordering the Straits of Malacca, and especially of the numerous islands at their eastern end; but according to Crawfurd? it does not seem indigenous to any of the islands of the voleanic band. It also grows in Ceylon, where however no use is made of it. 2. U. acida Roxb.,? probably a mere variety of the preceding, and growing in the Malayan islands, appears to be used in exactly the same manner, History—Gambier is one of the substances to which the name of — Catechw or Terra Ji aponica is often applied ; the other is Cutch, which “i has been already described (p. 243). By druggists and pharmaceutists the two articles are frequently confounded, but in the great world of commerce they are reckoned as quite distinct. In many price-currents and trade-lists, Catechw is not found under that name, but only appears under the terms Cutch and Gambier. ee Crawfurd asserts that gambier has been exported from time imme- morial to Java from the Malacca Straits. This statement appears highly questionable. Rumphius, who resided in Amboyna during the second half of the 17th century, was a merchant, consul and naturalist; and in these capacities became thoroughly conversant with the pro- ducts of the Malay Archipelago and adjacent regions, as the six folio _ Volumes of his Herbarium Amboinense, illustrated by 587 plates, — amply prove, : mong other plants, he figures* Uncaria Gambier, which he terms Funis wieatus, and states to exist under two varieties, the one with — road, and the other with narrow leaves. The first form, he says, 1s called in Malay Daun Gatta Gambir, on account of the bitter taste of its leaves, which is perceptible in the lozenges (trochise2) called Gatta ww, 80 much so that one might suppose they were made from these eaves, which however is not the case. He further asserts that the leaves have a detergent, drying quality by reason of their bitterness, Which is nevertheless not intense but quite bearable in the mouth : that they are masticated instead of Pinang [Betel nut] with Sit [leaf : Piper Betle] and lime : that the people of Java and Bali plant the "st variety near their houses for the sake of its fragrant flowers ; but "Fig. in Bent . 3 fully figured in Berg und Schmidt, part 7 (1876) leyand Trimen, Med. Plants, = ae rm con's. 1888. 2 142, any o&f the Indian Islands, 1865. 4 Herb, Amb. v. 63, tab. 34. ae RUBIACEAE. though they chew its leaves instead of Pinang, it must not be supposed that it is this plant from which the lozenges Gatta are compounded, for that indeed is quite different. Thus, if we may credit Rumphius, it would seem that the important manufacture of gambier had no existence at the commencement of the last century. As to “Gatta Gambir,” his statements are scarcely in accord with those of more recent writers. We may however remark that that name is very like the Tamil Katta Kambu, signifying Catechu, which drug is sometimes made into little round cakes, and was certainly a large export from India to Malacca and China as early as the 16th century (p. 241). That gambier was unknown to Europeans long after the time of Rumphius, is evident from other facts. Stevens,a merchant of Bombay, in his Compleat Guide to the East India Trade, published in 1766, quotes the prices of goods at Malacca, but makes no allusion to gambier. Nor is there any reference to it in Savary’s Dictionnaire de Commerce (ed. of 1750), in which Malacca is mentioned as the great entrepdt of the trade of India with that of China and J apan, The first account of gambier known to us, was communicated to the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences in 1780, by a Dutch trader named Couperus. This person narrates' how the plant was introduced into Malacca from Pontjan in 1758, and how gambier is made from its leaves; and names several sorts of the drug and their prices. In 1807, a description of “the drug called Gutta Gambeer,’ and of the tree from which it is made, was presented to the Linnean Society of London. The writer, William Hunter, well known for scientific observations in connection with India, states that the substance 18 made chiefly at Malacca, Siak and Rhio, that it is in the form of small Squares, or little round cakes almost perfectly white, and that the finer sorts are used for chewing with betel leaf in the same manner 4 catechu, while the coarser are shipped to Batavia and China for use ™ _ tanning and dyeing. Manufacture—The gambier plant is cultivated in plantations - se Were commenced in 1819 in Singapore, where there were at one _ 800 plantations; but owing to scarcity of fuel, without an abun supply of which the manufacture is impossible, and dear “ ur, gambier-planting was in 1866 fast disappearing from the islan i The official Blue Book, printed at Singapore in 1872, reports it as “mu oo - _ It is largely pursued on the mainland (Johore), and in the a oe of the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago, lying south-east of Singapor ‘ns e island of Bintang, the most northerly of the group, there oe about 1,250 gambier-plantations in 1854. é plantations are often formed in clearings of the jungle, _ ey last for a few years and are then abandoned,‘ owing to the me Poverishment of the soil and the irrepressible growth of the watts thas cLmperata Keonigii P. de B,), which is more difficult to eradica €ven primeval jungle. It has been found profitable to combine 1 Pol! nootachay, inden ta het Bataviaasch Ge. 4 Collingwood, Journ. of Linn. Sot» BO 2 Linn. Trang oe Vuk) 217-234, x. (1869) 52, pressed 7% Vx (1808) 218-294, ‘ This abuse of land has been repr'""™ in Singapore. GAMBIER. - 337 with the cultivation of gambier that of pepper, for which the boiled leaves of the gambier form an excellent manure. The gambier plants are allowed to grow 8 to 10 feet high, and as their foliage is always in season, each plant is stripped 3 or 4 times in the year. The apparatus and all that belongs to the manufacture of the extract are of the most primitive description.’ A shallow cast-iron pan about 3 feet across is built into an earthen fireplace. Water is poured into the pan, a fire is kindled, and the leaves and young shoots, freshly plucked, are scattered in, and boiled for about an hour. At the end of this time they are thrown on to a capacious sloping trough, the lower end of which projects into the pan, and squeezed with the hand so that the absorbed liquor may run back into the boiler. The decoction is then evaporated to the consistence of a thin syrup, and baled out into buckets. When sufficiently cool it is subjected to a curious treatment :—instead of simply stirring it round, the workman pushes a stick of soft wood in a sloping direction into each bucket; and placing two such buckets before him, he works a stick up and down ineach. The liquid thickens round the stick, and the thickened portion being constantly rubbed off, while at the same the whole is in motion, it gradually sets into a mass, a result which the workman affirms would never be produced by simple stirring round. Though we are not prepared to concur in the work- man’s opinion, it is reasonable to suppose that his manner of treating the liquor favours the crystallization of the catechin in a more concrete form than it might otherwise assume. The thickened mass, which is said by another writer to resemble soft yellowish clay, is now placed in shallow square boxes, and when somewhat hardened is cut into cubes and dried in the shade. The leaves are boiled a second time, and finally washed in water, which water is saved for another operation. From informations obtained in 1878 it would appear that now the prevailing part of gambier is made by means of pressure into blocks. A plantation with five labourers contains on an average 70,000 to 80,000 shrubs, and yields 40 to 50 catties (1 catty = 143 1b. = 6048 stammes) of gambier daily. Description—Gambier is an earthy-looking substance of light — brown hue, consisting of cubes about an inch each side, more or less agglutinated, or it is in the form of entirely compact masses. The cubes are externally of a reddish brown and compact, internally of a pale cinnamon hue, dry, porous, friable, devoid of odour, but with a bitterish astringent taste, becoming subsequently sweetish. Under the microscope, the cubes of gambier are seen to consist of very small acicular crystals. Chemical Composition—In a chemical point of view, gambier “stees with cutch, especially with the pale variety made in Northern India (p, 242). Both substances consist mainly of Catechin,? which may be obtained in the hydrated state as slender colourless needles, by exhausting gambier with cold water, and erystallizing the residue from 3 or 4 parts of hot water, which on cooling deposits nearly all the tatechin. Ferrie chloride strikes with the solution of catechin, even ‘We : : 2 i 77) suggests that it is not ee an ae es areal Sal _ cateohin from Acacia 64 PO" Malacca, und Java, Berlin, 1866. Catechin (p. 244). Y S38. RUBIACEA, when much diluted, a green tint. If it is shaken with ferrous sulphate and an extremely small quantity of bicarbonate of sodium, a violet colour makes its appearance. ‘The same reactions are produced by various substances of the tannic class. The yellowish colouring matter of gambier was determined by Hlasiwetz (1867) and Lowe (1873) to be Quercetin, which is also a con- stituent of cutch. Quercetin is but very sparingly soluble in water, yet it is nevertheless found, in small quantity, in the aqueous extract of cutch, from which it may be removed by means of ether. As many species of Nauclea contain, according to De Vry,' Quinovic Acid, it is probable that that substance may be detected in gambier. Some fine gambier in regular cubes which we incinerated left 26 per cent. of ash, consisting mainly of carbonates of calcium and magnesium. Commerce—Singapore, which is the great emporium for gambier, exported in 1871 no less than 34,248 tons, of which quantity 19,550 tons had been imported into the colony chiefly from Rhio and the Malayan Peninsula? In 1876 the export had increased to more than 50,000 tons of pressed block gambier and 2,700 tons of cubes. In 1877 it diminished to 39,117 tons, owing to difficulties which had arisen between the Chinese dealers, who supplied the drug in a rather wet state, and the European exporters. Of the above quantity 21,607 tons were shipped for London, 7,572 for Liverpool, 2,345 for Marseilles. ae usually. fetches a lower price* in the London market than cutch. The quantity fimported into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 21,155 tons, value £451,737, almost the whole being from the Straits Settlements, Uses—Gambier, under the name of Cuatechu, is used medicinally as an astringent, but the quantity thus consumed is as nothing in com- parison with that employed for tanning and dyeing. CORTEX CINCHONZ. F. Ecorce de Quinquina ; G. Chinarinde. a Botanical Origin—The genus Cinchona constitutes together with erie (including Buena and Cosmibuenua), Remijia, Ladenbergi’, seid ccnenvum, and about 30 other nearly allied genera, the be aracterized tribe Cinchonew of the order Rubiacew. This consists of shrubs or trees with opposite leaves, 2-celled ovary, caps” fruit, and nu i : i TU merous minute, vertical or ascending, peltate, winged, minous seeds, : ane pies: tb ) earks on the genus—The genus Cinchona is distinguished a uous stipules, flowers in terminal panicles, 5-toothed superlo eee corolla expanding into 5 lobes fringed at the ae or white. 1s of an agreeable weak odour, and of a rosy or purplis , Pharm. Journ, wi (1 79; see * Blue B (1865) 18, 317s, per cwt., March 18/9; Setilements for Ae ¢ Colony of the Straits cides, aah 242, note 3. . CORTEX CINCHON A, 339 The fruit is a capsule of ovoid or subcylindrical form, dehiscing from the base (the fruitstalk also splitting) into two valves, which are held together at the apex by the thick permanent calyx. The seeds, 30 to 40 in number, are imbricated vertically ; they are flat, winged all round “3 a broad membrane, which is very irregularly toothed or lacerated at the edge. e The Cinchonas are evergreen, with finely-veined leaves, traversed by a strong midrib, The thick leafstalk, often of a fine red, is sometimes a sixth the length of the whole leaf, but usually shorter. The leaves are ovate, obovate, or nearly circular; in some species lanceolate, rarely cordate, always entire, glabrous or more rarely hirsute, often variable as to size and form in the same species. Among the valuable species, several are distinguished by small pits called scrobiculi, situated on the under side of the leaf, in the axils of the veins which proceed from the midrib. These pits sometimes exude an astringent juice. In some species they are replaced by tufts of hair. € young leaves are sometimes purplish on the under side ; in several species the full-grown foliage assumes before falling, rich tints of crimson or orange. The species of Cinchona are so much alike that their definition is a matter of the utmost difficulty, and only to be accomplished by resort- ing to a number of characters which taken singly are of no great importance. Individual species are moreover frequently connected together by well-marked and permanent intermediate forms, so that according to the expression of Howard, the whole form a continuous Series, the terminal members of which are scarcely more sharply Separated from the allied genera, than from plants of their own series. _ As to the number and value of the species known, there is some diversity of view. Weddell, in 1870, enumerated 33 species and 18 sub-species, besides numerous varieties and sub-varieties. Bentham and coker, in 1873, estimated the species as about 36. ’ Kuntze, in the book quoted at the end of the present article, pro- Posed to reduce all the species to the four following : : 1. Cinchonu Weddelliana O. Kuntze, nearly answering to C. Calisaya Weddell. : 2. C. Pavoniana O. Kuntze, including ©. micrantha Ruiz and Pavon and several allied plants. : 3. C. Howardiana O. Kuntze, constituted of C. suceirubra Payon and a few other species of former authors. 4. C. Pahudiana Howard. : Kuntze, who has examined the living Cinchone as cultivated in ndia, is of the opinion that all the numerous forms hitherto observed, oth in the wild plants and in cultivation, are merely either belonging the above four species or deriving from them chiefly by hybridation. ough much in favour of a reduction of the species, we are not yet Prepared to accept Kuntze’s arrangement. (B.) Avea, Climate and Soil.—The Cinchonas are natives of South melica, where they occur exclusively on the western side of the conti- nent between 10° N. lat. and 22° S. lat., an area which includes portions " wuezuela, New Granada, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia. _ e plants are found in. the mountain regions, no species whatever 340. -RUBIACEA. ; = ¥ 1 being known to inhabit the low alluvial plains. In Peru and Bolivia, the region of the Cinchona forms a belt, 1300 miles in length, occupying the eastern slope of the Cordillera of the Andes. In Ecuador and New Granada, the tree is not strictly limited to the eastern slopes, but oceurs on other of the Andine ranges. The average altitude of the cinchoniferous region is given by Wed- dell as 5,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea-level. The highest limit, as noted by Karsten, is 11,000 feet. One valuable species, CU. succirubra, occurs exceptionally as low as 2,600 feet. Generally, it may be said that the altitude of the Cinchona zone decreases in proportion as it recedes from the equator, and that the most valuable sorts are not found lower than 5,000 feet. The climate of the tropical mountain regions in which the Cinchonas Jourish, is extremely variable,—sunshine, showers, “storms, and thick mist, alternating in rapid succession, yet with no very great range of temperature. A transient depression of the thermometer even to the freezing point, and not unfrequent hail-showers, may be borne without detriment by the more hardy species. Yet the mean temperature most favourable for the generality of species, appears to be 12 to 20" C. (54 to 68° F.) Climatic agencies appear to influence the growth of Cinchona far more than the composition of the soil. Though the tree occurs 1p a great variety of geological formations, there is no distinct evidence that these conditions control in any marked manner either the development of the tree or the chemical constitution of its bark. Manure on the other hand, though not increasing perceptibly luxuriance of growth, has a decided effect in augmenting the richness of the bark in alkaloids” ; (C.) Species yielding officinal barks —The Cinchona Barks of com- ‘merce are produced by about a dozen species; of these barks the : ter number are consumed solely in the manufacture of quinine. =oserinrtiane for pharmaceutical use are afforded by the following _L. Cinchona officinalis Hooker ?—A native of Ecuador and Peru, existing under several varieties. It forms a large tree, having lanceolate si ovate leaves, usually pointed, glabrous, and shining on the upper sul ace, and scrobiculate on the under. The flowers are small, ubescent and in short lax panicles, and are succeeded by oblong or ceolate capsules, } an inch or more in length. h stg FC Calista Weddell—Discovered by Weddell in 1847, althoug ark had been an object of commerce since the latter half of previous century, ectarh tree inhabits the warmest woods of the declivities which bordet 6000 ' eys of Bolivia and South-eastern Peru, at an altitude of 5| for Ang above the sea-level. More precisely, the chief localities °° le tree are the Bolivian provinces of Enquisivi, Yungas de la 4%; arecaja or Sorata, Caupolican or Apolobamba, and Muiiecas: thence ? 1 Thati 963) western eat retd the eastern Cordillera, the 3 Figured in Bot, Magazine, vol, 89 (168 Cordi er range being called the tab. 5 including C. Condaminea - ; oa teeta the Coast ; no Cinchonas grow ot Bomple and C. Uritusing bear” 348) 5, ! Broughton, in Pha 4 Ann. des Sciences nat., t. = ta 1873, 521 harm. Journ. Jan. 4, and Hist, nat. des Quinquinas, = 3, 6052, figured in Botanical Magazine, 187° and 1879, 6434. CORTEX CINCHONA. 341 passes northward into the Peruvian province of Carabaya, suddenl ceasing on the confines of the valley of Sandia, although, as Weddell observed, the adjacent valleys are to all appearance precisely similar. When well grown, C. Calisaya has a trunk often twice as thick as a man’s body, and a magnificent crown of foliage overtopping all other trees of the forest. It has ovate capsules of about the same length ($ an inch) as the elegant pinkish flowers, which are in large pyramidal panicles. The leaves are 3 to 6 inches long, of very variable form, but usually oblong and obtuse, rarely acute. A variety named after Joseph de Jussieu who first noticed it, £. Josephiana, but known in the country as Ichw-Cascarilla or Cascarilla del Pajonal, differs from the preceding in that it is a shrub, 6 to 10 feet high, growing on the borders of mountain meadows and of thickets in the same regions as the larger form. Other forms known in Bolivia as Calisaya zamba, morada, verde or alta, and blanca, have been distinguished by Weddell as varjeties of C. Calisaya. Towards the middle of the year 1865, Charles Ledger, an English traveller, obtained seeds of a superior Cinchona, which had been col- lected near Pelechuco, eastwards of the lake Titicaca, about 68° W. long. and 15° §. lat., in the Bolivian province of Caupolican. In the same year the seeds arrived in England, but were subsequently sold to the Dutch government, and raised with admirable success in Java, and a little later also in private plantations in British India. The bark of “ Cinchona Ledgeriana” has since proved by far the most productive in quinine of all Cinchona Barks. The tree is a mere form of C. alisaya,! 3. C. succirubra Pavon,2—a magnificent tree, 50 to 80 feet high, formerly growing in all the valleys of the Andes which debouch in the plain of Guayaquil. The tree is now almost entirely confined to the forests of Guaranda on the western declivities of Chimborazo, at 2,000 to 5,000 feet above the level of the sea. ; The bark appears to have been appreciated in its native country at an early period, if we may conclude that the Red Bark mentioned by La Condamine in 1737 was that under notice. It would seem, however, to have scarcely reached Europe earlier than the second half — of the last century» The tree has broadly oval leaves, attaining about a foot in length, nearly glabrous above, pubescent beneath, large ter- minal panicles of rosy flowers, succeeded by oblong capsules 1 to 1} mches long, eee The other species of Cinchona, the bark of which is principally consumed by the manufacturers of quinine, will be found briefly noticed, together with the foregoing, in the conspectus at page 355. History—The early native history of Cinchona is lost in obscurity. No undoubted proofs ave been handed down, to show that the abori- Sines of South America had any acquaintance with the medicinal Properties of the bark, But traditions are not wanting. a gers Calisaya i a went in Howard’s Nueva Quinologia, lg Saya is beautifully figured in How: logy of res described in Sachets ino- art. Chinchona succirubra. ii, and eg East Indian Plantations, parts 3 Howard, /.c. p. 9. eee - RUBIACES. William Arrot,' a Scotch surgeon who visited Peru in the early part’ of the last century, states that the opinion then current at Loxa was that the qualities and use of the barks of Cinchona were known to the Indians before any Spaniard came among them. Condamine, as well as Jussieu, heard the same statements, which appear to have been generally prevalent at the close of the 17th century. It is noteworthy, on the other hand, that though the Peruvians tenaciously adhere to their traditional customs, they make no use at the ‘present day of Cinchona bark, but actually regard its employment with repugnance. . : _ Humboldt* declares that at Loxa the natives would rather die _ than have recourse to what they considér so dangerous a remedy. Poppig® (1830) found a strong prejudice to ptevail among the people of uanuco against Cinchona as a remedy for fevers, and the same fact was observed farther north by Spruce‘ in 1861. The latter traveller narrates, ghat it was impossible to convince the cascdrilleros of __ Ecuador that their Red Bark could be wanted for any other purpose than dyeing cloth; and that even at Guayaquil there was a general dislike to the use of quinine. _, Markham' notices the curious fact that the wallets of the native itinerant doctors, who from father to son have plied their art since the days of the Incas, never contain cinchona bark. . Although Peru was discovered in 1513, and submitted to the Spanish yoke by the middle of the century, no mention has been found of the febrifuge bark with which the name of the country is connected, x pn getlior than the commencement of the 17th century. a Joseph de Jussieu,’ who visited Loxa in 1739, relates that the use | } . _ of the remedy was first made known to a Jesuit missionary, who being _ attacked by intermittent fever, was cured by the bark administered to | him by an Indian cacique at Malacotas, a village near Loxa. The date of this event 1s not given. The same story is related of the Spanish | corregidor of Loxa, Don Juan Lopez Canizares, who is said to have ___ been cured of fever in 1630, ; F Eight years later, the wife of the viceroy of Peru, Luis Geronimo ne de Cabrera y Bobadilla, fourth count of Chinchon, having pon attacked with fever, the same corregidor of Loxa sent a packet ST hhaage bark to her physician Juan de Vega, assuring him of its _ Gifieacy in the treatment of “tertiana” The drug fully bore out its 2 reputation, and the countess Ana was cured.’ Upon her recovery, 8H° 3 mgm to be collected large quantities of the bark, which she used So ile i Pal, to those sick of fever, so that the medicine came to 4 olvo de la, Condesa, ie, The Countess’ Powder. It was certainly . ain ag an rans, xl. for 1737-38, 8). 7 The circumstances are fully narrated bY Bee, Usch. naturf. Freund ; : ale des — Magaz, i unde zu Berlin La Condamine (Mém. de U Acad. 70) 3 ec on, - Bs Sciences, année 1738). But the cure of the 4 Blue te Psi hy U1. (1836) 222. countess was known in Euro: much be! Plant, 1863, 74. 7% t India Chinchona this, for it is mentioned by Sebastian ° Travels in Pery, ; Bado in his Anastasis, Corticis Peruvit ® Quoted by Wot ntia, 1862. 2. Chince Chince defensio published ab Germ inquinas, py 15, secu in his Hist. des in 1663. When Bado wrote, it was 0 published Nii ‘ = Jussien’s un- _ bated question whether the pe Ve — was founded by the Span; of Loxa or Loja duced to Europe by the count of Chine Paniards in 1546. or by the Jesuit Fathers. ay CORTEX CINCHON &. 343 ‘known in Spain the following year (1639), when it was first tried at Alcala de Henares near Madrid.’ The introduction of Peruvian Bark into Europe is described by Chifflet, physician to the archduke Leopold of Austria, viceroy of the Netherlands and Burgundy, in his Pulvis Febrifugus Orbis Americant ventilatus, published at Brussels in 1653 (or 16517%). He says that among the wonders of the day, many reclgon the tree growing in the kingdom of Peru, which the Spaniards call Palo de Calentwras, i.e. Lignum febrium. Its virtues reside chiefly in the bark, which is known as China febris, and which taken in powder drives off the febrile paroxysms. He further states, that during the last few years the bark has been imported into Spain, and thence sent to the Jesuit Cardinal Joannes de Lugé at Rome.” Chifflet adds, that it has been carried from Italy to Belgium by the Jesuit Fathers going to the election of a general, but that it was also brought thither direct from Peru by Michael Belga, who had resided some years at Lim Chifflet, though candidly admitting the efficacy of thé new drug when properly used, was not a strong advocate for it; and his publica- tion started an acrimonious controversy, in which Honoratius Faber, a Jesuit (1655), Fonseca, physician to Pope Innocent X., Sebastiano Bado* of Genoa (1656 and 1663), and Sturm (1659) appeared in defence of the febrifuge ; while Plempius (1655), Glantz, an imperial physician of Ratisbon (1653), Godoy, physician to the king of Spain (1653), René Moreau (1655), Arbinet and others-contended in an opposite sense. - From one of these disputants, Roland Sturm, a doctor of Louvain, who wrote in 1659,4 we learn that four years previously, some of the new febrifuge had been sent by the archduke Leopold to the Spanish. ambassador at the Hague, and that he (Sturm) had been required to Teport upon it. He further states, that the medicine was known in — Brussels and Antwerp as Pulvis Jeswiticus, because the Jesuit Fathers Were in the habit of administering it gratis to indigent persons suffering from quartan fever; but that it was more commenlg. colle Pulvis Perwanus or Peruvianam Febrifugum. At Rome it bore the name of Pulvis eninentissimi Cardinalis de Lugo, or Pulvis patrum ; the Jesuits at Rome received it from the establishments of their order in Peru, and used to give it away to the poor in Cardinal de Lugos: palace. In 1658 Sturm saw 20 doses sent to Paris which cost 60 Hirins. He gives a copy of the handbill® of 1651 which the apothecaries ot Rome used to distribute with the costly powder. ! Villerobel pe : z China della febre. l, quoted by Bado, op, cit. 202. chiama China, 0 vero ; a The cardinal ‘elonged to > fuanily of _ laquale si adopra per la febre quartana, € le which town had the monopoly of _ terzana, che venga con freddo: s’'adropra in © trade with America, a questo modo, cioe : << the o ini os = Anastasis, lib. 3, quotes Se ne Piglia apo - gaa ~ ©pinion of man incidi passarla per setaccio ; : A tak eva, J nebaaiernene ett: netiek, che debba venir la febre si mette Febrifugi Peruviani Vindiciarum pars in infusione in un biechiero di vino bianco Prior—Pulveris Historiam complectens ejus- liardissimo, e quando il freddo com- Te vires et proprietates. . . exhibens, Del- _‘mincia A venire, 0 s1 sente qualche minimo : 5 Asan 12°, principio, si prende mig tl eines preparata, isin ; . : i iente in letto, e ent Malad adeproes <9 ee a patch ais detta Corteccia nel Corteccia chiamata del ed ta Avertasi, si potra Corteccia si porta dal yale aes — modo sudetto nella febre terzana, quando oe | RUBIACE. | The drug began to be known in England about 1655." The Mer- ewrius Politicus, one of the earliest English newspapers, contains in several of its numbers for 1658,? a year remarkable for the preva- lence in England of an epidemic remittent fever, advertisements offering for sale—“ the excellent powder known by the name of the Jesuit’s Powder”—brought over by James Thomson, merchant of Antwerp. ® Brady, professor of physic at Cambridge, prescribed bark about this _ time; and in 1660, Willis, a physician of great eminence, reported it as coming into daily use. This is also evidenced, with regard to the continent, by the pharmaceutical tariffs of the cities of Leipzig and Frank- furt of the year 1669, where “China Chine” has a place. 4 of an ounce (a “quint ”) is quoted in the latter at 50 kreuzers (about 1s. 6d.), whereas the same quantity of opium is valued at 4 kreuzers,’ camphor 2 kreuzers, balsam of Peru 8 kreuzers. Among, those who contributed powerfully to the diffusion of the new medicine, was Robert Talbor alias Tabor. In his “ Pyretologia” (see Appendix, T.) he by no means intimates that his method of cure depends on the use of bark: On the contrary, he cautions his readers against the dangerous effects of Jesuits’ Powder when administered by unskil- ful persons, yet admits that, properly given, it is a “noble and sate medicine.” _ Talbor’s reputation increasing, he was appointed in 1678 physician in ordinary to Charles IL, and in 1679, the king being ill of tertian _ fever at Windsor, Talbor cured him by his secret remedy.t He acquired similar favour in France, and upon Talbor’s death (1681), Louis XIV. ordered the publication of his method of eure, which accordingly appeared by Nicolas de Blegny, surgeon to the king.’ This was ™ mediately translated into English, under the title of The English Abate or, Talbor's Wonderful Secret for Cureing of Agues and so eepeipee by the Author Sir Robert Talbor to the most Christin Free. and since his Death, ordered by his Majesty to be published 1m rench, for the benefit of his subjects, and now translated into English jor Publick Good (Lond. 1682). a Cinchona bark was now accepted into the domain of regular medicine, ough its efficacy was by no means universally acknowledged. It first appeared in the London P yee: mae Cortex Perwanus. ndon Pharmacopceia in 1677, under the . _ sia fermata in stato di molti gior- No, 545. Dec, 9-16.—We have examined esperi ‘ ; the copy at the British Museum. oe Shon tr onus, ha liberata quasi 3 Ph. Journ, vi. (1876) 1022. a ao prima “bre —— — purgato ‘In the Recueil for 1680 be fee Ai Sete} Prt a uattro i i ing 18 4 - doppo mon pigliar’ niuna sorte di malice, eee eee of fever at Windsor, Mento, ma auvertasi di non darla se non had another attack of fe’ : ; é +g: ye : for which he took ‘‘du Quinquina prepe oo Sig. Medici, accid giudi- which again cured him. ae =. in tempo & proposito di 5 Le Reméde anglois ong gprs les ae i wres, publié par ordre au 109s ‘ the osc hr ad owen who has traced a cantabons aie Muisiobe le premer Médecn able paper ee chone ina very de sa Majesté, sur la composition, ho de Transactions of th Col mn the Medical et Pusage de ce remede, par Nico fe of London, ii (Wes ace, of Physicians —Blegny, Chirurgien ordinaire du, ot * Namely No, me Monsieur, et Directeur de l’Aca , Pariss 426. July 22-99 No. 439, rig a — tte oo découvertes de Médecine, con porate CORTEX CINCHON. 345 For the first accurate information on the botany of Cinchona, science is indebted to the French.’ Charles-Marie de la Condamine, while occupied in common with Bouguer and Godin, as an astronomer from 1736 to 1743, in measuring the are of a degree near Quito, availed himself of the opportunity to investigate the origin of the famous Peruvian Bark. On the 3rd and 4th of February, 1737, he visited the Sierra de Cajanuma, 2} leagues from Loxa, and there collected specimens of the tree now known as Cinchona officinalis var. a. Condaminea. At that period the very large trees had already become rare, but there were still specimens having trunks thicker than a man’s body. Cajanuma was the home of the first cinchona bark brought to Europe; and in early times it enjoyed such a reputation, that certificates drawn up before a notary were provided as proof that parcels of bark were the produce of that favoured locality. Joseph de Jussieu, botanist to the French expedition with which La Condamine was connected, gathered, near Loxa in 1739, a second Cinchona subsequently named by Vahl C. pubescens, a species of no medicinal value. In 1742 Linnzus established the genus Cinchona, and in 17538 first described the species C. officinalis, recently restored and exactly characterized by Hooker, aided by specimens supplied to him by Mr. Howard. The cinchona trees were believed to be confined to the region around Loxa, until 1752 when Miguel de Santisteban, superintendent of the mint at Santa Fé, discovered some species in the neighbourhood of Popayan and Pasto. : . In 1761 José Celestino Mutis, physician to the Marquis de la Vega, viceroy of New Granada, arrived at Carthagena from Cadiz, and _ immediately set about collecting materials for writing a Flora of the Country. This undertaking he carried on with untiring energy, especially from the year 1782 until the end of his life in 1808—_ t for seven years at Real del Sapo and Mariquita at the foot of the Cordillera de Quindiu, and subsequently at Santa Fé de Bogota. Mutis gave up his medical appointment in 1772, for the purpose of entering a religious order, and ten years later was entrusted by the vernment with the establishment and direction of a large museum of natural history, first at Mariquita, afterwards at Santa Fé. A position similar to that of Mutis in New Granada had also been conferred in 1777 on the botanists Hipolito Ruiz and José Pavon with regard to southern Peru, whence originated the well-known Flora eruviana et Chilensis? as well as most important direct contributions to our knowledge on the subject of Cinchona. _ About the oa. time (1776), Renquizo (Renquifo or Renjifo) found einchona trees in the neighbourhood of Huanuco, in the central tract * Sur Varbre de Quinqui: é quina par M. de fa — e—Mém. de ? Académie royale des ces pour Vannée 1738, pp. 226-243, with two plates, tha ys has vigorously contended to Chin name Cinchona should be altered nchona as better commemorating the Countess of Chinchon. But the incon- venience of changing so well-established a name and its many derivatives, has out- weighed these considerations.—See list of works relating to Cinchona at the end of the present article. : 3 Published at Madrid, 1798-1802, in 4 volumes folio, with 425 plates. — RUBIACE. of Peru, whereby the monopoly of the district of Loxa was soon _ broken up. ; Numerous and important quinological discoveries were subsequently made by Mutis, or rather by his pupils Caldas, Zea, and Restrepo,’ as well as on the other hand by Ruiz and Pavon, and their successors Tafalla and Manzanilla. Mutis did not bring his labours to any definite conclusion, and his extensive botanical collections and 5,000 coloured _ drawings, were sent to Madrid only in 1817, and there remained ina lamentable state of neglect. Some of his observations first appeared in print in 1793-94, under the title of Hl Arcano de la Quina in the Diario, a local paper of Santa Fé, and were reprinted at Madrid in 1828 by Don Manuel Hernandez de Gregorio. The botanical descriptions of the cinchonas of New Granada, forming the fourth part of the Arcano, remained for- gotten and lost to science until rescued by Markham and published in 1867. The drawings belonging to the descriptions were photographed and engraved a little later, and form part of Triana’s Nouvelles Etudes sur les Quwinquinas, which appeared in 1870. : The two Peruvian botanists succeeded somewhat better in securing their results, Ruiz in 1792, in his Quinologia,® and in 1801 conjointly with Pavon ina supplement thereto, brought together a portion of their unportant labours relating to cinchona, But an essential part called Nueva Quinologia, written between 1821 and 1826, remained ul- published ; and after an oblivion of over thirty years, it came by pur- chase into the hands of Mr. John Eliot Howard, who published it, and with rare liberality enriched it with 27 magnificent coloured plates, oe from the very specimens of Payon lying in the herbarium Between the pupils of Mutis on the one hand, and those of Ruiz and a on the other, there arose an acrimonious controversy regarding ar respective discoveries, which has been equitably summarized by na in the work just mentioned. Production—The hardships of bark-collecting in the primeval oe of South America are df the severest kind, and undergone only by the half-civilized Indians and people of mixed race, in the pay ° speculators or companies located in the towns. Those who are en: = a business, especially the collectors themselves, are called Cased - ros or Cascadores, from the Spanish word Cascara, bark. A major neha ha the head of the collectors directs the proceedings of the seve ee tie the forest itself, where provisions and afterwards the produce | wed away in huts of slight construction. ; Arrot in 1736, and Weddell and Karsten in our own day, have give” ) “dette observation a striking picture of these operations. iia i cascarillero having found his tree, has usually to free its stem m the luxuriant climbing and parasitic plants with which it 18 & Pm 1 , i i i ire Md de ane notion in- Markham, Chinchona Species of New ven véritabtes u genre Cinchona et de Granada, Lond. 1867. I qu’ pod ; Cest en définitive 3 Quinologia 6 tratado de drbol os u n’a été espéces, dans le sens strict Quina, 6 Cascarilla, Madrid, 1792. ** ee , Monae ni découverte par pp, 103. logia, Madrid, . Ltudes, p. 8, 4 Supplemento d la Quinologi 1801. 4°, pp. 154. CORTEX CINCHON &. 347 circled. This done, he begins in most cases at once to remove, after a previous beating, the sapless layer of outer bark. In order to detach the valuable inner bark, longitudinal and transverse incisions are made as high as can be reached on the stem. The tree is then felled, and the peeling completed. In most cases, but especially if previously beaten, the bark separates easily from the wood. In many localities it has to be dried by a fire made on the floor of a hut, the bark being placed on hurdles above,—a most imperfect arrangement. In Southern Peru and Bolivia however, according to Weddell, even the thickest Calisaya bark is dried in the sun without requiring the aid of the fire. The thinner bark as it dries rolls up into tubes or quills called canutos or canutillos, while the pieces stripped from the trunks are made to dry flat by being placed one upon another and loaded with weights, and are then known as plancha or tabla. The bark of the root was erneny neglected, but is now in several instances brought into the market. : _ After drying, the barks are either assorted, chiefly according to size, or all are packed without distinction in sacks or bales. In some — places, as at Popayan, the bark is even stamped, in order to reduce its bulk as much as possible. The dealers in the export towns enclose the bark in serons' of raw bullock-hide, which, contracting as it dries, tightly compresses the contents (100 Ib. or more) of the package. In many places however wooden chests are used for the packing of bark. Conveyance to the Coast and Commercial Statistics—The ports to which bark is conveyed for shipment to Europe are not very numerous. Guayaquil on the Pacific coast is the most important for produce of Ecuador. The quantity shipped thence in 1871 was 7,859 quintals.” Pitayo bark is largely exported from Buenaventura in the Bay of Choco further north. _ Payta, the most northerly port of Peru, and Callao, the port of Lima, likewise export bark, the latter being the natural outlet for the barks of Central Peru from Huanuco to Cusco. Islay, and more particularly Arica, receive the valuable barks of Carabaya and of the high valleys of Bolivia. In 1877 the export of Arica — Was equal to 5100 ewt. The barks of Peru and Bolivia find an exceptional outlet also by the Amazon and its tributaries, and are shipped to Europe from port of razil, Howard® has given an interesting account of one of the first noe to utilize this eastern route, made by Senr. Pedro Rada in There is a large export of the barks of New Granada, principally from. Santa Marta, whence the shipments * in 1871 were 3,415,149 lb. ; and in 1872, 2758991 lb, From the neighbouring port of Savanilla, Which represents the city of Barranquilla, the sea-terminus of the navi- gation of the Magdalena, the export of bark in 1871 was 1,048,835 Ib., Value £38,715;° it amounted to 2 millions of kilogrammes in 187 rf Columbia is stated, in 1877, to have shipped 32 millions of kilo- * Fro 3 _ of Bot. vi. (1868) 323. Pouch iliemnerbar a . irae Reports - ete 1873. "43. Consular R ia- 5 [bid, August 1872. ment, Fee eepere presented to Pantin gu 348 RUBIACE. - grammes of bark; yet a good deal of the excellent barks of the Columbian State of Santander, especially those of the neighbourhood of Bucaramanga, find their way to Maracaibo, taking the name of _ that place. Some Cinchona bark is also shipped from Venezuela by way of Puerto Cabello. The quantity of bark appearing in the Annual Statement of Trade as “Peruvian Bark” imported into the United Kingdom in 1872, was 28,451 ewt., valued £285,620; of which 11,843 ewt. was shipped from New Granada, 4,668 cwt, from Ecuador, and 5,829 ewt. from Peru, the remainder being entered as from the ports of Chili, Brazil, Central America and other countries. The imports into the United Kingdom in 1876 were 26,021 cwt., valued at £272,154. Cultivation—The reckless system of bark-cutting in the forests of South America, which has resulted in the utter extermination of the tree from many localities, has aroused the attention of the Old World, and has at length prompted serious efforts to cultivate the tree on a large scale in other countries, The idea of cultivating Cinchonas out of their native regions Was advanced by Ruiz in 1792, and by Fée of Strassburg in 1824. Royle’ pointed out in 1839 that suitable localities for the purpose might be found in the Neilgherry Hills and probably in many other parts of * as and argued indefatigably in favour of the introduction of e tree. The subject was also urged in reference to Java in 1837 by Fritze, ector of medical affairs in that island ; in 1846 by Miquel, and sub- sequently by other Dutch botanists and chemists. Living Cinchonas had been taken to Algeria as early as 1849, by the intervention of the Jesuits of Cusco, but their cultivation met with no success, Weddell in 1848 brought cinchona seeds from South America to France, and strenuously insisted on the importance of cultivating the — His seeds, especially those of C. Calisaya, germinated at the ardin des Plantes in Paris, and in June 1850, living seedlings were sent to Algeria; and in April 1852, through the Dutch Government, to Java. : . The first important attempts at cinchona-cultivation were made by e Dutch. Under the auspices of the Colonial Minister Pahud, after . Wards Governor-General of the Dutch East Indies, the botanist rl was despatched to Peru for the purpose of obtaining seeds and Plants. His mission was so far successful, that a collection of plants contained in 21 Wardian cases, was shipped in August 1854 from Je a0, in a frigate sent expressly to receive them. Notwithstanding _ Svery care, the plants did not reach Java in good condition ; and when diane Se ieg fs ce eae in 1856, he bequeathed to ae _. aserjiiys on oung ci as oh 400 specime Shipped from Seath fis ie, nchonas, though P ig nPulse to the project of cinchona-planting was given in 1852 (1828) rt Nilesat nat. pharmaceutique, ii, 3 According to K. W. van Gorkom, stil * Illustrations of the Bot tions to the same end were made 309 by Mountains, j, (1839) on Himalayan ae Odom as early as 1 CORTEX CINCHON/. 349 by Royle, in a report addressed to the East India Company, in which he pointed out that the Government of India were then spending more than £7,000 a year for Cinchona bark, in addition to about £25,000 for quinine.t After some unsatisfactory endeavours on the part of the British Government to obtain plants and seeds through the intervention of H. M. Consuls in South America, Mr. Markham offered his services, which were accepted. Markham, though not a professed botanist, was well qualified for the task by a previous acquaintance with the country and people of Peru and Bolivia, and by a knowledge of the Spanish and Quichua languages,—and even more so by a rare amount of zeal, intelligence, and forethought. Being fully aware of the difficulties of the undertaking, he earnestly insisted that nothing should be neglected which could ensure success ; and in particular made repeated demands for a steam-vessel to convey the young plants across the Pacific to India, which unfortunately were not complied with. He further urged the desirableness of not confining operations to a single district, but of endeavouring to procure by different collectors all the more valuable species. The prudence of this latter suggestion was evident, and Markham was enabled to engage the services of Richard Spruce, the distinguished botanist, then resident in Ecuador, who expressed his readiness to undertake a search for the Red Bark trees (C. succirubra) in the forests of Chimborazo. He also secured the co-operation of G. J. Pritchett for the neighbourhood of Huanuco, and of two skilful gardeners, John Weir and Robert Cross. The last-named was employed in 1861 to procure seeds of C. officinalis from the Sierra de Cajanuma near Loxa, and in 1863-64 those of C. pitayensis from the province of Pitayo in Ecuador ae _ Markham reserved for himself the border-lands of Peru and Bolivia, ‘In order to obtain C. Calisaya ; and for this purpose started from Islay in March 1860. Arriving in the middle of April by way of Arequipa and Puno, at Curcero, the capital of the province of Carabaya, he made 1s way to the village of Sandia, near which he met with the first specimens of Cinchona in the form of the shrubby variety of C. Calisaya, termed Josephiana. He afterwards found the better variety a. vera, and also C. ovata R. et P., C. micrantha R. et P., and C. pubescens Vahl. Of these sorts, but chiefly of the first three, 456 plants were shipped at Islay in June 1860. 3 _ in consequence of the hostile attitude of the people, and the jealousy of the Bolivian Government, lest an important monopoly should be broken up, added to the difficulties arising from insalubrious climate and the want of roads, the obstacles encountered by Markham Were very great, and no attempt could be made to wait for the "pening of the seeds of the Calisaya, which takes place in the month of August,’ ‘In 1870, the India . 2 Report chased no less than onéoo. bho Sak: of C. Condaminea [1862]; also Report to the od of quinine, besides 8,832 ounces of | Under Secretary of State for India on the e sulphates of ‘cinchonine, cinchonidine Pitayo Ohinchona, by Robt. Cross, 1860. and quinidine. The quantities bought in 3 Great difficulty was at first experienced Subsequent years have been much smaller _in successfully conveying living Cinchona util the present year (1874). plants to India, even mm Wardian cases ; on the Expedition to procure seeds 350 RUBIACE&. . The expedition of Spruce was successful, but was also attended with much difficulty and danger, of which there are vivid pictures in the interesting narratives by himself and by Cross, published in the Par- liamentary Returns of 1863 and 1866. . The service entrusted to Pritchett was also efticiently performed; and he succeeded in bringing to Southampton six cases containing plants of C. micrantha and C. nitida, besides a large supply of seeds. Some important supplies of plants and seed for British India have likewise been obtained from the Dutch plantations in Java. Seeds of C. lancifolia, the tree affording the valuable bark of New Granada, _ were procured through Dr. Karsten. Previously to the arrival in India of the first consignment of per careful inquiries were instituted from a meteorological and geological point of view, as to the localities most adapted for the cultivation. This _ resulted in the selection for the first trial of certain spots among the - Neilgherry (or Nilgiri) Hills on the south-west coast of India and in the Madras Presidency. Of this district, the chief town is Ootocamund (or Utakamand), situated about 60 miles south of Mysore and the same distance from the Indian Ocean. Here the first plantation was esta- blished in a woody ravine, 7,000 feet above the sea-level, a spot pro- nounced by Mr. Markham to be exceedingly analogous, as respects vegetation and climate, to the Cinchona valleys of Carabaya. Other plantations were formed in the same neighbourhood, and so rapid was the propagation, that in September 1866, there were more than 1} millions of Cinchona plants on the Neilgherry Hills alone.’ The speci¢s that grows best there is (7. officinalis, : The number was stated to be in 1872, 2,639,285, not counting the trees of private planters. The largest are about 30 feet high, with trunks over 3 feet in girth. The area of the Government plantations on the Neilgherry Hills is 950 acres.’ : Plantations have also been made in the coffee-producing districts of : , and in Coorg, Travancore and Tinnevelly, in all instances, We be leve, as private speculations, ¢ Cinchona plantations have been established by the Government 0 India in the valleys of the Himalaya in British Sikkim,‘ and some have been started in the same region by private enterprise. In the —_ ere Were on the 31st March 1870, more than 1} millions of plan j permanently placed, the species growing best being C. succirubr wren C. Calisaya. The Cinchona plantation of Rungbi near Darjiling (Brit . : ee) covered in 1872 2.000 acres. In the Kangra valley of Shy = and the collections formed by Hasskarl, sila Himalaya, plantations have been commenced, as well as 2 - mbay Presidency, and in British Burma. arkham,and Pr; gherry plantations, is that of wi ‘iter 0 eg Pritchett almost all perished Graham MclIvor, who by his rare P! and letter, 26 ne their destination (Markham’s skill and sagacity in the cultivatie™ pie tion by aa, 1861). But the propaga- management of the tree, has par in 1 eed has proved very rapid. most signal services in its propas® : nce relating to the introduc- India, f oe eas ‘ ig echona Plant into India, "y waa and material progress - er to i 20 M eee of Commons to be _tion of India during 1871-72, presen res Blue Book eee and 18 June 1866. Parliament 1873. p. 38 tes *K (Chinchona Cultivation 4 ; rt dates from ’ The first annual Repo remot be hame that must always be 1862 g 1863 ; 1 am indebted to Dr. King o® Somnection with the Neil- for that of 1876-1877.—F. A. F. CORTEX CINCHONA. om Ceylon offers favourable spots for the cultivation of Cinchona, in the mountain region which occupies the centre of the island, as at Hak- galle, near Neuera-Ellia, 5,000 feet above the sea, where a plantation was formed by Government in 1861. The production of bark has been taken up with spirit by the coffee-planters of Ceylon. The Government of India has acted with the greatest liberality in distributing plants and seeds of Cinchona, and in promoting the cultiva- tion of the tree among the people of India; and it has freely granted supplies of seed to other countries. The plantations of Java commenced by Hasskarl, increased under Junghuhn’s management to such an extent, that in December 1862 there were 1,360,000 seedlings and young trees, among which however the more valuable species, as C. Calisaya, C. lancifolia, C. micrantha and C. succirubra, were by far the least numerous, whereas CO. Pahudiana, of which the utility was by no means well established, amounted to over a million. The disproportionate multiplication of this last was chiefly due to its quickly yielding an abundance of seeds, and to its rapid and vigorous growth. Another defect in the early Dutch system of cultivation arose from the notion that the Cinchona requires to be grown in the shade of other trees, and to a less successful plan of multiplying by cuttings and layers. _ These and other matters were the source of animated and often bitter discussions, which terminated on the one hand by the death of Junghuhn in 1864, and on the other by the skilful investigations of De Vry. This eminent chemist was despatched by the Government of Holland in 1857 to J ava, that he might devote his chemical knowledge to the investigation of the natural productions of the island, including the then newly introduced Cinchona. It was March 16th, 1859, when Dr. de Vry laid before the governor-general, Mr. Pahud, the first crystals of sulphate of quinine he had prepared from bark grown in that island. Under K. W. van Gorkom, who was appointed superintendent in ~ 1864, the Dutch plantations have assumed a very prosperous state. © J.C. Bernelot Moens,! the present director, stated that at the end of 1878 the leading species was Calisaya in its various forms, including more than 400,000 plants of Ledger’s Calisaya. Numerous analyses of tnelot Moens show a percentage of from 4} to 10°6 of quinine in the latter variety. Some of them, however, in December 1878, afforded not more than 0°64 per cent. of quinine and 1°26 of cinchonidine. The regular shipments of the barks from Java to the Amsterdam market are going on, and the barks are sold there with regard to the -Tesults of the government chemist’s analyses. ; Cinchona Bark from the Indian plantations began to be brought into the London market in 1867,” and now arrives in constantly increasing quantities. The history of the transplantation of the Cinchona down to the year 1867 has been made the subject of the report of Soubeiran and londre mentioned at the end of the present article. *T am indebted it Howard, who presented : e tothe Dutch administra- | there also Mr. Howard, who p tion for their interesting statistical docu. Mr. S. and myself with market samples ~ relating to Cinchona.—F. A. F. of the first importation of C. swcceruirt, “When I was in London, in August from Denison plantation, Ootacamund.— Mr Pa went to Finsbury Place, to meet FF, A. F. * Spruce, and was happy enough to find 352 = VO RUBIACEAE: Description—-(A.) Of Cinchona Barks generally—tin the develop- ment of their bark, the various species of Cinchona exhibit considerable diversity. Many are distinguished from an early stage by an abundant exfoliation of the outer surface, while in others this takes place toa smaller degree, or only as the bark becomes old. The external appear- ance of the bark varies therefore very much, by reason of the greater or less development of the suberous coat. The barks of young stems and branches have a greyish tint more or less intense, while the outer bark of old wood displays the more characteristic shades of brown or red, especially after removal of the corky layers. In the living bark, these colours are very pale, and only acquire their - final hue by exposure to the air, and drying. Some of them however are characteristic of individual species, or at least of certain groups, so that the distinctions originated by the bark-collectors of pale, yellow, red, ete." and adopted by druggists, are not without reason. : In texture, the barks vary in an important manner by reason of diversity in anatomical structure. Their fracture especially depends upon the number, size, and arrangement of the liber fibres, as will be shown in our description of their microscopic characters. _ The taste in all species is bitter and disagreeable, and in some there is in addition a decided astringency. Most species have no marked odour, at least in the dried state. But this is not the case in that of C. officinalis, the smell of which is characteristic. (B.) Of the Barks used in pharmacy—For pharmaceutical pre- parations as distinguished from the pure alkaloids and their salts, the Cinchona barks employed are chiefly of three kinds. ; 1. Pale Cinchona Bark, Loxa Bark, Crown Bark?—This bark, which previous to the use of Quinine and for long afterwards, was the ordinary Peruvian Bark of English medicine, is only found in the form of quills, which are occasionally as much as a foot in length, but are more often only a few inches or are reduced to still smaller fragments. The quills are from } down to an } of an inch in diameter, often double, and variously twisted and shrunken. The thinnest bark is scarcely stouter than writing paper ; the thickest may be 35 of an inch or more.” The pieces have a blackish brown or dark greyish external surface, variously blotched with silver-grey, and often beset with large and beautiful lichens. The surface of ‘some of the quills is longitudinally wrinkled and moderately smooth ; but inthe majority it is distinctly marked by transverse cracks, and is rough and harsh to the touch. The inner side is closely striated and of a bright yellowish brown. _ The bark breaks easily with a fracture which exhibits very short res on the inner side. It has a well-marked odour sui geners, am an astringent bitter taste. Though chiefly afforded by C. officinalts Some other species occasionally contribute to furnish the Loxa Bark 0 Commerce as shown in the conspectus at p. 355. in : _The te ee sre common terms inre- sort of Loxa Bark, shipped for the us? of , ras of Peru:—Amarilla the royal family of Spain. : Sea blanca (white), colorado or roja oe hecohie on ef tesktadis of the Royal ag (brown) yada (orange), —_negrilla lege of Physicians, there are scree ™ Cortex Cincho : very thick Loxa Bark, of a quality they Lexa; G. L pect aaa og a unknown there at the —, ee : was orig: tri € term Crown are doubtless the produce of an ‘ CORTEX CINCHON. 353 2. Calisaya Bark, Yellow Cinchona Bark3—This bark, which is the most important of those commonly used in medicine, is found in flat pieces (a.), and in quills (@.), both afforded by C. Calisaya Wedd. though usually imported separated. a. Flat Calisaya—is in irregular flat pieces, a foot or more in length by 3 to 4 inches wide, but usually smaller, and ;2, to ;45 of an inch in thickness; devoid of suberous layers and consisting almost solely of liber, of uniform texture, compact and ponderous. Its colour is a rusty orange-brown, with darker stains on the outer surface. The latter is roughened with shallow longitudinal depressions, sometimes called digital furrows2 The inner side has a wavy, close, fibrous texture. The bark breaks transversely with a fibrous fracture; the fibres of the broken ends are very short, easily detached, and with a lens are seen to be many of them faintly yellowish and translucent. A well-marked variety, known as Bolivian Calisaya, is distinguished for its greater thinness, closer texture, and for containing numerous laticiferous ducts which are wanting in common flat Calisaya bark. 8. Quill Calisaya—is found in tubes 3 to 14 inch thick, often rolled up at both edges, thus forming double quills. They are always coated with a thick, rugged, corky layer, marked with deep longitudinal - and transverse cracks, the edges of which are somewhat elevated. This suberous coat, which is silvery white or greyish, is easily detached, — leaving its impression on the cinnamon-brown middle layer. The inner side is dark brown and finely fibrous. The transverse fracture is fibrous but very short. The same bark also occurs in quills of very small Size, and is then not distinguishable with certainty from Loxa bark. | 8. Red Cinchona Bark.—Though still retaining a place in the British Pharmacopceia, this is by far the least important of the Cinchona barks employed in pharmacy. But as the tree yielding it (C. succirubra) is now being cultivated on a large scale in India, the bark may probably come more freely into use. : : Red Bark of large stems, which is the most esteemed kind, occurs in the form of flat or channelled pieces, sometimes as much as } an inch in thickness, coated with their suberous envelope which is rugged. and Warty. Its outermost layer in the young bark hasa silvery appearance. € inner surface is close and fibrous and of a brick-red hue. The bark breaks with a short fibrous fracture.’ : (C.) Of the Barks not used in pharmacy—Among the non-officinal barks, the most important are afforded by Cinchona lancifolia Mutis and C, pitayensis Wedd., natives of the Cordilleras of Columbia. These barks are largely imported and used for making quinine, the former under the name of Columbian, Carthagena, or Caqueta bark. t varies much in appearance, but is generally of an ogee ; the corky coat, which scales off easily, is shining and whitish. é ‘ arks of O. lanei ‘folia, often occur in fine large quills or thick flattis ‘eces, Their anatomical structure agrees in all varieties which we ave examined, in the remarkable number of thick-walled and wo Cinchonee Slave, Cortex Chine marks left by drawing the fingers over wet — i tone Quinquina Calisaya; G. Kénigs- a 4 Gack that happens tomeeel * From the noti very deep and brilliant tint is eagerly he notion that they resemble the Soeskt ste high price for the Paris market. Z ——— -- RUBIACEA. tangentially extended cells of the middle corticai layer and the — medullary rays. In percentage of alkaloids, Carthagena barks are _ liable to great variation. The Pitayo Barks are restricted to the south-western districts of Columbia, and are usually imported in short flattish fragments, or — broken quills, of brownish rather than orange colour, mostly covered with a dull greyish or internally reddish cork. The middle cortical layer exhibits but few thick-walled cells ; the liber is traversed by very wide medullary rays, and is provided with but a small number of widely scattered liber fibres, which are rather thinner than in most other Cinchona barks. The Pitayo barks are usually rich in alkaloids, quinine prevailing. Cinchona pitayensis is one of the hardiest species of the valuable Cinchonas, and is therefore particularly suitable for cultivation, which however has not yet been carried out as largely as that of either C. officinalis or C. succirubra. In the Conspectus on the next page, we have arranged the principal es of Cinchona, with short indications of the barks which some of em afford.” Microscopic Structure—The first examination of the minute structure of Cinchona barks is due to Weddell, whose observations have been recorded in one of his beautiful plates published in 1849.’ Since that time numerous other observers have laboured in the same field of research, General Characters—These barks, as contrasted with those of other trees, do not exhibit any great peculiarities of structure; am their features may be comprehended in the following statements. The epidermis, in the anatomical sense, occurs only in the youngest barks, which are not found in commerce. The corky layer, which replaces the epidermis, is constructed of the usual tabular cells. In some species 3 C. Calisaya, it separates easily, at least in the older bark, whereas others as C. succirubra, the bark even of trunks is always coated wit it. In several species the corky tissue is not only found on the surface, but strips of it occur also in the inner substance of the bark. In this case _ the portions of tissue external to the inner corky layers or bands are _ thrown off as bork-scales (periderm of Weddell). This peculiar form of suberous tissue‘ was first examined (not in einchona) in 1845 by H. von Mohl, who called it rhytidoma (Borke of the Germans). In C. Calisay@ it is of constant occurrence, but not so usually in C. suceirubra an some others; the oe bes therefore affords a good means of distin- 8, _, guishing several bar he inner portion of the bark exhibits a middle or promary layer : ~ _ (mesophlewm),’ made u : layer or SE , p of parenchyme ; and a second inner aye 2 st (endophla-wm)® displaying a shiek more complicated structur® ___ the primary layer disappears if rhytidoma is formed: barks in whi¢ a Pitayo is an Indian village eastward of Popayan; ma opinion belonging to the genus. Pasto and a soe ica btween *s Hist. sae den Quinquinas, tab. Ue, ay Chinchona im Blue k (East India 4 Fliickiger, Grundlagen, Berlin, 1872.0" : ant) 1866. 257. fig. 48. , { .? Two species included by W tulaire of his Nos ided by Weddell in 5 Envelo ou tunique cellu hd ig peearinne, namely (. Weddell ittelrinde of the Germans. Kase, habe » and C0. barbacoensis 6 In German Bast, or Phloém bagic been as not in our German botany. 7 ‘gosautuI09 UT MMOUUN yu | - n ' -BIAyOg | - Dt “ube tueenimd Oe ea ae - SE "4v} ‘PPEM = “PRAM ama com ; ; A vib Fea . - ~vraly - -‘9L Qe" PPEM - - - TUPAS e > *soroods sTy3 Jo ‘Iva & iqeqoad st ‘DIK salen ee ete Rote) ee ee C* 4 ‘nig ‘Aopendgy | - @ qu ujjsivy - - “savy sisuofnong 6 sia igs ain tek Sache AO ll a ite iced ncaa ye j eae eh usjsrey |- - -sHn enon 6 8G ? *guruinb jo olnqovjnueuL Pee © eit ey ‘gpeneiy) MON oes } : oF a * UL ; ae is bikie dan: * 40 4 BYCAO Uy pasn outos Jo req ‘soyorwa AuwuL Jopun sys{xo oor, “Gavd nea ee - (1) wave (i) vrpuy | - — BIATOg “Med | ae = wiquapons “9G I } syreg ASoip : { ‘sorense “eae - = = ‘xopunog |- - “od - = = ‘ABQ BIG, : a *vIPUT PSE Ut poywayyqno AjosreT "IB poy ‘mo0pso9 “o1pUL . ego aaa ke ‘od Meu “PROM stAsouygNs ein an ‘eXest[VO ISI JO pulpy vy | - - - - anit 8 nied Gey ‘ON pawmopt | - - ‘ad 40 “Y Bosndind v “* ane “Al ‘poylodwy mou JON “YAvG sopeuungy | - - - - - - - | (sere | 24240 seat ae ep) Meg | - - = - = = + |= + = “ppem sondiye apna ich agent oe | Se a sao - = = ppom vhustyen vuoTpUID “Zé A Ss pine oan) "DER SIR PONR OREM AT A rcs dion peel @ 364 bap Sioa rt t- wpayog ‘nog (7 7 6A PPPAL |” eeesTTeD eMOOUTD BAITS “Al « i $ e A is = ‘sorjotava Auvur Jopun sysfXo 094} OUT, "ATV MONA “AVA Teayor Awe BAvsilv : i ree ‘od AAR Sage Yo 5 pha mse 4 | coniy fC EE|: 2c SRE Se |e [2 eee eee eee remnants Se eso: te ee ee Wo oS ee Ce Boer my. - = ="PPOAA | ‘yang Duy Drums 10 YT. a at 8 Par eter -- = + + - - | manog qynog eo PPA | ” ougietopU euoTUTD sazTig ‘M bs . The. = ‘ s wey BUTI] oquin “oe “ot ‘ | ay ie wate Sieg weoy omg. Pt Oe a, os eee i - = 4o “Y vAosiNpuLy. . “ST | *yareq, peq s10A V AV f > ‘od Le a Sh ae ee ks See ee ‘ es . é ‘ an omen oe “avd BaazTTDIJOQuN ¥ mt "R08 DOCS IATE ie NOES HT SS Tc ae ee ee oe eater] ” 1 ae Va - Pee nape ay Oe | *peqoa][oo Jou AALeET wave “erpu - - - = Wed|- - ON prenoq | - Ae pe So feces ‘“ "LL | a dds eumospavg jo 40k “Bred ood yo} To PE et ‘ndod | - - "61 GY} "PROM | - “PPA SIS act ae *ponulyuoostp 9914 Jo uotyusedord ‘ oouvrve Pp “poqoo][oo Jou yavq | Byard Ser - ote aes "Pre md d va ct par . ¥ - - + as, Fe “ ‘ouIoyIe A[UO suTeyUOD ‘soIOUIUIOD UT Jou BV | - =~ 7 Me Sige Rea po + =O N paemoyy | - - - - “aed vsosns ‘8 Yl , : Ajqeqoid ‘umouyun HAwgq | - 7 = - * od | - -(@UPLL, . + “ppem sisuakeyd wuoyoury *y ssofonyea A[qBq P <., epay | $7 (ues od) i { 9) °o Qe} “3SIUN a Ma euoyoulg sdiy3g “Il 7 f HeCaa sad i Pot, epeuel | c ‘ouyprurnb Jo sorhos ory ory ST 41 £ oUTUMb Joszoxeur Lq pasn sofquntea eA “lve OAV A és | “‘ppom eyosvpséure =“ 9 - = "9 Qe} ‘PPAM | ~ “pazroduit aiou 3ou ynq ‘yavq ood y | - - - - - - - |= SAnog ‘ned g ae: atiMar ar UG syn vyoyouy, =“ G ia aripeicnwine’ i~ opine gag 5g ir ye el fis + > + Sim | - spemmp mon Be i ‘@'a PME a ‘augutnd Jo cangovynuvut toy solyyzwenb os1yl up poyoduy Bae itp: 3 a" Pat eg a sige ae ries sr OE) on - = TARA VIPOFBUININT & o A's *pood Og you St yNq ‘Avg UOFe YIM papunojuod “Are " ‘neg ‘lopenog - ~ : avg xSqwoorv “ % 1 . 2, =a oo | See de ee weg | <1 Oe eee viioyoulp *T he poeple Seta ssc athe ER cule - = yooH spreusoygo voy . ‘8 : Ausy , ‘ ; |= - F9g¢ “SUR “0¢7 9 I WoIM_ Polvo 4108 yueysodary us sproye won ‘O peptser Rede FE Rg Pear 10 vxo'T | “wave ‘uopéeg “erpay | - (exor]) Jopenog F989 STTBUTOIgO Buy: = sds : : “T1AACAM OL PNIAUOIOY (SHLLATUVA | ‘aguvatiano “AWENQ00 GALLVN | ‘aaunole wuTHM | guy saoaas-EAS HNIGATOXA) SUIOMdS “19ndaoud agua ' ‘VNOHONIO JO SHIONdS TVdIONIYd AHL JO SOLOAdSNOO 356 eae RUBIACEA. this is the case are therefore at last exclusively composed of liber, of which Flat Calisaya Bark is a good example. The liber is traversed by medullary rays, which in cinchona are mostly very obvious, and project more or less distinctly into the middle cortical tissue. The liber is separated by the medullary rays into wedges, which are constituted of a parenchymatous part and of yellow 4 or orange fibres. The number, colour, shape, and size, but chiefly the : arrangement of these fibres, confer a certain character common to all the barks of the group under consideration. The liber-fibres? are elongated and bluntly pointed at their ends, but never branched, mostly spindle-shaped, straight or slightly curved, and not exceeding in length 3 millimetres. They are consequently of a simpler structure than the analogous cells of most other officinal barks, They are about } to 4 mm. thick, their transverse section exhibiting a quadrangular rather than a circular outline. Their walls are strongly thickened by numerous secondary deposits, the cavity being reduced to _ a narrow cleft, a structure which explains the brittleness of the fibres. The liber-fibres are either irregularly scattered in the liber-rays, or they form radial lines transversely intersected by narrow strips of parel- chyme, or they are densely packed in short bundles. It isa peculiarity q of cinchona barks that these bundles consist always of a few fibres (3 j to 5 or 7), whereas in many other barks (as cinnamon) analogous bundles are made up of a large number of fibres. Barks provided with long bundles of the latter kind acquire therefrom a very fibrous fracture, whilst cinchona barks from their short and simple fibres exhibit a short fracture. It is rather granular in Calisaya bark, in which the fibres are almost isolated by parenchymatous tissue. In the bark of C. scro- biculata, a somewhat short fibrous fracture * is due to the arrangement of the fibres in radial rows. In C. pubescens, the fibres are in sho bundles and roduce a rather woody fracture. : Besides the liber-fibres, there are some other cells contributing to t hee of individual cinchona barks. This applies chiefly ns e laticiferous ducts or vessels‘ which are found in many s0Tts; ey are scattered through the tissue intervening between the middle : a layer and the liber, and consist of soft, elongated, unbranched ok mostly exceeding in diameter the neighbouring parenchymatous As to the contents of the tissue of cinchona barks, crystallized alkaloids are not visible. Howard has published figures representing ‘. mute rounded aggregations of crystalline matter in the cells, whi © supposes to be kinovates of the alkaloids ; and also distinct acicular Ve ‘ erystals which he holds to be of the same nature, These remarkable oe water ; it may well be doubted whether they are strictly natu _ &ppearances are easily observable i f the : : ) , yet only after sections 0 ve been boiled for a minute in weak Seasiic alkali and then wash _ The liquids which are ca issolvi ids i free = capable of dissolving the alkaloids in the ™ ee: ° not afford any if they are applied ne the barks. The alkaloids ng contained in the bark in the form of salts, the latter are decom- 1 ; Gere matralilen or Phloémstrahlen of the 3 Fracture filandreuse, Weddel ; fadige * Fibres corticales Bruch of the Germans. or Bastzellen in title ir Bastrohren 4 Vaisseausz laticiferes of Weddell; ilel saftschliuche in German. CORTEX CINCHONA, B57 posed by caustic lye, and the alkaloids set at liberty assume the crystallized state. This is in our opinion the origin of the crystals under notice. The greater number of the parenchymatous cells are loaded with small starch granules, or in young and fresh barks with chlorophyll. In several barks, as in that of C. lancifolia Mutis, numerous cells of the middle cortical layer and even of the medullary rays, are provided with somewhat thick walls, and contain either a soft brown mass or crystalline oxalate of calcium. These cells have therefore been called resin-cells and crystal-cells ; they are mostly isolated, not forming extensive groups or zones, and their walls are not strongly thickened as m true sclerenchymatous tissue. If thin sections of the barks are moistened with dilute aleoholic perchloride of iron, the walls of the cells, except the fibres and the cork, assume a blackish-green due to cincho- tannic acid ; this applies even to the starch granules. Characters of particular sorts—The modifications of general struc- ture just described, are sufficient to impart a special character to the bark of many species of Cinchona, provided the bark is examined at its full development, the structural peculiarities being far from well- marked in young barks. Thus it is not possible to point out any distinctive features for the Louw Bark of commerce, because it is mostly taken from young wood. We may say of it, that neither resin-cells nor crystal-cells occur in its middle layer, that its laticiferous vessels become soon obliterated, and have indeed disappeared in the older quills; and that the liber-fibres form interrupted, not very regular, radial rows. : The quills of C. Calisaya display large laticiferous ducts, which are wanting in the flat bark. There is a peculiar sort of the latter called Bolivian Calisaya (already mentioned at p. 353), the flat pieces of which still possess very obvious laticiferous vessels. As to the liber-fibres of Calisaya bark, they are, as before stated (p. 356), scattered throughout the parenchymatous tissue or endophleeum. In the bark of C. serobicu-~ lata, which might at first sight be confounded with Calisaya bark, the liber-fibres form radial, less interrupted rows. The microscope affords therefore the means of distinguishing these two barks. _ The barks of O. succirubra are particularly rich in laticiferous ducts, mostly of considerable diameter, in which the formation of new paren- chyme may not unfrequently be observed. The orange liber-fibres e8 curring in this bark are less numerous, more scattered, and of smaller size than in Calisaya. The fracture of Red Bark, especially the flat sort, is therefore more finely granular and not so coarse as that of Calisaya. The structural characters of Cinchona barks may lastly be fully =F preciated by examining barks of the allied genera Buena, ome eae Ladenbergia, which were formerly known under the name of False Cinchona Barks. The microscope shows that the liber-fibres of the latter are soft, branched and long, densely packed into large ctomae imparting therefore a well-marked fibrous structure. The externa appearance of these barks is widely different from that of true cinchona barks ; none of them it would appear is now collected for the purpose of adulteration. ‘Chemical Composition—Themost important and at the same time : in the bark of 358 | - RUBIACEA, ‘peculiar principles of Cinchona bark are the Alkaloids,—enumerated in the following table :— Gaboning..=.. ....:.. =: aes O*H"N’0. or, as proposed by Skraup (1878) C°H”N’0 Cinchonidine (Quinidine of many writers). same formula. Quinine : ; 3 ; : : . C2H*4N?20?, Quinidine (Conquimine of Hesse) . ; ; same formula. So : : : C! BANA Conquinamine (Conchinamine) ; : same formula. B. A. Gomes? of Lisbon (1810) first succeeded in obtaining active principles of cinchona, by treating an alcoholic extract of the bark with water, adding to the solution caustic potash, and crystallizing the precip- _ itate from alcohol. The basic properties of the substance thus obtained, _ which Gomes called Cinchonino, were observed in the laboratory of Thénard by Houtou-Labillardiére, and communicated to Pelletier and Caventou® Shortly before that time, Sertiirner had asserted the existence of organic alkalis: and the French chemists, guided by that brilliant discovery, were enabled to show that the Cinchonino of Gomes belonged to the same class of substances. Pelletier and Caventou, however, speedily pointed out that it consisted of two distinct alkaloids, one of which they named Quinine, the other Cinchonine. In 1827 the Institut de France awarded to the two chemists for their discovery the Montyon prize of 10,000 francs (see page 57, note 4). : Cinchonidine (thus called by Pasteur in 1853) was first obtained and characterized under the name of Quinidine in 1847, by F. i Winckler of Darmstadt, from Maracaibo Bark (C. tucujensis Karst.); and in 1852 it was more closely studied by Leers, still under the name of quinidine. at Conchovatine, formerly stated to be a peculiar alkaloid, has been shown by Hesse in 1876 to agree with cinchonidine. . : Quinidine is the name applied by Henry and Delondre to an alkaloid ’ ey obtained in 1833 ; its peculiar nature was not clearly proved unl : “eed when Pasteur examined it, and 1857 when De Vry showed its “ entity with the Beta-quinine extracted in 1849 by Van Heijningnen rom commercial quinoidin, The name quinidine having been since ‘applied to different basic substances more or less pure, Hesse (1865) 288 proposed to replace it by that of Conquinine (Conchinin in Ger- man). The alkaloid is especially characteristic of the Pitayo barks, and occurs in the Calisaya barks from Java. snus manune was discovered in 1872 by Hesse, in bark of C. suc- eure cultivated at Darjiling in British Sikkim ; it is also of common oot in the barks collected in Java. Conquinamine was &% racted in 1873 by Hesse from old barks from British India. __ ervemme 1s another basic substance discovered in 1845 by Winckler, | Buena hexandra Pohl. Hesse detected it along with set | intenen af mn 1877, pointed out the ex- 2 Ensaio sobre o Cinchonino, ¢ omen in Cinch % series of new alkaloids existing influencia na virtude da quina i \ irom repeating cascas.—Mem. da Acad. R. das Si will be found ab- —_ de Lisboa, iii, (1812) 202-217. 1820) sarbook of Pharm. 3 Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. xv- ( 292. 2 “CORTEX CINCHONA . 4. BEBO: quinamine in the bark of C. succirubra; its composition is not yet known. Aricine, C?H™N?O*, and Cusconine, C*H*N*O*+2 OH”, oceur in the so-called false Cinchona barks of not ascertained botanic origin. a alkaloids differ in many respects from those of true Cinchona rks? Pitoyine was pointed out by Peretti (1837), but Hesse has shown (1873) that the bark called China bicolorata Tecamez® or Pitoya Bark from which it was obtained, is altogether destitute of alkaloid. Lastly may be mentioned Paytine, C*#H*N°0+OH?, a crystalliz- able alkaloid discovered in 1870 by Hesse in a white bark of uncertain origin.’ It is allied to quinamine and quinidine, but has not been met with in any known cinchona bark. By heating for a length of time solutions of the cinchona alkaloids with an excess of some mineral acid, Pasteur (1753) obtained amorphous | modifications of the natural bases. Quinine thus afforded Quinicine, having the same composition ; cinchonine and cinchonidine furnished Cinchonicine, likewise agreeing in composition with the alkaloids from which it originates. These amorphous products may also be obtained by heating the natural bases in glycerin at 200° C., when a red sub- stance is also formed. In quinine manufactories, amorphous alkaloids are constantly met with, being partly produced in the course of the — manipulations to which the materials are subjected. Yet cinchona barks also afford amorphous alkaloids at the very outset of analysis, whence we must infer their existence in the living plant. The name Quinoidine (or rather “ Chiniotdin”) was applied by Sertiirner (1829) to an uncrystallizable basic substance, which he pre- pared from cinchona barks, and found to be a peculiar alkaloid. The term has subsequently been bestowed upon a preparation which has found its way into commerce and medical practice, in the form of a dark brown brittle extractiform mass, softening below 100° C., and having usually a slight alkaline reaction. It is obtained in quinine factories by precipitating the brown mother-liquors with ammonia, and contains the amorphous alkaloids naturally occurring in the barks. Quinoidin should not be used unless, when previously dried at 100°, it proves to afford at least 70 per cent. of alkaloids soluble in ether. ieee Quinine and the allied alkaloids have not been met with im any appreciable amount in other parts of the cinchonas than the bark, nor has their presence been ascertained in other plants than those of the tribe Cinchonee. Characters of the Cinchona Alkaloids. 1. Quinine-—It is obtained from alcoholic solutions, in prisms of the composition C2°HN202+ 3 OH2, fusing at 57° C. The crystals may be eprived of water by warming or exposure over oil of vitriol, and they ' Yearbook of Pharm. 187 | inj ture, this bark is widely dif- zt. 1878. 59. as in its structure, ' * So called from Tecamez or Tacames,a ferent from any Cinchona bark,—See also ‘mall port of Ecuador i ° Vogl, in the second pamphlet quoted at the bark Whithy swiar tient ase eh ‘ue “as 391. 10; Sean and Schlagden- Innes Description of the Genus Cinchona, hauffen, Journ, de Pharm, 28. (1878) 252. 797. 30. tab, ii., is of unknown botanical 3 Fliickiger in Wiggers and Husemann, Tigin, In its external appearance, as well Jahresbericht for 1872. 132. + 360 - RUBIACE. fuse at 177° C. The anhydrous alkaloid is likewise crystallizable ; it requires about 21 parts of ether for solution, but dissolves more readily in chloroform or absolute alcohol. These solutions deviate the ray of polarized light to the left, and so do likewise solutions of the salts of quinine. Yet one and the same quantity of alkaloid exhibits a very different rotatory power according to the solvent used, though the volume of the solution remain the same. Even the common sulphate differs in this respect from the two other sulphates of quinine. The _ same remark applies to the optical power of the other alkaloids. If ten volumes of a solution of quinine, or of one of its salts, are mixed in a test tube with one volume of chlorine water, and a drop of _ ammonia is added, a brilliant green colour makes its appearance. In solutions rich in quinine, a green precipitate, Thalleioquin or Dallew- chine is produced ; in solutions containing less than 7/55 of quinine, no precipitate is formed, but the fluid assumes a green even more beautiful than in a stronger solution. The test succeeds with a solution containing only one part of quinine in 5,000, and in a solution containing not more than suber Of quinine, if bromine is used instead of chlorine.’ The bitter taste of quinine is not appreciable in solutions containing less than one part in 100,000. The blue fluorescence displayed by a solution of quinine in dilute sulphuric acid is observable in solutions containing much less than one part in 200,000 of water; yet it is not apparent in very strong solutions. Besides the common medicinal sulphate, 2 C2°H24*N20? + SO*H? + 8 OH®, quinine forms two other erystallizable sulphates, namely the sulphate, C¥H™N20? + SO*H? +7 OH?, and a third having the compost tion C*H™N20? + 2 SO4H2 + 7 OH? _Herapath, at Bristol, showed in 1852 that quinine forms with sulphuric acid and iodine a peculiar compound, Iodo-sulphate of Quinine, having the composition (C2°H™N2O2)! + 3 (SO‘H?) + 2 HI+ 4] : 30OH* As this substance possesses optical properties analogous to those of tourmaline, it was called by Haidinger, Herapathite. It may be easily obtained by dissolving sulphate of quinine in 10 parts of weak of wine containing 5 per cent. of sulphuric acid, and adding a0 coholie solution of iodine until a black precipitate is no longer formed. a precipitate is collected on a filter and washed with alcohol; then Sole in boiling spirit of wine and allowed to crystallize. T . “ war crystals thus obtained are extremely remarkable on account “ ‘ roe dichroism and polarizing power, as well as for the sparing solur ty, since they require 1000 parts of boiling water for solution ; their ~ Seas solubility in cold aleohol may be utilized for separating quinin? 3 " a cinchona alkaloids and estimating its quantity. : 4, + Yuemedine or Conquinine—forms crystals having the compos" Hon, C™H™N*0? + 2 OH? ; the anhydrous alkaloid melts a 168° C., an ech about 30 parts of ether for solution. Its solutions are strongly ena a ay. agrees with quinine as regards bitterness, fiuorescer™ sca Scales test, and forms a neutral and an acid Dee the teystals of g character of quinidine is afforded by its hydrioea . of which require for solution at 15° C., 1250 parts of wate or 110 parts of aleohol Sp. gr. 834. Quinidine may therefore be s¢P® * Pharm. Journ., May 11, 1872. 901. CORTEX CINCHONE, 361 rated from the other alkaloids of bark by a solution of iodide of potassium which will precipitate the hydriodate. According to Hesse (1873), quinidine is further characterized by the fact that its sulphate is soluble in 20 parts of chloroform at 15° C., the sulphates of the other cinchona-alkaloids being far less soluble in that liquid. The common — medicinal sulphate of quinine, e.g., requires for solution 1000 parts of chloroform. 3. Cynchonine—This alkaloid forms crystals which are always anhydrous ; they fuse at 257° C., and require about 400 parts of ether and 120 of spirit of wine for solution. Cinchonine further differs from quinine by its dextrogyre power, its want of fluorescence, and its non- susceptibility to the thalleioquin test. Its hydriodate is readily soluble in water, and still more so in aleohol whether dilute or strong. 4. Cinchonidine—forms anhydrous crystals melting at 206° C,, soluble in 76 parts of ether, or 20 of spirit of wine, then affording levogyre liquids, devoid of fluorescence, and not acquiring a green colour (thalleioquin) by means of chlorine water and ammonia. Hydro- chlorate of cinchonidine forms pyramidal crystals of the monoclinic system, very different from the hydrochlorates of the allied alkaloids. 5. Quinamine—tThe crystals are anhydrous, fuse at 172° C., and form at a temp. of 20°, with 32 parts of ether or 100 parts of spirit of we wine, a dextrogyre solution. Quinamine is even to some extent soluble in boiling water, and abundantly in boiling ether, benzol, or petroleum ether. The solutions of quinamine do not stand the thalleioquin test, hor do they display fluorescence ; in acid solution, the alkaloid is liable to be transformed into an amorphous state. Quinamine moistened with concentrated nitric acid, assumes like paytine a yellow coloration. Its hydriodate is readily soluble in boiling water, but very sparingly 'n cold water, especially in presence of iodide of potassium, in which respect it is allied to quinidine as well as to paytine. ; he more important properties of the Cinchona-alkaloids may be summarized as follows :— a. Hydrated crystals areformed by. . . Quinine, Quinidine, (or Conquinine). : No hydrated crystalsby . . . . . Cinchonine, Cinchonidine, pmreren inine, Quinidine, Quinamine, and the b, Abundanily soluble in ether . . . « pers siikiecda. Sparingly soluble in ether . . . . . Cinchonidine. Almost insoluble in ether . . . . . Cinchonine. ag ¢. Levogyre solutions afforded by . . . Quinine, Cinchonidine. aaa ie : i ine, Quinidine, Quinamine, Con- Dextrogyre solutions BYS 3 Sis aback and the amorphousalkaloids. d. Thalleioquin is formed by. . . . - Quinine, Quinidine, and also by Quinicine. ioqui i ine, Cinchonidine, Quinamine, nor Thalleioquin cannot be obtained from fuk Ueaciiaaae ®. Fluorescence is displayed by solutions of Quinine, Quinidine. Loe No fluorescence in solutions of pure. . Cinchonine, Cinchonidine, Quinamine. Proportion of Alkaloids in Cinchona Barks—This is liable to very great variation. We know from the experiments of Hesse (1871), a the bark of @. pubescens Vahl is sometimes devoid of alkaloid. imilar observations made near Bogota upon C. pitayensis Wedd., C. 1 Berichte der Deutschen Chem. Gesellschaft zu Berlin, 1871. 818. 362 : RUBIACE, corymbosa Karst., and C. lancifolia Mutis, are due to Karsten. He ascertained’ that barks of one district were sometimes devoid of quinine, while those of the same species from a neighbouring locality yielded 34 to 43 per cent. of sulphate of quinine. Another striking example is furnished by De Vry’ in his examina- tion of quills of C. officinalis grown at Ootacamund, which he found to vary in percentage of alkaloids, from 11:96 (of which 9:1 per cent. was quinine) down to less than 1 per cent. An extremely remarkable variation has also been displayed, as already alluded to at p. 351, by Ledger's Calisaya. Among the innumerable published analyses of cinchona bark, there are a great number showing but a very small percentage of the useful principles, of which quinine, the most valuable of ar is not seldom altogether wanting. The highest yield on the other hand _ hitherto observed, was obtained by Broughton’ from a bark grown at Ootacamund. This bark afforded not less than 134 per cent. of alkaloids, among which quinine was predominant. In Java too, Cinchona Ledgeriana (see pp. 341, 351) has proved since to afford much more alkaloid than any American barks; as much as 13°25 per cent. of quinine have been observed in its bark. The few facts just mentioned show that it is impossible to state even approximately any constant percentage of alkaloids in any given bark. We may however say that good Flat Calisaya Bark, as offered in the drug trade for pharmaceutical preparations, contains at least ? to 6 per cent. of quinine. As to Crown or Loxa Bark, the Cortex Cinchone pallid of phar- macy, its merits are, to say the least, very uncertain. On its first introduction in the 17th century, when it was taken from the trunks and large branches of full-grown trees, it was doubtless an excellent : medicinal bark; but the same cannot be said of much of that now found in commerce, which is to a large extent collected from very young wood.* Some of the Crown Bark produced in India is however of extraordinary excellence, as shown by the recent experiments 0 De Vry.* : As to Red Bark, the thick flat sort contains only 3 to 4 per cent. 0 alkaloids, but a large amount of colouring matter. The quill Red Bark of the Indian plantations is a much better drug, some of it yiel to 10 per cent. of alkaloids, less than a third of which is quinine and @ fourth cinchonidine, the remainder being cinchonine and sometimes __ also traces of quinidine (conquinine), i — total e variations in the amount of alkaloids relates not merely to theit ce Percentage, but also to the proportion which one bears to ane ne and cinchonine are of the most frequent occurrence ; cinchowt ine is less usual, while quinidine is still less frequently met vie hever in large amount. The experiments performed in India® wei 3 : already shown that external influences contribute in an importan 1p eae Gr cacao ea misches Chinarinden Neu- 4 See Howard’s analyses and carrie ? Pharm, Journ. - tions, Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 61 * Blue Book sow “! ig a 5 Pharm. Journ. Sept. 6, pe? Plant,” 1870, 289: ndia Chinchona * Blue Book, 1870. 116. 188. 205. 1871. <_" 282; Yearbook of Pharmacy, CORTEX CINCHONA, Oe 368 manner to the formation of this or that alkaloid; and it may even be © hoped that the cultivators of cinchona will discover methods of pro- moting the formation of quinine and of reducing, if not of excluding, that of the less valuable alkaloids. Most salts of the alkaloids of cinchona afford a beautiful purple tar when they are heated in a test tube, and the same is also produced with the powdered bark, provided alkaloids be present. No other bark, as far as we know, yields a similar product of the dry distillation. It is not observed even in using true Cinchona barks, which are devoid of alkaloids. This method for ascertaining the presence of alkaloids in Cinchona barks has been proposed in 1858 by Grahe of Kasan. Hesse has improved Grahe’s test in the following way: he extracts the powdered bark with slightly acidulated water and dries up the liquid with a little of the powder. Grahe’s test at once shows whether a given bark contains Cinchona alkaloids or not. Acid principles of Cinchona Barks—Count Claude de la Garaye’ observed (1746) a crystalline salt deposited in extract of cinchona bark, which salt was known for some time in France as Sel essential de la Garaye. Hermbstidt at Berlin (1785) showed it to be a salt of calcium, the peculiarity of whose acid was pointed out in 1790 by C. A. Hoffmann,’ an apothecary of Leer in Hanover, who termed it Chinasdure. The _ composition of this substance, which is the Kinic Acid of English chemists, was ascertained by Liebig in 1830 to be C’H"O®, or now — C°H’(OH)‘COOH. The acid forms large monoclinic prisms, fusible at 162°C, of a strong and pure acid taste, soluble in two parts of water, also I spirit of wine, but hardly in ether. The solutions are levogyre. Kinie acid appears to be present in every species, and also to occur in barks of allied genera; and in fact to be of somewhat wide distribution in the vegetable. kingdom. By heating it or a kinate, interesting derivatives are obtained ; thus, by means of peroxide of manganese and Sulphuric acid, we get yellow erystals of Kinone or Quinone, C*H*0?,— a reaction which may be used for ascertaining the presence of kinie acid. Kinic acid is devoid of any noteworthy physiological action. Cincho-tannic Acid—is precipitated from a decoction of bark by | acetate of lead, after the decoction has been freed from cinchona-red by | means of magnesia. Dr. de Vry informed us that the Indian barks are usually richer in cincho-tannic acid; their cold infusion becomes turbid on addition of hydrochloric acid, which forms an insoluble compound with the former. The cincho-tannate of lead decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, and the solution cautiously evaporated im vacuo, yields the acid as an amorphous, hygroscopic substance, readily soluble in water, alcohol, or “her. The solutions, especially in presence of an alkali, are quickly decomposed, a red flocculent matter, Cinchona-red, being produced. Solutions of cincho-tannic acid assume a greenish colour on addition of a ferric salt. By destructive distillation, cincho-tannic acid affords Pyrocatechin. Quinoviec (or Chinovie) Acid, C*H™O%, ¢ stallizes in hexagonal Seales which are sparingly soluble in cold a cohol, more readily in iling alcohol, but not dissolved by water, ether, or chloroform. It ' Chimie hydrawlique, Paris, 1746. 114. 2 Crell’s Chem. Annalen, 1790, ii. 314-317. 364 RUBIACE. occurs in cinchona barks, and has been met with by Rembold (1868) — in the rhizome of Potentilla Tormentilla Sibth. Other Constituents of Cinchona Barks—Quinovic acid is ae- companied by Quinovin (or Chinovin), C*H*O*, an amorphous bitter substance, first obtained (1821) by Pelletier and Caventou under the name of Kinovie Acid, from China nova; in which it occurs combined with lime. Quinovin in alcoholic solution was shown in 1859 by Hlasiwetz to be resolved by means of hydrochloric gas into quinovie acid, C“H™O*, and an uncrystallizable sugar, Mannitan, C°H"0’, with subtraction of H’O. The formation of quinovic acid takes place more easily, if quinovin is placed in contact with sodium amalgam and spirit of wine, when, after 12 hours, mannitan and quinovate of sodium are formed (Rochleder, 1867). _ Quinovin, although an indifferent substance, may be removed from cinchona barks by weak caustic soda, from which it is precipitable by hydrochloric acid, together with quinovic acid and cinchona-red. Milk of lime then dissolves quinovin and quinovie acid, but not the red substance. Quinovic acid and quinovin again precipitated by an acid, may be separated by chloroform in which the latter only is soluble, or also by cold dilute aleohol sp. gr. about 0°926, quinovin being readily removed by this liquid. : Quinovin dissolves in boiling water; its solutions, as well as those of quinovie acid, are dextrogyre. Quinovin seems to be a constituent of almost every part of the cinchonas and the allied Cinchonee, although the amount of it in barks does not apparently exceed 2 per cent. Its accompanied by quinovic acid: both substances are stated to have tonic properties, ; Cinchona-red, an amorphous substance to which the red hue of cinchona barks is due, is produced as shown by Rembold (1867), when cincho-tannie acid is boiled with dilute sulphuric acid, sugar being formed at the same time. By fusing cinchona-red with potash, proto- catechuic acid, C7H°O4, is produced. Cinchona-red is sparingly soluble in alcohol, abundantly in alkaline solutions, but neither in water nor 1D ether. Thick Red Bark in which it is abundant, affords it to the extent of a per cent. : e Cinchona barks yield but a scanty percentage of ash, n° exceeding 3 per cent., a fait wall according with the sib amount they contain of oxalate and kinate of calcium. il Estimation of the Alkaloids in Cinchona Bark—The microscope ys enable us, as already shown, to ascertain whether a given 6 derived from Cinchona, but it can furnish no exact information ast the actual value of such bark as a drug. “ Yet there is a very simple test by which the presence of a cinchond oid may be demonstrated. These alkaloids heated in a glass tu ee in the presence of a volatile acid or of substances capable of producing @ Volatile acid, evolve hea ; ; + aon Selous a8 mentioned p. 363. Vy vapours of a beautiful crim : : . a trae’ bark of Buena magnifotia Wedd., —folia. Its bark is destitute of me cent £5 Ww = 6 lowers and magnifi- it also used to appear occasionally “ in Howard's “Nueva Lond ince about the year ant Quinologia of Pavon” as Cinchona magni- pees femimeiterers on Cortex Cascarille. CORTEX CINCHONA, SEs ggg + But to ascertain the real value of a cinchona bark, a quantitative estimation of the alkaloids is necessary. A good process for this opera- - tion has been given by De Vry.’ It is as follows :—Mix 20 grammes of powdered bark, dried at 100° C., with milk of lime (5 grm. slaked lime to 50 grm. water), dry the mixture slowly ; by stirring it frequently, the cincho-tannic acid loses its solubility, being gradually transformed into cinchona-red. Then boil the dry powder with 200 cubic centimetres of alcohol 0°830 sp. gr. Pour the liquid on to a small filter, and after- wards the residual bark and lime mixed with 100 cub. cent. more alcohol.. Wash the powder on the filter with 100 cub. cent. of spirit. From the mixed liquids, about 870 cub. cent., separate the cal- cium by a few drops of weak sulphuric acid. Filter, distill off the spirit and pour into a capsule the residual liquid——to which add a small quantity of spirit and water with which the distilling apparatus has been rinsed out. Let the capsule be now heated on a water-bath until all the spirit shall have been expelled; and let the remaining liquor which contains all the alkaloids in the form of acid sulphates be filtered. There will remain on the filter quinovic acid and fatty sub- stances, which must be washed with slightly acidulated water. The filtrate and washings reduced to about 50 cub. cent., should be treated while still warm with caustic soda in excess. After cooling, this is decanted off from the precipitate, and then water added to it before throwing it on toa filter. It is then to be washed with the smallest quantity of water pressed between folds of blotting paper, removed therefrom and dried. The weight multiplied by 5 will indicate the percentage of miwed alkaloids in the bark. _ To separate the alkaloids from each other, treat the powdered mass with ten times its weight of ether. This will resolve it into two por- tions—(a) insoluble in ether, (b) soluble in ether. (a.) This should be converted into neutral acetates, and to the solution there should be added iodide of potassium, which possibly separate a little quinidine. After removal of the latter (if present), add solution of tartrate of potassium and sodium, which will throw down in a crystalline form tartrate of cinchoni- dine; from the mother-liquor, cinchonine may be precipitated by caustic soda, (b.) The ether having been evaporated, the residue is to be dried at 100 C. and weighed. It may in many cases practically be considered 48 consisting of quinine only. If however the estimation of quinidine (conquinine) and quinamine is required, the residue, or a determined portion of it, should be dissolved in acetic acid just as much as will be necessary for affording a neutral solution, From this the hydroiodate of quinidine is precipitated by means of an alcoholic solution of lodide of potassium. In the filtrate quinine may be precipitated by adding a few drops of dilute sulphuric acid and an alcoholic tincture of iodine, The herapathite thus formed (see p. 360) is col- lected after a day, dried at 100° and weighed; it then contains 55 per — Cent. of quinine, After adding a few drops of sulphurous acid, the alcohol should now be evaporated from the fluid from which the crystals of herapathite have de arm. Journ, iv. (1873) 241, and Dr. the present article, p. 369; also private : Ty’s papers mentioned at the end of | communications. 366 -RUBIACEA. been removed, and caustic lye added, by which the amorphous alkaloids will be precipitated, including quinamine if present. Uses—Cinchona bark enjoys the reputation of being a most valuable remedy in fevers. But the uncertainty of its composition and its in- convenient bulk render it a far less eligible form of medicine than the alkaloids themselves. It is nevertheless much used as a general tonic in various pharmaceutical preparations. As to the alkaloids, the only one which is in general use is quinine. The neglect of the others is a regrettable waste, which the result of recent investigations ought to obviate. In the year 1866 the Madras Government appointed a Medical Commission to test the respective efficacy in the treatment of fever, of Quinine, Quinidine, Cinchonine and — Cinchonidine. Of the sulphates of these alkaloids, a due supply, specially prepared under Mr. Howard’s superintendence, was placed at the disposal of the Commission. From the report’ it appears that the number of cases of paroxysmal malarious fevers treated was 2472— namely 846 with Quinine, 664 with Quinidine, 569 with Cinchonine, and 403 with Cinchonidine, Of these 2472 cases, 2445 were cured, and 27 failed. The difference in remedial value of the four alkaloids, « deduced from these experiments, may be thus stated :— Quinidine—ratio of failure per 1000 cases treated 6 Quinine Yi: 3 99 Cinchonidine ~ ” a0 Cinchonine. is ” = The Indian Government, acting on the recommendation of Mr. Howard, has officially advised (Dec. 16, 1873) the more free use in India of cinchona alkaloids other than quinine, and especially of sulphate y cinchonidine, which is procurable in abundance from Red Bark. Qui- nidine on the other hand, which has proved the most valuable of all, 18 only obtainable from a few barks and in very limited amount. _ Vr. de Vry since 1876 advocates the use of what he calls Quinetum. This preparation is obtained by exhausting the barks with slightly acidulated water, and precipitating the whole amount of alkaloids by caustic soda. In India the remedy is known as “the Febrifuge. * _ Adulteration—There is not now any frequent importation : spurious cinchona barks, but the substitution of bad varieties for °° _ 18 sufficiently common, To discriminate these in a positive manne? ’ ascertaining the percentage of quinine, which is the chief eriterioa® value, recourse must be had to chemical analysis, a method of perfort ing which has been described. Entirely worthless barks may be €s! recognized by means of Grahe’s test (p. 363). : Modern Works relating to Cinchona. The following enumeration has been drawn up for the sake of thos’ ng more ample information than is contained in the foreg8 1 tivaleare ie —East India Cinchona Cul- 2 We heard that the Government contains very Bega — The report —_ purchased (April 1874) by, tender i medical detalls, See nine es Important = 300 and 400 Ib. of cinchonidine, | Med. Journ, Sept. 1873. ougal in Edin, % Pharm, Journ. viii. (1878) CORTEX CINCHON. 367 , but it has no pretension to be a complete list of all publications that have lately appeared on the subject. Berg (Otto) Chinarinden der pharmakognostischen Sammlung zu Berlin. Berlin, 1865, 4°. 48 pages and 10 plates showing the micro- scopic structure of barks. Bergen (Heinrich von), Monographie der China. Hamburg, 1826, 4°. 348 pages and 7 coloured plates representing the following barks:— China rubra, Huanuco, Calisaya, flava, Huamalies, Loxa, Jaen. An exhaustive work for its period in every direction. Blue-books—Last India (Chinchona Plant). Folio. a. Copyof Correspondence relating to the introduction of the Chinchona Plantinto India,and to proceedings connected with utscultivation from March 1852 to March 1863. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 20 March 1863. 272 pages. Contains Correspondence of Royle, Markham, Spruce, Pritchett, Cross, McIvor, Anderson and others, illustrated by 5 maps. b. Copy of further Correspondence relating to the introduction of | the Chinchona Plant into India, and to proceedings connected with its cultivation, from April 1863 to April 1866. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 18 June 1866. 379 pages. Contains Monthly Reports of the plantations on the Neilgherry Hills; Annual Reports for 1863-64, 1864-65, with details of method | of propagation and cultivation, barking, mossing, attacks of insects, illustrated by woodcuts and 4 plates; report of Cross’s journey to Pitayo, with map; Cinchona cultivation in Wynaad, Coorg, the Pulney Hills and Travancore, with map; in British Sikkim, the Kangra, Valley (Punjab), the Bombay Presidency, and Ceylon. c. Copy of all Correspondence between the Secretary of State for India and the Governor-General, and the Governors of Madras and Bombay, relating to the cultivation of Chinchona Plants, from April 1866 to April 1870. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 9 August 1870. 285 pages. Contains reports on the Neilgherry and other plantations, with Map ; appointment of Mr. Broughton as analytical chemist, his reports and analyses ; reports on the relative efficacy of the several cinchona alkaloids, on cinchona cultivation at Darjiling and in British Burma. d. Copies of the Chinchona Correspondence (in continuation of return of 1870), from August 1870 to July 1875. Ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, 21 June 1877. 190 pages. - ontain also reports on the alkaloid manufactory in India, collection and shipment of barks, and analyses of barks. Delondre (Augustin Pierre) et Bouchardat (Apollinaire), Quinologie, Paris, 1854, 4°, 48 pages, and 23 good coloured plates exhibiting all e barks then met with in commerce. Go ae (Augustin), see Soubeiran. Boia rom (K. W. van), Die Chinacultur auf Java, Leipzig, 1869, 61 Pages. An account of the management of the Dutch plantation. — RUBIACEZ. | Hesse (Oswald). This chemist has summarized his elaborate researches on Cinchona in the German Dictionary of Chemistry, articles Chinin, Cinchonin, ete. 1876-1877. Howard (John Eliot), I//ustrations of the Nueva Quinologia of Pavon. London, 1862, folio, 163 pages and 30 beautiful coloured plates — Figures of Cinchona mostly taken from Pavon’s specimens in the herbarium of Madrid, and three plates representing the structure of several barks. Howard (J. E.), Quinology of the East India Plantations. London,1869, folio x. and 43 pages, with 3 coloured plates exhibiting structural _ peculiarities of the barks of cultivated Cinchone. _ Howard (J. E.) The same, parts ii. and iii, Lond. 1876, folio xiv. and 74 p., with 2 views, 2 black plates and 13 coloured figures of Cin- chona Calisaya (Ledgeriana), C. officinalis, C. pitayensis, and others. Karsten (Hermann), Die medicinischen Chinarinden Neu-Granada’s Berlin, 1858, 8°. 71 pages, and 2 plates showing microscopic structure of a few barks. An English translation prepared under the super- vision of Mr. Markham, has been printed by the India Office under the title of Notes on the Medicinal Cinchona Barks of New Granada by H. Karsten, 1861. The plates have not been reproduced. Karsten (Hermann), Flore Columbie terrarumque adjacentiwm speci- mina selecta. Berolini, 1858, folio. Beautiful coloured figures of various plants including Cinchona, under which name are several Species usually referred to other genera. Only three parts have been __.. published. King (George), A Manual of Cinchona cultivation in India. Calcutta, 1876, 80 pages, small folio, si Kuntze (Otto), Cinchona. Arten, Hybriden and Cultur der Chinin- biwme. Leipzig, 1878. 124 pages and 3 plates. A review of this book will be found in the Archiv der Pharmacie, 213, (1878) 473-480. | _ Melvor (W. G.) Notes on the propagation and cultivation of the med- eonal Cinchonas or Peruvian bark trees, Madras, 1867, 33 pages, ? plates. The author explains the “motsing system” alluded to p. 362. Melvor (William Graham), A letter on the cultivation of Chinchona the Nilgiris. Ootacamund, 1876, 27 pages. Markham (Clements Robert), The Chinchona Species of New Granada, containing the botanical descriptions of the species examine 8. Mutis and Karsten; with some account of those botanists, oe of the results of their labours. London, 1867, 8°. 1389 pages id 5 plates. The plates are not coloured, yet are good reduced copies ° those contained in Karsten’s Flore Columbic ; they represent be following :—Cinchona, corymbosa, C. Triane, C. lancifolia, C. condi folia, C. tucujensis, . Markham, _ A Memoir of the Lady Ana de Osorio, Countess of Ole chon, vice-queen of Peru (ap, 1629-1639), with a plea for the corre spelling of the Chinchona genus. London, 1874, 4°. 99 pages, with @ "ee ay eohey and views, ; Pee wenbury, Science Papers, 1876, p. 475. —— (Friedrich Anton Wilhelm). De Cithiorets speciebus quibusdam, adjectis Vis que in Java coluntur. Commentatio ex Annalilu Musei ‘gos | ) 20 ae Lugduno-Batavi exseripta. Amstelodam|, 1869, 4 CORTEX CINCHONE > 369 Oudemans (Anthony Cornelis), Sur le powvoir rotatoire spécifique des ineipaux alealoides du quinquina. Archives néerlandaises, X. (1875), 193-268, and xii. (1877). Phoebus (Philipp), Die Delondre-Bouchardat schen China-Rinden. Gies- sien, 1864, 8°. 75 pages and a table. The author gives a description - without figures, of the microscopic structure of the type-specimens figured in Delondre and Bouchardat’s Quinologie. Planchon (Gustave), Des Quinquinas. Paris et Montpellier, 1864, 8° 150 pages. A description of the cinchonas and their barks. An English translation has been issued under the superintendence of Mr. Markham by the India Office, under the title of Peruvian a oe Planchon. London, printed by Eyre and Spottis- woode, ; Soubeiran (J. Léon) et Delondre (Augustin), De introduction et de Pacelimation des Cinchonas dans les Indes néerlandaises et dans les Indes britanniques. Paris, 1868, 8°. 165 pages. Triana (Jost) Nouvelles études sur les Quinquinas. Paris, 1870, folio, 80 pages, and 33 plates. An interesting account of the labours of Mutis, illustrated by uncoloured copies of some of the drawings prepared by him in illustration of his unpublished Quinologia de Bogotd, especially of the several varieties of Cinchona lancifolia ; also an enumeration and short descriptions of all the species of se atieg oH of New Granadian plants (chiefly Cascarilla) formerly in that genus. An abstract of the book will be found in Just’s Botanischer Jahresbericht fiir 1873, 484-494. be a ee eo der Wiener nN. ien, 8% ages, no S. exhaustive. description of the aeiesopic erlelars-of the parks : ae citer in the Vienna market, or preserved in the museums of Vogl A), sabia rie te e ee sogenannten rags Chinarin- den. : , 4°. 26 pages, 7 microscopic sections. Vrij John Eliza de) Kinologische studién. More than 30 papers pub- eine -_ in the Nieww Tijdschrift voor de Fiwame im end : oyna: -. Sl = oad ae devoted to the chemistry of the barks Weddell (Hugh Algernon), Histoire naturelle des Quinquinas, ow mono- graphie du genre Cinchona, suivie d'une description du genre Cas carilla et de quelques autres plantes de la méme tribu, vy i 1849, oh Ea eee, 33 plates, and map. Excellent ilse Orel Epes chona and ; 1 1 i of the officinal hark: Diao exbibite SH kes Naat Wace : oh SRE Pines Tr chat Oo ae e anatomical structure of eddell (H. A), Notes sur les Quinquinas, Extrait des Annales “i opal naturelles, 5° série, tomes xi. et xii, Paris, 1870, 8°, decerintion pr Monae mega of 7 en Cinchona, and ie bes _Sp » accompanied by useful remarks on Office ao “oe English translation has been printed by the India - loa isos : ee on the Quinquinas by H. A. Weddell, , , 8. pages. . — edition by Dr, F. A. Fliic- e 370 RUBIACEA. kiger has also appeared under the title Uebersicht der Cinchonen von H. A. Weddell. Schaffhausen and Berlin, 1871, 8°. 45 pages, with additions and indexes. RADIX IPECACUANHA. Ipecacuanha Root, Ipecacuan ; F. Racine @Ipécacuanha annelee ; G. Brechwurzel. Botanical Orgin—Cephaélis' Ipecacuanha A. Richard—This is a small shrub, 8 to 16 inches high, with an ascending, afterwards erect, simple stem, and somewhat creeping root, growing socially in moist and shady forests of South America, lying between 8° and 22° S. lat., especially in the Brazilian provinces of Para, Maranhao, Pernam- buco, Bahia, Espiritu Santo, Minas, Rio de Janeiro, and Sao Paulo. Within the last half century, it has been discovered in the vast interior province of Matto Grosso, chiefly in that part of it which forms the valley of the Rio Paraguay. From information given to Weddell,’ it would seem probable that the plant extends beyond the frontiers of Brazil to the Bolivian province of Chiquitos. ee: The root which is brought into commerce is furnished chiefly by the region lying between the towns of Cuyaba, Villa Bella, Villa Maria, . and Diamantina in the province of Matto Grosso,; but to some extent also by the woods in the neighbourhood of the German colony of Phila delphia on the Rio Todos os Santos, a tributary of the Mucury, north of Rio de Janeiro, Prof. Balfour of Edinburgh, who has paid much attention to the — propagation of ipecacuanha, finds that the plant exists under tWo varieties, of which he has published figures ;* they may be thus dis- = tinguished : 7” aah a. Stem woody, leaves of firm texture, elliptic or oval, wavy at the edges, with but few hairs on surface and margin. Long in cultivation’ — origin unknown. ¥ > b. Stem herbaceous, leaves less firm in texture, more hairy 0 margin, not wavy. Grows in the neighbourhood of Rio de Janeiro. The plant cultivated in India seems disposed to run into covers varieties, but according to the experience gained in Edinburgh, = diversi : = ie of form apparent in young plants tends to disappea History—In an account of Brazil, written by a Portuguese friar, ie it would seem, had resided in that countey On about Lo ae 00, and published by Purchas,‘ mention is made of three remedies the bloody flux, one of which j } ; the drug ) s called Igpecaya or Pigay4; here spoken of is probably that under Sitine : : *T am informed b inb, xx0 y my friend Professor 3 Trans, of Roy. Soc. of _Tidin Rublawse: loneva that in describing the (1872) 781. Grates 31-32. —Fig. in Berk include Cephanig (ort Brasiliensis he will and ‘Trimen, Med. Plants. part 15 Mapourtas r% Tpecacuanha in the genus 4Purchas, His Pilgri ren BY ® 2 Ann, des Scie eh 1870. (1625),——a treatise of Brasill, Wi one, p. 193-99, U8 Sciences mat. Bot. xi. (1849) Portugal which had long lived the : BE RADIX IPECACUANHA. 371 Piso and Marcgraf’ in their scientific exploration of Brazil met with two kinds of ipecacuanha; the one provided with a brown root is Cephaélis Ipecacuanha, which they figured. The root of the other variety, which they called Ipecacuanha blanca, is that of Richardsonia scabra (see page 376 below). Piso and Marcgraf described the virtues of these roots, apparently supposing them to be much the same as to their action. Although in common use in Brazil, ipecacuanha was not employed in Europe prior to the year 1672. At that date, a traveller named Legras brought from South America a quantity of the root to Paris, some of which came into the possession of the “maitre appoticaire” Claquenelle.2_ It would appear that the root was prescribed from the latter by Legras (said to have been himself acquainted with the practice of medicine*), and also by Jean Adrien Helvetius, a young Dutch physician, then living in Paris. Yet no suceess at first was obtained, the drug being administered in too large doses. In 1680, merchant of Paris named Garnier became possessed of 150 Ib. of ipecacuanha, the valuable properties of which in dysentery he vaunted to his medical attendant Afforty, and to Helvetius. Gar- nier on his convalescence * made a present of some of the new drug to Afforty, who attached to it but little importance. Helvetius, on the other hand, was induced to prescribe the root in cases of dysentery, which he did with the utmost success. It is stated by Eloy that Helvetius even caused placards to be affixed to the corners of the streets (about the year 1686), announcing his successful treatment with the chew drug, supplies of which he obtained through Garnier from Spain, and sold as a secret medicine. The fame of the cures effected by Helvetius reached the French Court, and caused some trials of the drug to be made at the Hétel Dieu. These having been fully suc- cessful, Louis XIV. accorded to Helvetius the sole right of vending his temedy.° Subsequently several great personages, including the Dauphin of France, having experienced its benefit, the king consulted his physi- “ian, Antoine d’Aquin, and the well-known Jesuit Pére Francois de = haise, who had become the King’s confessor in 1675. Through them ene a negotiated the purchase from Helvetius of his secret, for this qowts2or, and made public in 1688. The right of Helvetius to decid ent Was disputed in law by Garnier, but maintained by a “cision of the Chatelet of Paris.® until e botanical source of ipecacuanha was the subject of much dispute ae finally settled by Antonio Bernardino Gomez, a physician of the Lis uguese navy, who brought authentic specimens from Brazil to nm the year 1800,7 1p: ees nat. Brasil, 1648, Piso, p. 101, in Hphemerid. Academ. Cusareo-Leopold, "Dansk hie; ; 1696, Appendix, p. 6, miscalled the mer- (1694) 47 istotre générale des Drogues, i. chant Grenier. i *Mérat and 5 An abstract of the royal patent is ii, (1891) 644 De Lens, Dict. de Mat. Méd. _ given by Leibnitz, i.e. 20 (date not added). say that G » call Legras a physician, and 6 On the history of ipecacuanha, consult tb. from > tela brought himself the 150 —_ also Sprengel, Geschichte der Arzneykunde, ‘ hee) iv. (1827) 542.—We have not seen the Mons. ii? (Iyer eeimerale de Ia Médecine. pamphlet quoted by Haller, Bibi. bot. i. gist, Who ) 485, mentions a sick drug- 17: Helvetius, Usage de l Hipecacoanha. he areas with the 4° (no date). ee meer Wag q « er, according to Elo: 7 Trans. of Linn, Soc. vi. 1) 137. a Marchand chapelier,”Leibnity, of ( ) 372 RUBIACE. Collection '—The ipecacuanha plant, Poaya of the Brazilians, grows in valleys, yet prefers spots which are rather too much raised to be inundated orswampy. Here it is found under the thick shade of ancient trees growing mostly in clumps. In collecting the root, the poayero, for so the collector of poaya is called, grasps in one handful if he can, all the stems of a clump, pushing under it obliquely into the soil a pointed stick to which he gives a see-saw motion. A lump of earth enclosing the roots is thus raised; and, if the operation has been well performed, those of the whole clump are got up almost unbroken. The poayer shakes off adhering soil, places the roots in a large bag which he carries with him, and goes on to seek other clumps. A good collector may thus get as much as 30 Ib. of roots in the day; but generally a daily gathering does not exceed 10 or 12 lb.,and there are many who scarcely get 6 or 8lb. In the rainy season, the ground being lighter, the roots are removed more easily than in dry weather. The poayeros, who work in a sort of partnership, assemble in the evening, unite their gatherings, which having been weighed, are spread out to dry. Rapid _ drying is advantageous; the root is therefore exposed to sunshine a much as possible, and if the weather is favourable, it becomes dry i2 two or three days. But it has always to be placed under cover at night on account of the dew. When quite dry, it is broken into frag: ments, and shaken in a sieve in order to separate adherent sand an earth, and finally it is packed in bales for transport. The harvest goes on all the year round, but is relaxed a little during the rains, on account of the difficulty of drying the produce, As 18g ments of the root grow most readily, complete extirpation of the plant in any one locality does not seem probable. The more intelligent poayeros of Matto Grosso are indeed wise enough intentionally to leave small bits of root in the place whence a clump has been dug, and eve? to close over the opening in the soil. Cultivation—The importance in India of ipecacuanha as a a for dysentery, and the increasing costliness of the drug,’ have occasi0h active measures to be taken for attempting its cultivation in that coun try. Though known for several years as a denizen of botanical garden the ipecacuanha plant has always been rare, owing to its slow gr? and the difficulty attending its propagation. ical _ It was discovered in 1869 by M‘Nab, curator of the Botan! Garden of Edinburgh, that if the annulated part of the root a gtowing ipecacuanha plant be cut into short pieces even only 16 ae or thick, and placed in suitable soil, each piece will throw out ate, ud and become a separate plant. Lindsay, a gardener of the rms : establishment, further proved that the petiole of the leaf is capable 4 producing roots and buds, a discovery which has been utilized Kin. i ep of the plant at the Rungbi Cinchona plantation 10 Sik j | n 1871, well-formed fruits were obtained from the ipecae oted Plants growing in the Edinburgh Botanical Garden : this was pt™ 1 : oo i. the interesting eye-witness account of Weddell, /.c. wholesale, ; are the average prices : hased on during three periods of ten sears wd hee the drug was pure 10 years ending 1850, average pri ; ge price 2s, 94d. per lb. 10 1860 e 6s. 114d. 55 10 1870, : Ge Gide RADIX IPECACUANHE. =i. s878 by artificial fertilization, especially when the flowers of a plant produc- ing long styles were fertilized with the pollen of one having short styles—for Cephaélis like Cinchona has dimorphic flowers. With regard to the acclimatization of the plant in India, much diffi- culty has been encountered, and successful results are still problematical. The first plant was taken to Calcutta by Dr. King in 1866, and by 1868 had been inereased to nine ; but in 1870-71, it was reported that, not- withstanding every care, the plants could not be made to thrive. Three plants which had been sent to the Rungbi plantation in 1868, orew rather better; and by adopting the method of root propagation, they were increased by August 1871, to 300. Three consignments of plants, numbering in all 370, were received from Scotland in 1871-72, besides a smaller number from the Royal Gardens, Kew. From these various collections, the propagation has been so extensive, that on 31 March 1873, there were 6,719 young plants in Sikkim, in’ addition to about 500 in Caleutta, and much more in 1874. The ipecacuanha plant in India has been tried under a variety of conditions as regards sun and shade, but thus far with only a mode- rate amount of success. The best results are those that have been obtained at Rungbi, 3000 feet above the sea, where the plants, placed in glazed frames, were reported in May 1873 as in the most healthy condition, , Description—The stem creeps a little below the surface of the soil, emitting a small number of slightly branching contorted roots, a few inches long. These roots when young are very slender and thread- ®, but grow gradually knotty and become by degrees invested with 4 very thick bark, transversely corrugated or ringed. Close examina- tion of the dry root shows that the bark is raised in narrow warty nitges, which sometimes run entirely round the root, sometimes encircle on ‘Sead its circumference. The whole surface is moreover minutely ee ey anally _ The rings or corrugations of a full sized root Gitte ie oe not unfrequently they are deep enough . J Toot attains a maximum diameter of about —2 of an inch; but mea soe proportion of it is much smaller. The woody cen- i ae devi 20 “¢ - inch in diameter, sub-cylindrical, sometimes mote mouanha is of a dusky grey hue, occasionally of a dull ferru- Steses at _The root is hard, breaks short md granular (not ca exhibiting a resinous, waxy, or farinaceous interior, white or rook, ima i bark, which constitutes 75 to 80 per cent. of the entire bitte Og hehaay Separated from the less brittle wood. It has a much more oc oe tl smell; when freshly dried it is probably commerce the < - e wood is almost tasteless, In the drug of Siderable ge ef are always much broken, and there is often a con- Woody 8 onl 1on of bark from wood ; portions of the non-annulated, ring ace stem are always present. variet : ast few years there has been imported into Londo an oo becacuanha, distinguished as leh dijetc or New Cana Garden Calentta, ”, the Royal Botanical foregoing particulars. The r a $1 May 1873—from 1876-1877 4s by ne ne mis te ve abstracted many of the the prospects of Céphadiis, ip Se Z 374 - -RUBIACEA. Ipecacuanha, and differing from the Brazilian drug chiefly in being of larger size. Thus, while the maximum diameter of the annulated roots of Brazilian ipecacuanha is about 4%; of an inch, corresponding roots of the New Granada variety attain nearly 33,. The latter, moreover, has a distinct radiate arrangement of the wood, due to a greater develope- ment of the medullary rays, and is rather less conspicuously annulated. Lefort (1869) has shown that the New Granada drug is a little less rich in emetine than the ipecacuanha of Brazil. Mr. R. B. White, of Medellin in the valley of the Cauca, New Granada, near which place the drug has been collected, has been good enough to send us herbarium specimens of the plant with roots at- tached ; they agree entirely with Cephaélis I ‘pecacuanha. Microscopic Structure—The root is coated with a thin layer of brown cork cells; the interior cortical tissue is made up of a uniform parenchyme, in which medullary rays cannot be distinguished. In the woody column they are obvious ; the prevailing tissue consists of short pitted vessels. The cortical parenchyme and the medullary rays are loaded with small starch granules. “Some cells of the interior part of the bark contain however only bundles of acicular crystals of oxalate of calcium. Chemical Composition—The peculiar principles of ipecacuanha are Emetine and Ipecacuanhic Acid, together with a minute propor tion of a foetid volatile oil. The activity of the drug appears to be due solely to the alkaloid, which taken internally is a potent emetic. — etine, discovered in 1817 by Pelletier and Magendie, is a bitter substance with distinct alkaline reaction, amorphous in the free state as well as in most of its salts; we have succeeded in preparing 4 crystallized hydrochlorate, . , \© root yields of the alkaloid less than 1 per cent.; the numerous higher estimates that have been given relate to impure emetine, 0! have been arrived at by some defective methods of analysis.’ 20° The formula assigned to emetine by Reich (1863) was Cc H®N ni that given by Gilénard (1875) O°H2NO!, and lastly that found in 1877 by Lefort and F. Wirtz, C"7H*N7Q5 The alkaloid may be obtained by drying the powdered bark of the at with a little milk of lime, and exhausting the mixture with boiling b oroform, petroleum-benzin or ether. It is a white powder turning rown on exposure to light and softening at 70°C. Emetine assumes an Intense and permanent yellow colour with solution of chlorina’ ime and a little acetic acid, as shown by Power (1877). A solution containing but sch, of emetine still displays that reaction. We foun t i e ° * ir emi to be destitute of rotatory power, at least in the chloroform The above reactions may b : grains of . § may be easily shown thus :—Take 10 ¢ oa ypecacuanha, and mix seas with 3 grains of quick-lime a8 : it toa vi, of water. Dry the mixture in the water bath and eee then filte containing 2 fluid drachms of chloroform: agitate freque? mh Tinto a capsule containing a minute quantity of aceti¢ 4 : nee . i ; ay? * Barruel by Magen sine by Richardand _ chemist in Proceedings of the Brad har Attfield, as recorded by iad anal maceutical Conference for 1869. 31-2 RADIX IPECACUANHA 375 and allow the chloroform to evaporate. Two drops of water now added will afford a nearly colourless solution of emetine, which, placed in a watch-glass, will readily give amorphous precipitates upon addition of a saturated solution of nitrate of potassium, or of tannic acid, or of a solution of mercuric iodide in iodide of potassium. To the nitrate Power's test may be further applied. If the wood separated as exactly as possible from the bark is used, and the experiment performed in the same way, the solution will reveal only traces of emetine. By addition of nitrate of potassium, no preci- pitate is then produced, but tannic acid or the potassico-mercuric iodate afford a slight turbidity. This experiment confirms the observation that the bark is the seat of the alkaloid, as might indeed be inferred . from the fact that the wood is nearly tasteless. — _ Ipecacuanhie Acid, regarded by Pelletier as gallic acid, but recog- nised in 1850 as a peculiar substance by Willigk} is reddish-brown, amorphous, bitter, and very hygroscopic. It is related to caffetannic and kinic acids ; Reich has shown it to be a glucoside. Ipecacuanha contains also, according to Reich, small proportions of resin, fat, albumin, and fermentable and crystallizable sugar ; also gum and a large quantity of pectin. The bark yielded about 30 per cent., and the wood more than 7 per cent. of starch. _ Commerce—The imports of ipecacuanha into the United Kingdom in 1870 amounted to 62,952 Ib., valued at £16,6392 Uses—Ipecacuanha is given as an emetic, but much more often in small doses as an expectorant and diaphoretic. In India it has proved of late a most important remedy for dysentery. Since the year 1858 _ when the administration of ipecacuanha in large (30 grains) doses began to be adopted, the mortality in the cases treated for this complaint has greatly diminished.* Adulteration and Substitutes—It can hardly be said that ipeca- cuanha as at present imported is ever adulterated. Although it may 7 an undue proportion of the woody stems of the plant, it is not taudulently admixed with other roots. But it very often arrives much eteriorated by damp: we have the authority of an experienced drug- for saying that at least three packages out of every four offered in - a cndon drug sales, have either been damaged by sea-water or by during their transit to the coast. k veral roots have been described as False Ipecacuanha, but we _ “HOW not one that would not be readily distinguished at first sight by any drug st of average knowledge and experience. a Brazil the word Poaya is applied to emetic roots of plants of at ast SIX genera, belonging to the orders Rubiacew, Violariew, and Poly- juee ; while in the same country, the name Jpecacuanha is used for he i : Lg Pry Bo MNOUS species of Ionidiwm as well as for Cephaélis. 1 F aguetin, Chemistry, xv. (1862) 523. treated: under the new method of treat- inant Statement of the Trade and ment, it has been reduced to 13°5. In con silt OF the U.K. Jo” 1870,—The more _ Bengal it has fallen from 88°2 to 28°8 per pligeg sstes of this return have been sim- 1000, —Supplement to the Gazette of Inde. e te an extent that drugsare for | January 23, 1869. : es — part meluded under one head. 4As Jonidium Ipecacuanha Vent., I. rom d adras Presidency, the death- _Poaya St. Hil., [. parviflorum Vent., the ysentery was 71 per 1000 cases _ first of which affords the Poaya branca or - a ; * ae oS ee oe RUBIACE. — Some of these roots, which are occasionally brought to Europe under | the notion that they may find a market, have been described and figured by pharmacologists. We shall notice only the following :— 1. Large Striated Ipecacuanha—This is the root of Psychotria emetica Mutis (Rubiacew), a native of New Granada. Itis considerably stouter than true ipecacuanha, but consists like the latter of a woody column covered with a thick brownish bark. The latter, though marked here and there with constrictions and fissures, is not annulated like ipecacuanha, but has very evident longitudinal furrows. But its most remarkable character is that it remains soft and moist, tough to the knife, even after many years; and the cut surface has a dull violet hue. The root has a sweetish taste and abounds in sugar;! its decoction is not rendered blue by iodine, nor is any starch to be detected by means of the microscope. The drug occasionally appears in the London market. 2. Small Striated Ipecacuanha—This drug in outward appearance closely resembles the preceding, but is usually of smaller size,—some- times much smaller and in short pieces tapering towards either end. It also differs in being brittle, abounding in starch, and having its woody column provided with numerous pores, easily visible under a lens. Prof. Planchon’ of Paris, who has particularly examined both varieties ar Striated Ipecacuanha, is of opinion that the drug under notice may be derived from some species of Richardsonia. 3. Undulated Ipecacuanha —The root thus called is that of _ Richardia scabra (Richardsonia scabra St. Hilaire), a plant of the same order as Cephaélis, very common in Brazil, where it grows 1m cultivated ground and sandy places, or by roadsides, and even in the less frequented streets of Rio de Janeiro. Authentic specimens have been _ forwarded to us by Mr. Glaziou of Rio de J aneiro, and Mr. J. Correa de Méllo of Campinas ; and we have also had ample supplies of the plant cultivated by us near London and at Strassburg, where Richardsonia succeeds in the open air The root in the fresh state js pure white, but by drying becomes of 4 deep iron-grey. In the Brazilian specimens, there is a short crown mitting as many as a dozen prostrate stems; below this there % generally, as in true ipecacuanha, a naked woody portion, which extends downwards into a thicker root, 32, of an inch in diameter, and six or more inches long. This part of the root is marked by deep fissures on alternate sides, which give it a knotty, sinuous, or undulating outline. It has a brittle, very thick bark, white and farinaceous witht, oa pee a strong flexible slender woody column. The root has am earthy odour not altogether unlike that of ipecacuanha, and a slightly Sweet taste. It affords no evidence of emetine when tested in the ie, easton ab p. 874, and can therefore easily be distinguishe White Tpecacuanha of the Brazilians, —See - x ee C.F. F: : ' Attfield in Pharm. Journ. xi. ( aaa in Species Mat. Med, 140, t. Hilaire, Plante: mid - (1972) 405: xvii. iens, 1827-28, ‘antes Journ, de Pharm. ne (1872) ‘RADIX -VAUREIANAL 0 7 fog VALERIANACE A. RADIX VALERIAN. Valerian Root; F. Racine de Valériane; G. Baldrianwurzel. Botanical Origin—Valeriana officinalis L., an herbaceous peren- nial plant, growing throughout Europe from Spain to Iceland, the North Cape and the Crimea, and extending over Northern Asia to the coasts of Manchuria. The plant is found in plains and uplands, ascending even in Sweden to 1200 feet above the sea-level. In England, valerian is cultivated in many villages! near Chester- field in Derbyshire, the wild plant which occurs in the neighbourhood not being sufficiently plentiful to supply the demand. In Vermont, New Hampshire and New York, as well as in Holland, the plant is grown to some extent, but by far the largest supply would appear to be grown in the environs of the German town Colleda, not far from Leipzig. Valerian is propagated by separating the young plants which are developed at the end of runners emitted from the rootstock. = The wild plant, according to the situation it inhabits, exhibits several divergent forms. Among eight or more varieties noticed by botanists,2 we may es ecially distinguish a. major with a compar- atively tall stem and all the leaves toothed, 8. minor (V. angustifolia Tausch) with entire or slightly dentate leaves, and also V. sambucifolia Mikan, having only 4 or 5 pairs of leaflets. History—The plant which the Greeks and Romans called od or Phu, and which Dioscorides and Pliny describe as a sort of wild nard, 18 usually held to be some species of valerian.’ The word Valeriana is not found in the classical authors. We first meet with it in the 9th or 10th century, at which period and for long afterwards, it was used as synonymous with Phu or fu. __ Thus in the writings of Isaac Judeeus* occurs the following :—* Fu id est valeriana, melior rubea et tenuis et que venit de Armenca et est Wersa in sua complexione. . . .” habet . Constantinus Africanus °— Fu, id est valeriana. Natwram , Stout spica nardi. . . .” e word Valeriane occurs in the recipes of the Anglo-Saxon leeches written as early as the 11th century.’ Vuleriuna, Amantilla and Fu are used as synonymous in the Alphita, a medizval vocabulary of the school of Salernum?” | ion i Saladinus’ of Ascoli directs (circa A.D. 1450) the collection in the month of August of “ radices furd est valeriane.” +4 this is a tran- os, SiH Stat Finy, none ae, ley th wor h . . “ Te Ww South Wingfield, and Bracken- ss stands in the original we have no + From th i means of knowing. : sce wholesale ante i Chestoriald “ob. ~ 5 De omnibus medico cognitu necessariis, ioe in 1872 5 il. 1539. 348. he ie oversees wey deeds, Wortcunning and Starcraft Regel, Tent Sonae early England, iii. (1866) 6. 136. 2 (Mem. de? daddies de Ge Poe v 8. "de Reis Collectio Salernitana, iii. Aid, oficinalis L. and nine other species (1854) 271-322. - Fra +, 10 Asia Minor (‘T'chihatcheft). Compendium Aromatariorum, . Opera Omnia, Lugd. 1515, cap. 45.— —‘:1488. 378 VALERIANACE. Valerian was anciently called in English Setwall, a name properly applied to Zedoary; and the root was so much valued for its medicinal virtues, that as Gerarde * (1567) remarks, the poorer classes in the north of England esteemed “no broths, pottage, or physicall meats” to be worth anything without it. Its odour, now considered intolerable, was not so regarded in the 16th century, when it was absolutely the custom to lay the root among clothes as a perfume? in the same way as those of Valeriana celtica L. and the Himalayan valerians are still used in the East. Some of the names applied to valerian in Northern and Central Europe are remarkable. Thus in Scandinavia we find Velandsrot, Velamsrot, Vandelrot (Swedish); Vendelréd, Venderéd, Vendingsréd (Norwegian) ; and Velandsurt (Danish)—names all signifying Vandels root.’ Valerian is also called in Danish Danmarks gres, Among the German-speaking population of Switzerland, a similar word to the last, namely Z'awnmark, is applied to valerian. The Denemarcha mentioned by St. Hildegard, about a.p. 1160, is the same. These names seem to point to some connexion with Northern Europe which we are wholly unable to explain. ; Pentz, a pharmaceutical assistant at Pyrmont, was the first, in 1829, to draw attention to the acid reaction of the distilled water of valerian. Another German assistant, Grote, at Verden, showed in 1831 that the acidity was by no means due to acetic acid, but to a peculiar kind of acid. The latter was identified in 1843 by Dumas with the acid art ficially obtained from amylic alcohol and that extracted in 1817 by Chevreul from the fat of dolphins. _ Description—The valerian root of the shops consists of an upright rhizome of the thickness of the little finger, emitting a few short hor zontal branches, besides numerous slender rootlets,> The rhizome 18 _ naturally very short, and is rendered still more so by the practice of cutting it in order to facilitate drying. The rootlets, which are gene rally 3 to 4 inches long, attain ,', of an inch in diameter, tapering and dividing into slender fibres towards their extremities. They are shrivelled, very brittle, and, as well as the rhizome, of a dull, earthy brown. When broken transversely, they display a dark epiderm's, forming part of a thick white bark which surrounds a slender woody column. The interior of the rhizome is compact, firm and horny, i when old becomes hollow, a portion of the tissue remaining however ™ the form of transverse septa. i The drug has a peculiar, somewhat terebinthinous and eamphor-like odour, and a bitterish, aromatic taste. The root when just taken < the ground has no distinctive smell. but acquires its characteristic odour as it dries, : Microscopic Structure’—In the rhizome as well as in the rootlets, the cortical part is separated from the central column by a dark camb: » Herbal, 1636. 1078, lained in Irmisch, erian root are well exp es Lan crn aoe part 3 (1568) 76; Beitrag zur Naturgeschichte der pee 3H, Tiininlins a oaks, . = schen Valeriana-Arten, Halle, 1 pe é ’ or e an- ves, 4, lates. Uh nt betihs 1867. 258. PT The iss nse! the rhizomes and root ® "The morphea of the different species of valerian | = Peculiarities of val- discussed by Joannes Chatin in his RADIX VALERIANE 379 zone; the medullary rays are not distinctly obvious. In old rootstocks, sclerenchymatous cells are met with in the cortical tissue. The parenchyme of the drug is loaded with small starch granules, brownish grains of tannic matter and drops of essential oil. Numerous oil ducts are met with in the outer layer of the tissue. Chemical Composition— Volatile oil is contained in the dry root to the extent of 4 to 2 per cent., yet on an average appears scarcely to exceed ¢ per cent. This variation in quantity is partly explained by the influence of locality, a dry, stony soil yielding a root richer in oil than one that is moist and fertile. In the latter the plant may be dis- tinguished as the variety sambucifolia, which has a less vigorous root, devoid of runners. Schoonbroodt’ has shown that the most important influence is the recent condition of the root. He states that if the root is submitted to distillation when perfectly fresh, it yields a neutral water and a large quantity of essential oil. The latter has but a very faint odour, but by exposure to the air it slowly acidifies, especially if a little alkali is added, and acquires a strong smell. Valerianic Acid which is thus formed amounts to 6 per mille of the fresh root. The dried root yields a distillate of decided valerian odour, containing valerianic acid, but in Proportion not exceeding 4 per mille of the root calculated as fresh, _ The oil of valerian is of a very peculiar yellowish or brownish, some- times even almost a little greenish hue, and possessing the characteristic odour of the drug. We found it to deviate the plane of polarization — from 11° to 13° to the left when examined by Wild’s Polaristrobometer na column of 50 millimetres. By submitting it to fractional distilla- tion we noticed? that it affords a magnificent blue fraction, A superb violet or blue colour is produced if one drop of the crude oi dissolved in about 20 drops of bisulphide of carbon is mixed with 1 drop of nitrie acid 1:20 sp. gr. Other colorations are produced if bromine or concen- trated sulphuric acid are used ;* even the tincture of valerian displays sunilar reactions, Bruylants (1878) has isolated from oil of valerian—Ist. A hydro- carbon, C"H", boiling at 157° C., yielding a crystallized compound with HCl. 2nd. The liquid compound C”H"O, which by means of chromic acid affords common camphor and formic, acetic and valerianic acids, Which are met with in old valerian root, owing no doubt to the slow oxidation of the compound C”H"O. 38rd. There is_also Paes * crystallizable compound of the same composition, which is probably identical with the camphor of Dryobalanops aromatica (see our article on Camphora). It would appear that this substance is of alcoholic nature, being combined in the root with the 3 organic acids mentioned under 2nd. On distilling, these compound ethers are resolved partly Into the aleohol OHO (borneol) and the acids. This decomposition 18 fully performed, if the root is macerated with alkaline water, and then, on distilling, a slight excess of sulphuric acid is added. 4th. At sur les Valéri . i 2 Archiv der Pharmacie, 209 (1876). ty I4 beautiful pode pishiaeccetes Sire 3 Jahresbericht of Wiggersand Husemann, Journ. de Médecine de Bruaelles, 1867 1871. 462. and 1868 ; Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann, 1869, 17. aS COMPOSITA. - about 300° a greenish portion is coming over, which can be obtained colourless by again rectifying it. This oil assumes intense colorations if it is shaken with concentrated mineral acids; it becomes blue by distilling it over potash. _ Valerianic acid as afforded by the root is not agreeing with normal valerianic acid. It is, more exactly, isovalerianic acid, or isopropyl- acetic acid: (CH®)2?CH.CH2COOH, which is produced by Valeriana as well as by Archangelica officinalis and Viburnum Opulus. The same acid also may be obtained from the fat of Dolphinus globiceps. After the root has been submitted to the distillation of the oil, there is found a strongly acid residue containing malic acid, resin, and sugar,— the last capable, according to Schoonbroodt, of reducing cupric oxide. Uses—Valerian is employed as a stimulant and antispasmodic. Substitutes—In the London market there has been offered “Kesso,. the root of Patrinia scabiosaefolia Link,! a Japanese herb of the order ‘Valerianacex. This drug consists of a very short rootstock giving off a large number of rootlets about 5 inches long and 7, of an inch in diameter. By the absence of a well-marked upright rhizome in this Japanese Valerian it is widely differing from our Valerian, although at first sight it agrees to some extent with it. As to the odour and taste we find Kesso almost identical with true Valerian. ; The less aromatic and now disused root of Valeriana Phu L. eonsists of a thicker rhizome which lies in the earth obliquely ; it is less closely annulated and rooted at the bottom only. It resembles by no means true Valerian. COMPOSITE. RADIX INUL&E. Radix Enule, Radix Helenii; Elecumpane;? F. Racine CAwne; G. Alantwurzel. Botanical Origin—Inula Heleniwm L—This stately perennial plant is very widely distributed, occurring scattered throughout whole of central and southern Europe, and extending eastward to We Caucasus, Southern Siberia and the Himalaya. It is found here an there apparently wild in the south of England and Ireland, as well as in Southern Norway and in Finland (Schiibeler). : d ___ Elecampane was formerly cultivated in gardens as a medicinal an culinary plant, and in this manner has wandered to North America. Holland and some parts of England and Switzerland, itis cultivated on 4 somewhat larger scale, most largely probably near Célleda (see p- 377): History—The plant was known to the ancient writers 0D 23" — 2 culture and natural history, and even the Roman poets were acquainted 2 iy it, and mention Inula as affording a root used both as @ medicin? i A condiment. Vegetius Renatus, about the beginning of the ? the pail calls it Inula Campana, and St. Isidore in the beginn!ng it es he ae it as Inula, adding—* quam Alam rustici vocant. ne rent En aoe Seth in the Anglo-Saxon writings on medicine”, ye Ps “aa to the Norman Conquest; it is also the “iS 0 eal i . "A's of Bde Congo aho ast Campea icky RADIX INULE. > Bee of the Welsh Physicians! of the 13th century and was generally well known during the middle ages. Not only was its root much employed as a medicine, but it was also candied and eaten as a sweetmeat. Description—For pharmaceutical use, the root is taken from plants two or three years old; when more advanced, it becomes too woody. The principle mass of the root is a very thick short crown, dividing below into several fleshy branches of which the larger are an inch or two in diameter, covered with a pale yellow bark, internally whitish, and juicy. The smaller roots are dried entire; the larger are variously sliced, which occasions them to curl up irregularly. When dried, they are of a light grey, brittle, horny, smooth-fractured. Cut transversely the young root exhibits an indistinct radiate structure, with a somewhat darker cambial zone separating the thick bark from the woody nucleus. The pith is not sharply defined, and is often porous and hollow. In the older roots the bark is relatively much thinner, and the internal sub- stance is nearly uniform. Elecampane root has a weak aromatic odour Suggestive of orris and camphor, and a slightly bitter, not unpleasant, aromatic taste. Microscopic Structure—The medullary rays, both of the woody column and the inner part of the bark (endophlwum), exhibit large balsam-duets. In the fresh root they contain an aromatic liquid, which as it dries deposits crystals of helenin, probably derived from the essential oil. The parenchymatous cells of the drug are loaded with inulin in the form of splinter-like fragments, devoid of any peculiar structure. Chemical Composition—It was observed by Le Febvre, as early as 1660, that when the root of elecampane is subjected to distillation with water a crystallizable substance collects in the head of the receiver from which it speedily passes on as the operation proceeds. | Similar crystals may also be observed after carefully heating a thin slice of the root, and are even found as a natural efflorescence on the surface of root that has been long kept. They can be extracted from the root by means of alcohol and precipitated with water. Kallen (1874, 18 (S) 3, showed that the crystals chiefly consist of the anhydride, CUH™O%, of alantie acid, melting at 66°C. The anhydride, which is very little aromatic, can easily be sublimed, although it begins to boil only at 275°, yet not without decomposition. Alantic anhydride dissolves in caustic lye, but on saturating the solution with an acid, alantic acid, C°H2O°, Separates. It is not present in the root. é : The anhydride is accompanied by a small quantity of Helenin, C°HSO, and Alanteamphor (i.e. Elecampane-camphor). The crystals of helenin have a slightly (?) bitterish taste, but no odour, and melt at 110°. the camphor, occurring in but very small amount, has not yet been analyzed ; it agrees probably with the formula C”H"O; it melts at 64° C,, and in taste and smell is suggestive of peppermint. It is very difficult entirely to remove helenin from alantcamphor, these substances being soluble to nearly the same extent in alcohol or ether, By distil- ling the second of them with pentasulphide of phosphorus, Cymene, C"H™, was obtained. ade : = By distilling the root under notice with water, the alantic anhydride '8 chiefly obtained, but impregnated with Alantol, C°H"O (probably). 1 Meddygon Myddfai, p. 61. 284. 311 (see Appendix). : r 382 ieee _ COMPOSITA. The latter can be removed from the crystals by pressing them between folds of bibulous paper. On submitting this again to distillation, alantol is obtained as an aromatic liquid, boiling at 200°. The substance most abundantly contained in elecampane root is Inulin, discovered in it by Valentine Rose at Berlin in 1804. It has the same composition as starch, C°H"O', but stands to a certain extent in opposition to that substance, which it replaces in the root-system of Composite. In living plants, inulin is dissolved in the watery juice, and on drying is deposited within the cells in amorphous masses, which in polarized light are inactive, and are not coloured by iodine. There are various other characters, by which inulin differs from starch, Thus for instance, inulin readily dissolves in about 3 parts of boiling water; the solution is perfectly clear and fluid, not paste-like; but on cooling deposits nearly all the inulin. The solution is levogyre and is easily transformed into uncrystallizable sugar. With nitric acid, inulin affords no explosive compound as starch does. __ Sachs showed in 1864 that by immersing the roots of elecampane, or Dahlia variabilis or of many other perennial Composite, in alcohol or glycerin, inulin may be precipitated in a crystalline form. Its globular aggregates of needle-shaped crystals (“sphzero-crystals”) then exhibit under the polarizing microscope a cross similar to that displayed by starch grains, The amount of inulin varies according to the season, but is most abundant in the autumn. Of the various sources for it, the richest appears to be elecampane. Dragendorff, who has made it the subject of _ 4 very exhaustive treatise obtained from the root in October not less than 44 per cent., but in spring only 19 per cent. ; In the roots of the Composite inulin is accompanied, according to Popp,’ by two closely allied substances, Synanthrose, CH"O"+H0, and Inuloid, CH"0+H°0. Synanthrose is soluble in dilute alcohol, devoid of any rotatory power, and deliquescent. Inuloid is much more readily soluble in water than inulin. Both these substances are probably present in elecampane. Inulin is widely distributed in the perennial roots of composite, and has also been met with in the natural orders Campanulacee, Goodenovie® (or Goodeniacew), Lobeliaces, Stylidiew, and lastly by Kraus: (1879) in _ the root of Ionidium Ipecacuanha St. Hilaire, Violaceze ; the formerly so-called Ipecacuanha alba lignosa (see p. 375, note 4). bey ses sHlecampane is an aromatic tonic, but as a medicine is NOW : olete. It is chiefly sold for veterinary practice. In France at witzerland (Neuchatel), it is employed in the distillation of Absinthe Substitutes—Dioscorides in speaking of Costus root states that it's —_ mixed with that of Sisdedpen:: of Kommagene (north-wester? Syria). The former, derived from Aplotaxis® auriculata DC. (A. Lapp : isne, Aucklandia Costus Falconer), is rewarkably similar to elecam he both in external appearance and structure. Costus is an impo pice, incense and medicine in the east from the antiquity down : a Inuling, St. Petersburg Wo ogePhie des 2 Wiggers and Husemann, Sahresberich See also Prant?’s pale ae for the 68. ite a this plant i ulin, as a tha d Hooker u stracted in Pharm, Journ, Sept. 1871. 269. with p moet RADIX PYRETHRI. 383 the present day; it would be of great interest to examine it chemically with regard to elecampane. RADIX PYRETHRI. Pellitory Root, Pellitory of Spain; F. Pyréthre salivaire; G. Bertram- wurzel. Botanical Origin—Anacylus Pyrethrum DC. (Anthemis Pyre- thrwm L..), a low perennial plant with small, much divided leaves, and a radiate flower resembling a large daisy. It is a native of northern Africa, especially Algeria, growing on the high plateaux that intervene between the fertile coast regions and the desert. History—The zvpeOpor of Dioscorides was an umbelliferous plant, the determination of which must be left to conjecture. The pellitory of modern times was familiar to the Arabian writers on medicine, one of whom, Ibn Baytar, describes it very correctly from specimens gathered by himself near the city of Constantine in Algeria. The plant, says he, called by the Berbers sandasab, is found nowhere but in Western Africa, from which region it is carried to other countries” _ Pellitory root is a favourite remedy in the East, and has long been an article of export by way of Egypt to India, An Arabic name for it is Adgarqarha or Akulkara’, a word which, under slight variations, is found in the principal languages of India. In Germany, pellitory was known as early as the 12th century ; it is named inthe oldest printed Works on materia medica. In the 13th century “pellitory of Spain (Pelydr ysbain) was a proved “remedy for the toothache” with the _ Welsh physicians.4 _ Description—The root as found in the shops is simple, 3 to 4 inches long by 2 to 4 of an inch thick, cylindrical, or tapering, some- times terminated at top by the bristly remains of leaves, and having | a only a few hair-like rootlets. It has a brown, rough, shrivelled surface, 1S compact and brittle, the fractured surface being radiate and destitute of pith. The bark, at most 1, of an inch thick, adheres closely to the Wood, a narrow zone of cambium intervening. The woody column is traversed by large medullary rays in which, as in the bark, numerous dark resin-ducts are scattered. The root has a slight aromatic smell, and a persistent, pungent taste, exciting a singular tingling sensation, a a remarkable flow of saliva. The drug is very liable to the attacks of insects, Microscopic Structure—The cortical part of this root is remark- able on account of its suberous layer, which is partly made up of scleren- chyme (thick-walled cells). Balsam-ducts (oil-cells) occur as well in the middle cortical layer as in the medullary rays. Most of the parenchy- * Matous cells are loaded with lumps of inulin; pellitory in fact is one of °se roots most abounding in that substance. Chemical Composition—Pellitory has been analysed by several * See Cooke, Pharm. Journ. viii. (1877) Rohlfs’ Archiv fiir Geschichte der Medicin 41; Flickiger, ibid Io 8) ag79) 942. ; ntheimer’s translation, ii. (1842) 179. : — Myddfai (see Appendix) 184. ayrearcha ; see Steinschneider, in 384 COMPOSIT A. chemists, whose labours have shown that its pungent taste is due in great part to a resin, not yet fully examined. The root also contains a little volatile oil besides, sugar, gum, and a trace of tannic acid. The so-called Pyrethrin is a mixed substance. Commerce—tThe root is collected chiefly in Algeria and is exported from Oran and toa smaller extent from Algiers. But from the informa- tion we have received from Colonel Playfair, British Consul-General for Algeria, and from Mr. Wood, British Consul at Tunis, it appears that the greater part is shipped from Tunis to Leghorn and Egypt. Mr. Wood was informed that the drug is imported from the frontier town _ of Tebessa in Algeria into the regency of Tunis, to the extent of 500 cantars (50,000 lb.) per annum. . Bombay imported in the year 1871-72, 740 ewt. of this drug, of which more than half was shipped to other ports of India.! Uses—Chiefly employed as a sialogogue for the relief of toothache, occasionally in the form of tincture as a stimulant and rubefacient. _ Substitute—In Germany, Russia and Scandinavia, African pellitory is replaced by the root of Anacyclus officinarwm Hayne, an annua herb long cultivated in Prussia and Saxony.’ Its root of a light grey 1s only half as thick as that of A. Pyrethrum, and is always abundantly provided with adherent remains of stalks and leaves. It is quite as pungent as that of the perennial species. FLORES ANTHEMIDIS. _ Chamomile Flowers ; F. Fleurs de Camomille Romaine; G. Romische ie Kamillen. Botanical Origin—Anthemis nobilis L., the Common or Roman Chamomile, a small creeping perennial plant, throwing up in the latter part of the summer solitary flower-heads. It is abundant on the commons in the neighbourhood of London, and generally throughout the south of England ; and extends to Treland, but is not a native of Scotland, except the islands of Bute and Cumbrae, where Anthemis is stated to grow wild. It is plentiful in the west and centre of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, and Dalmatia; and occurs as @ doubtful native in Southern and Central Russia. History—The identification of the chamomile in the classical and other ancient authors seems to be impossible, on account of the large number of allied plants having similar inflorescence. The chamomile has been cultivated for centuries in English gardens, the flowers being a common domestic medicine. The double variety was well known in the 16th century. . The plant was introduced, according to Gesner, into Germany aun >pain about the close of the middle ages. Tragus first designated ! amomilla nobilis? and Joachim Camerarius (1598), who bet © " Statement of the Trad Sas ; pilis) is fre- Of the Presid rade and Navigation many the epithet edel (=? desig- Dt. fi. 19, 9g -"Y Y% Bombay in 1871-72, quently used in popular botany to 2 . cinal-apgees information on the medi- may have been induced to hestow 4 ‘of its De. ¥; chats Anacyclus, see a paper by species under notice, on gue the 1858, tson In Bonplandia, 15 April superiority to A/atricaria Nae - . irpii - Y Chamomue De Stirpium . . ., 1559. 149.—In Ger- ates Common FLORES ANTHEMIDIS. go ee _ served its abundance near Rome, gave it the name of Roman Chamo- mile. Porta, about the year 1604,' states that 100 pounds of Flores Chamemeli yielded 2 drachmee of a green volatile oil: we suppose he distilled the flowers under notice. Production—The camomile is cultivated at Mitcham, near London, the land applied to this purpose being in 1864 about 55 acres, and the yield reckoned at about 4 ewt. per acre. The flowers are carefully gathered, and dried by artificial heat ; and fetch a high price in the market? The plant is grown on a large scale at Kieritzsch, between Leipzig and Altenburg, and near Zeiz and Borna, all in Saxony; and likewise to some extent in Belgium and France. Description—The chamomile flowers found in commerce are never those of the wild plant, but are produced by a variety in which the tubular florets have all, or for the greater part been converted into ligu- late florets. In the flowers of some localities this conversion has been. less complete, and such flowers having a somewhat yellow centre, are called by druggists Single Chamomiles; while those in which all the florets are ligulate and white, are known as Double Chamomiles. Chamomile flowers have the general structure found in the order Composite. They are } to 3 of an inch across, and consist of a hemi- spherical involucre about § of an inch in diameter, composed of a num- t of nearly equal bracts, scarious at the margin. The receptacle is solid, conical, about 4 of an inch in height, beset with thin, concave, lunt, narrow, chaffy scales, from the bases of which grow the numerous florets. In the wild plant, the outer of these, to the number of 12 or nore, are white, narrow, strap-shaped, and slightly toothed at the apex. & central or dise florets are yellow and tubular, with a somewhat ll-shaped summit from which project the two reflexed stigmas. In the cultivated plant, the ligulate florets predominate, or replace entirely the tubular. The florets which are wholly destitute of pappus are teflexed, so that the capitulum when dried has the aspect of a little white ball. Minute oil-glands are sparingly scattered over the tubular Portion of the florets of either kind. The flowers of chamomile, as well reg Sreen parts of the plant, have a strong aroma, and a very bitter In trade, dried chamomile flowers are esteemed in proportion as coor nt. ot large size, very double, and of a good white—the last sae quality being due in great measure to fine dry weather during the flowering period. Flowers that are buff or brownish, or only partially double, command a lower price. eee os Chemical Composition-——Chamomile flowers yield from 0° Fel cent, of essential oil? which is at first of a pale blue, but becomes *“owish-brown in the course of a few months. 4 “i At Mitcham, oil of chamomile is usually distilled from the cht Plant, after the best flowers have been gathered. The oil has a shade De distitlar; i ligi iven by Messrs. * About og one, Rome, 1608, 83. SaaeeAT a On. Lefoeis’ “The off dint miles bej per cwt., Foreign Chamo- as exainined in Prof 3ae mg worth from £3 to £4. by them w laboratory, Strassburg. 2B 386 ; COMPOSITA. of green, to remove which it is exposed to surlight; it thus acquires a brownish-yellow colour, at the same time throwing down a considerable deposit. PThe investigations of several chemists, performed in 1878-79 in Fittig’s laboratory, have shown the oil to contain the following con- stituents:—At 147-148° C. isobutylic ethers and hydrocarbons are distilling, at 177° angelicate of isobutyl, at 200°-201° angelicate of isamyl, at 204°-205° tiglinate of samy! (both these compound ethers answering to the formula C°H’0.OC°’H"). In the residual portion hexylic alcohol, C'-H“OH, and an alcohol of the formula C'’H150, are met with, both probably occurring in the form of compound ethers. By de- composing the angelicates and the tiglinate above named with potash, angelic acid, C°H°O*, and tiglinic (or methylcrotonic) acid, isomeric to the former, are obtained to the extent of about 30 or more per cent. of the crude oil. In the oil examined by Fittig, angelic acid was prevailing; from another specimen E. Schmidt (1879) obtained but very little of it, tiglinic acid was by far prevailing (see also article Oleum Crotonis). We have performed some experiments in order to isolate the bitter principle, but have not succeeded in obtaining it in a satisfactory state of purity ; it forms a brown extract, apparently a glucoside. We can also confirm the statement that no alkaloid is present. _ Uses—An infusion or an extract of chamomile is often used as & bitter stomachie and tonic. Adulteration and Substitution—The flower-heads of Matrican Chamomilla L., designated in Germany Common Chamomiles (gemeims Kamillen), are sometimes asked for in this country. In aspect as We as in odour, they are very different from the chamomiles of English pharmacy ; they are quite single, not bitter, and have the receptacle devoid of scales and hollow. . A cultivated variety of Chrysanthemum Parthenium Pers., oF Feverfew, with the florets all ligulate, and some scales on the receptae® (not having the receptacle naked, as in the wild form), common gardens,’ has flower-heads exceedingly like double chamomiles. But they may be distinguished from the latter by their convew or ee y fet receptacle, with the scales lanceolate and acute, and less membral- P The chamomiles of the Indian bazaars which are brought ay Parsia and known as Babiinah, are (as we infer from the stateme! One, le) the flowers of Matricaria suaveolens L., a slender form, “ar Viamomilla, growing in Southern Russia, Persia, Southern Si in — America. : she e fresh wild plant of Anthemis nobilis L., pulled up from _ ground, is sold in London for making extract, a proceeding highly prehensible supposing the extract to be sold for medicinal use. ‘ ideo semper plena in hortis occurrit, et aon palex receptaculi ex huxuriantestan"™ 5 in Chrysanthemi indico et sinenst+ » * ‘Is not this plant the Anthemi = h emis ? parthe- Teel Bernh., of which De Candolle sc bao me a, - - Simillima Mat. Par- henio, sed paleis inter flores instructa, Feré SANTONICA. — 387 SANTONICA. Flores Cine, Semen Cine,’ Semen Santonice, Semen Zedoarie, Semen Contra, Semen Sanctum ; Wormseed ; F. Semen-contra, Semencine, — Barbotine ; G. Wurmsamen, Zitwersamen. Botanical Origin—Artemisia maritima, var. a. Stechmanniana Besser? (A. Lercheana Karel. et Kiril, in Herbb. Kew, et Mus. Brit. ; * maritima var. a. pauciflora Weber, quoad Ledebour, Flor. Ross. ii. 570). Artemisie of the section Seriphidiwm assume great diversity of form:* they have been the object of attentive study on the part of the Russian botanists Besser (1 834-35) and Ledebour (1844-46), whose researches have resulted in the union of many supposed species, under the head of the Linnean Artemisia maritima. This plant has an extremely wide distribution in the northern hemisphere of the old world, occurring mostly in saltish soils. It is found in the salt marshes of the British Islands, on the coasts of the Baltic, of France and the Mediterranean, and on saline soils in Hungary and Podolia; thence it extends eastward, covering immense tracts in Southern Russia, the regions of the Caspian, and Central Siberia, to Chinese Mongolia. The particular variety which furnishes at least the chief part of the drug, is a low, shrubby, aromatic plant, distinguished by its very small, erect, ovoid flowerheads, having oblong, obtuse, involucral scales, the interior scales being scarious. The stem in its upper half 1s & pete, thyrsoid panicle, crowned with flowerheads. The localities for the plan are the neighbourhood of the Don, the regions of the lower Volga near Sarepta and Zaritzyn, and the Kirghiz deserts. : The drug, which consists of the minute, unopened flowerheads, is collected in large quantities, as we are informed by Bjorklund (1867), on the vast plains or steppes of the Kirghiz, in the northern part of Tur- kestan. It was formerly gathered about Sarepta, a German colony in the Government of Saratov, but from direct information we have (1872) Tecetved, it appears to be obtained there no longer, , € emporium for worm-seed is the great fair of Nishnei-Novgorod (July 15th to Aug. 27th), whence the drug is conveyed to Moscow, St. etersburg, and Western Europe. : cx Bo Wormseed is found in the Indian bazaars. A specimen received y Us from Bombay does not materially differ in form from the Russian drug, but is slightly shaggy and mixed with tomentose stalks. It is probably brought from Afghanistan and Cabul.* ikkomm’ has described, as mother-plant of wormseed, an "From the Italian semenzina, the diminu- specimen of A. Lercheana Karel. et Kiril. tive of semenza (seed). in the same herbarium. ; ae Bugs. Besser in Bulletin de la Soc. imp. 3 «© Si alise Artemisiz multtim variant, - Naturalistes de Moscou, vii, (1834) 31.— Seriphidia ss omnes -» Specimen of the plant i tion labelled superant. . . .— . “ in Rensurs hatidwritin ane Rian: p Artemisia No. 3201, nk dar Gum that it is collected for medicinal use, Afghanistan, in the Kew Herbarium Ken the Herbarium of the Royal Gardens, _eapitules precisely agreeing with this Bom- ew. J : # drug. ss t com letely agrees with the Se ef 5 situng, 1 Mirz1872. 130; Pharm. men inee f A, < merce, This reaark Appts ee aL. 72. 73. pl. ix. i COMPOSIT A. of the fresh root may be moistened. The root must be allowed to par- tially dry, but only till the milky juice coagulates ; the thin slice then — energetically absorbs the colouring matter. The tissue of the dried root is loaded with inulin, which does not occur in the solid form in the living plant. The woody part of taraxa- cum root is made up of large scalariform vessels accompanied by parenchymatous tissue, the former much prevailing. Chemical Composition—The fresh milky juice of dandelion is bitter and neutral, but it soon acquires an acid reaction and reddish brown tint, at the same time coagulating with separation of masses of what has been called by Kromayer (1861), Leontodoniwm. This chemist, by treating this substance with hot water, obtained a bitter solution yielding an active (?) principle to animal charcoal, from which it was removed by means of boiling spirit of wine. After the evaporation of the alcohol, Kromayer purified the liquid by addition of basic acetate of lead, saturation of the filtered solution with sulphuretted hydrogen and evaporation to dryness. The residue then yielded to ether an acrid resin, and left a colourless amorphous mass of intensely bitter taste, named by Kromayer T'arawacin. Polex (1839) obtained apparently the same principle in warty crystals; he simply boiled the milky juice with water and allowed the concentrated decoction to evaporate. The portion of the “ Leontodonium,” not dissolved by water, yields to aleohol a crystalline substance, Kromayer’s Taraxacerin, C°H"0._ It resembles lactucerin and has in alcoholic solution an acrid taste. How far the medicinal value of dandelion is dependent on the substances thus extracted, is not yet known. i Dragendorff (1870) obtained from the root gathered near Dorpat In October and dried at 100° C., 24 per cent. of Znulin and some sugar. The root collected in March from the same place yielded only 174 pet cent. of inulin, 17 of uncrystallizable sugar and 18°7 of Levulon. The last-named substance,discovered by Dragendorff, has the same composition as inulin, but dissolves in cold water; the solution tastes sweetish, and is devoid of any rotatory power. Inulin is often to be seen as a glisten- mg powder when extract of taraxacum is dissolved in water. ny T. and H. Smith of Edinburgh (1849) have shown that the juice ° the root by a short exposure to the air undergoes a sort of fermentation which Tesults in the abundant formation of Mannite, not a trace ° which is obtainable from the perfectly fresh root. Sugar which readily underwent the vinous fermentation was found by the same chemists ™ considerable quantity. . The leaves and stalks of dandelion (but not the roots) were found by armé (1864) to afford the Inosite, C7H"0'+2 OH’. fore fl he root collected in the meadows near Bern immediately aoe ton carefully washed and dried at 100° C,, yielded us 5°24 per pee 0! at » Which we found to consist of carbonates, phosphates, sulphates, and in smaller quantity also of chlorides, Uses—Taraxacum is much i ive and t ‘ : employed as a mild laxative @ especially in hepatic disorders, me | Adulteration—The roots of Leontodon hispidus L. (Common Hawk- : The reader who is n os : i] 13, 1872: ; ot famil t ‘ ; . Journ. Apt this process may refer to a paper oe Pook. a oe HERBA LACTUCA VIROSA, 395 bit) have oecasionally been supplied by fraudulent herb-gatherers in place of dandelion. Both plants have runcinate leaves, but those of hawkbit are hairy, while those of dandelion are smooth. The (fresh) root of the former is tough, breaking with difficulty and rarely exuding any milky juice.’ The dried root of dandelion is exceedingly liable to the attacks of maggots, and should not be kept beyond one season. HERBA LACTUCZ VIROS#. Prickly Lettuce; F. Laitue vireuse ; G. Giftlattich. Botanical Origin—Lactuca virosa L.,’ a tall herb occurring on stony ground, banks and roadsides, throughout Western, Central and Southern Europe. It is abundant in the Spanish Peninsula and in France, but in Britain is only thinly scattered, reaching its northern limit in the south-eastern Highlands of Scotland. History—The introduction of this lettuce into modern medicine is due to Collin (the celebrated physician of Vienna, mentioned in our article on Rad. Arnice, p. 390), who about the year 1771 recommended the inspissated juice in the treatment of dropsy. In long-standing cases, this extract was given to the extent of half an ounce aday.. _ The College of Physicians of Edinburgh inserted Lactuca virosa L. in their pharmacopcéia of 1792, while in England its place was taken by the Garden Lettuce, Z. sativa L. The Authors of the British Pharma- copwia of 1867 have discarded the latter, and directed that Extractum Lactuce shall be prepared by inspissating the juice of L. verosa. Description—The plant is biennial, producing in its first year depressed obovate undivided leaves, and in its second a solitary upright stem, 3 to 5 feet high, bearing a pinacle of small, pale yellow flowers, resembling those of the Garden Lettuce. The stem, which is cylindrical anda little prickly below, has scattered leaves growing horizontally; they are of a glaucous green, ovate-oblong, often somewhat lobed, auricled, clasping, with the margin provided with irregular spinescent teeth, and midrib white and prickly. The whole plant abounds in a bitter, milky Juice of strong, unpleasant, opiate smell. Chemical Composition—We are not aware of any modern chemical examination having been made of Lactuca virosa. The more important — constituents of the plant are those found in Lactucariwm, to the article on which the reader is referred. , Uses—The inspissated expressed juice of the fresh plant 1s reputed narcotic and diuretic, but is probably nearly inert. ‘Giles, Pharm. Journ. xi i but in most works on botany } : . xi, (1851) 107. Scariola L., but in wi b * Bentham unites this saat KG L they are maintained as distinct species. 396 COMPOSIT. LACTUCARIUM. Lactucarium, Lettuce Opium, Thridace ;' F. and G. Lactucariwn. Botanical Origin—The species of Lactuca from which lactucarium is obtained, are three or four in number, namely— 1. Lactuca virosa L,, described in the foregoing article. 2. L. Scariola L.,a plant very nearly allied to the preceding and perhaps a variety of it, but having the foliage less abundant, more glau- cous, leaves more sharply lobed, much more erect and almost parallel with the stem. It has the same geographical range as L. virosa. 3. L. altissima Bieb., a native of the Caucasus, now cultivated in Auvergne in France for yielding lactucarium. It is a gigantic herb, having when cultivated a height of 9 feet and a stem 1} inches in diameter. Prof. G. Planchon believes it to be a mere variety of L. Scariola L. 4. L. sativa L., the common Garden Lettuce.2 _ , History—Dr. Coxe of Philadelphia was the first to suggest that the Juice of the lettuce, collected in the same manner as opium is collected from the poppy, might be usefully employed in medicine. The result of his experiments on the juice which he thus obtained from the garden lettuce (L. sativa L.), and called Lettuce Opiwm, was published in 1799. The experiments of Coxe were continued some years later by Duncan, Young, Anderson, Scudamore and others in Scotland, and by Bidault de Villiers and numerous observers in France. The production of lactu- carium in Auvergne was commenced‘ by Aubergier, pharmacien of Clermont-Ferrand, about 1841. Secretion—All the green parts of the plant are traversed by 8 system of vessels, which when wounded, especially during the period of flowering, instantly exude a white milky juice. The stem, at first solid and fleshy but subsequently hollow, owes its rigidity to a circle of about 30 fibro-vascular bundles, each of which includes a cylinder of cambium. At the boundary between this tissue and the primary cortical paren chyme, is situated the system of milk-vessels, exhibiting on transvels¢ section a single or double circle of thin-walled tubes, the cavities which contain dark brown masses of coagulated juice. In longitu th section, they appear branched and transversely bound together, a5 12 © ; — of be etn The larger of these tubes, 35 nite t, correspond pretty regularly in position with the vascular Each of the latter is ies menaeated pote the pith by a band or arch of rag in the circumference of which isolated smaller milk-v The system of milk-vessels® is therefore double, belonging to va ym tne ‘The term Thridace is also a lied F , tracted to inarum, extrac’ jf oo of Lettuce. gu Papcher tcaaran or White P a € authors of the French Codex of Linneus,and that procured fromthe of the that form of then tee, Of Iactucarium sativa or Common cultivated Lettuce Oy beencalled b the = lettuce which has same author.—T'ransact. of 387 Maisch has ae eCandolle Lactuca capitata. Philosophical Society, iv. (1799) 394. elongata PA ero lactucarium from L, 4 Comptes Rendus, xv. (1842) ee tein in 1869, 148), (Am. Journ, of Pharm. 5 Beautifully delineated by ; sree Inquiry into the comparative effects of 2; the work referred to at p. 352, see ¥ also Trécul, Ann. des Sciences "4" LACTUCARIUM. 397 pith on the one side, and to the bark on the other, the two being sepa- rated by juiceless wood. The milk vessels of the bark are covered by only 2 to 6 rows of parenchyme cells of the middle bark, rapidly de- creasing in size from within outwards, and these are protected by a not very thick-walled epidermis. Hence it is easy to understand how the slightest puncture or incision may reach the very richest milk-cells. The drops of milky juice, when exposed to the air, quickly harden to small yellowish-brown masses, whitish within. Collection and Description—Lactucarium has been especially collected since about the year 1845, in the neighbourhood of the small town of Zell on the Mosel between Coblenz and Tréves in Rhenish Prussia. The introduction of this industry is due to Mr. Goeris, apothe- cary of that place, to whom we are indebted for the following informa- tion, and for some further particulars, to Mr. Meurer of Zell. The plant is grown in gardens, where it produces a stem only in its second year. In May just before it flowers, its stem is cut off at about a foot below the top, after which a transverse slice is taken off daily until September. The juice, which is pure white but readily becomes brown on the surface, is collected from the wounded top by the finger, and transferred to hemispherical earthen cups, in which it quickly hardens so that it can be turned out. It is then dried in the sunshine until it can be cut into four pieces, when the drying is completed by exposure to the air for some weeks on frames. ; -At Zell, 300 to 400 kilogrammes (661 to 882 ib.) of lactucarium are annually produced ; the whole district furnishes at best but 20 quintals annually, The price the drug fetches on the spot varies from 4 to 10 thalers per kilogramme (about 6s. to 14s. per tb.) In the Eifel district, where lactucarium was formerly collected, none is now produced. — As found in trade, German lactucarium consists of angular pieces formed as already described, but rendered more or less shrunken and irregular by loss of moisture and by fracture. Externally they are of a dull reddish brown, internally opaque and wax-like, and when recent, of a creamy white. By exposure to the air, this white becomes yellow and then brown. Lactucarium has a strong unpleasant odour, suggestive of optum, and a very bitter taste. : e lactucarium produced by Aubergier of Clermont-Ferrand is of excellent quality, but does not appear to differ from that obtained on the Mosel, except that it is in circular cakes about 12 inches in diameter, instead of in angular lumps. Scotch lactucarium, which was formerly the only sort found in the market, is still (187 2) met with. Mr. Fairgrieve, who produces it in the neighbourhood of Edinburgh, collects the juice into little tin vessels, in Which it quickly thickens ; it isthen turned out and dried with a gentle heat, the drug being broken up as the process of drying goes on. It is thus obtained in irregular earthy-looking lumps of @ deep brown hue, of which the larger may be about an inch in length. In smell, it exactly resembles the drug collected on the Continent.’ : We have also before us Austrian lactucarium, prepared at Waidhofen (1866) 69; Di ; i f Scotch lactucarium col- saflgefiisse ppel, ZEntstehung der Milch- for a specimen OF * ftisse, R i bout the year 1844, and to Messrs. li. acai S eaneers es: eae Smith for a sample of Mr. Fair~ "We are indebted to Mr. H.C, Baildon _grieve’s article. 398 COMPOSITA. on the Thaya, where about 35 kilogrammes are annually produced. It is in fine tears of vigorous smell, We are unacquainted with Russian lactucarium, which has been quoted at a very high price in some continental lists. Chemical Composition—Lactucarium is a mixture of very different organic substances, together with 8 to 10 per cent. of inorganic matter. It is not completely taken up by any solvent, and when heated merely - softens but does not melt. Nearly half the weight of lactucarium con- sists of a substance called Lactucerin or Lactucon, which in our opinion ' is closely allied to if not identical with similar substances occurring in numerous milky juices. Lactucerin as afforded by the drug under ex- amination is probably a mixture of several bodies. It may be obtained by exhausting lactucarium with boiling alcohol sp. gr. 0°830; it is deposited in crystals, which when duly purified have the form of slender colourless, microscopic needles. Lactucerin is an inodorous, tasteless substance, insoluble in water, but dissolving in ether and in oils both fixed and volatile, not quite so readily either in benzol, or in bisulphide of carbon. We found it to melt at 232° C. and to agree with the formula C*H™O ; Franchimont (1879) assigns to it the formula C“H"0, melting point 296°. : Euphorbon (see Euphorbium), echicerin (see Cortex Alstonie), taraxacerin (p. 394), the eynanchol, C“H*O, extracted in 1875 by Buttleroff from Cynanchum acutum L. are remarkably analogous to lactucerin. ‘ Iu the lactucarium of Zell, we further met with a large amount of a substance which is readily soluble in bisulphide of carbon. It 1s a0 amorphous mass, melting below 100°, separating from alcohol as @ syrupy mass. Cold alcohol, as well as boiling water, takes out of lactucarium about 03 per cent. of a crystallizable bitter substance, Lactucin, C™H"0'H0, which although it reduces alkaline cupric tartrate, is not a glucoside. It may be best obtained by means of dialyse. Lactucin forms white pearly scales, readily soluble in acetic acid, but insoluble in ether. loses its bitterness when treated ‘with an alkali. ase From the mother-liquors’ that have yielded lactuein, Ludwig, ™ 1847, obtained Lactucic Acid, as an amorphous light yellow mass, becoming crystalline after long standing. Lastly lactuearium as further afforded in small quantity an amorphous substance nat Lactucopicrin, CH#H"O, apparently produced from lactucin by ox tion ; it is stated by Kromayer (1862) to be soluble in water or aleoho!, and to be very bitter. : Of the widely diffused constituents of plants, lactucarium —_— caoutchoue (40-50 per cent), gum, oxalie, citric, malic and succinic a” Sugar, Mmannite, and asparagin, together with potassium, calcium magnesium salts of nitric and phosphoric acids. We obtained crys f . nitrate of potassium by concentrating the aqueous decoction . evermiee On distillation with water, a volatile oil having the odou oF lactucarium passes over in very small quantity. . oe soporific powers universally ascribed in ancient ea phe lettuce are supposed to exist in a concentrated form in “this carlum. Yet numerous experiments have failed to show t HERBA LOBELLA. : 399 substance possesses more than very slight sedative properties, if indeed it is not absolutely inert.’ LOBELIACEA, HERBA LOBELI£. Lobelia, Indian Tobacco ; F. Lobelie enflée; G. Lobeliakraut. Botanical Origin—Lobelia inflata L., an annual herb, 9 to 18 inches high, with an angular upright stem, simple or more frequently branching near the top, widely diffused throughout the eastern part of North America from Canada to the Mississippi, growing in neglected fields, along roadsides, and on the edges of woods, and thriving well in European gardens. History—Lobelia inflata was described and figured by Linnzeus? from specimens cultivated by him at Upsala about 1741, but he does hot attribute to the plant any medicinal virtues. The aborigines of North America made use of the herb, which from this circumstance and its acrid taste, came to be called Indian Tobacco. In Europe it was noticed by Schopf,* but with little appreciation of its powers. In America it has long been in the hands of quack doctors, but its value in asthma was set forth by Cutler in 1813. It was not employed in England until about 1829, when, with several other remedies, it was introduced to the medical profession by Reece.* Description—The leaves are 1 to 3 inches long, scattered, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, rather acute, obscurely toothed, somewhat pubescent. The edge of the leaf bears small whitish glands, and between theni isolated hairs which are more frequent on the under than on the upper surface, They are usually in greater abundance on the lower and _ iniddle portions of the stem. _ The stem of the growing plant exudes when wounded a small quan- tity of acrid milky juice, contained in laticiferous vessels running also into the leaves, The inconspicuous blossoms are arranged in a many- owered, terminal, leafy raceme. The five-cleft, bilabiate corolla is bluish with a yellow spot on the under lip, its tube being as long as © somewhat divergent limb of the calyx. é he capsule is ovoid, inflated, ten-ribbed, crowned by five elongated Sepals which are half as long as the ripe fruit. The latter 1s two-celled, and contains a large number of ovate-oblong seeds about 5'5 of an inch 0 length, having a reticulated, pitted surface. e herb found in commerce is in the form of rectangular cakes, to 1} inches thick, consisting of the yellowish-green chopped herb, Compressed as it would seem while still moist, and afterwards neatly 1geen, ; ~ 868) Fa apeutics and Mat. Med. i. 2 Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal. 1746. azett Garrod 9 ; 23. : in nig March, 1864), gave Pedi oes 3 Mat. Med. Americana, Erlange, 1787. ™m doses, t ; 128. rs saga being 2 le iceaveuak it ’ Treatise on the Bladder-podded Lobelia, hypnotis, effect either as an anodyne or _—_ Lond. 1829. Ge ae LOBELIACEZ Si trimmed. The.cakes arrive wrapped in paper, sealed up and bearing the label of some American druggist or herb-grower. Lobelia has a herby smell and, after being chewed, a burning acrid taste resembling that of tobacco. Chemical Composition—Lobelia has been examined by Procter, - Pereira (1842), Reinsch (1843), Bastick (1851), also by F. F. Mayer: The first-named chemist’ traced the activity of the plant to an alkaloid which he termed Lobelina, and his observations were confirmed by the independent experiments of Bastick.? Lewis (1878) obtained it by mixing the drug with charcoal and exhausting the powder with water containing a little acetic acid. The liquid is cautiously evaporated to the consistency of an extract and triturated with magnesia, from the excess of which the aqueous solution of lobeline is separated by filtra- tion. It is agitated with amylic alcohol (or ether), which by spontane- ous evaporation affords the alkaloid. The latter is again dissolved in water and filtered through animal charcoal; from the dried powder lobeline is to be removed by ether. : Lobeline is an oily, yellowish fluid with a strong alkaline reaction, especially when in solution. In the pure state it smells slightly of the plant, but more strongly when mixed with ammonia. Its taste 1s pungent and tobacco-like, and when taken in minute doses, it exercises in a potent manner the poisonous action of the drug. Lobeline is to some extent volatile, but its decomposition begins when it is heated to 100°C. either pure or in presence of dilute acids or caustic alkalis. Lobeline dissolves in water, but more readily in alcohol or ether, the latter of which is capable of removing it from its aqueous solution. neutralizes acids, forming with some of them crystallizable salts, soluble in water or alcohol. The herb likewise contains traces of essential oil (the Lobelanim of Pereira ?), resin and gum. The seeds afforded Procter about 30 per cent. of fixed oil, sp. gr. 0-940, which was found to dry very rapidly. The Lobeliin of Reinsch appears to be an indefinite compound. : _ In 1871 Enders at our request performed some researches on Lobelia in order to isolate the acrid substance to which the herb owes its taste. He exhausted the drug with spirit of wine and distilled the liquid ™ presence of charcoal, which then retained the acrid principle. The ¢ 7 coal was washed with water, and then treated with boiling alcoho’ S on evaporation yielded a green extract, which was further pu ‘ by means of chloroform. Warty tufts were thus finally obtained, ye always of a brownish colour. The tufts are readily soluble in ether a0 chloroform, but only slightly in water; they possess the acrid taste | see This substance, which we may term Lobelacrin, is dee iM merely boiled with water; by the influence of alkalis or acids 1 resolved into sugar and Lobelic Acid, The latter is soluble in ethe water, and alcohol, and is non-volatile ; it yields a soluble salt w aryum oxide, whereas its plumbic salt is insoluble in water. _, of Lewis suggests that lobelacrin is nothing else than lobeliate : t I Ff lobeline, which he believes to exist ready formed in the plant. From 1 American Ji ‘i sii, (1888) 983 (1866) 2005; also Jahrebers am kzEt. Am. Journ, of Pharm 1 95 di sbericht of Wi ii . am. Journ. and Husemann, 1866, 252. — Mer — § ebae : (1851) 270. EL ’ FOLIA UV URSL - aoe decoction of the drug, on addition of sulphate of copper, lobeliate of copper is precipitated. By decomposing the latter with sulphuretted hydrogen, concentrating the-solution and shaking it with warm ether, Lewis obtained a yellow solution affording on evaporation a crystalline mass of lobelic acid. Uses—Lobelia is a powerful nauseating emetic; in large doses an acro-narcotic poison. It is prescribed in spasmodic asthma. ERICACEA. FOLIA UV URSI. Bearberry Leaves ; ¥. Feuilles de Busserole ; G. Barentraubenblitter. _ Botanical Origin— Arctostaphylos Uva-ursi Sprengel (A.officinalis Wimmer et Grabowsky, Arbutus Uva-wrsi L.), a small, procumbent, evergreen shrub, distributed over the greater part of the northern hemisphere. It occurs in North America, Iceland, Northern Europe, and Russian Asia, and on the chief mountain chains of Central and Southern Europe. In Britain it is confined to Scotland, the north of England, and Ireland. History—The bearberry was used in the 13th century by the Welsh “Physicians of Myddfai,” described by Clusius in 1601, and recommended for medicinal use in 1763 by Gerhard of Berlin and ae It had a place in the London Pharmacopeeia for the first time in ; _Description—The leaves are dark green, } to 1 inch in length by ¢ to 8 of an inch in breadth, obovate, rounded at the end, gradually narrowed into a short petiole. They are entire, with the margin a little teflexed, and in the young state slightly pubescent, otherwise the whole leaf is smooth, glabrous, and coriaceous; the upper surface shining, deeply impressed with a network of veins; the under minutely reticu- lated with dark veins? The leaves have a very astringent taste, and when powdered a tea-like smell. 3 _ Chemical Composition—Kawalier (1852) has shown that a decoc- tion of bearberry crogead with basic acetate of lead yields a gallate of that metal, thus proving that gallic acid exists ready-formed in the leaves. When the filtrate, freed from lead by sulphuretted hydrogen, is Properly concentrated, it deposits acicular crystals of Arbutin, a bitter eyo aauag easily soluble in hot water, less so in cold, dissolving alcohol, but sparingly in ether. ; Sia By contact for ee days with emuslin, or by boiling with dilute Sulphuric acid, arbutin is resolved, according to Hlasiwetz and Haber- mann (1875), as follows :-— OH.OCES C*H*0™ 2 C6206 , 4(QOH)2 . CSH*(OH. Sofia —— phot vee Methyl-hydrokinone. Yet possibly arbutin is a mixture of the glucoside compounds of th hydrokinone and methyl-hydrokinone. 2 Microscopic structure of the leaves, see Pocklington, Dior. Journ. v. (1874) 301. 20 1 (1794) guys, APParatus Medicaminum, ii. - 402 - -ERICACEA. By heating arbutin with peroxide of manganese and dilute sulphuric acid, on the other hand, Kinone, C°H*O’, and formic acid are produced. If a concentrated decoction of the leaves is allowed to stand for some months, a decomposition of the arbutin takes place, and a certain quan- tity of hydrokinone can be isolated by shaking the liquid with ether. Arbutin is apparently widely distributed among the plants belong- ing to the order Ericaceze. Maisch in 1874 showed it to occur in Arctostaphylos glauca Swindley, Gaultheria procumbens L. (Winter- green) and several other allied American plants. Kennedy (1875) isolated arbutin from Kalmia latifolia L. (Spoonwood), where it occurs in smaller quantity than in bearberry leaves. Kinic acid (see p. 363) is probably absent in all these plants con- taining arbutin. _ Uloth (1859) had already noticed pyrocatechin (p. 244) and hydro- kinone among the products of the distillation of an aqueous extract of bearberry leaves. Arbutin itself also yields hydrokinone by means - peat distillation. Hydrokinone forms colourless crystals, melting at _ In the mother liquor from which the arbutin has crystallized, there remains a small quantity of the very bitter substance called Ericolin, occurring in greater abundance in Calluna, Ledum, Rhododendron, and other Hricacee. LEricolin is an amorphous yellowish mass, softening at 100° C. and resolved, when heated with dilute sulphuric acid, into sugar and Hricinol, a colourless, quickly resinifying oil of a peculiar, not disagreeable odour; its composition’ agrees with the formula C"H"O. The same, or C*H™O%, is to be assigned to Ursoné, whic H. Trommsdorff, in 1854, obtained from bearberry leaves by exhausting them with ether (in which however it is but slightly soluble). Urs 1s a colourless and tasteless erystallizable substance. It melts at 200 C, Wl and sublimes apparently unchanged. Tonner (1866) met with itin the leaves of an Australian Epacris, a plant of the same order as the bearberry. ee Lastly, tannic acid is present in the leaves under notice; their aqueous infusion is nearly colourless, but assumes a violet hue on addi- tion of ferrous sulphate. After a short time a reddish precipitate * produced, which quickly turns blue. By using ferric chloride, @ blus a precipitate immediately separates. walled dulteration—The leaves of Vacciniwm Vitis-idea L., @™ Red Whortleberry or Cowberry, have been confounded with those of bearberry, which in form they much resemble. But they ate bait distinguished by being somewhat crenate towards the apex, dotted © reticulate on the under surface and more revolate at the marg!. Uses—An astringent tonic used chiefly in affections of the bladder. ? Gmelin, Chemistry, xvi. (1864) 28. | | FRUCTUS DIOSPYRL =——i(ws—CS~=«iS EBENACE. FRUCTUS DIOSPYRI. Indian Persimmon. Botanical Origin—Diospyros Embryopteris Pers, (Embryopteris glutinifera Roxb.), a middle-sized or large evergreen tree, native of the western coast of India, Ceylon, Bengal, Burma, Siam, and also Java.’ History—The tree, which is mentioned in the earliest epic poems of the Sanskrit literature under the name of tinduka,? was also known about the year 1680 to Rheede, and was figured in his Hortus Mala- baricus.® The circumstance that the unripe fruit abounds in an astrin- gent viscid juice which is used by the natives of India for daubing the bottoms of boats, was communicated by Sir William Jones to Roxburgh in 1791. The introduction of the fruit into medicine, which is due to O’Shaughnessy,' has been followed by its admission to the Pharmacopweww of India, 1868. Description—The fruit is usually solitary, subsessile or pedun- culate, globular or ovoid, 1} to 2 inches long, and as much as 1} inch in diameter, surrounded at the base by a large and deeply 4-lobed calyx. It is of a yellowish colour, covered with a rusty tomentum ; internally it is pulpy, 6- to 10-celled, with thin flat solitary seeds. The fruit is used only in the unripe and fresh state; the pulp is then excessively astringent. At maturity, in the month of April near Bombay, the fruit becomes eatable, but is very little appreciated. Chemical Composition—No analysis has been made of this fruit, but there can be no doubt that in common with that of other species of Diospyros, it is, when immature, rich in tannic acid. Charropin (1873),° who has examined the fruit of the American D. virginiana L., found it to contain a tannic acid which he considered identical with that of nutgalls, besides an abundance of pectin, glucose, and a yellow colouring matter insoluble in water but dissolving freely in ether. _ Uses—The inspissated juice has been recommended as an astringent in diarrhoea and chronic dysentery. STYRACEZ. RESINA BENZOE. Benzoinum ; Benzoin, Gum Benjamin; ¥F. Benjown; : oo ; der, a tree of moderate , Botanical Origin—Styrax Benzow Dryan d beautiful crown of eight, with stem as thick as a man’s body an G. Benzotharz.® Fig. i i ini d Javanese is termed Pa oe are and Trimen, Med. ye oe en Fe ccyth, abbre- ‘ 7). mafian, 1 Ly * As we learn from Dr. Rice.—Prof. viated to ma@fan and mifan (Crawfurd) ; it Dymock (1876) gives Ti - YinTled in Siamese kom-yan or kan-yan ; ba oar ) gives V’imbooree as the Bom Z po ese ngdn-ai-hidng. ze Tom. iii, tab. 41, The name Benzoin 18 also applied te “es ; Bengal Dispensatory, Calcutta, 1842.428, beautiful prisms Cc si om ae wl Etude sur ie Plaqueminier (Diospyros), treating Bitter Almon wi thése, Paris, 1873. 28-30. ~ holic solution of potash. a. STYRACHA. ‘Sugar. foliage, indigenous to Sumatra and Java, in the first of which islands benzoin is produced. The tree yielding the superior benzoin of Siam, though commonly referred to this species, has never been examined botanically, and is actually unknown. The French expedition for the exploration of the Mekong and Cochin China (1866-68), reported the drug to be produced in the cassia-yielding forests on the eastern bank of the river in question in about N. lat. 19°. Whether any benzoin is obtained from 8S. Finlay- . soniana Wall, as conjectured by Royle, we know not. History—There is no evidence that the Greeks and Romans, or even the earlier Arabian physicians, had any acquaintance with benzoin; nor is the drug to. be recognized among the commodities which were conveyed to China by the Arab and Persian traders between the 10th and 13th centuries, though the camphor of Sumatra is expressly named. The first mention of benzoin known to us (disregarding the word _ kalanusari, which in the St. Petersburg Dictionary is given as the old Sanskrit name of benzoin) occurs in the travels of Ibn Batuta,* who having visited Sumatra during his journey through the Hast, AD. 1325-49, notes that the island produces Java Frankincense and cam- _ phor, The word Java was at that period a designation of Sumatra, 0° _ was even used by the Arabs to signify the islands and productions 0 the Archipelago generally.’ Hence came the Arabic name Lubdn Shut, Le. Java Frankincense, corrupted into Banjawi, Benjui, Benz, Benzoé and Benzoin, and into the still more vulgar English Benjamim We have no further information about the drug until the latter h of the following century, when we find a record that in 1461 the sultan of Egypt, Melech Elmaydi, sent to Pasquale Malipiero, doge of Vemiee, a present of 30 rotoli of Benzoi, 20 rotoli of Aloes Wood, two pais of Carpets, a small flask of balsam (of Mecca), 15 little boxes of Theriaka, 42 loaves of Sugar, 5 boxes of Sugar Candy, a horn of Civet, and 20 pieces of Porcelaint Agostino Barberigo, another doge of Venice, was presented in a similar manner in 1490 by the sultan of Egypt with 35 rotoli of Aloes Wood, the same quantity of Benzui and 100 loaves of Among the precious spices sent from Egypt in 1476 to o—_ Cornaro, queen of Cyprus, were 10 1b. of Aloes Wood and 10 ge Benzwi.’ These notices indicate the high value set upon the when first brought to Europe. p The occurrence of benzoin in Siam is noticed in the journal oe voyage of Vasco da Gama,’ where, in enumerating the kingdoms 3 India, it is stated that Xarnaux (Siam*) yields much benzoin wo ‘ eruzados, and aloes worth 25 eruzados per farazola. According sail SO salah suggests that the Mala- 5 L, de Mas Latrie, Hist. de Vile de og of the ancients is possibly benzoin, Chypre, ete. iii. (1861) 483. =a ig of Indian Islands, 1856. 50. oneh iti. 406, fe oyages @Ibn Batoutah, traduit par 1 Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da ws pagar Aa Sanguinetti, Paris, 1853-59, em 1497, par Herculano e 0 Bardo 1861. "3 Yule, Be de Paiva, segunda edigso, Lisbo™ 99g, ie Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii, (1871) 109. g eo « Muratori, 2. The Roteiro is also found in Pir xxii. (1733) " erum Italicarum Seriptores, Documente zur Geschichte der asst’ avoindupsak 1170.—100° rotoli = 175 Ib. Halle, 1876. 13. : 8 Yule, op, cit, ii, 222. +. RESINA BENZOE. 7 405 same record, the price of benzoin (beijoim) in Alexandria was 1 eruzado per arratel, half the value of aloes wood. The Portuguese traveller Barbosa’ visited in 1511 Calicut on the Malabar Coast, and found Benzwi to be one of the more valuable items of export, one farazola (22 tb. 6 oz.) costing 65 to 70 fanoes ; camphor fetched nearly the same price, and mace only 25 to 30 fanoes. From other sources we gather that benzoin was an article of Venetian trade in the beginning of the 16th century. Garcia de Orta, writing at Goa (1563), was the first to give a lucid and intelligent account of benzoin, detailing the method of collection, and distinguishing the drug of Siam and Martaban from that produced in Java and Sumatra. It began then to be regularly imported into Europe,” being frequently called Asa dulcis. The chemists of that time submitted it, like many other substances, to dry distillation. Benzoic acid occasionally separating from the oily products (‘“olewm. Benzoés”) was noticed already by Nostredame,? Rosello,! Liebaut,’ Blaise de Vigenére,’ and others. It was a common pharmaceutical preparation, under the name of Flores Benzoés, since the 17th century.7 : _ Inthe early part of the 17th century, there was direct commercial intercourse between England and both Siam and Sumatra, an English factory existing at Ayuthia (Siam) until 1623; and benzoin was doubt- less one of the commodities imported. The import duties levied upon it in England in 1635 amounted to 10s. per 1b.8 Production—Benzoin is collected in Northern and Eastern Sumatra, especially in the Batta country, lying southward of the state of Achin.» The tree grows in plenty also in the highlands of Palembang in the south and its resin is collected. It is chiefly on the coast regions that considerable plantations are found. Teysmannsaw the cultivation in the tracts of the river Batang Leko, the trees being planted about ; 15 feet apart.. The benzoin from the interior is mostly from wild trees, aia occur at the foot of the mountains at an elevation of 300 to 00 feet. The trees, which are of quick growth, are raised from seeds stown on the [edges of ?] rice-fields ; they require no particular attention beyond being kept clear of other plants, until about 6 or ~ years old, when they have trunks 6 to 8 inches in diameter, and Bh en Lc., page 14, 7 Flickiger, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1876) © Cardanus, Les’ Uores de la subtilité, 1022. Paris, 1556 (frst edition. 1560), page 160 _-§ The Rates of Marchandizes, London, . State: : 8“ . ‘ 7 5 S belzoi est de vil prix pour 1 iquel, Prodromus Flore Sumatrane, Yabondance.” * Excellent et moult utile opuscule a touts 1860. 723 Marsden, Hist. of Sumatra, necessaire qui desirent avoi: y de London, 1783. 123.—The latter author plusieurs Righies recapt, 1506. | vagided ‘at Bencoolen, as an official of the Alexii Pedemontani (or Hieron. English Government. ee Rosello), De secretis libri vi., Basil 1560, The statement of Crawfurd, ‘.c., : Page 107. if : benzoin is collected in Borneo *‘on ihe Quatre livres de secrets de medecine et northern coast in the ne at §, “a8 yr la philosophie chimique, Paris, 1579, to us inex licable. Mr. St. John, Britis e 146, ree Consul in Borneo, awe —— — on * Traicté du fen et du i ade of Brunai, dated from that place sel, Paris, 1622. the tr , , lage 80 Vigchtre apes“ diagpcty of 20 anuary 1958 cnumerates the, various .4mens ou aiguilles,” i.e. ‘als. —H uctions 0 ? Cini ee iime bensoin. é de - 406 eee STYRACEA. : are capable of yielding the resin. Incisions are then made in their stems, from which there exudes a thick, whitish, resinous juice, which soon hardens by exposure to the air, and is carefully scraped off with a knife. The trees continue to yield at the rate of about three pounds per annum for 10 or 12 years, after which period they are cut down. The resin which exudes during the first three years is said to be fuller of white tears, and therefore of finer quality, than that which issues sub- sequently, and is termed by the Malays Head Benzoin. That which flows during the next 7 or 8 years, is browner in colour and less valuable, and is known as Belly Benzoin; while a third sort, called Foot, is obtained by splitting the tree and scraping the wood; this last is mixed with much bark and refuse.’ Benzoin is brought for sale to the ports of Sumatra in large eakes called Tampangs, wrapped in matting. These have to be broken, and softened either by the heat of the sun or by that of boiling water, and then packed into square cases which the resin is made to fill. _ The only account of the collection of Siam Benzoin is that given by Sir R. H. Schomburgk, for some years British Consul at Bangkok.* He represents that the bark is gashed all over, and that the resin which exudes, collects and hardens between it and the wood, the former of which is then stripped off. This account is con- firmed by the aspect of some of the Siam benzoin of commerce as well as by that of pieces of bark in our possession; but it is also evident that all the Siam drug is not thus obtained. Schomburgk adds, that the resin is much injured and broken during its convey” ance in small baskets on bullocks’ backs to the navigable parts of the Menam, whence it is brought down to Bangkok.’ ___ Whether benzoin owes its original fluidity to a volatile oil hold- ing the resin in solution, and its solidification to the volatilization of this oil, or whether the resin itself hardens by oxidation,—what oceasions the remarkable diversity of aspect between the opaque am milk-like, and the completely transparent resin, are questions investigated by some future observer, Description—Benzoin (always termed in English commerce vers enjamn) is distinguished as of two kinds, Siam and Sumatra. Sort occurs in various degrees of purity, and under considerable _ differences of appearance, 1. Siam Benzoin—The most esteemed sort is that which consists entirely of flattened tears or dr i os ean : : ops, an inch or two long, of an opad Goren white resin, loosely agglutinated into a mass. More *¥, quently the mass is quite compact, consisting of a certain proportion ae tears of the size of an almond downwards, imbedded in a 4p “pre er, translucent resin, Occasionally the translucent resi? 8 erates, and the white tears are almost wanting. In som® ages, the tears of white resin are very small, and the whole mass 1 The terms He d, Belly and Fi : : been derived valent gan elly and Foot, equi- 2Th t must have inferior Geneon Superior, medium ana from sahara, 406 ‘Sir R. H. Schombut the qualities of me post todistinguish never visited the region produ as Borneo Camphor, iis gre ag asoin, Vardamoms, Galbanum, Birds’-nests, 3 Pharm. Journ, iii, (1862) 126. RESINA BENZOE. pe has the aspect of a reddish-brown granite. There is always a certain admixture of bits of wood, bark, and other accidental impurities. The white tears when broken, display a stratified structure with layers of greater or less translucency. By keeping, the white milky resin becomes brown and transparent on the surface. Siam benzoin is very brittle, the opaque tears showing a slightly waxy, the transparent a glassy fracture. It easily softens in the mouth and may be kneaded with the teeth like mastich. It has a delicate balsamic, vanilla-like, fragrance, but very little taste. When heated it evolves a more powerful fragrance, together with the irritating fumes of benzoic acid ; its fusing point is 75° C. The presence of benzoic acid may be shown by the microscopical examination of splinters of the resin under oil of turpentine. Siam benzoin is imported in cubic blocks, which takes their form oy ie wooden ¢ases in which they are packed while the resin is still soft. _ 2. Sumatra Benzoin—Prior to the renewal of direct commercial - intercourse with Siam in 1853, this was the sort of benzoin most com- monly found in commerce. It is imported in cubic blocks exactly like the preceding, from which it differs in its generally greyer tint. The mass however, when the drug is of good quality, contains numerous opaque tears, set In a translucent, greyish-brown resin, mixed with bits of wood and_ bark. When less good, the white tears are wanting, and the proportion of impurities is greater. We have even seen samples consisting almost wholly of bark. In odour, Sumatra benzoin is both weaker and less agreeable than the Siam drug, and generally falls short of it in purity and handsome appearance, and hence commands a much lower price. The greyish-brown portion melts at 95°, the tears at 85° C. A variety of Sumatra benzoin is distinguished by the London drug- brokers as Penang Benjamin or Storaa-smelling Benjamin. We have seen it of very fine quality, full of white tears (some of them two inches long), the intervening resin being greyish.” The odour is very agree- able, and perceptibly different from that of Siam benzoin, or the usual Sumatra sort. Whether this drug is produced: in Sumatra and by Styrax Benzoin we know not ; but it is worthy of note that S. subden- ticulata, Miq., occurring in Western Sumatra, has the same native name (Kajoe Kéminjan) as S. Benzoin, and that Miquel remarks of it—“ An etiam benzoiferwm ?”® : Chemical Composition—Benzoin consists mainly of Lae idginty resins perfectly soluble in alcohol and in potash, having slightly aci ; properties, and differing in their behaviour to solvents. If two parts o the drug are boiled with one part of caustic lime and 20 parts ot water, benzoin acid is removed. ‘From the residue the excess of lime is dissolved by hydrochloric acid, and the remaining resin washed and dried. About one-third of them will be found readily soluble in ether, the prevailing portion dissolves in alcohol, and a small amount remains undissolved. ‘In the Public Ledger, May 2, 1874, the 2 There were 8 cases of this drug offered prices are quoted thus :—Si ‘ - at Public Sale, 13 April 1871. Jamin, Ist rte 2nd pac pec sar 3 Prod. Flore Sumatrane, 1860, 474. ewt.; Sumatra, Ist and 2nd, £7 10s. to £12. ee STYRACEA. By distilling the resin of benzoin with ten times its weight of zine dust, Ciamician (1878) chiefly obtained toluol, C°H'(CH’), Subjected to dry distillation, benzoin affords as chief product Benzoic Acid, C’H’O", together with empyreumatic products, among which Berthelot has proved the presence (in Siam benzoin) of Styrol (p. 274). The latter has been obtained in 1874 by Theegarten from Sumatra benzoé by distilling it with water. When the resin is fused with potash, it is partly decomposed and then, according to Hlasiwetz and Barth (1866), yields among other products, protocatechuie acid (more than 5 per cent.), C°H*(OH)?COOH, para-oxybenzoic acid, C*H*(OH)COOH, and pyrocatechin, C°H*(OH)*. Benzoic acid exists ready-formed in the drug to the extent of 14 to 18 per cent.’ Although the acid dissolves in 12 parts of boiling water, the resin in which it is imbedded precludes its complete extraction by this means. It is however easily accomplished by the aid of an alkali, most advantageously by milk of lime, which does not combine with the amorphous resins. s _ Benzoin is not manifestly acted on by bisulphide of carbon, but if kept in contact with it fora month or two, very large colourless erystals of benzoic acid make their appearance. Brought into a warm room, the crystals quickly dissolve, but are easily reproduced by exposure to cold. Most pharmacopceias require not the inodorous acid obtained by & wet process, but that afforded by sublimation, which contains a sm _ amount of fragrant empyreumatic products. The resin, when repeatedly subjected to sublimation, affords as much as 14 per cent, of benzoic acid. It has long been known that the opaque white tears of benzoin are less _Tich in benzoic acid than the transparent brown resin in which they lie. From the latter, 8. W. Brown (1833) extracted 13 per cent. of impure acid, but from the former scarcely 8} per cent. We are by no means sure that such difference is constant, : : __ Bitter almond oil, which by oxidation yields benzoic acid, is wanting in benzoin. Very little volatile oil is in fact to be got; half a pound 4 E best Penang benzoin yielded us by distillation with water only 4 ew Pe of an extremely fragrant oil (styrol?), k erric chloride imparts to an alcoholic solution of benzoin a dar ssoyrush green, which is not acquired under the same circumstances by he aqueous decoction of the powdered resin. Benzoin dissolves 10 © oil of vitriol, forming a solution of splendid carmine hue, from W water separates crystals of benzoic acid. _ Kolbe and Lautemann in 1860 discovered in Siam and Penang bet zon together with benzoic acid, an acid of different constitution, whl¢ foaen, hey Tecognized as Cinnamie Acid, C°H°O?, Aschoff (1861) ound in a sample of Sumatra benzoin, cinnamic acid only, of which ae Got Il per cent; and in amygdaloid Siam and Penang benzoin only oogsenhane In some samples of the latter, one of us (F.) has likewis® aKa ae ema acid. On triturating this sort with peroxide of 4G erat ling the mixture with water the odour of bitter-almond oil, 4 the oxidation of cinnamic acid, is evolved. © Simultaneous occurrence of benzoic and cinnamic acids, ot th? ‘—e icamearie pical ‘ak hap (1878) at- they have not shown with which saber: | present in the form of a Sct aot it is combined in the drug. MANN ACS ee absence of one or other of them in benzoin, is due to circumstances at present unexplained. Rump is of the opinion that the last-named acid exclusively is present in the Penang (or Sumatra) benzoin and that no variety of the drug contains both those acids. Rump (1878) treated Siam benzoic with caustic lime (see p. 407), precipitated the benzoic acid with hydrochloric acid, and agitated the liquid with ether. The latter on evaporating afforded a mixture of benzoic acid and Vamnillin (see article Vanilla). i Commerce—The statistics of Singapore, the great emporium of the commerce of the Indian Archipelago, show the imports of Gum Benjamin in 1871 as 7442 ewt., of which quantity 6185 ewt. had been shipped from Sumatra and 405 ewt. from Siam. In 1877 only 1871 peculs (2227 ewts.) were exported from Singapore. Penang, which is also a mart for this drug was stated in 1871 to have received from Sumatra for trans-shipment, 4959 ewt. of Gum Benjamin. , Padang in Sumatra exported in 1870, 4303 peculs (5122 ewt.); and in 1871, 4064 peculs (4838 cwt.) of benzoin.? The imports of Gum Benjamin into Bombay in the year 1871-72 were no less than 5975 ewt., and the exports 1048 ewt.’ Uses—Benzoin appears to be nearly devoid of medicinal properties, and is but little employed. It is chiefly imported for use as incense In the service of the Greek Church. OLEACEA. MANNA. | Manna; F. Manne ; G. Manna. Botanical Origin—Fravinus Ornus L. (Ornus ewropea Pers.), the Manna-ash, isa small tree found in Italy, whence it extends northwards as far as the Canton of Tessin in Switzerland and the Southern Tyrol. It also occurs in Hungary (Buda) and the eastern coasts of the Adriatic, in Greece, Turkey (Constantinople), in Asia Minor about Smyrna and at alia on the south coast. It grows in the islands of Sicily, Sardinia | and Corsica, and is found in Spain at Moxente in Valencia.” As an ornamental tree it has been introduced into Central Europe, where it 1s often seen of creater dimensions, sometimes acquiring a height of about 30 feet. It blossoms in early summer, producing numerous feathery panicles of dull white flowers which give it a pleasing appearance. The foliage exhibits great variation in shape of leaflets, even where the tree 18 uncultivated ; and the fruits also are very diverse n form. In some districts of Sicily, a little manna is obtained from the Common Ash, F. excelsior L. History—The name Manna, though originally applied to the ali- ment Miraculously provided for the sustenance of the ancient Israelites vite Book for the Colony of the Straits of the Presidency of Bombay for 1871-72, _ ettlements, Singapore, 1872. pt. ii. 26. 79. : 3 Consular Reports, August 1873. 953. 4 Fraxinus Bungeana DC., a phe Statement of the Trade and Navigation | Northern China, appears to be hardly dis- tinct from F, Ornus. HO ~ = OLEACEA! 3 during their journey to the Holy Land, has been used to designate other substances of distinct nature and origin. Of these, the best known and most important is the saccharine exudation of Fraainus Ornus L, which constitutes the Manna of European medicine. It appears evident* that previous to the 15th century, the manna ‘coh Europe was imported from the East and was not that of the ash. Raffaele Maffei, called also Volaterranus, a writer who flourished in the second half of the 15th century, states that manna began to be gathered ~ in Calabria in his time, but that it was inferior to the oriental.’ At this period the manna collected was that which exuded spontaneously from the leaves of the tree, and was termed Manna di foglia or Manna di fronda: that which flowed from the stem bore the name of Manna di corpo and was less esteemed. All such manna was very dear. _ About the middle of the 16th century, the plan of making incisions in the trunk and branches was resorted to, and although it was strent- ously opposed even by legislative enactment, the more copious supplies. which it enabled the collectors to obtain led it to being generally adopted. The Ricettario Fiorentino of the year 1573° states that the manna “fatta con arte,” i.e. obtained by incisions, came from Cosenza in Calabria and differed not little from Syrian “manna mastichina.” * Manna di foglia became in fact utterly unknown, so that Cirillo of Naples, writing in 1770, expresses doubt whether it ever had any existence.° : With regard to the history of manna-production in Sicily, there 1s this curious fact, that near Cefali there exists an eminence in the Madonia range, called Gebelman or Gibelmanna, which in Arabic _ signifies manna-mountain. This name is not of modern origin, but 1s _ found in a diploma of the year 1082, concerning the foundation of the there collected during the Saracenic occupation of Sicily, A.D. 8 used to designate an inferior sort of the drug. bishopric of Messina; and it has been held to indicate that me 1070. We have not been successful in finding any evidence whether this supposition is well founded. On the other hand, it 1s remarx” able that no writer, so far as we know, mentions manna as @ production, of Sicily, before Paolo Boccone of Palermo, who, after naming many bese ities for the drug in continental Italy, states that it is also obtain in Sicily. Manna was also produced until recently in the Tuscan Maremma, but neither from that locality, nor from the States of the Church, where it was collected in the time of Boccone, is any supply now brought oe commerce, though’the name of Tolfa, a town near Civita Vecchia, 6° or collection of manna in Calabria, which was imported up t a end of last century, has now almost entirely ceased.” * Hanbury, Historical Ni i, whi shall mention P » £Listoric otes on Manna, was that of Alhagi, which we harm. A ad x1, (1870) 326; or Science further on, p. 414. Papers 5 * Commentarii 5 Phil, Trans, 1x. (1771) 233: 38. ore aa Urbani, Paris, 1515. lib. 6 Was di ‘vem Venet. 1697. Obe. 3 P. 46; a xiv.—xXv. 2 ian, 1498. 46; we have not seen the edition of 7 Hanbury in Giornale Botanico lial 30. ‘ : Journ. Ov * Mastichina alludes pr Ottobre 1872. 267; Pharm. probably to th 421: Science Papers, 99 granular form of that biasbe—perbape it 1872, 421; Science £4, ~ WANNA POC Eee Production—The manna of commerce is collected at the present day exclusively in Sicily. The principal localities producing the drug are the districts around Capaci, Carini, Cinisi, and Favarota, small towns 20 to 25 miles west. of Palermo near the shores of the bay of Castellamare; also the townships of Geraci, Castelbuono, and other places in the district of Cefalt, 50 to 70 miles eastward of Palermo. The manna-ash, in the districts whence the best manna is obtained, does not at the present day form natural woods, but is cultivated in regular plantations called frassinetti. The trees, which attain a height of from 10 to 20 feet, are planted in rows and stand about 7 feet apart, the soil between being at times loosened, kept free from weeds, and enriched by manure. After a tree is 8 years old and when its stem is at least 3 inches in thickness, the gathering of manna may begin; and may continue for 10 or 12 years, when the stem is usually cut down, and a young one brought up from the same root takes its place. The same stump thus has often two or three stems rising from it. _ To obtan manna, transverse cuts from 1} to 2 inches long and 1 inch apart, are made in the bark, just reaching to the wood. One cut is made daily, beginning at the bottom of the tree, the second directly above the first, and so on while dry weather lasts. In the following year, cuts are made in the untouched part of the stem, and in the same way in succeeding seasons. When after some years the tree has been cut all round and is exhausted, itis felled. Pieces of sticks or straws are inserted in the incisions, and become encrusted with the very superior manna, called Manna «a cannolo, which however is unknown in com- merce as a special sort. The fine manna ordinarily seen appears to have hardened on the stem of the tree. The manna which flows from _ the lower incisions, and is often collected on tiles or on a cup-shaped piece of the stem of the prickly pear (Opuntia), is less crystalline, and more gummy and glutinous, and is regarded of inferior quality. The best time for notching the stems is in July and August, whem © 3 the trees have ceased to push forth more leaves. Dry and warm weather is essential for a good harvest. The manna after removal from the tree, is laid upon shelves in order that it may dry and harden before it is packed. The masses left adhering to the stem after the finer pieces have been gathered, are scraped off and form part of the Small Manna of commerce.’ Secretion—We have examined microscopically the bark of stems of Praxinus Ornus that had been incised for manna at Capaci. It exhibits no peculiarity explaining the formation of manna, or any evidence that the saccharine exudation is due to an alteration of the _ ¢ell-walls as in the case of tragacanth. The bark is poor in tannic matter ; it contains starch, and imparts to water a splendid fluorescence due to the presence of Frawin. d by pharmacological Description—Various terms have been use r x writers to designate the different qualities of manna, but in Englis Cleghorn (Trans. of the Bot. Soc. of Edin- 10u ; h a irae gon pc pays eam ate 868-69. 132), and from personal as been derived fr i burgh, x. 1 ~ Stettner, who vinited Agee investigations made by one of us in the of 1847 (Archiv der Pharm, iii, 194; also neighbourhood of Palermo in May IE 2 iggers’ Jahresbericht, 1848. 35; Hooker's See Hanbury, Science Papers, 367. _ ourn. of Bot, i, 1849, 124), from those of i. OLEACEA. commerce they are not now employed; and the better kinds of the — drug are called simply Plake Manna, while the smaller pieces, usually loosely agglutinated and sold separately, are termed Small Manna or Tolfa Manna. Owing to the gradual exudation of the juice and the deposition of one layer over another, manna has a stalactitic aspect. The finest pieces are mostly in the form of three-edged sticks, sometimes as much as 6 to 8 inches long and an inch or more wide, grooved on the inner side, which is generally soiled by contact with the bark ; of a porous, crystalline, friable structure and of a pale brownish yellow tint, becoming nearly pure white in those parts which have been most distant from the bark of the tree. The pieces which are of deeper _ colour, and of an unctuous or gummy appearance, are less esteemed, _ Good manna is crisp and brittle, and melts in the mouth with an agreeable, honey-like sweetness, not entirely devoid of traces of bitter- ness and acridity. Its odour may be compared to that of honey or moist sugar. Manna of the best quality dissolves at ordinary temperatures in about _ six parts of water, forming a clear, neutral liquid. It contains besides mannite, a small proportion of sugar and gum. The manna which exudes from the older stems and from the lower parts of even young trees, contains more or less considerable quantities of gum and fermentable sugar, as well as extraneous impurities. The _ less favourable weather of the later summer and autumn promotes an alteration in the composition of the juice, and impairs its property of concreting into a crystalline mass. Chemical Composition—The predominant constituent of eae at least of the better sorts, is Manna-sugar or Mannite, C'H*(OH) which likewise occurs, though in much smaller quantity, in many other plants besides Fraxinus. Artificially, it is produced by treating glucose, C°H”OS, with sodium-amal gam, and indirectly in the fermenta- tion of glucose or of cane-sugar. It is isomeric with dulcite or melam- pytin ; crystallizes in shining prisms or tables, belonging % eed rhombic system ; melts at 166° C., and in very small quantity may sd _ careful heating be sublimed and decomposed. It dissolves in 65 parts of water at 16° C,, less freely in aqueous alcohol, very sparingly ™ absolute alcohol, and not in ether. The solution has an extremely weak rotatory power, and is not altered by boiling with dilute acids oF alkalis, or with alkaline cupric tartrate. . Berthelot has shown that mannite is susceptible of fermentation, though not so easily as sugars belonging to the group of carbo-hy drates. ae quantity of mannite in the best manna varies from 70 to 50 pe When a solution of manna is mixed with alkaline cupri¢ tartrate, rapid reduction to cuprous hydrate takes place even in the co d. ies effect is due to the presence of a sugar which, according to Backhau (1860), consists of ordinary dextro-glucose. It may amount to as cy as 16 per cent., and is found in the best flake manna, but most pe ntly in the unctuous varieties. Buignet’ has pointed out that | rotatory power of this sugar being inconsiderable, it probably ics * Journ. de Pharm. vii. (1867) 401 ; viii. (1868) 5. HANNHO a of a mixture of Cane-sugar and Levulose. He found however that an aqueous solution of manna deviates powerfully to the right, a fact which he considers due to the presence of a large proportion of Dextrin. The best kinds of manna, according to Buignet, contain about 20 per cent. of dextrin; the inferior much more. In our experiments we have not succeeded in isolating either dextrin or cane-sugar. There is present, even in the finest manna, a small amount of a dextrogyre mucilage, which is precipitated by neutral acetate of lead, and yields mucic acid when boiled with concentrated nitric acid. . Ether extracts from an aqueous solution of manna a very small quantity of red-brown resin, having an offensive odour and sub-acrid taste ; together with traces of an acid which reduces silver-salts and appears to be easily resinified. The quantity of water in the inferior kinds of manna ofteh amounts to 10 or 15 per cent. The finest manna affords about 3°6 per cent. of ash. : The greenish colour of certain pieces of manna was formerly attri- buted to the presence of copper, till Gmelin, on account of the fiuor- escence of the solution, ascribed it to Asculin. Tt is in reality produced by a body much resembling zesculin, namely Fraxin, CHO”, occurring in the bark of the manna-ash and of the common ash, and together with zsculin, in that of the horse-chestnut. Fraxin crystallizes in colourless prisms, easily soluble in hot water and in alcohol, and having a faintly astringent and bitter taste. By dilute acids, it is resolved in- to Fraxetin, C°H°O*, and Glucose, C'H"O*. The presence of fraxin in manna, especially in the inferior sorts, is made apparent by the faint fluorescence of the alcoholic manna solution. The smallest fragment of the bark of the ash or the manna ash immersed in water displays the same fluorescence. Commerce—The exports of manna from Sicily’ (chiefly from Palermo) have been as follows :— . 1869 1870 1871 2046 cwt., val. £15,972. 1564 ewt., val. £10,220. 3038 ewt., val. £19,528. About half the quantity is sent to France. Italian commercial statistics” represent the export of manna in 1870 thus:—in canelli 58,691 kilo. (1155 ewt.), in sorte 186,664 kilo. (3676 ewt.). The United Kingdom imported in the year 1870, 230 cewt. of manna, valued at £4447. In 1877 the exports of “canelli” from Messina were 4273 kilo- grammes, and of the drug “in sorte” 52,874 kilogr.; total value, 127,145 ire, : Adulteration—It can hardly be said that manna 1s subject. to adulteration, though attempts to introduce a spurious manna made of glucose have been recorded. But considerable skill and ingenuity have been expended in converting the inferior sorts of manna into what has he aspect of fine natural Flake Manna, the manufacturers admitting owever the factitiousness of their product. The artificial Flake Manna has the closest superficial resemblance to very fine pieces of the natural del regno d’lialia nel * Repor t by Consul Dennis on the Com- mento commerciale merce and Naviqati ety 70, Milano, 1871. Gad Wey etn af Sicily tes 1889, 1870 1870, Mil Ne leciind sof the Twila *Direzione generale delle Gabelle—Movi- _ Navigation of the U.K. for 1870, p. 102 ie OnmaCR ae Eis drug, but differs in its more uniform colour, and in being uncontaminated with the slight impurities, from which natural manna is never wholly free. It differs also in that when broken, no crystals of mannite are to be seen in the interstices of the pieces, and it wants the peculiar odour and slightly bitter flavour of natural manna. If one part of it is boiled with four of alcohol (0°838), a viscid honey-like residue will be obtained, _ Whereas natural manna leaves undissolved a hard substance. Histed! found it to afford about 40 per cent. of mannite, while fine manna _ similarly treated yielded 70 per cent. ___Uses—A gentle laxative, much less frequently employed in this country than formerly, but still largely consumed in South America Mannite, which possesses similar properties, is often prescribed in Italy. Other sorts of Manna. Various plants besides Fraxinus afford, under certain conditions, _ Saccharine exudations, some of which constituted the Oriental Manna used in Europe in early times. So far as is known, they differ from officinal manna in containing no mannite. Athagi Manna; Turanjabin (Arabic); is afforded by Alhags Camelorum Fisch. (Hedysarum Alhagi Pallas, non L.), a small spiny plant of the order Leguminose found in Persia, Afghanistan and Beluchistan. It had already been noticed by Isztachri2 Excellent specimens of the manna, kindly obtained for us in the north-west of India by Dr. E. Burton Brown ‘and Mr. T. W. H. Tolbort, show it as a substance in little roundish, hard, dry tears, varying from the size of a mustard seed to that of a hemp-seed, of a light brown colour, agreeable saccharine taste, and senna-like smell. The leaflets, spines and pods of _ the plant, mixed with the grains of this manna, are characteristic and easily recognizable, Villiers (1877) showed this manna to contain cane-sugar, a dextto- gyrate glucose, and melezitose (see further on: Briancon manna, page 416). Ludwig* had also found some dextrin and mucilage. a , Alhagi Manna is collected near Kandahar and Herat, whore it 18 found on the plants at the time of flowering. It is imported into India from Kabul and Kandahar to the extent of about 25 mawnds (2000 Ib. annually ; its value is reckoned at 30 rupees per secr, = 30s. per Ib. Gaz-anjabin (Arabic); Tamarisk Manna (in_ part)—In - months of June and July, the shrubs of tamarisk (Tamar gallica ~ ar. mannifera Ehrenb.) growing in the valleys of the peninsula 0 Sinai, especially in the Wady es Sheikh, exude from their slendet ranches, in Consequence of the puncture of an insect (Coccus mann parus Ehrenb.) little honey-like drops, which in the coolness of early 5 aaa AE ae in a solid state. This substance is roe an amorphous levogyre sugar, besides starch and cellulose. _ Oak Manna—The occurrence of a saccharine substance on the oak 18 noticed by both Ovid and Virgil, and it is also mentioned by the Arabian physicians, as Ibn Baytar’ and Elluchasem Elimithar.* The last named, who died A.D. 1052, states that the exudation appears upon — the oaks in the region of Diarbekir. At the present day, it is the object of some industry among the wandering tribes of Kurdistan, who, ‘Angelus, Ph ; 5 Loe. cit p. 360, » Pharm. Persica (see appendix) ‘ rae ‘ce in the work quoted at page 414, Stewart, op. cit. p. 92 note 4 ® Comptes Rendus, Wii. (1 : ; Ed. Sontheimer, i. (1840) 375. eae (1862; %. pe gd ial 8 Tacuint Sanitatis, Argentorati (1531) Archiv d, Pharmacie, 192 (1870) 246. 24, OT se eae ‘OLEACES, according to Haussknecht, collect it from Quercus Vallonea Kotschy and Q. persica Jaub. et Spach. These trees are visited in the month of August by immense numbers of a small white Coccus, from the puncture of which a saccharine fluid exudes, and solidifies in little grains. The people go out before sunrise, and shake the grains of manna from the branches on to linen cloths, spread out beneath the trees. The exudation is also collected by dipping the small branches on which it is formed, into vessels of hot water, and evaporating the saccharine solution to a syrupy consistence, which in this state is used _ for sweetening food, or is mixed with flour to form a sort of cake. A fine specimen of the Oak Manna of Diarbekir was sent to the London International Exhibition of 1862. It constituted a moist soft mass of agglutinated tears, much resembling an inferior sort of ash- _ manna, and had an agreeable saccharine taste. green leaves, and has a herby smell and pleasant sweet taste. A sample ' A less pure form of this manna occurs as a compact, greyish, saccha- _ Tine mass, sometimes hard enough to be broken with a hammer. It consists of sugary matter, mixed with abundance of small fragments of of it brought from Diarbekir, examined by one of us, yielded 90 per cent. of dextrogyre sugar, which could not be obtained in a crystalline state, though it exists in such condition in the crude drug. Starch and dextrine were entirely wanting.’ _ A specimen furnished to Ludwig? by Haussknecht afforded much mucilage, a small amount of starch, about 48 per cent. of dextrogyre stape sugar, with traces of tannic acid and chlorophyll. nae Briancon Manna—This is a white saccharine substance which, in the height of summer and in the early part of the day, is found adher- ing In some abundance to the leaves of the larch (Pinus Lari L), growing on the mountains about Briancon in Dauphiny. It was formerly collected for use in medicine, but only to a very limited ex- tent, for it was rare in Pariy in the time of Geoffroy (1709-173), and at the present day has quite disappeared from trade, though still gathered by the peasants, A specimen collected for one of us near _ Briangon in 1854, consists of small, detached, opaque, white tears, many _ of them oblong and channelled, and encrusting the needle-like leaf 0 the larch; they have a sweet taste and slight odour. Under the microscope they exhibit indistinct crystals. : d Briangon manna has been examined in 1858 by Berthelot, who — cape teed ergs sugar termed Melezitose, answering to the !or : Several other saccharine exudations have been observed by travel _ o's and naturalists; we shall simply enumerate the more remarkable, referring the reader for further information to the original notices. Z to a rus glabra Boiss. affords in Luristan a substance which, acon c q smiicnecht, 1s collected by the inhabitants, and is extremely, . x 5 2 anna. It is stated by the same traveller that Salix fragilis : en hes ophularia frigida Boiss., likewise yield in Persia gacchar! P; ae A. kind of manna was anciently collected from the ced ; nus Cedrus L.4 Manna is yielded in Spain by Cistus ladanifer 1 Further particulars oe Ueber die Eichenmanpe’y °° Fliickiger, 2 Loe. cit. p. 35. : ma von Kurdistan, in 3H Science Papers, P- 438. Archiv der Pharmacie, 200 (1872) 159, 4 Goottor ea: Med. 3 (1741) 584 et ~ OLEUM-OLIVAL 2 eo a L! Australian Manna, which is in small rounded, opaque, white, dry — masses, is found on the leaves of Hucalyptus viminalis Labill. It con- tains a kind of sugar called Melitose, has a sweet thistle, is devoid of medicinal properties and is not collected for use.’ The substance named Tigala (corrupted into Trehala), from which a peculiar sugar has been obtained,‘ is the coccoon of a beetle, and not properly a saccharine exudation.® The Lerp Manna of Australia is also of animal origin.’ It consists of water 14, white threadlike portion 33, sugar 53 parts. The threads possess some of the characteristic properties of starch, from which they differ entirely by their form and unalterability even in boiling water. Yet in sealed tubes, they dissolve in 30 parts of water at 135° C. The sugar is dextrogyre; it impregnates the threads as a soft brown amorphous mass. In the purified state it does not crystallize, even after a long time. By means of dilute sulphuric acid, the threads are converted into crystalline grape-sugar. OLEUM OLIV. Olive Oil; Salad Oil; F. Huile d Olives; G. Olivendt ; Baum ; Provencer Oel. Botanical Origin—Olea europea L., an evergreen tree,’ seldom exceeding 40 feet in height, yet attaining extreme old age, abundantly cultivated in the countries bordering the Mediterranean, up to an eleva- tion of about 2000 feet above the sea-level.’ Olea ferruginea Royle (0. cuspidata Wallich), a tree abundant in Afghanistan, Beluchistan and Western Sind, has been supposed to be a wild form of 0. ewropea, but is regarded by Brandis? as a distinct species. It is not known to have been ever cultivated, yet its fruit, which is of a small size and but sparingly produced, is capable of affording a good oil. : .. History—In ancient Egypt the olive was known by the term bak; it can be traced as far as the 17th century before our era.” According to the elaborate investigations of Ritter” and of A. De- Candolle,* the olive tree is a native of Palestine, and perhaps of Asia Minor and Greece. Its original area also extends over north-eastern 1 Dillon, Travels through Spain (1780) should refer to the extremely exhaustive P. Sa. work of Coutance, /’ Olivier, Paris, 1877, 456 melin, Chemistry, xv. 296. pages, 120 figures. ¢ | Pharm. Journ. iv. (1863) 108. § Grisebach begets ee ePey terse aaa Comptes Rend i ; e sea of oliv i Gmelin, Chemistry ey aoe, (1898) 1276s Tt Algarve) 1400 feet; Sierra Nevada 3000; * Belon, Singularitez (1554) 1. 2. cap. 91; o., southern slope 4200; Nice rod oe Guibourt, Comptes Rendus (1858) 1213; 2200; Macedonia 1200; Cilicia a ~ an , Journ. Linn. Soc., Zoology, iii. Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer oe - : (1859) l 8; also Science Papers, 158, . gischen Anordnung, 1. (1872) 262. aa G oa obson, Proceedings of Royal Society 9 Forest Flora of North-western and ve ¢, Van Diemen’s Land, i. (i851) 234; tral India, 1874, 307. Pe casak Winn; Journ. iv. (1863) 108; Flickiger, 10 Brugsch-Bey, Peies eo, ete See Fittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift, xvii. (1868) Oase Kargeh, Leipzig, Tet. <9. Ce: 1; Archiv der Pharmacie, 196 (1871) 7; also Journ. of Botany, 1879. 52. | me Tsrracted in the Yearbook of Pharmacy, _% Hindkunde von Asien, \™ (part 2. 1844) teres PBIB : th, Readers desiring full information about @éographique Botanique (1855) 912. ® olive tree, its oil, its history, etc., 2D ee Africa ; Schweinfurth! regards it as undoubtedly wild on the mountains of Elbe and Soturba in lat. 22 N.on the western shores of the Red Sea, a locality which he visited in 1868. The olive tree has also been met with as far eastward as the country of the Gallas, where it is much appreciated as affording excellent timber.” It is also stated by Theo- phrastus, that in his time the tree was plentiful in the Cyrenaica, the - modern Barea, in northern Africa. The olive would appear to have been introduced at a very remote period into north-western Africa and Spain. Willkomm (1876) is of the opinion that it was originally a native of the whole Mediterranean region. At the present day it is largely cultivated in Algeria, Spain, Por- tugal, Southern France, Italy, the Greek Peninsula and Asia Minor. In the Crimea the tree grows well, but does not afford good fruit. It was carried to Lima in Peru about 1560 and still flourishes there, and = a plenty in the coast valleys further south as far as Santiago in _ Olive oil is mentioned in the Bible so frequently that it must have been an important object with the ancient Hebrews. It held an equally prominent place among the Greeks and Romans,‘ whose writers on agriculture and natural history treat of it in the most circumstantial manner. Olive fruits preserved in brine were used by the Romans as an article of food,’ and were an object of commerce with Northem Europe as early as the 8th century.® Production—In common with many important cultivated plants, the olive occurs under several varicties differing more or less from the wild form, the finer of which are propagated by grafting. It is also Increased by the suckers which old trees throw up from their roots, and which are easily made to develope into separate plants.’ The fruit, an oval drupe, half an inch to an inch or more in length, and of a deep purple, 18 remarkable for the large amount of fat oil contained m its pulpy portion (sareocarp). The latter is most rich in oil when ™p% containing then nearly 70 per cent., besides 25 per cent. of water. The unripe-fruit, as well as other parts of the plant, abounds in mannite, which disappears in proportion as the oil increases. The ripe olive co? : tains no mannite, it having probably been transformed into fatty oil ‘i The process for extracting olive oil varies slightly in different coun- tries, but consists essentially in subjecting the crushed pulp of the ripe fruit to moderate pressure. The olives, which are gathered from the trees, or collected from the ground, in November, or during the whole — and early spring, are crushed under a millstone to a pulpy agi S is then put into coarse bags, which, piled upon one another, ® ; = slag sey Oe 5 Specimens may be seen among cadaatl ie SS aed des Deux Mondes, Jan- tiquities found at Pompe. ap, 716.—Pat : sai 6 Diploma of Chilperte, boung 1887. Ta Essai sur le Chili, Ham- Paling Diplomata, Chart, etc., Paris, ¥ ‘ich, Kult 1849) 309. in ang fa anzen und HHausthiere ( 7 Winter, in Pharm. Journ. Sept. 7; rn chenland oy page aus Asien nach Grie- 8 De Lun in Journ, de Pharm. tet i) —an pl clr age Berlin, 1877. 88-142, 65.—Some further researches by hie : of the oliv 2 ng account of the importance the formation of olive oil may be fo ein ancient times, the Jahresbericht of Wiggers 4° mann (1870) 392. ’ ee # er subjected to moderate pressure in a screw press. The oil thus obtained — is conducted into tubs or cisterns containing water, from the surface of which it is skimmed with ladles. This is called Virgin Oil. After it has ceased to flow, the contents of the bags are shovelled out, mixed with boiling water, and submitted to stronger pressure than before, by which a second quality of oil is got. If the fruit is left for a consider- able time in heaps it undergoes decomposition, yielding by pressure a very inferior quality of oil called in French Huile fermentee. The worst oil of all, obtained from the residues, has the name of Huile tournante or Huile @enfer. It is said that in some districts the millstones are so mounted as to crush the pulp without breaking the olive-stones, and that thus the oil of the pulp is obtained unmixed with that of the kernels. We have made many inquiries in Italy and France as to this method of oil-making, but cannot find that it is anywhere followed. The fixed oil of the kernels of ripe olives has been extracted and examined by one of us (F.) Though the kernels have a bitterish taste, the oil they yield is quite bland; by exposure to the vapour of hypo- nitric acid, it concretes like that of the pulp. If the whole of it were extracted in making olive oil, it would only be about as 1 part of oil of the kernel, to 40 parts of oil of the pulp. Description—Olive Oil is a pale yellow or greenish yellow, some- what viscid liquid, of a faint agreeable smell and of a bland oleaginous taste, leaving in the throat a slight sense of acridity.” Its specific gravity on an average is 0:916 at 17°5C. In cold weather, olive oil loses its transparency by the separation of a crystalline fatty body. The deposition takes place at a few degrees above the freezing point 0 water, and in some oils even at 10° C. (50°F.) If the oil is allowed to congeal perfectly, and is then submitted to strong pressure, about one- third of its weight of solid fat may be separated. After repeatet erystallizations, this fat melts at 20 to 28° C. The fluid part or Olewn, continues fluid at — 4° to—10° C. Olive oil belongs to the class of the. - 4% less alterable, non-drying oils. ; : The foregoing description does not apply to the inferior sorts of oil, Which congeal more easily, are more or less deep-coloured, have a dis- agreeable odour and taste, and quickly turn rancid. These inferior oils have their special applications in the arts. - Chemical Composition—The chief constituent of olive oil is Olevn or more correctly Tviolein, C°H5(0.C*H"0)’, identical so far as at present ascertained with the fluid part of all oils of the non-drying class. The proportion of olein in olive oil, as well as in other oils, is liable to — variation, the result partly of natural circumstances and partly of the processes of manufacture. The best oils are rich in olein. : ; As to the solid part of olive oil, Chevreul believed it to be constitutec of Margnrin. which he frat examined in 1020.2 bak samme (1502 snc later) showed i i Imitin with other compounds ) showed margarin to be a mixture of pa T Peimitic Acid, of glycerin and fatty acids, Collett in 1854 isolate therefore in the freshest condition ; — at the acrid after-taste is more perceptible in oil which has been long kept. : The Grocer. Apri : , April 25, 1868, supplement ; eo Elem. of Mat, Med. ii. (1850) 1505. eles 1s according to our experience is the even with oil as it runs from the pulp OLEUM OLIVA, ee oe - of oils, 40 | OLEACEA. C"H"02?, from olive oil; and Heintz and Krug (1857) further proved that Tripalmitin is the chief of the solid constituents of olive oil. They also met with an acid melting at 71°4 C., which they regarded as Arachic Acid (p. 187). As to stearic acid, Heintz and Krug did not fully succeed in evidencing its presence in olive oil. Lastly, Benecke discovered in olive oil a small quantity of Choles- terin, C*H“O. It may be removed by means of glacial acetic acid or alcohol, which dissolve but very little of the oil. Commerce—Various sorts of olive oil are distinguished in the English market, as Florence, Gallipoli, Gioja, Spanish (Malaga and Seville), Sicily, Myteline, Corfu and Mogador. - Olive oil was imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1872 to the value of £1,193,064. Nearly half the quantity was shipped from Italy, one-fifth from Spain, and the remainder from other Mediterranean countries. _ The average annual production in Italy is estimated at about 3 millions of hectolitres (66 million gallons), but the quantity exported does not reach half that amount. The statistics of the French Government indicate the annual pr0- duction of olive oil in France to be not more than 250,000 hectolitres, equivalent in value to 30 millions of francs (£1,200,000). Uses—The uses of olive oil in medicine and its immense consump- tion in the warmer parts of Europe as an article of food, are too we known to require more than a passing allusion. Adulteration—Olive Oil is the subject of various fraudulent admixtures with less costly oils, the means of detecting which has engaged much attention. Of the various methods by which chemists have endeavoured to ascertain the purity of olive oil, the following ate € more noteworthy :— _ a. Drying’ oils (such as the oils of poppy and walnut) may be distinguished by their not being Scavered Gs solid orystallizable elaidin by hyponitric acid or concentrated solution of nitrate ° protoxide of mercury. Olive oil which contains any considerable proportion of one of these oils, no longer solidifies if exposed for @ moment to one of the above-mentioned reagents. This test however 18 not of sufficient delicacy for small amounts of drying oils. b. Olive oil being one of the lighter oils, the specific grav may to some degree indicate admixture with a heavier oil. _ Make use of this fact, Gobley and other chemists haye inven _4n instrument called an elaiometer, for taking the specific g™ of 0 c. Observation of the Cohesion-figure.—This test, proposed by Tomlinson in 1864, depends on the forces of cohesion, adhesion, and diffusion. Thus, if a drop of any oil hanging from the end of a glass rod 1s gently deposited upon the surface of chemically = water, contained in a clean glass, a contest takes place between iY. eae . : _ wy lileteationh tie ade du 400,000 hectolitres are calculated for th y » Xi. 105.—In the work 1866. ‘ of Coutance, quoted p- 417, note 7, nearly We Ph ave Jona 4, Ce 387, 495, with figures, CORTEX ALSTONLE 491 forees in question the moment the drop flattens down by its gravity upon the surface of the water. The adhesion of the liquid surface tends to spread out the drop into a film, the cohesive force of the particles of the drop strives to prevent that extension, and the resultant of these forces is a figure which Mr. Tomlinson believes to be definite for every independent liquid. The figure thus produced is named the cohesion-figure. So far as our experience goes, the processes hitherto recommended for testing olive oil (and there are several that we have not mentioned) are only available in cases where the adulteration is considerable, and are quite insufficient for discovering a small admixture of other oils. How little they are appreciated, may be inferred from the fact that the Chamber of Commerce of Nice? offered a reward of 15,000 francs (£600) for a simple and easy process for making evident an admixture with olive oil of 5 per cent, at least of any seed-oil. APOCYNEZ. CORTEX ALSTONIZ. Cortex Alstonice scholaris; Dita Bark ;* Alstonia Bark. Botanical Origin—Alstonia® scholaris R. Brown (Echites scholaris L.), a handsome forest tree, 50 to 90 feet in height, common throughout the Indian Peninsula from the sub-Himalayan region to Ceylon and — Burma, found also in the Philippines, Java, Timor and Eastern Australia, likewise in Tropical Africa. It has oblong obovate leaves, in whorls of 5 to 7, and slender pendulous pods a foot or more in length. _ History—Saptachhada and saptaparna (literally seven-leaf), occur- ring in early Sanskrit epic poetry and also in Susruta, are ancient names of Alstonia (Dr. Rice). Rheede* in 1678 and Rumphius’ in 1741 described — and figured the tree, and mentioned the use made of its bark by the native practitioners. Rumphius also explained the trivial name scholaris as referring to slabs of the close-grained wood which are used as school-slates, the letters being traced upon them in sand. The tonic properties of the bark were favourably spoken of by Graham in his Catalogue of Bombay Plants (1839), and further recommended by Dr. Alexander Gibson in 1853.2 The drug has a place in the Pharmacopera of India, 1868. Description—The drug, as presented to one of us by the late Dr. Gibson os by Mr. Bro omn eae Ootacamund, consists of acer fragments of bark, } to } an inch thick, of a spongy texture, best y reaking with a short, coarse fracture. The external a i, Mes f Uneven and rough, dark grey or brownish, sometimes with blackis ‘Annales de Chimie et de Physique, (1740-1760) in the University of Edin- March, 1869. 309 burgh.—The plant 1s figured in Bentley ? . . [4 of Pp. r= Lede _ * From Dit a Trimen, Med. Pl. part 25 (1877). island of Petes name of the tree inthe = an¢ acres Malabaricu, i tab. 45. * So named i 5 Herb. Amboin. ii. Professor of Botton nad Matene Medica * Pharm. Journ. xii (1853) 42° 4 POC YNER, =» spots; the interior substance and inner surface (liber) is of a bright buff. A transverse section shows the liber to be finely marked by numerous small medullary rays. The bark is almost inodorous; its _ taste is purely bitter and neither aromatic nor acrid. Microscopic Structure—The cortical tissue is covered with a thin suberous coat ; the middle layer of the bark is built up of a thin walled parenchyme, through which enormous, hard, thick-walled cells are scat- tered in great numbers and are visible to the naked eye, as they form large irregular groups of a bright yellow colour. Towards the inner part aes ae 1 G ee . . 209; ae Tijdschr, Nedert. 1 ndié,x. (1863) 2 Jahresbericht of Wiggers 4 these stone-cells disappear, the tissue being traversed by undulated medullary rays, loaded with very small starch grains; many of the other parenchymatous cells of the liber contain crystals of calcium oxalate. _ The longitudinal section of the liber exhibits large but not very numerous laticiferous vessels, containing a brownish mass, the concrete milk-juice in which all parts of the tree abound. Chemical Composition—The first attempts to isolate the active principles of this bark were made by two apothecaries, Scharlée at tavia’ (1862) and Gruppe at Manila? (1872). : In 1875 Jobst and Hesse exhausted the powdered bark with petroleum ether, and then extracted, by boiling alcohol, the salt of an alkaloid, which they called Ditamine. After the evaporation of the alcohol, it is precipitated by carbonate of sodium and dissolved by _ ether, from which it is removed by shaking it with acetic acl Ditamine as again isolated from the acetate forms an amorphous and somewhat crystalline, bitterish powder of decidedly alkaline character; the barks yields about 0:02 per cent. of it. From the substances extracted by means of petroleum ether, a8 above stated, Jobst and Hesse further isolated (1) Echicaoutchin, C*H"O’, an amorphous yellowish mass ; (2) Echicerin, C*H*O", forming acicular crystals, melting at 157° C.; (3) Echitin, C®H0%, erystallized scales, melting at 170°; (4) Hehitein, C#H™02, which forms rhombie prisms, melting at 195°; (5) Kchiretin, C*H™O*, an amorphous substance melting at 52° C, j Echicaoutchin may be written thus: (C°H*)*0’, echicerin (CHO, echiretin (C°H®)'02; these formule at once point out how nearly the _ three last named substances are allied. They are probably constituents | of the milky-juice of the tree, J 3 Lastly, Jobst and H : ‘ of anttlel alkaloid in Dita fae esse pointed out the existence Harnack (1877) on the other hand is of the opinion that it contains _ only one alkaloid, which he terms Ditaine. He used the aleobolie extract of the bark which he treated with ether to which he added & little ammonia. By this process ditamine of Jobst and Hesse Wo have been removed, but Harnack suggests that only a little ditaing is dissolved by ether. He then siieed the extract ‘with potash “ exhausted it with alcohol, which afforded crystals of ditaine, answerlns to the formula C2H30N *O*; its physiological action is nearly the ae as that of curare. Ditaine is but sparingly soluble in ether or pett™ d Huse rehiv der Pharmacie, 212 (1878) mann, 1873. 51. ae Z -_ RADIX HEMIDESML ~ 493° leum ether, but dissolves readily in water, alcohol, or chloroform ; it has a decidedly alkaline reaction. It would appear that it is a glucoside. 3 Dita bark is stated’ to yield 5 per cent. of “ditaine”; but this pro- bably refers not to the pure alkaloid. Uses—The bark has been recommended asa tonic and antiperiodie, being extravagantly praised as a substitute for quinine. ASCLEPIADE. RADIX HEMIDESMIL. Hemidesmus Root, Nunnari Root, Indian Sarsaparilla. _ Botanical Origin—Hemidesmus indicus R. Brown (Periploca indica Willd., Asclepias Pseudo-sarsa Roxb.), a twining shrub, growing throughout the Indian Peninsula and in Ceylon. The leaves are very diverse, being narrow and lanceolate in the lower part of the plant, and broadly ovate in the upper branches.” History—In the ancient Sanskrit literature the plant occurs frequently under the name Sé@rivd, and its root under the name of Nannari or Ananta-mil (i.e. endless root) has long been employed in medicine in the southern parts of India.* Ashburner in 1831 was the first to call the attention of the profession in Europe to its medicinal value‘ In 1864 it was admitted to a place in the British Pharma- copwia, but its efficiency is by no means generally acknowledged. _ _ Description’—The root is in pieces of 6 inches or more in length ; it is cylindrical, tortuous, longitudinally furrowed, from 75 to 75 OF an inch in thickness, mostly simple or provided with a few thin rootlets emitting slender, branching woody aerial stems, 32; of an inch or less thick. Externally it is dark brown, sometimes with a slight violet-grey hue, which is particularly obvious in the sunshine. ‘The transverse section of the hard root shows a white mealy or brownish or somewhat violet cortical layer, not exceding zy of an inch in thickness,and a — yellowish woody column, separated by a narrow dark undulated cambial line. Neither ‘the wood nor the cortical tissue present a radiate structure in the stout pieces; in the thinner roots, medullary rays are obvious in the woody part. The extremely thin corky layer easily Separates from the bark, which latter is frequently marked transversely by large cracks. The root, whether fresh or dried, has an ae our resembling tonka bean or melilot. The dried root has a —s taste with a very slight acidity. The stems are almost tasteless = inodorous. The root found in the English market 1s often of very ba quality. ' Yearbook of Pharm. 1878. 624, from over as having & sweet smell of melilot. ‘ : ; . art Proc. of the American Pharm. Associa- The plant he oy Shyer mre tion, 1 i. : 877. eto lin’s translation, but not in that * Fig. in Bentley and Tri Med. Antoine Co! Pl y and Trimen, Med. . ants, part 6 (1876), Ore ae and Phys. Journ. \xv. 189. ere is an Indi Pal : de Culebra by Menten cick dae ae a 5 Taken from excellent specie 2a Drogas... . delas Indias Orientales, 1578, _gingly sent to us from India by Ur. 1 Us cap. lv.) which is astonishingly like the Stewart and Mr. Broughton. TUg IM question, He describes it more- {. 2 ee ASCLEPIADEAL Microscopic Structure—All the proper cortical tissue shows a uniform parenchyme, not distinctly separated into liber, medullary rays and mesophleeum. On making a longitudinal section however, one can observe some elongated laticiferous vessels filled with the colourless concrete milky juice. In a transverse section, they are seen to be irregularly scattered through the bark, chiefly in its inner layers, yet even here in not very considerable number. They are frequently 30 mkm. in diameter and not branched. The wood is traversed by small medullary rays, which are obvious only in the longitudinal section. The parenchymatous tissue of the root is loaded with large, ovoid starch granules. Tannic matters do not occur to any considerable amount, except in the outermost suberous layer. Chemical Composition—The root has not been submitted to any adequate chemical examination. Its taste and smell appear not to _ depend on the presence of essential oil, so far as may be inferred from Microscopic examination ; and it is probable the aroma is due toa body of the cumarin class. According to Scott, the root yields by simple distillation with water a steroptene, which is probably the substance obtained by Garden in 1837, and supposed to be a volatile acid. _ Uses—The drug is reputed to be alterative, tonic, diuretic and diaphoretie, but is rarely employed, at least in England. CORTEX MUDAR. Cortew Calotropidis; Mudar; F. Ecorce de racine de Mudar. _ Botanical Origin—The drug under notice is furnished by two = TOGANTACE : amount of erystals,—insufficient for analysis. Dissolved and injected | into a small dog, they occasioned purging and vomiting. Uses—Employed in India, as already mentioned, as a substitute for ipecacuanha, chiefly in the treatment of dysentery. The dose of the powdered leaves as an emetic is 25 to 80 grains, as a diaphoretic and expectorant 3 to 5 grains. Radix Tylophore—This root is met with in the Indian bazaars, - and has been employed, as before stated, as much or more than the leaf. It consists of a short, knotty, descending rootstock, about + of an inch in thickness, emitting 2 to 3 aerial stems, and a considerable number of wiry roots. These roots are often 6 inches or more in length by $a line in diameter, and are very brittle. The whole drug is of a pale yellowish brown ; it has no considerable odour, but a sweetish and subsequently acrid taste. In general appearance it is suggestive of valerian, but is somewhat stouter and larger. Examined microscopically, the parenchymatous envelope of the rootlets is seen to consist of two layers, the inner forming a small nucleus sheath. The outer portion is built up of large cells, loaded with _ Starch granules and tufted erystals of oxalate of calcium. Salts of iron do not alter the tissue. LOGANIACE A. NUX VOMICA. Semen Nucis Vomice; Nux Vomica ; F. Nota vomique; G. Brechnuss. Botanical Origin—Strychnos Nux-vomica L., a moderate sized tree with short, thick, often crooked stem, and small, greenish-white, tubular flowers ranged in terminal corymbs. It is indigenous to most parts of ecially the coast districts, and is found in Burmah, Siam, Cochin China and Northern Australia, ; The ovary of 8. Nuw-vomica is bi-locular, but as it advances 1D growth the dissepiment becomes fleshy and disappears. The fruit, which is an indehiscent berry of the size and shape of a small orange, filled with a bitter, gelatinous white pulp, in which the seeds, 1 to 5m number, are placed vertically in an irregular manner. The epicarp forms a thin, smooth, somewhat hard shell, which at first is greenish, but when mature, of a rich orange-yellow. The pulp of the fruit contains strychnine,’ yet it is said to be eaten in India by birds? The wood, 23. whieh is hard and durable, is very bitter. ae _ gnabled to do through the kindness of Dr. toy Roxburgh’s assertion that the pulp seems perfectly innocent,” induced us to examine it chemically, which we were a perfectly white, crystalline residue, which was dissolved in water, and precipitates bichromate of —- csi é eo Fr ‘ recipitate dried, and moiste sient Thwaites, of the Royal Botanical Gardens, ects sulphuric acid, exhibited the violet De a The inspissated pulp received from hue characteristic of strychnine. sad wr. T., diluted with water, formed a very To confirm this experiment, we obtaine action at iclly having a slightly acid re- through the obliging assistance of Dr. Bidie was mixed Ment bitter taste. ome of it of Madras, some of the white pulp take . then pratt adr ced lime, dried, and with a spoon from the interior of the te . ted by boiling chloroform. The fruit, and at once immersed per se in 2 oar resinoid ered he —e of wine. The alcoholic fluid waa seit - ic aci wees armed wi evi stryc oe neencacid. The colourless solution yielded peearterts Creguoes by Die hornbill NOX: VOMICA. = 429 History—Nux Vomica, which was unknown to the ancients, is thought to have been introduced into medicine by the Arabians. But the notices in their writings which have been supposed to refer to it, are far from clear and satisfactory. We have no evidence moreover | that it was used in India at an early period. Garcia de Orta, an observer thoroughly acquainted with the drugs of the west coast of India in the middle of the 16th century, is entirely silent as to nux vomica. Fleming,’ writing at the begining of the present century, remarks that nux vomica is seldom, if ever, employed in medicine by the Hindus, but this statement does not hold good now. The drug was however certainly made known in Germany in the 16th century. Valerius Cordus? wrote a description of it about the year 1540, which is remarkable for its accuracy. Fuchs, Bauhin and others noticed it as Nua Metella, a name taken from the Methel of Avicenna and other Arabian authors.’ It was found in the English shops in the time of Parkinson (1640), who remarks that its chief use is for poisoning dogs, cats, crows, and ravens, and that it is rarely given as a medicine. Description—Nux Vomica is the seed, removed from the pulp and shell. It is dise-like, or rather irregularly orbicular, a little less than an inch in diameter, by about a quarter of an inch in thickness, slightly Concave on the dorsal, convex on the ventral surface, or nearly flat on either side, often furnished with a broad, thickened margin so that the central portion of the seed appears depressed. The outside edge is rounded or tapers into a keel-like ridge. Each seed has on its edge a small protuberance, from which is a faintly projecting line (raphe) Passing to a central scar, which is the hilum or umbilicus; a slight pression marks the opposite side of the seed. The seeds are of a light Steyish hue, occasionally greenish, and have a satiny or glistening aspect, Y Teason of their being thickly covered with adpressed, radiating bitte, hme vomica is extremely compact and horny, and has a very sit eet having been softened by digestion in water, the seed is easily Ac fa outer edge, then displaying a mass of translucent, eartila- e S albumen, divided into two parts by a fissure in which lies the athe ‘ 18 latter is about 43, of an inch long, having a pair of radi .. to 7-nerved, heart-shaped cotyledons, with a club-shaped oma)» position of which is indicated on the exterior of the seed by small protuberance already named. Mi = . . Croscopic Structure—The hairs of nux vomica are of remark- b cide acttre. They are formed as usual of the elongated cells of the in ities their walls thickened by secondary deposits, which by longitudinally extended pores ; they are a striking (Bucer. . i. "alabaricus); according to Rox- 1 Catalogue of Indian Med. Plants. and (Flora Selecta’ ports of bird.” Beddome Drugs, Calcutta, 1810. 37. the ulp is quite bh adras, 1872, 243) says * Hist. Stirpium, edited by C. Gesner, food of many birder mess and thefavourite | Argentorat. 1561. lib. iv. ¢. 21. . § Garnior a ‘ * Clusius and others held the opinion that ii, (Paris, 1873) Exploration en Indo-China the Nux methel of the Arabs was the fruit of tree simil 488, allusion is made to a a Datura, and an Indian species was accord- having _ingly named by Linneus D. Metel, before 480 = | LOGANIACEA, object in polarized light. The albumen is made up of large cells, loaded with albuminoid matters and oily drops, but devoid of starch. In water . the thick walls of this parenchyme swell up and yield some mucilage; _ the cotyledons are built up of a narrow, much more delicate tissue, traversed by small fibro-vascular bundles. The alkaloids are not directly recognizable by the microscope ; but if very thin slices of nux vomica are kept for some length of time in glycerin, they develope feathery crystals, doubtless consisting of these 8. - Chemical Composition—The bitter taste and highly poisonous action of nux vomica are chiefly due to the presence of Strychnine and Brucine. Strychnine, C*H”N?02, was first met with in 1818 by Pelletier and Caventou in St. Ignatius’ Beans, and immediately after- _ wards in nux vomica. It crystallizes from an alcoholic solution im large _ anhydrous prisms of the orthorhombic system. It requires for solu- tion about 6700 parts of cold or 2500 of boiling water; the solution 1s ___ Of decidedly alkaline reaction, and an intensely bitter taste which may be distinetly perceived though it contain no more than sycyo0 of the _ alkaloid. The best solvents for strychnine are spirit of wine or chloro- - form; it is but very sparingly soluble in absolute alcohol, benz0l, _amylie alcohol, or ether. The alcoholic solution deviates the ray of polarized light to the left. : Strychnine is not restricted to the fruit of the plant under notice, but also occurs in the wood and bark! It is moreover found in the wood of the root of Strychnos colubrina L., and in the bark of the root of Strychnos Tiewte Lesch., both species indigenous to the Indian Archipelago. ; i. The discovery of Brucine was made in 1819 by the same chemists, in nux vomica bark, then supposed to be derived from Brucea ferrugiet Héritier (B. antidysenterica Miller), an Abyssinian shrub of the _— Simarubew. The presence of brucine in nux vomica and St. Ignatius Bean was pointed out by them in 1824. Brucine, dried over sulphuric acid, has the formula C*H*N*O! but it crystallizes from its alcoholic solution with 4OH?. In bitterness and poisonous properties, as well as rotatory power, it closely resembles strychnine, differing however 1 the following particulars :—it is soluble in about 150 parts of boiling water, melts without alteration a little above 130°C. In common wit its salts, it acquires a dark red colour when moistened with concentrate nitric acid. The proportion of strychnine in nux vomica appears to vary from 4 to } percent. That of brucine is variously stated to be 0-12 (Merck), 05 (Wittstein), 101 (Mayer) per cent. A third erystallizable base, called Igaswrine, was stated in 1853 by : snoix to occur in the liquors from which strychnine and bros had been precipitated by lime. Schiitzenberger’s investigations (1858) _ are far from proving the existence of « igasurine.”? ‘ Tn nux vomica, as well as in St, Ignatius’ Beans, the alkaloids, * It isremarkable that arasitic plan’ 2 i ation on igasurine the ord mies growing on jw soca Cimelin, Chemistry, xi 080) Wg th ates —Pharm of India, 1888, (1865) 2495" Pharm. Journ, xn (88 452, SEMEN IGNATII. = 431 | according to their discoverers, are combined with Strychnic or Igasuric Acid ; Ludwig (1873), who prepared this body from the latter drug, describes it as a yellowish-brown amorphous mass, having a strongly — acid reaction and a sour astringent taste, and striking a dark green with ferric salts. We have ascertained the correctness of Ludwig's observations. / Nux vomica dried at 100°C. yielded us when burnt with soda-lime 1822 per cent. of nitrogen, indicating about 11:3 per cent. of protein substances. By boiling ether, we removed from the seeds 4°14 per cent. of fat; Meyer’ found it to yield butyric, capronic, caprylic, caprinic and other acids of the series of the common fatty acids, and also one acid richer in carbon than stearic acid. Nux vomica also contains mucilage and sugar. The latter, which according to Rebling (1855) exists to the extent of 6 per cent., reduces cupric oxide without the aid of heat. When macerated in water, the seeds easily undergo lactic fermentation, not however attended with decomposition of the alkaloids. The stability of strychnine is remarkable, even after ten years of contact with putrescent animal substances. Commerce—Large quantities of nux vomica are brought into the ~ London market from British India? The export from Bombay in the _ year 1871-72 was 3341 ewt., all shipped to the United Kingdom? — Madras in 1869-70 exported 4805 ewt.; and Calcutta in 1865—66, 2801 Ses The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1870* was 0934 cwt. ; : | Nux vomica is stated by Garnier (J. c. page 429, note) to be largely exported from Cambodja to China. ; Uses—Tincture and extract of nux vomica, and the alkaloid strych- nine, are frequently administered as tonic remedies in a variety of orders, - SEMEN IGNATII. Faba Sancti I. gnatii; St. Ignatius’ Beans; F. Feves de Saint-Ignace, Noia Igasur; G. Ignatiusbohnen.’ Botanical Origin—Strychnos Ignatii Bergius® (S. philippensis Blanco, Ignatiana DHE piel Loureiro), a large climbing shrub, grow- ing in Bohol, Samar, and Cebu, islands of the Bisaya group of the Philip- Pines, and according to Loureiro in Cochin China, where it has been Introduced. The inflorescence and foliage are known to botanists only _ Jahresbericht der Chemie, 1875. 856. Remedios Faciles, Manila, 1857. p. 610). * We have seen 1136 emiice offered in The name St. Ignatius’ erst te South * single drug-sale (30 March 1871). thoes in -Barepe, es een of severdl Statement of the Trade and Navigation America to designate — Pa il. & Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 62. medicinal Oucurbitacer, a8 those of 7 ei” O later returns are accessible. lea trilobata “L., ypanee Mena . the plant and seeds nin the Manso and Anisosperma Passiflora Manso. saya language by be gerne panga- ° Materia Medica, Stockholm, 1 Aas se Juason, aguason, canlara, mananaog, dan- 146,—We omit citing the goers ost cagay, catalonga or igasur ; in the islands amara, as it has been shown 3 n °f Bohol and Cebu where the seeds are that the plant so named by the yates Produced, by that of coyacoy, and by the _—Linnzus is Posoqueria longiflora Aubl. o Spaniards of the Philippines as Pepita de __ the order Rubiaceae, a native of Guiana. ‘saya or Pepita de Catbalogan (Clain, 432 LOGANIACE. from the descriptions given by Loureiro’ and Blanco.” The fruit is _ spherical, or sometimes ovoid, 44 inches in diameter by. 6} long; as _ shown by Ray and Petiver’s figure. It has a smooth brittle shell en- closing seeds to the number of about 24. G. Bennett,> who saw the - fruits at Manila sold in the bazaar, says they contain from 1 to 12 seeds, imbedded in a glutinous blackish pulp.* According to Jagor’ the shrub is abundant near Basey, in the south-western part of the island of Samar, on the straits of San Juanico ; its seeds are met with as a medicine in many houses in the Philippines. a ee History—lIt iswstated by Murray ° and later writers that.this seed was introduced into Europe from the Philippines by the Jesuits, who, on account of its virtues, bestowed upon it the name of Ignatius, the founder of their order. However this may be, the earliest account of the drug appears to be that communicated by Camelli, Jesuit mis- sionary at Manila, to Ray and Petiver, and by them laid before the Royal Society of London in 1699 Camelli proclaimed the seed to be the Nua Vomica legitima of the Arabian physician Serapion, who’ _ flourished in the 9th century; but in our opinion there is no warrant » _ whatever for supposing it to have been known at so remote a period.* Camelli states that the seed, which he calls Nua Pepita sew Faba Sancti _ Ignatii, is much esteemed as a remedy in various disorders, though he was well aware of its poisonous properties when too freely administered. In Germany, St. Ignatius’ Bean was made known about the same period by Bohn of Leipzig.® ee _The drug is found in the Indian bazaars under a name whichis evidently corrupted from the Spanish pepita. It is met with m the ___drugshops of China as Lew-sung-kwo, i.e. Luzon fruit. | Description—St. Ignatius’ Beans are about an inch in length ; _ their form is ovoid, yet by mutual pressure it is rendered very ie gular, and they are 3-, 4-, or 5-sided, bluntly angular, or flattish, with a conspicuous hilum at one end. In the fresh state, they are covere with silvery adpressed hairs: portions of a shaggy brown epidermis are here and there perceptible on those found in commerce, but m the majority the seed shows the dull grey, granular surface of the albumen itself. Notwithstanding the different outward appearance, the structure of St. Ignatius’ Beans accords with that of nux vomica. The radicle how- ever is longer, thicker, and frequently somewhat bent, and the cotyle- _ dons are more pointed. The horny brownish albumen is translucent, _ January 1832, 1 Flora Cochinchinensis, ed. i i 0789 sll 5 Willd. i, ora de Filipinas, ed. 2. 1845, 61. * London Med. and Phys. Journ. * The only specimen of the fruit I have pes a m the possession of my late : = ate. Morson, It measured exactly : nt . €s in diameter, and when opened — anuary 1872) was found to contain 17 of inet pay normed seeds, with remnants poe Pulp.—D.H. I have seen another ee. PR vice aeindes Plantes, Paris. —F.A.F, =. 213, im den Philippinen, Berlin, 1873. vi. (1792)26- ® Apparatus Medicaminum, 87: Rays 7 Phil. Trans, xxi. (1699) 44 Hist. Plant. iii. lib. 31. 118. cu 8 The Philippines were unknown a Europeans of the Middle Ages. Ny ie discovered by Magellan in 1521, fe = conquest by the Spaniards was ». vious tually commenced until 1565. ae a to the Spanish oceupation, ends ee governed by petty chiefs, and jae (aca for the gg arg eee | apanese, Chinese, an . 2 _ fr Encyklopddie der Rohwaaren __ kunde, i. (1843) 576. eee HADIX SPIGREI a very hard, and difficult to split. The whole seed swells considerably by prolonged digestion in warm water, and has then a heavy, earthy smell. The beans are intensely bitter and highly poisonous. * _ Microscopic Structure—The hairs of the epidermis are of an analogous structure, but more simple than in nux vomica. The albumen and cotyledons agree in structural features with those of the same parts in nux vomica. Chemical Composition—Strychnine exists to the extent of about 15 per cent.; the seeds also contain 0°5 per cent. of brucine. Dried over sulphuric acid and burnt with soda-lime, it yielded us an average of 1°78 per cent. of nitrogen, which would answer to about 10 per cent. of albuminoid matter. Commerce—We have no information as to the collection of the drug. The seeds are met with irregularly in English trade, being sometimes very abundant, at others scarcely obtainable. Uses—The same as those of nux vomica. When procurable at a moderate price, the seeds are valued for the manufacture of strychnine. RADIX SPIGELIZ. Radia Spigelie Marilandice; Indian Pink Root, Carolina Pink Root, Spigelia. Botanical Origin—Spigelia marilandica L., an herbaceous plant about a foot high, indigenous in the woods of North America, from Pennsylvania to Wisconsin and southward. According to Wood and Bache, it is collected chiefly in the Western and South-western States. History—The anthelminthic properties of the root, discovered by the idians, were brought to notice in Europe about the year 1754 by ing, Garden, and Chalmers, physicians of Charleston, South Carolina. e drug was admitted to the London Pharmacopeeia in 1788. _ Description—Pink root has a near resemblance to serpentary, con- sisting of a short, knotty, dark brown rhizome emitting slender wiry roots. It is quite wanting in the peculiar odour of the latter drug, or indeed in any aroma; in taste it is slightly bitter and acrid. Sometimes the entire plant with its quadrangular stems a foot high is imported. a8 opposite leaves about 3 inches long, sessile, ovate-lanceolate, acuminate, smooth or pubescent. Microscopic Structure—The transverse section of the rhizome, *Sout 3%; of an inch in diameter, shows a small woody zone he large pith of elliptic outline, consisting of thin-walled cells. rae y © central tissue is decayed. In the roots, the middle cortica ei Predominates; it swells in water, after which its large cells display fine Spiral markings. The nucleus-sheath observable in serpentary 1s Wanting in spigelia. Chemical Composition—Not sati Wood contain resin, the parenchym thizome some tannic matters occur, Pink Root is sometimes erroneously latinized in price-lists, “Radix caryophylli.” » sfactorily known: the vessels of e starch; in the cortical part of the but not in the roots. Feneulle the ae Sees GENTIANE, | (1823) asserts that the drug yields a little essential oil. The experi- - ments of Bureau’ show that spigelia acts on rabbits and other animals as a narcotico-acrid poison. Uses—Spigelia has long been reputed a most efficient medicine for the expulsion of Ascaris lwmbricoides, but according to Stillé? its real value for this purpose has probably been over-estimated. This author speaks of it as possessing alterative and tonic properties. In England, it is rarely prescribed by the regular practitioner, but is used as a household medicine in some districts. It is much employed in the United States GENTIANE. RADIX GENTIANZ. Gentian Root; F. Racine de Gentiane ; G. Enzianwurzel. Botanical Origin—Gentiana lutea L., a handsome perennial herb, growing 3 feet high indigenous to open grassy places on the mountains of Middle and Southern Europe. -It occurs in Portugal, Spain, - Pyrenees, in the islands of Sardinia and Corsica, in the Apennines, the mountains of Auvergne, the Jura, the Vosges, the Black Forest, ancl throughout the chain of the Alps as far as Bosnia and the Danubian Principalities. Among the mountains of Germany, it is found on the Suabian Alps near Wiirzburg, and here and there in Thuringia, but not further north, nor does it occur in the British Islands. _ History—The name Gentiana is said to be derived from Gentius, a king of the Ilyrians, living B.c, 180-167, by whom, according to bo Pliny and Dioscorides, the plant was noticed. Whether the species thus named was Gentiana lutea is doubtful. During the middle ages, gentian was commonly employed for the cure of disease, and as an antidote to poison. Tragus in’ 1552 mentions it as a means of diluting wounds, an application which has been resorted to in modern medi practice. Description—The plant has a cylindrical, fleshy, simple peal pale colour, occasionally almost as much as 4 feet in length by 1; in thickness, producing 1 to 4 aerial stems. ; The dried root of commerce is in irregular, contorted pieces, inches in length, and } to 1 inch in thickness; the pieces are wrinkled longitudinally, and marked transversely, especially 7 : lit upper portion, with numerous rings. Very often they are I a to facilitate drying. They are of a yellowish brown; internally oe more orange tint, spongy, with a peculiar, disagreeable, heavy and intensely bitter taste. The crown of the root, which is somew : thickened, is clothed with the scaly bases of leaves. The ire “te and flexible, —brittle only immediately after drying. We fo lose Mm weight about 18 per cent. by complete drying in @ spss it regained 16 per cent. by being afterwards exposed to the alr several ue ie oe 16 da famille des Loganiacées, 1856. 2 ee ae Poole Me 2 Philadelphia, ii. . RADIX GENTIANE, oS 888 Microscopic Structure—A transverse section shows the bark separated by a dark cambial zone from the central column; the radial arrangement of the tissues is only obvious in the latter part. In the | bark, liber fibres are wanting; and in the centre there is no distinct pith. The fibro-vascular bundles are devoid of thick-walled ligneous ap eeeege this may explain the consistence, and the short even racture of the root. It is moreover remarkable on account of the absence both of starch and oxalate of calcium; the cells appear to contain chiefly sugar and a little fat oil. Chemical Composition—The bitter taste of gentian is due to a substance called Gentiopicrin or Gentian-bitter, C"H°O". Several chemists, as Henry, Caventou, Trommsdortf, Leconte and Dulk have described the bitter principle of gentian in an impure state, under the name of Gentianin, but Kromayer in 1862 first obtained it in a state of purity. Gentiopicrin is a neutral body crystallizing in colourless needles, which readily dissolve in water. It is soluble in spirit of wine, but in absolute alcohol only when aided by heat; it does not dissolve ‘in ether. A solution of caustic potash or soda forms with it a yellow solution. Under the influence of a dilute mineral acid, gentiopicrin is resolved into glucose, and an amorphous, yellowish-brown, neutral sub- stance, named Gentiogenin. Fresh gentian roots yield somewhat more than ;4; per cent. of gentiopicrin; from the dried root it could not be obtained in a crystallized state. The medicinal Tincture of Gentian, mixed with solution of caustic potash, loses its bitterness in a few days, probably in consequence of the destruction of the gentiopicrin. Be Another constituent of gentian root is Gentiani or gentisin CH® ; C405 or (OH)?C*H?. CO.C*H? 12> It forms tasteless yellowish O prisms, sparingly soluble in alcohol, requiring about 5000 parts of water for solution. With alkalis it yields intensely yellow erystalliz- able compounds, which, however, are easily decomposed already by carbonic acid. Gentianin may be sublimed if carefully heated at 250° C. y melting it with caustic ‘potash, acetic acid, phloroglucin, C'H(OH)$, and oxysalicylic acid, C°H*(OH)*COOH, are produced, as shown in 1875 by Hlasiwetz and Habermann. The name of gentianic wid or gentisinic acid had been applied to the oxysalicylic acid obtained by the above decomposition before it was identified with oxysalicylic a. other sources. entian root abounds in pectin ; ; : to 15 per cent., an siatgaital ati sugar, of which advantage 1s taken in Southern Bavaria and Switzerland for the manufacture by fermenta- tion and distillation of a potable spirit.’ This use of gentian and 2 pee umption in medicine have led to the per bees are extirpatec Some parts of Switzerland where it formerly abounce’’. The Secctnece of Maisch (1976) and Ville (1877) have shown tannic matters to be absent from the root. th Commerce—Gentian root finds its way in _ "rough the German houses ; and some is shipped hy imported into the United Kingom in 1870 w 1Th. Martius, Pharm. Journ. xii. (1853) 371. to English commerce from Marseilles. The as 1100 ewt. it also contains, to the extent of 12 436 GENTIANEA Uses—Gentian is much used in medicine as a bitter tonic. Ground to powder, the root is an ingredient in some of the compositions sold for ~ feeding cattle. Substitutes-—It can hardly be said that gentian is adulterated, yet the roots of several other species possessing similar properties are ocea- sionally collected ; of these we may name the following :— 1. Gentiana purpurea L.—This species is found in Alpine meadows of the Apennines, Savoy and Switzerland, in Transylvania, and in South- western Norway ; a variety also in Kamtchatka! The root is frequently collected ;? it attains at most 18 inches in length and a diameter of about 1 inch at the summit, from which arise 8 to 10 aerial stems, clothed below with many scaly remains of leaves. The top of the root has thus a peculiar branched appearance, never found in the root of G. lutea, with which in all other respects that of G. purpurea agrees, The latter is perhaps even more intensely bitter. 2. G. punctata L—Nearly the same description applies to this ree which is a native of the Alps of South-Eastern France, Savoy, the southern parts of Switzerland, extending eastward to Austria, Hungary and Roumelia. 3. G. pannonica Scop.—a plant of the mountains of Austria, un- known in the Swiss Alps, has a root which does not attain the length or the thickness of the root of G. purpurea, with which it agrees m other respects. It is officinal in the Austrian Pharmacopeeia. 4. G. Catesbei Walter (G. Saponaria L.)—indigenous in the United States. Its root, usually not exceeding 3 inches in length by $ inch im diameter, has a very thin woody column within a spongy whitish cortical tissue and a bright yellow epidermis. This root is less bitter than the above enumerated drugs ; the same remark applies also t0 those European Gentianae which like G. Catesbei are provided with blue flowers. HERBA CHIRATA. Herba Chirettee vel Chirayte ; Chiretta or Chirayta. Botanical Origin—Ophelia® Chirata Grisebach (Gentiana Chir ayita Roxb.), an annual herb of the mountainous regions of Northern India from Simla through Kumaon to the Murung district in South eastern Nepal. ‘ History—Chiretta has long been held in high esteem by the Hindus, and is frequently mentioned in the writings of Susruta. 1S called in Sanscrit Kivéita-tikta, which means the bitter plant “ the Kivdtus, the Kiratas being an outcast race of mountaineers north of India, In England, it began to attract some attention abou : : . ee — (Die Vegetation'der Erde, i. sweetroot, «« Sotrot,” according to Schiibe! oe relatin Me gives very interesting particulars Pflanzenwelt Norwegens, 1873-1875, fs ie Pinswes a! boy Brad i ar of Gentiana 3'OperrAEW, to berape i es oe a Ld > Ne a an ‘ . * the aes - ‘He is decidedi: +. pannonica, medical virtues 0 nts, part] are distinct » ae sokicged opinion that they nod and Trimen, Med. Pla * In Norway it is, strange to say, called HERBA CHIRATAD 4 stiti—i—=:s«s the year 1829; and in 1839 was introduced into the Edinburgh Pharma- copeeia. The plant was first described by Roxburgh in 1814. Chiretta was regarded by Guibourt as the Calamus aromaticus of the ancients, but the improbability of this being correct was well pointed out by Fée’ and by Royle, and is now generally admitted. Description—The entire plant is collected when in flower, or more commonly when the capsules are fully formed, and tied up with a slip of bamboo into flattish bundles of about 3 feet long? each weighing when dry from 1} to 21b. The stem, 32, to ;%; of an inch in thickness, is of an orange-brown, sometimes of a dark purplish colour; the tapering simple root, often much exceeding the stem in thickness, is 2 to 4 inches long and up to 4 an inch thick. It is less frequently branched, but always provided with some rootlets. In stronger specimens, the root is somewhat oblique or geniculate ; perhaps the stem is in this case the product of a second year’s growth and the plant not strictly annual. Each plant usually consists of a single stem, yet occasionally two or more spring from a single root. The stem rises to a height of 2 to 3 feet, and is cylindrical in its lower and middle portion, but bluntly quadrangular in its upper, the four edges being each marked with a prominent decurrent line, as in HLrythraa Centawriwm and many other plants of the order. The decussate ramification resembles that of other gentians; its stems are jointed at intervals of 1} to 3 or 4 inches, bearing opposite semi-amplexicaul leaves on their cicatrices. The stem consists in its lower portion of a large woody column, coated with a very thin rind, and enclosing a comparatively large pith. The upper parts of the stem and branches contain a broad ring of thick-walled Woody parenchyme. The numerous slender axillary and opposite branches are elongated, and thus constitute a dense umbellate panicle. They are smooth and glabrous, of a greenish or brownish grey colour. The leaves are ovate-acuminate, cordate at the base, entire, sessile, the largest 1 inch or more in length, 3- to 5- or 7-nerved, the midrib ing strongest. At each division of the panicle there are two small bracts. The yellow corolla is rotate, 4-lobed, with glandular pits above the base ; the calyx is one-third the length of the petals, which are about half an inch long. The one-celled, bivalved capsule contains numerous seeds. The flowers share the intense bitterness of the whole drug. The Wood of stronger stems is devoid of the bitter principles. Chemical Composition—A chemical examination of chiretta has n made at our Bee under the direction of Professor ret) “ mae by his assistant Mr. Hohn. The chief aie of this careful an “abdorate investigation may be thus described. : 3 rus 10 Among the bitter pachiats of the drug, Ophelic —, ine Cccurs in the largest proportion. It is an amorphous, viscid, yt Substance, of an acidulous, persistently bitter taste, and a faint gen 8 like odour. With basic acetate of lead, it produces an abundant hs “ith Precipitate. Ophelic acid does not form an insoluble es at iti mnin ; it. disaclves in water, alcohol and ether. The first solution * Con ’ Histoi ; tly are usually much shorter. ii, (1 898) Ponce nat. pharmaceutique, oem te fictails, see Archiv der Phar- * The other kinds of chirettato be named —_macie, 189 (1869) 229. 38 = CONVOLVULACEAL causes the separation of protoxide of copper from an alkaline tartrate of that metal. A second bitter principle, Chiratin, C?>H8%O", may be removed by means of tannic acid, with which it forms an insoluble compound. Chiratin is a neutral, not distinctly crystalline, light yellow, hygro- _ scopic powder, soluble in alcohol, ether and in warm water. By boiling hydrochloric acid, it is decomposed into Chiratogenin, C¥H™O®, and -ophelie acid. Chiratogenin is a brownish, amorphous substance, soluble in aleohol but not in water, nor yielding a tannic compound. No sugar is formed in this decomposition. These results exhibit no analogy to those obtained in the analysis of the European gentians. Finally, Hohn remarked in chiretta a erystallizable, tasteless, yellow substance, but its quantity was 0 minute that no investigation of it could be made. | The leaves of chiretta, dried at 100° C., afforded 7:5 per cent. of ash a the stems 3°7 ; salts of potassium and calcium prevailing in both. ‘ Uses.—Chiretta is a pure bitter tonic, devoid of aroma and astrin- gency. In intense bitterness it exceeds gentian, Hrythrwa and other European plants of the same order. It is much valued in India, but 1s not very extensively used in England, and not at all on the Continent. It is said to be employed when cheap, in place of gentian, to impart flavour to the compositions now sold as Cuttle Foods. _ Substitutes and Adulteration—Some other species of Ophelia, namely, 0. angustifolia Don, O. densifolia Griseb., O. elegans Wight, 0. pulchella Don, and 0. multiflora Dalz, two or three species of Exacum, besides Andrographis paniculata Wall, are more or less known in the Indian bazaars by the name of Chiretta’ and possess to a greater or less degree the bitter tonic properties of that drug. Another Gentianacea, Slevogtia orientalis Griseb., 1s called Chota Chiretta, Le. small chiretta. It would exceed due limits were we ' describe each of these plants: we have therefore given a somewhat detailed description of the true chiretta, which will suffice for its identi- = fication. We have frequently examined the chiretta found m the English market, but have never met with any other than the legitimate sort.’ Bentley noticed in 1874 the substitution of Ophelia angustofolt, which he found to be by far less bitter than true chiretta. CONVOLVULACE. SCAMMONIUM. Scammony ; F. Scammonée ; G. Scanmonium. ms “cponieas Origin—Convolvulus Scammonia L., a twin ae uch resembling the common C. arvensis of Europe, but aime f * Moodeen Sheriff, Sx . : tod out a case PEGE ti » Suppl. to the Pharma- 2 Mr. E. A. Webb has pointe ts of sult alee: ano 1869. pp. 138. 189.—Con- _of false-packing in which the eed en P rmacopewia of India 1868 : cuginagieb iit) had : » pp- Rubia cordifolia L. (Munjt oe closed in the bundles of chiretta. rom it in being of larger size, and having a stout tap-root. It one 4 ~ SCAMMONIUM. 439° in waste bushy places in Syria, Asia Minor, Greece, the Greek Islands, extending northward to the Crimea and Southern Russia, but appears to be wanting in Northern Africa, Italy, and in all the western parts of the Mediterranean basin. History—The dried milky juice of the scammony plant has been known as a medicine from very ancient times. Theophrastus in the 3rd century B.C. was acquainted with it; it was likewise familiar to Dioscorides, Pliny, Celsus, and Rufus of Ephesus, each of whom has given some account of the manner in which it was collected. Scam- mony used then also to be called Diagrydion, from the Greek word daxpv. tear. The medieval Arabian physicians also knew scammony and the plant from which it is derived. "The drug was used in Britain in the 10th and 11th centuries, and would appear to be one of the medicines recommended to King Alfred the Great, by Helias, patriarch of Jerusalem.’ It is repeatedly named in the medical writings in use prior to the Norman conquest (A.D. 1066), in one of which directions are given for recognizing the goodness of the drug by the white emulsion it produces when wetted. The botanists of the 16th and 17th centuries, as Brunfels, Gesner, Matthiolus, Dodonwus, and the Bauhins, described and figured the plant partly under the name of Scammonia syriaca. The collecting of the drug was well described by Russell, an English physician of Aleppo (1752), whose account? is accompanied by an excellent figure _ representing the plant and the means of obtaining its juice. | _ Scammony was formerly distinguished by the names Aleppo and Smyrna, the former sort being twice or thrice as costly as the latter ; at the present day Aleppo scammony has quite lost its pre-eminence. _ Localities producing the drug—Scammony is collected in Asia — nor, from Brussa and Boli in the north, to Macri and Adalia in the South, and eastward as far as Angora. But the most productive localities within this area are the valley of the Mendereh, south of Smyrna: and the districts of Kirkagach and Demirjik, north of that town. The neighbourhood of Aleppo likewise affords the drug. A little is obtained further south in Syria, from the woody hills and valleys about the lake of Tiberias and Mount Carmel. Production—The scammony plant has a long woody root, which throws off downwards a few lateral branches, and produces from its notty summit numerous twining stems which are persistent and woody at the base. In plants of three or four years old, the root may an inch or more in diameter; in older specimens it sometimes — acquires a diameter of three or four inches. In length, it is from two to three feet, according to the depth of soil in which it grows. When the root is wounded, there exudes a milky juice which dries up toa * Such is the opini Syri d Persian) drugs were included on expressed by the (Syrian an habeas Rey, Q, Cockayne” The ete of Hates to in the lost part of the patriarch ty rs Alfred is imperfect, and mentions only bal- —See Leechiloms, peered a yi nam Petroleum, theriaka, and awhite stone craft of Karly Lnglan, a sw :) ee ne hoped as : charm, But from the reference _ kayne ncaa on 273, 28 ic ae these four articles i t of the pages £27. ro, al: Tacs’ MS., in pohineatsudl with agama piaing Medical Observations and Inquiries, * 2 eon, tragacanth, and yalbanum, there (1757) 12. S$ ground for believing that the latter 440 CONVOLVULACE. golden-brown, transparent, gummy-looking substance :—this is pure scammony.” The method followed in collecting scammony for use appears to be nearly the same in all localities. It has been thus described to us by two eye-witnesses, both long resident in the East. Operations com- mence by clearing away the bushes among which the plant is commonly found ; the soil around the latter is then removed, so as to leave 4 or 5 inches of the root exposed. This is then cut off in a slanting direction at 2 to 4 inches below the crown, and a mussel-shell is stuck into it just beneath the lowest edge, so as to receive the milky-sap which instantly flows out. The shells are usually left till evening, when they are col- lected, and the cut part. of the root scraped with a knife, so as to remove any partially dried drops of juice. These latter are called by the smyrna peasants, kaimak or cream, the softer contents of the shell being ealled gala or milk. Sometimes the scammony is allowed to dry in the shell, and such must be regarded as representing the drug in its utmost perfection. But scammony in shells is not brought into commerce, though a little of it is reserved by the peasants for their own use. : __ The contents of the shells and the scraped-off drops are next emptied _ Into a covered copper pot or a leathern bag, carried home, made homo- genous by mixing with a knife, and at once allowed to dry. In this way a form of scammony is obtained closely approaching that dried in the shell. But it is a quality of exceptional goodness. Usually the _ peasant does not dry off the juice promptly, but allows his daily gather- ings to accumulate; and when he has collected a pound or two, he places it in the sunshine to soften, and then kneads it, sometimes with the addition of a little water, into a plastic mass, which he lastly allows to dry. By this long exposure to heat, and retention in a liquid state, the scammony juice undergoes fermentation, acquires a strong cheesy odour and dark colour, and when finally dried, exhibits a more oT less _ porous or bubbly structure, never observable in shellscammony. |, Scammony is very extensively adulterated. The adulteration often performed by the peasants, who mix foreign substances into the drug while it is yet soft ; and it is also effected by the dealers, some of whom purchase it of the peasants ina half-dried state. The substances used for sophistication are numerous, the commonest and most easily detected being, according to our experience, carbonate of lime and flour. Woodashes, earth (not always calcareous), gum arabic, and tragacant are also employed ; more rarel Ik of eee. pounded scammony roots, rosin, or black-lead. ek share hike pea eS Description—The pure juice of the root, simply dried by exposure to the sun and air, is an amorphous, transparent, brittle substance, ” resinous aspect, a yellowish-brown colour, and glossy fracture. SCAN mony possessing these characters is occasionally met with in the form of flattish irregular masses, about } to 3 of an inch in thickness, very . brittle by reason of internal fissures, yet with but few air-cavities. 1 Named probably from Xxdupe, a trench or pit, in allusi i sro rr — to the excavation made € one was the late Mr. 8. H. Malta of Smyrna, whose interesting paper aia be found in Pharm. Journ. Xul. (1854) theother is Mr. Edward T. Rogers, 10" of Caiffa, now (1874) British Con Cairo. SCAMMONIUM. 441 mass, it is of a chesnut-brown, but in small fragments it is seen to be very pale yellowish-brown and transparent, with the freshly fractured surface vitreous and shining. When powdered it is of a very light buff’ Rubbed with the moistened finger it forms a white emulsion. Treated with ether it yields 88 to 90 per cent. of soluble matter, and a nearly colourless residuum. This scammony, as well as the pure juice in the shell, is very liable to become mouldy ; but besides this, it throws out, if long kept, a white, mammillated, crystalline efflorescence, the nature of which we have not been able to determine. But if scammony is kept quite dry, neither mouldiness nor efflorescence makes its appearance. The ordinary fine scammony of commerce, known as Virgin Scam- mony, is also in large flat pieces or irregular flattened lumps and frag- ments, which in mass have a dark-grey or blackish hue. Viewed in thin fragments, it is seen to be translucent and of a yellowish-brown. It is very easily broken, exhibits a shining fracture, gives an ashy grey powder, and has a peculiar cheesy odour. Some of the pieces have a porous, bubbly structure, indicative of fermentation ; the more solid often show the efflorescence already mentioned. Scammony has not much taste, but leaves an acrid sensation in the throat. Chemical Composition—Scammony owes its active properties as a medicine to a resin shown (1860) by Spirgatis to be identical with that found in the root of the Mexican Ipomea orizabensis, known in commerce as Male Jalap: this resin called Jalapin will be described in the next article. The other constituents of pure scammony are not well known. One of them is the substance which, as already stated, makes its appearance as small masses of cauliflower crystals on the surface of pure scammony, when the latter is kept in air not perfectly dry. Whether the odour observable in commercial scammony is due to a Volatile fatty acid developed by fermentation, is a question still to be Investigated. Commerce—The export of scammony from Smyrna amounted in 1871 to 278 cases, valued at £8320; in 1872 to 185 cases, value £6100. According to a report of Consul Skene on the trade of Northern Syria, — 37 cases of scammony were exported from the province of Aleppo in 1872,—six-sevenths of the quantity being for England. An oe Aleppo exported by way of Alexandretta to England 46,500 k “fi grammes of scammony root and 900 kilogrammes of the resin, the latter being valued at 36,000 franes (£1444). 43 An establishment at Brussa, founded by Della Sudda, of Constanti- nople, is stated to export since 1870 a very good scammony resin extracted by alcohol? Uses—Employed as an active cathartic, colocynth and calomel. Adulteration—Scammony is very often imported in an seonatriig te state, but the adulteration is so clumsily effected, and is so oe y : Coverable by simple tests, or even by ocular examination, that druggists have but little excuse for accepting a bad article. e have already named the substances used in the sophistication of | often in combination with j 76. 158. ’ Presented to Parliament, July 1873. 2 Dragendorff’s Jahresbericht, 1876. oe ae CON VOLVULACEA. scammony: of these, the most frequent are carbonate of lime and farinaceous matter. The first may generally be recognized by examining the fractured surface of the drug witha good lens, when the white particles of the carbonate will be perceived. If the surface is then touched (while still swb lente) with hydrochloric acid, etfervescence will prove the presence of a carbonate. Other earthly adulterants can be discovered by incineration, or by examining the residue of the drug after treatment with ether. Starchy substances, the presence of which may be surmised __ by the scammony being difficult to break, are detectable by the miero- scope or by solution of iodine, a cold decoction of scammony not being affected by that reagent. Scammony that is ponderous, dull and clayey, not easily broken in the fingers, or which when broken does not exhibit a clean, glossy surface, or which does not afford at least 80 per cent. of matter soluble in ether, should be rejected. That which is made up in _ the form of hard,.dark, circular cakes is widely different from pure scammony. -Scammony may be distinguished from Resin of Scammony by its _ property of forming an emulsion when wetted. The resin is also more - glossy and almost entirely soluble in ether. Radix Scammoniz. _ The frauds commonly practised on the scammony of commerce have given rise to various schemes for obtaining the drug ina purer form, as well as at a more moderate price." . : So far back as 1839, the Edinburgh College prescribed a Resina Scammonii, which was prepared by exhausting scammony with a spirit of wine, distilling off the spirit, and washing the residue with water. Such an extract was manufactured by the late Mr. Maltass of Smyrna, and occasionally shipped to London, ; _ In consequence of a suggestion made by Mr. Clark, manufacturer 0 liquorice at Sochia near Seala N uova, south of Smyrna, a patent ees taken out (1856) by Prof. A. W. Williamson of London, for preparing this resin directly from the dried root by means of alcohol. The same : chemist shortly afterwards devised an improved process, which consists in boiling the roots first with water and then with dilute acid, so as t? deprive them of all matters soluble in those menstrua, and afterw extracting the resin by alcohol. _ Resin of Scammony, obtained either from scammony or from the dried root, is ordered in the British Pharmacopewia of 1867, and Is - manufactured by a few houses. It is a brown, translucent, brittle su stance of resinous fracture, entirely soluble in ether, and not forming an emulsion when wetted with water. Scammony root is occasionally brought into the London market, sometimes in rather large quantity, but it is not generally kept by druggists, nor do we find it quoted in price-currents. Its collection » even opposed in some parts of Turkey by the local authorities. Scammony was : ; as we . 8 quoted in a London 3 Such was the case at Aleppo 1 is a goes: April 1874, at 8s. to 36s. know by a private letter from Nir, Const This 1s Ee mmony at 14s. per Ib, Skene.—D. H. sale, 3 July 1873. were offered in a drug RADIX JALAPH, 443 The root consists of stout, woody, cylindrical pieces, often spirally twisted, 2 to 3 inches in diameter, covered with a rough, furrowed, greyish-brown bark. They are internally pale brown, tough and resin- ous, with a faint odour and taste resembling jalap. A good sample yielded us 54 per cent. of resin; Kingzett and Farries (1877) showed the root to be devoid of an alkaloid. RADIX JALAPZ. Tuber Jalupe ; Jalup, Vera Cruz Jalap; ¥. Racine de Jalup ; G. Jalape. Botanical Origin—Ipomea Purga Hayne (Convolvulus Purga Wenderoth, Exogoniwm Purga Bentham), a tuberous-rooted plant, throwing out herbaceous, twining stems, clothed with cordate-acuminate sharply auricled leaves, and bearing elegant salver-shaped, deep pink flowers. It grows naturally on the eastern declivities of the Mexican Andes, at an elevation above the sea of 5000 to 8000 feet, especially about _ Chiconquiaco and the adjacent villages, and also around San Salvador on the eastern slope of the Cofre de Perote. In these localities where — rain falls almost daily, and where the diurnal temperature varies from 15° to 24° C. (60° to 75° F.), the plant occurs in shady woods, flourishing ina deep rich vegetable soil. ; : The jalap grows freely in the south of England, if planted in a sheltered border, but its flowers are produced so late in autumn that they rarely expand, and the tubers, which develope in some abundance, are liable to be destroyed in winter unless protected from frost. The plant has been introduced on the N eilgherry Hills in the south ' of India ; it succeeds there remarkably well,’ and might be extensively propagated if there were any adequate inducement. | History—The use as a purgative of the tuber of a convolvulaceous — plant of Mexico, was made known by the early Spanish voyagers ; and so highly was the new drug esteemed that large quantities of 1t reached urope during the 16th century. Monardes, writing in 1565, Vio the new drug was called Ru ybarbo de las Indias or Ruybarbo de Mechoacan, the latter name being given mn allusion to the province of Michoacan whence the supplies were derived. Some writers have advanced the opinion that mechoacan root was the tnodern jalap, but in this we do not concur, for the description given of mechoacan and the place of its production do not apply well to jalap. drugs were moreover well known about 1610; they were perfectly distinguished b Colin, an apothecary of Lyons (1619), who mentions Jalap (“racine de Talap”) as ses newly brought to France.’ They were however often confounded, or at least only distinguished by their differ- : ence of tint. Thus jalap, which at that period used to be imported cut Into transverse slices was termed, from its darker colour, Black 3 Monardes, Hist. des Medicamens, trad, . Thus at Ootacamund, Mr. Broughton, Colin, ed. 2, 16.—The first: edi- mn a letter to one of us 15 January 1870) Speaks of receiving ‘‘a Se rte of oo ae > tion of this work seems to be unknown. weighing over 9 1b., and remarks that the 6 Hill, History of the Mat. Med, Lond, Plant grows as easily as yam, 1751. 549. - ee CONVOLVULACEA Mechoacan ; and on the other hand, the paler mechoacan was in later times known as White Jalap. Mechoacan root is now known to consist (at least in part) of the large _ thick tuber of Ipomea Jalapa Pursh (Batatas Jalapa Choisy), a plant of the Southern United States and Mexico. As adrug it has been long obsolete in Europe, having given place to jalap, which is a more active and efficient purgative. The botanical source of jalap was not definitely asecertained until about the year 1829, when Dr. Coxe of Philadelphia published a _ description and coloured figure, taken from living plants sent to him two years previously from Mexico.' Manner of Growth—Though we have cultivated the jalap plant for many years, we have had no opportunity of examining the seedling, but judging from analogy suppose that it has at first a small tap-root which gradually thickens after the manner of a radish. A root of jalap, called by some tuber and by others tubercule, throws out in addition to aerial stems, slender, prostrate, underground shoots which emit roots at intervals. These roots while but an inch or two long become thickened _and carrot-shaped, gradually enlarging into napiform tuber-like bodies, _ which emit a few rootlets from their surface and taper off below in long, slender ramifications. The thickened roots have no trace of leaf-organs; the aerial stems grows from the shoot from which they originated. _ Fresh jalap roots (tubers) are externally rough and dark brown, internally white and fleshy. Collection—Jalap is said to be dug up in Mexico during the whole year.” The smaller roots are dried entire; the larger are cut transversely, or are gashed so that they may dry more easily. As drying by sun-heat would be almost impracticable owing to the wetness of the climate, the roots are placed in a net, and suspended over the almost constantly burning hearth of the Indian’s hut, where they gradually dry, and at the _ Same time often contract a smoky smell. Much of the jalap that has of late arrived has been more freely sliced than usual, and has obviously been dried with less difficulty. 3 According to Schiede, whose account was written in 1829," the Indians of Chiconquiaco were at that period commencing the cultivation of jalap i their gardens. _Description—The jalap of commerce consists of irregular, ovoid roots, varying from the size of an egg to that of a hazel-nut, but occa" sionally as large as a man’s fist. They are usually pointed at the lower end, deeply wrinkled, contorted and furrowed, and of a dark-brown hue, dotted over with numerous little, elongated, lighter coloured ip running transversely. The large roots are incised lengthwise, OF cu Into halves or quarters, but the smaller are usually entire. Some : the small roots are spindle-shaped or cylindrical; others can be _— which are nearly globular, smooth and pitchy-looking, but these latter _ are seldom solid. Good jalap is ponderous, tough, hard and often horny, coming brittle when long kept, and breaking with a resinous nO” 1 American Journal of Med. Sei : died down. , . Sciences, vy. when the aerial stems have dt : Peete 5 Linncea, iii. (1830) 4735 Pharm. Jour It is plain that such a roceeding is _ viii, (1867) 652.—We are not aware 0 irrational, The roots should be dug up _—more recent account. RADIX JAEAPAES ee gas fibrous fracture; internally it is of a pale dingy brown or dirty white, It has a faint smoky, rather coffee-like odour, and a mawkish taste, followed by acridity. Microscopic Structure—Seen in transverse section, jalap exhibits no radiate structure, but numerous small concentric rings, which in many pieces are very regularly arranged. They are due to the latici- ferous cells, differing from the surrounding parenchyme only by their contents and rather large size. These laticiferous cells traverse the tissue in a vertical direction, constituting vertical bands, as may be observed on a longitudinal section; the single cells are simply placed one on the other, and do not form elongated ducts as in Lactuca or Taraxacum. The fibro-vascular bundles of jalap are neither numerous nor large; they are accompanied by thin-walled cells, so that firm woody rays do not occur. Parenchymatous cells are abundant, and, on a longitudinal fracture especially, if subsequently moistened, are seen to constitute con- centric layers. The laticiferous cells are always found in the outer part of each layer. The suberous coat with which the drug is covered is made up of the usual tabular cells. The parenchyme of jalap is loaded with starch grains; in the pieces which have been submitted to heat in order to dry them, the starch appears as an amorphous mass, and the drug then exhihits a horny consistence and greyish fracture, instead of being mealy. Crystals of calcium oxalate are frequently met with. The laticiferous cells contain the resin of jalap in a semi-fiuid state, even in the dry drug; drops of the resinous emulsion flow out of the cells, if thin slices are moistened by any watery liquid. Chemical Composition—Jalap owes its medicinal efficacy toa resin, which is extractable by exhausting the drug with spirit of wine, concentrating the alcoholic solution to a small bulk, and pouring it into water. The resin precipitated in this manner is then washed and dried; It is contained in jalap to the extent of 12 to 18 per cent,’ From this crude resin, which is the Resina jalape of the pharma- copeeias, ether or chloroform extracts 5 to 7 (12, Umney) per cent. of a resin which, according to Kayser,’ partially solidifies when in contact with water in crystalline needles. We can by no means confirm Kayser's state- ment. The residue (insoluble in ether) is one of the substances to which the name Jalapin has been applied W. Mayer, 1852-1855, who desig- nated it Convolvulin,! found it to have the composition C"H"O". When purified, it is colourless; it dissolves easily in ammonia as well as in the fixed alkalis, and is not re-precipitated by acids, having been converted by assumption of water into amorphous Convolvulic Acid, which is readily Soluble in water. Both convolvulin and convolvulic acid are resolved by moderate heating with dilute acids, or with emulsin, into erystallizable * Guibourt obtained of it 17 per cent., per cent. of resin. Broughton is of opinion : icec he air in mney 21°5, Squibb { and H. that exposure of the sliced tuber to the air Smith “not ae Hee : 5 D 'Hanbury i the process of drying, favours the formation to 15°38. Jal os of resin, by the oxidation of a hydrocarbon. Marquart 12 phrsont yo ieotcnitiontadas 2 Gmelin, Chemistry, xvi. (1864) 159. Miinich gave Widnmann 22 per cent.; from 3 As by Pereira, Elem. of Mat, Med. ii, plants produced in Dublin W. G. Smith (1850) 1463. got 9 to 12 per are Sere ia treat 4 Gmelin, op. cit. xvi. 154, otacamund in India yielded to one of us 18 460 2 ~~ ——s CONVOLVULACE. Convolvulinol, C*H"O", and sugar. Convolvulinol in contact with aqueous alkalis is converted into Convolvulinolic Acid, C*H80% which is slightly soluble in water and crystallizable. When convolvulin or its derivatives is treated with nitric acid, it ‘yields several acids, one of which is the Sebacic Acid, cons ee _ which is to be obtained by treating castor oil or other fatty substances in the same manner. Sebacie acid forms crystalline scales, soluble in boiling water, melting at 128°. That from jalap was first thought to be a peculiar acid, and therefore termed ipomic or ipomeic acid. Its — identification is due to Neison and Bayne (1874). Convolvulin (dry) melts at 150° C., but a small amount of water renders it fusible below 100° C. It is insoluble in oil of turpentine and inammonia. It dissolves in dilute nitric acid without becoming coloured or evolving gas. Convolvulin possesses in a high degree the purgative property of jalap, but this is not the case with convolvulinol. The other constituents of jalap include starch, uncrystallizable sugar, gum, and colouring matter. The sugar, according to Guibourt, exists to the extent of 19 per cent. __ Commerce—We have no means of knowing to what extent jalap 48 produced in Mexico. The imports of the drug into the United King- dom amounted in 1870 to 169,951 Ib. Very considerable quantities have of late (1873) appeared in the London drug-sales. Uses—Jalap is employed as a brisk cathartic. Other kinds of Jalap. Besides true jalap, the roots of certain other Convolvulacec of Mexico have been employed in Europe, either in the form of jalapin, or as adul- terants of the more costly, legitimate drug. The two following have been extensively imported and have been traced to their botamie source ; but there are others, of more occasional occurrence, the orig of which has not been ascertained.’ 1. Light, F usiform, or Woody Jalap, Male Jalap, Orizaba Root, Julap Tops or Stalks, Purgo macho of the Mexicans. This drug is derived from I pomeu orizabensis Ledanois, Orizaba, which is but imperfectly known. It is described as a pu climber, having a spindle-shaped root about two feet long of W “4 and fibrous texture. The drug occurs in irregular rectangular or block- 24 plant of F aseatl like pieces, evidently portions of a very large root, divided transverse y and longitudinally. ‘Sometimes it is more like true jalap, being 1n eae roots, of smaller size, spindle-shaped, not spherical. It has a meer lighter colour than jalap, and much deeper longitudinal wrinkles. larger pieces often exhibit deep cuts from an axe or knife; ae slices are of rare occurrence. Although generally less ponderous : Jalap, the Orizaba drug is nevertheless of a compact and often oe _ texture. From jalap it is easily distinguished by its radiated meee 4 Section, and the numerous thick bundles of vessels which proje¢ woody fibres from the fractured surface. 1 * . shy A For information about some of these, 2 Journ, de Chimie méd. X- (1834) 1 (1860) & ae Histoive des Droques, ii. pl. 1. 2. (with unsatisfactory figures). RADIX JALAPA. ae . 447 In chemical constitution Orizaba root is closely parallel to jalap. The resin was named by Mayer Jalapin; it is the Jalapin of Gmelin’s Chemistry (xvi. 405), and perhaps the jalapin of English pharmacy. * In the pure state it is a colourless amorphous translucent resin, dis- solving perfectly in ether,’ thus differing from convolvulin the corres- ponding resin of jalap. We find that it is readily soluble also in acetone, amylie alcohol, benzol and phenol, not in bisulphide of carbon. It has the composition of C*H™O”, so that it is homologous with convolvulin; the decomposition-products of jalapin obtained by similar treatment, namely jalapiec acid, jalapinol, and jalapinolic acid, are likewise homo- logous with the corresponding substances obtained from convolvulin. All these bodies when treated with nitric acid yield ipomeeic acid. Jalapin has the same fusing point as convolvulin, and behaves in the same manner with alkalis. The root afforded us 11'8 per cent. of resin dried at 100°C. When perfectly washed, decolorized and dissolved in two parts of alcohol, this resin turned the plane of polarization of a ray of light 9°8° to the left, in a column of 50mm. long. Convolvulin under the same conditions turned it only 5°8°. The resin of Orizaba root is held by chemists to be identical with that of scammony, of which it has the drastic action. 2. Tampico Jalup—Purga de Sierra Gorda of the Mexicans.—The plant which affords this drug has been described by one of us (1869) under the name of J pomea simulans® It is closely related to J. Purga Hayne, from which by its foliage it cannot be distinguished, but it has a bell-shaped corolla and pendulous flowerbuds, which are very different. 1. simuluns Hanbury grows in Mexico along the mountain range of the Sierra Gorda in the neighbourhood of San Luis de la Paz, from which town and the adjacent villages its roots are carried down to Tampico. It has also been found on the lofty Cordillera near Oaxaca, but whether there collected we know not. } ; The drug, to which in trade the name Tampico Jalap is commonly applied, has been imported during the last few years in considerable quantities. In appearance it closely approaches true jalap, but the roots are generally smaller, more elongated or finger-like, more shrivelled and corky-looking, wanting in the little transverse scars that are plentifully scattered over the roots of true jalap. Many pieces occur however which it is impossible to distinguish by the eye from true jalap, with which it agrees also in odour and taste. at cod Tampico jalap yielded to one of us 10 per cent. of purifiec pita entirely soluble in'ether. Ummeyt obtained 12 to 15 per cent. of resin almost wholly soluble in ether; Evans got 13 per cent., but found rid about half of this to be soluble in ether.’ According to Andouard® the resin of Tampico jalap is not deficient in purgative powers. "The name is ill-chosen and misleading, affording Tampico Jalap, Journ. of Linn. but having been adopted in standard works, —Swe., Bot. xi. (1871) 279, tab. 2 spl ache it might occasion greater confusion to Journ. xi. (1870) 848 ; American rs it attempt to supersede it, and its several Pharm, xviil. (1870) 330 ; Science Fapers, — derivatives, : 1876. 349. : $80 - Bit at least a fact, that of numerous 4 nak +1068) aa (1868) 252. ‘mples of jalapin that we have examined 5 Thid. ix. 330. Be (1871), i , i 6 ktude sur les ¢ ‘onvolvulacées purgatives sorta every one is completely soluble in és feat Pas, 1864. 31. *Hanbury, On a species of Jpomen, >= “ue Ct eee SOLANACEA Capsicin. It is obtained by treating the alcoholic extract of ether, and is a thick yellowish red liquid, but slightly soluble in water. When gently heated, it becomes very fluid, and at a higher tempera- ture is dissipated in fumes which are extremely irritating to respiration. It is evidently a mixed substance, consisting of resinous and fatty matters. Felletar in 1869 exhausted capsicum fruits with dilute sulphuric _acid, and distilled the decoction with potash. The distillate, which was strongly alkaline and smelt like conine, was saturated with sulphuric acid, evaporated to dryness, and exhausted with absolute ‘alcohol. The solution, after evaporation of the aleohol, was treated with potash, and yielded by distillation a volatile alkaloid having the odour of conine. From experiments made by one of us (F.) we can fully confirm the _ observations of Felletér. We have obtained the volatile base in question, and find it to have the smell of conine. It occurs both in the _ pericarp and in the seeds, but in so small proportion that we were _ unsuccessful in isolating it in sufficient quantity to allow of accurate examination. Dragendorff states (1871) that petroleum ether is the best solvent for the alkaloid of capsicum ; he obtained crystals of its hydrochlorate, the aqueous solution of which was precipitated by most of the usual tests, but not by tannic acid. ; The colouring matter of capsicum fruits is sparingly soluble m alcohol, but readily in chloroform. After evaporation, an intensely red soft mass is obtained, which is not much altered by potash; it turns first blue, then black with concentrated sulphuric acid, like many other yellow colouring substances. By alcohol chiefly palmitic acid is extrac from the fruit, as shown by Thresh in 1877. The fruits of Capsicum fastigiatwm have a somewhat strong odour; on distilling consecutively two quantities, each of 50 Ib., we obtained a seanty amount of floceulent fatty matter, which possesses an odour suggestive of parsley. Both this matter, as well as the distilled water, _ Were neutral to litmus paper, and the water tasteless. We separated the latter, and exposed the remaining greasy mass to a temperature of about 50° C., when it for the most part melted. The clear liquid o cooling soliditied, and now consisted of tufted crystals, which we further purified by recrystallization from aleohol. Thus about 2 centigrammes were obtained of a neutral white stearoptene, having a decidet ly aromatic, not very persistent taste, by no means acrid, but rather like that of the essential oil of parsley. The erystals melted at 38° C. keeping them for some days at the temperature of the water-bat®, covered with a watch-glass, some drops of essential oil were volatilizea, which had the same taste and did not solidify ; the erystals were Co” “quently accompanied by a liquid oil. When kept for some days more In that condition, the crystals themselves began to be volatil 7. and the part remaining behind acquired a brownish hue. This ne doubt points out another impurity, as we ascertained by the lols experiment. ‘With boiling solution of potash, the stearoptene produc? pease of soap, which on cooling yields a transparent jelly. If er ob a and diluted, it becomes turbid by addition of an acid. -vestion probably depends upon the presence of a little fatty matter, a sugges" RADIX BELLADONNAL =——t—«ABSS which is confirmed by the ‘somewhat offensive smell given off by our stearoptene if it is heated in a glass tube. Buchheim’s “ Capsicol”’ is in our opinion a doubtful substance. Thresh (1876-1877) succeeded in isolating a well defined, highly active principle, the Capsaicin, from the extract which he obtained by exhausting Cayenne pepper with petroleum. From the red liquor dilute caustic lye removes capsaicin, which is to be precipitated in minute erystals by passing carbonic acid through the alkaline solution. They may be purified by reerystallizing them from either alcohol, ether, benzine, glacial acetic acid, or hot bisulphide of carbon ; in petroleum capsaicin is but very sparingly soluble, yet dissolves abundantly on addition of fatty oil. The latter being present in the pericarp is the tause why capsaicin can be extracted by the above process. The crystals of capsaicin are colourless and answer to the formula C’H“O*; they melt at 59°C. and begin to volatilize at 115° C., but decomposition can only be avoided by great care. The vapours of capsaicin are of the most dreadful acridity, and even the ordinary manipulation of that substance requires much precaution. Capsaicin is not a glucoside; it is a powerful rubefacient, and taken internally produces very violent burning in the stomach. Commerce—Chillies or Pod Pepper are shipped from Zanzibar, Western Africa and Natal, but no general statistics of the quantity — imported into Great Britain are accessible. The exports from Sierra Leone in 1871 reached 7258 lb? The colony of Natal, which produces Cayenne Pepper m the county of Victoria, where sugar-cane and coffee are also grown, shipped in the Same year 9072 Ib? Official returns‘ show that in 1871 Singapore imported 1071 ewt. (119,952 Ib.) of chillies, chiefly from Penang and Pegu. The spice is largely consumed by the Chinese. ae : Bombay imported of dried chillies in the year 1872-3, 5567 ewt, Se lb.) principally from the Madras Presidency, and exported é ewt.” _ Uses—Capsicum on account of its pungent properti ministered as a local stimulant in the form of gargle, an as a liniment; and internally to promote digestion. countries it is much employed as a condiment. es is often ad- d occasionally In all warm : RADIX BELLADONN&. Belladonna Root ; F. Racine de Belladone ; G. Belladonnawurzel. ; labrous or Botanical Origin—Atropa Belladonna L., a tall, g slightly downy ie with : perennial stock, native Be ne ba Southern Europe, where it grows in the clearings of woods. Pia? ms . extends eastward to the Crimea, Caucasia and Northern inor. 1871. salredberichtof Wiggersand Husemann, Do Of Natt exits Settlements for 1871. 1873, 567 ; for 187 ost P 567 ; also Yearbook of Pharm. 1876. 5 Statement of the rhage raed ree = _ Book of the Colony of Sierra Leone of Bombay for 1872-73, pt. 1. 99. YA “i, $56 SOLANACEA, In Britain it is chiefly found in the southern counties, but even of these it is a doubtful native. In a few localities in England and France, as well as in North America, the plant is cultivated for medicinal use. History—Although a plant so striking as belladonna can hardly have been unknown to the classical authors, it cannot with certainty be identified in their writings. Saladinus of Ascoli,’ who wrote an enumeration of medicinal plants about A.D. 1450, names the leaves of both Solatrwm furiale and Sola- trum minus, the former of which is probably Belladonna. However this may be, the first indubitable notice of it that we have met with, is in the Grand Herbier printed at Paris, probably about 1504? The plant is also mentioned about this period as Solatrum mortale or Dolwurtz, in the writings of Hieronymus Brunschwyg.” In 1542 belladonna was well figured as Solanum somniferum or Dollkraut by the German botanist Leonhard Fuchs, who fully reeog- nized its poisonous properties. Yet it was confounded by other writers of this period as Tragus,> who reproduced Fuchs’ figure as “ Solanwm hortense!” Strygiwm and Strychnon were other names not unfrequent- ly applied to Atropa during the 16th and 17th centuries. Matthiolus, who terms the plant Solatrum majus, states® that it 1s commonly called by the Venetians Herba Bella donna, from the cir- _ cumstance of the Italian ladies using a distilled water of the plant asa cosmetic. Gesner’ was also familiar with the name Belladonna. The introduction of the root of belladonna into British medicine is of recent date, and is due to Mr. Peter Squire of London, who recommended 1t as the basis of a useful anodyne liniment, about the year 1860. _ Description—Belladonna has a large, fleshy, tapering root, I to 2 inches thick, and a foot or more in length, from which diverge stout branches. Externally the fresh roots are of an earthy brown, rough with cracks and transverse ridges. The bark is thick and juicy, and as well as the more fibrous central portion, is internally of a dull creamy white. A transverse section of the main root shows a distinct radiate structure. The root has an earthy smell with but very little taste at first, but a powerfully acrid after-taste is soon developed. . Dried root of Belladonna is sold in rough irregular niegés of a dirty greyish colour, whitish internally, breaking easily with a short fracture, and having an earthy smell not unlike that of liquorice root. The bark being probably the chief seat of the alkaloid, roots not ¢% ceeding the thickness of the finger should be preferred. The drug is for the most part imported from Germany, and is often of doubtful quality. English-grown root purchased in a fresh state (the large and old being rejected), then washed, cut into transverse segments and drie by a gentle heat, furnishes a more reliable and satisfactory article. : Compendium Aromatariorum, 1488. Le Grant Herbier en Jrancoys, contendat Pi sige aang vertus et proprietez des herbes 8 ba {no date) 4°, cap. De Solastro 3 Das destillier Buch (sub v. oce Nacht- ae ee Strassburg, 1521, fol. 93 b, ; ate gure probably refers to Atropa, but given in the edition of the same work of the year 1500 shows Solanue nigrum. ; 4 Historia Stirpium, Basil. 1542. vee 5 De Stirpium.... historia, ArgeD : 1552. 301. idis, Vene- 6 Comment. in lib. vi. Dioscor tiis, 1558. 533. ‘De hortig Germania, Argentorat. 1561, fol. 282. RADIX BELLADONNA, eer ae Microscopic Structure—There is a considerable structural difler- _ ence between the main root and its branches, the former alone contain- ing a distinct pith. This pith is included in a woody circle, traversed by narrow medullary rays. In the outer part of the woody circle, parenchymatous tissue is more prevalent than vascular bundles. The transverse section of the branches of the root exhibits a central vascular bundle instead of a medullary column. The outer vascular bundles show no regular arrangement; and medullary rays are not clearly obvious in the transverse section. The woody parts, both of the main root and its branches, contain very large dotted vessels accompanied by a prosenchymatous tissue. The cells of the latter, however, are always thin-walled; the absence of proper so-called ligneous tissue explains the easy fracture of the root. Sometimes the prosenchyme in which the vessels are imbedded assumes a brownish hue and a waxy appearance, and such parts exhibit a very irregular structure. In the cortical portion of belladonna root, many of the cells of the middle layer, and likewise some of the central parts of the root, are loaded with extremely small octahedric crystals of calcium oxalate. — But most of the parenchymatous cells are filled up with small starch granules. Chemical Composition—In 1833 Mein prepared from the root, and Geiger and Hesse from the herb, the crystallizable alkaloid Atropine. The researches of Lefort (1872) have proved that the roots contain it in very variable proportions, the young being much richer in alkaloid than the old? The maximum proportion obtained was 0°6 per cent.; this was from root of the thickness of the finger. Large old roots, 7 or 8 years of age, afford from 0°25 to 0°31 per cent. They have besides a smaller proportion of bark than young roots, and it is chiefly mm the bark that the alkaloid appears to reside. Manufacturers of atropine employ exclusively the root. : : Ludwig and Pfeiffer (1861), by decomposing atropine with potassium chromate and sulphurie acid, obtained benzoic acid and propylamine. ther products are formed when atropine is treated with strong hydro- chloric acid, baryta water or caustic soda, thus—d tropine, C’H*NO +i70= Tropic Acid, C°7H"O® + Tropine, CH®NO. Tropic acid, C°H5C (OH) ' fae , being further boiled with the a CH? same agents is converted into atropic acid, C°H’C | COOH’ which, especially by using hydrochloric acid, is gradually transformed into isotropic acid Both noo acids are ok to cinnamic acid, C*H*O", ut otherwise remarkably dissimilar. ; Tropine is a strongly alkaline body, readily soluble both in water and alcohol, and furnishing tabular crystals by the evaporation of its solution in ether. Neither tropine nor tropic acid, it is stated by raut (1863), is present in the leaves and root of belladonna. Hiibschmann (1858) detected in belladonna root a second but un- ‘'ystallizable alkaloid, called Belladonnine ; it has a resinous aspect, pietinetly alkaline, and when heated emits, like atropine, a peculiar our, ? For Lefort’s process for estimating atropine, see p. 458. ee SOLANACEA. The root further contains, according to Richter (1837) and Hiibseh- mann, a fluorescent substance, as well as a red colouring matter called Atrosin.' The latter occurs in greatest abundance in the fruit, and would probably repay further investigation. Uses—Belladonna root is chiefly used for the preparation of atro- pine, which is employed for dilating the pupil of the eye. A liniment made with belladonna root is used for the relief of neuralgic pains. Adulteration—We may point out that the roots of Mandragorm microcarpa, M. officinarum, and M. vernalis Bertoloni are very nearly _ allied to the root under notice, both in external appearance and in their structure. They are not likely to be confounded with Belladonna root, their mother plants being indigenous in the South of Europe. FOLIA BELLADONNZ. Belladonna Leaves ; F. Fewilles de Belludone ; G. Tollkraut. Botanical Origin—Atropa Belladonna L. (p. 455). History—Belladonna Leaves and the extract prepared from them were introduced into the London Pharmacopoeia of 1809. For further ibe bigge regarding the history of belladonna, see the preceding article, Description—Belladonna or Deadly Nightshade produces thick, smooth herbaceous stems, which attain a height of 4 to 5 feet. They are simple in their lower parts, then usually 3-forked, and after _ 2-forked, producing in their upper branches an abundance of bright _ green leaves, arranged in unequal pairs, from the bases of which spring the solitary, pendulous, purplish, bell-shaped flowers, and large shining black berries. The leaves are 3 to 6 inches long, stalked, broadly ovate, acuminate, attenuated at the base, soft and juicy ; those of barren roots are alter- nate and solitary. The young shoots are clothed with a soft, short pubescence, which on the calyx is somewhat more persistent, assuming the character of viscid, glandular hairs. If bruised, the leaves emit & somewhat offensive, herbaceous odour which is destroyed by e° When dried, they are thin and friable, of a brownish green on the upper surface and greyish beneath, with a disagreeable, faintly bitter taste. fresh leaves 100 Ib. yield 16 Ib. of dried (Squire). Chemical Composition—The important constituent of belladonna leaves is Atropine. Lefort (1872)? estimated its amount by exha the leaves previously dried at 100° C. by means of dilute alcohol, se centrating the tincture, and throwine down the alkaloid with a pee of lodo-hydvargyrate of potassium. ~ The precipitate thus obtained wa calculated to contain 33-25 per cent. of atropine. Lefort exa of leaves from plants both cultivated and growing wild in the eer CEE P aris, and gathered either before or after flowering. He found eultiv tion not to affect the percentage of alkaloid,—that the leaves + full young plant were rather less rich than those taken at the period ‘Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii, (1866) 1. 2 Journ. de Pharm. Xv. (1872) 269, 341. : 459 intlorescence,—and that the latter (dried) yielded 0-44 to 0:48 per cent. of atropine. Larger percentages are recorded by Dragendorff;! as much as 0°95. per cent. of atropine as obtained from the dried unripe fruits, 0°83 from the dried leaves, 0:21 from the root. The estimation was per- formed in nearly the same way as that followed by Lefort. Belladonna herb yields Asparagin, which according to Biltz (1839) crystallizes out of the extract after long keeping. The crystals found in the extract by Attfield (1862) were however chloride and nitrate of potassium. The same chemist obtained by dialysis of the ge ‘of belladonna, nitrate of potassium, and square prisms of a salt of magnesium containing some organic acid; the juice likewise affords ammonia.” The dried leaves yielded us 145 per cent. of ash con- sisting mainly of calcareous and alkaline carbonates. Uses—The fresh leaves are used for making Eatractum Belladonna, and the dried for preparing a tincture. They should be gathered while — the plant is well in flower. ; HERBA STRAMONIL HERBA STRAMONII. Stramonium, Thornapple; F. Herbe de Stramoine; G. Stechapfelblatter. = Botanical Origin—Duatura® Stramonium L.,a large, quick-growing, upright annual, with white flowers like a convolvulus, and ovoid spiny fruits. It is now found as a weed of cultivation in almost all the temperate and warmer regions of the globe. In the south of England it is often met with in rich waste ground, chiefly near gardens or — habitations. History—The question of the native country and early distribution of D. Stramoniwm has been much discussed by botanical writers. Alphonse De Candolle,* who has ably reviewed the arguments advanced : in favour of the plant being a native respectively of Europe and America or Asia, enounces his opinion thus :—that D. Stramonium L. appears to be indigenous to the Old World, probably the borders of the Caspian Sea or adjacent regions, but certainly not of India; that it doubtful if it existed in Europe in the time of the ancient a Empire, but that it appears to have spread itself between that periot and the discovery of America. ion Stramonium was cultivated in London towards the close of t : “ century by Gerarde, who received the seed from oe ee freely propagated the plant, of the medicinal value of which he igh opinion. The use of the herb in more recent times is due to the experiments of Stérck.® ; Description—Stramonium produces a stout, upright, herbaceous z } fastuoso The origin Poa rors ao oe eee: gt Rolie et oll ensbitng to ¢ fresh juice kept for a few days has en known to evolve red vapours (nitrous acid?) when the vessel containing it was ™ . se ~~) =e 7 4 Géographie Botanique, ii. (1855) 731. 5 Libellus quo demonstratur Stramonimm, esse remedia, is very | _ Opened.—-H. S§. Evans in Pharm. Journ. ix. (1850) 260, ® Datura from the Sanskrit name D’hus- Hyoscyamum, Aconitum. . Vindob. 1762. we SOLAN ACE, green stem, which at a short distance from the ground, throws out spreading forked branches, in the axil of each fork of which arisesa solitary white flower, succeeded by an erect, spiny, ovoid capsule. At each fureation and directed outwards isa large leaf. This arrangement of parts is repeated, and as the plant grows vigorously, it often becomes much branched and acquires in the course of the summer a considerable size. The leaves of stramonium have long petioles, are unequal at the hase, oval, acuminate, sinuate-dentate with large irregular pointed teeth or lobes, downy when young, glabrous at maturity. When fresh they _ are somewhat firm and juicy, emitting when handled a disagreeable feetid smell. The larger leaves of plants of moderate growth attama length of 6 to 8 or more inches. For medicinal purposes, the entire plants are pulled up, the leaves and younger shoots are stripped off, quickly dried, and then broken and cut into short lengths, so as to be conveniently smoked in a pipe, that being the method in which the drug is chiefly consumed in England. The offensive smell of the fresh plant is lost by drying, being replaced by a rather agreeable tea-like odour. The dried herb has a bitterish _ saline taste. _ Chemical Composition—The leaves of stramonium contain, in com- mon with the seeds, the alkaloid Daturine (see p. 461), but in extremely small proportion, not exceeding in fact ,%, to ;°, per mille. They are rich in saline and earthy constituents ; selected leaves dried at 100 C. yielded us 17-4 per cent. of ash. Uses—Scarcely employed in any other way than in smoking like tobacco for the relief of asthma—Col. Grant (1871) found the herb to be smoked in pipes by the Nubians for chest-complaint. _ Substitute—Datura Tatula L.—tThis plant is closely allied to D. Stramonium L., propagating itself on rich cultivated ground with nearly the same facility; but it is not so generally diffused. De Candolle is of opinion that it is indigenous to the warmer parts of America, whence it was imported into Europe in the 16th century, and naturalized first in Italy, and then in South-Western Europe. By many botanists it has heen united to D. Stramonium, but Naudin, who has studied both plants with the greatest attention, especially with reference to their hybrids, is decidedly in favour of considering them distinct. D. Tutula differs from D. Stramonium in having stem, petiole, and nerves of leaves purplish instead of green; and corolla an anthers of a violet colour instead of white,—characters which, it must admitted, are of very small botanical value. D. Tatula has been recommended for smoking in cases of asinine on the ground of its being stronger than D. Stramonium ; but we isc amd aware of any authority as to the comparative strength of the pecies, 1 Comptes Rendus, lv, (1862) 321. SEMEN STRAMONIL 461 SEMEN STRAMONII. Stramonium Seeds ; F. Semences. de Stramoine; G. Stechapfelsamen. Botanical Origin—Dutura Stramonium L., see preceding article. Description—The spiny, ovoid capsule of stramonium opens at the summit in four regular valves. It is bilocular, with each cell incom- pletely divided into two, and contains a large number (about 400) of flattened, kidney-shaped seeds. The seeds are blackish or dark brown, about 2 lines long and } a line thick, thinning off towards the hilum which is on the straighter side. The surface of the seed is finely pitted and also marked with a much coarser series of shallow reticulations or rugosities. A section parallel to the faces of the seed exhibits the long, contorted embryo, following the outline of the testa, and bedded in the oily white albumen. The cylindrical form of the embryo is seen in a transverse section of the seed. The seeds have a bitterish taste, and when bruised a disagreeable odour. When the entire seeds are immersed in dilute alcohol, they afford a tincture displaying a beautiful green fluorescence, turning yellow on addition of ammonia. Microscopic Structure—The testa is formed of a row of radially extended, thick-walled cells. They are not of a simply cylindrical form, but their walls are sinuously bent in and out in the direction of their length. Viewed in a direction tangential to the surface, the cells appear as if indented one into the other. Towards the surface of the seed the cell-walls are elevated as dark brown tubercles and folds, giving to the seed its reticulated and pitted surface. The albumen and embryo exhibit the usual contents, namely fatty oil and albuminoid substances.! Chemical Composition—The active constituent of stramonium seeds is the highly poisonous alkaloid Daturine, of which they afford only about qs per cent., while the leaves and roots contain it in still smaller Proportion.? Daturine was discovered in 1833 by Geiger and Hesse, and regarded as identical with atropine by A. von Planta (1850), who found it to have the same composition as that alkaloid. The two bodies exhibit the same relations as to solubility and fusing point (88-90 C.); and they also agree in crystallizing easily. The experiments of Schrott (1852), tending to show that although daturine and atropine act in the ‘ame manner, the latter has twice the poisonous energy of the iad taised a further question as to the identity of the two alkaloids. (1876) also stated solutions of daturine to be levogyrate, those of atro- vations of Erhard pine being devoid of r ry power. From the obser | (1866), it would patti thee ‘de erystalline form of some of the salts of atropine and daturine is different. In stramonium seeds ae appears to be combined with malic acid. The seeds yielded to Cloéz (1865) 2:9 per cent. of ash and 25 per cent. of fixed oil. 4 i : or Uses—Stramonium seeds are prescribed in the form of extract ti n b lncture as a sedative or narcotic. 2 Ginther in Wiggers and Husemann's ' We have "ga &. ey ( — waecbcoedt MIL er ei Jahresbericht for 1860, 54. ek vy % ; Agee E k van het zaad van Datura Stramonium, uschede, 1875, 462 SOLANACEA, SEMEN ET FOLIA DATURZ ALBZ&. Seeds and Leaves of the Indian ov White-flowered Datura. Botanical Origin—Datura alba Nees, a large, spreading annual plant, 2 to 6 feet high, bearing handsome, tubular, white flowers 5 to 6 inches long. The capsules are pendulous, of depressed globular form, rather broader than high, covered with sharp tubercles or thick short spines. They do not open by regular valves as in D. Stramonium, but split in different directions and break up into irregular fragments. D, alba appears to be scarcely distinct from D. fastuosu Both are common in India, and are grown in gardens in the south of _ Europe.’ _ History—The medieval Arabian physicians were familiar with Datura alba, which is well described by Ibn Baytar? under precisely the same Arabic name (Jowz-masal) that it bears at the present day; they were also fully aware of its poisonous properties. Garcia de Orta’ (1563) observed the plant in India, and has narrated that its flowers or seeds are put into food to intoxicate persons it was designed to rob. It was also described by Christoval Acosta, who in his book on Indian drugs* mentions two other varieties, one of them with yellow flowers, the seeds of either being very poisonous, and often administered with criminal intent, as well as for the cure of disease. Graham? says of the plant that it possesses very strong narcotic properties, and has on several occasions been fatally used by Bombay thieves, who have administered it in order to deprive their victims of the power of resistance. : The seeds and fresh leaves have a place in the Pharmacopau of India, 1868. Description—The seeds of D. alba are very different in appearance from those of D. Stramonium, being of a light yellowish-brown, rather larger size, irregular in shape and somewhat shrivelled. Their form has been likened to the human ear ; they are in fact obscurely triangular sid flattened-pearshaped, the rounded end being thickened into a smuolls convoluted, triple ridge, while the centre of the seed is somewhat de- pressed. The hilum runs from the pointed end nearly half-way up ™ length of the seed. The testa is marked with minute rugosities, but 18 not so distinctly pitted as in the seed of the D. Stramonium; it is 2 more developed, exhibiting in section large intercellular spaces to whi are due its spongy texture. The seeds of the two species agree in interna” hi as well as in taste; but those of D. alba do not give a fluoresce? neture, . The leaves, which are only employed in a fresh state, are 6 t0 ip inches in length, with long stalks, ovate, often unequal at the bas? " Seeds of D. alba sent to us from Madras —_fastuosa).—3. Plants with double corollas RD. Bidie, were sown by our friend M, ‘of large size and of a yellow colour. Nanudin of Collioure (P . , : yrénées Orientales), 2 Sontheimer’s translation, 1. =): : Puy aioe the plant under three jonas 3 ppm historia, 1574, lib. 20%, - rai pee tre D, i as fenred in 4 Tractado de las rh oar ‘a ; i i 8 with flowers, Indias Orientales, Burgos, mei ee violet without and nearly white within (D, "5 Cattogue of Bombay Plants, 1339. 14! Be FOLIA HYOSOYAML 463 acuminate, coarsely dentate with a few spreading teeth. | They evolve an offensive odour when handled. Microscopic Structure—The testa is built up of the same tissues as in D. Stramoniwm, but the thick-walled cells constituting the spongy part are far larger, and distinctly show numerous secondary deposits, making a fine object for the microscope. Chemical Composition—Neither the seeds nor the leaves of D. alba have yet been examined chemically, but there can scarcely be any doubt that their very active properties are due to Daturine, for the pre- paration of which the former would probably be the best source. Uses—The seeds in the form of tincture or extract have been em- ployed in India as a sedative and narcotic, and the fresh leaves, bruised and made into a poultice with flour, as an anodyne application. FOLIA HYOSCYAMI. Henbane Leaves; F. Fewilles de Jusquiame; G. Bilsenkraut. Botanical Origin—Hyoscyamus niger L., a coarse, erect herb, with soft, viscid, hairy foliage of unpleasant odour, pale yellowish flowers _ elegantly marked with purple veins, and 5-toothed bottle-shaped calyx. It is found throughout Europe from Portugal and Greece to Central Norway and Finland, in Egypt, Asia Minor, the Caucasus, Persia, Siberia and Northern India. As a weed of cultivation it now oor also in North America’ and Brazil. In Britain it occurs wild, iefly in waste places near buildings; and is cultivated for medicinal use. Henbane exists under two varieties, known as avnwal and biennial, but scarcely presenting any other distinctive character. Biennial Henbane (Hyoscyamus niger var. a. biennis) is most es- teemed for pharmaceutical preparations. It is raised by seed, the plant producing the first year only a rosette of luxuriant stalked leaves, 12 or more inches in length. In the second, it throws up @ flower stem of 2 to 3 feet in height, and the whole plant dies as the fruit matures. Annual Henbane (H, niger var. B. annua, vel agrestis) Is & smaller plant, coming to perfection in a single season. Tt is the usual wild form, but it is also grown by the herbalists.’ : _History—Hyoscyamus, under which name it is probable the nearly allied Soutih Himes species, H. albus L., was generally intended, was medicinal among the ancients, and particularly commended by Dios- corides, InE from remote times. Bene- i urope, henbane has been employed from S seoully before ¢tus Crispus, archbishop of Milan, in a work writte _—e A.D. 681, notices it under the name of Hyoseyamus and Symphoniace. In the 10th century, its virtues were particularly recorded by Macer Floridus* who calléd it J: usquiamus. “It had be i i 2 Pharm. Journ. i. (1860) 414. H Ametion prior to 1672, as we find it men- 2 S.de Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, No toned by Josselyn in hi eaiaad! li, i. (1852) 74. 84. Rarities decovered (Lapa \erey Rig a ‘De Viribus Herbarum, edited by Chou- re ‘‘sprung up sincethe English planted lant, Lips. 1832. 108. ept cattle in New England.” Nea '* SOLANACEA. Frequent mention is made of it in the Anelo-Saxon works on medicine of the 11th century,’ in which it is called Henbell, and some- times Belene, the latter word perhaps traceable in BiAwourtia, which Dioscorides* gives as the Gallic designation of the plant. In the 13th century henbane was also used by the Welsh “ Physicians of Myddvai.” The word Hennibone, with the Latin and French synonyms Jusquiamus and Chenille, occurs in a vocabulary of the 13th cen- tury; and Hennebane in a Latin and English vocabulary of the 15th century.” In the Arbolayre, a printed French herbal of the 15th century,’ we find the plant described as Hanibane or Hanebane with the following explanation—“ Elle est aultrement appeler cassilago et aultrement simphoniaca. La semence proprement a nom jusquiame ou hanebane, et herbe a nom cassilago. ...” Both Hyoseyamus and Jusquiamus are from the Greek “Yooxvauos, i.e. Hog-bean. Though a remedy undeniably potent, henbane in the first half of the last century had fallen into disuse. It was omitted from the London pharmacopceias of 1746 and 1788, and restored only in 1809. Its re-introduction into medicine was chiefly due to the experiments and recommendations of Stérek.® During the middle ages the seeds and roots of henbane were also much used. Description—The stems of henbane, whether of the annual or biennial form, are clothed with soft, viscid, hairy leaves, of which the upper constitute the large, sessile, coarsely-toothed bracts of the unilateral flower-spike. The middle leaves are more toothed and subamplexicaul. The lower leaves are stalked, ovate-oblong, coarsely dentate, and of large size. The stems, leaves, and calyces of henbane are thickly beset with long, soft, jointed hairs ; the last joint of many of these hairs exudes a viscid substance oceasioning the fresh plant to feel clammy to the touch. In the cultivated plant, the hairmess diminishes. _ After drying, the broad light-coloured midrib becomes very ¢M- Spicuous, while the rest of the leaf shrinks much and acquires a greyish green hue. The drug derived from the flowering plant as found 1n ooo aeeag is usually much broken, ‘The fetid, narcotic odour of ei jj Sh shag 's greatly diminished by drying. The fresh plant has Dried henbane is sold under three forms, which are not however generally distinguished by druggists. These are 1. Annual plant, foliage and Green tops. 2. Biennial plant, leaves of the first year 3. Biennial plant, foliage and green tops. The third form is always regarded as the best, but no attempt has been made to determine wit accuracy the relative merits of the three sorts. i Chemical Composition. yoscyamine, the most important pe © constituents of henbane, was obtained in an impure state by Gar _ and Hesse in 1833. Hoéhn in 1871 first isolated it from the see¢ 1 a a seornnuoms ete. of Karly England, iii. 4 See p, 148, note 3, also Brunet, Manue ® Lib, iv 69, : du Libraire, i. (1860) 377. 8 Wrich, “0% (ed. Sprengel), 5 See p, 459, note 5. . (ed “Gone Volume of Vocabularies, 1857. ~ FOLIA HYOSCYAMI. — 465 which are far richer in it than the leaves." The seeds are deprived of the fatty oil (26 per cent.) and treated with spirit of wine containing sulphuric acid, which takes out the hyoscyamine in the form of sul- phate. The alcohol is then evaporated and tannic acid added ; the precipitate thus obtained is mixed with lime and exhausted with ~ alcohol. The hyoscyamine is again converted into a sulphate, the aqueous solution of which is then precipitated with carbonate of sodium, and the alkaloid dissolved by means of ether. After the ee ration of the ether, hyoscyamine remains as an oily liquid which after some time concretes into wart-like tufted crystals, soluble in benzol, chloroform, ether, as well as in water. Hohn and Reichardt assign to hyoseyamine the formula C“H0%, The seeds yield of it only 0:05 per cent. _ Hyoscyamine is easily decomposed by caustic alkalis. By boiling with baryta in aqueous solution, it is split into Hyoscine, C°H"N, and Hyoscinie Acid, C°H"O*, The former is a volatile oily liquid of a narcotic odour and alkaline reaction. By keeping it over sulphuric acid it crystallizes and also yields crystallized salts; hyoscine may be closely allied to conine, C°H™N. Hyoscinic acid, a crystallizable substance having an odour resembling that of empyreumatic benzoic acid.” It melts, according to Hohn, at 105°; tropic acid (see p. 457), melting at 118°, agrees so very nearly with hyoscinic acid that further researches will probably prove these acids to be identical. : Another process for extracting hyoscyamine is due (1875) to Thibaut. He removes by bisulphide of carbon the fatty oil from the powdered seeds, and exhausts them with alcohol slightly acidulated by tartaric acid. The alcohol being distilled off, the author precipitates the alkaloid by means of a _ solution containing 6 per cent. of lodide of potassium and 3 per cent. iodine. By decomposing the precipitate with sulphurous acid, hydroiodie acid and sulphate of yoscyamine are formed, The latter is dried up at 35° with magnesia and the hyoscyamine extracted by alcohol or chloroform. The crystals melt at 90°. Thibaut found the alkaloid thus prepared from seeds one from that yielded by the leaves, the latter having a somewhat strong odour. cele! Attfield® has pointed out that extract of henbane is rich in oe, of potassium and other inorganic salts. In the leaves, the amount 0 iitrate is, according to Thorey ‘largest before flowering, and the same ? observation applies to hyoseyamine. os, Uses—Henbane in the form of tincture or extract 1s administered as a sedative, anodyne or hypnotie. The impropriety of giving it 3 “onjunction with free potash or soda, which render it perfectly inert, lik, been demonstrated by the experiments of Garrod. Hyoscyamine, ‘ke atropine, powerfully dilates the pupil of the eye. it Substitutes—Hyoscyamus albus L., a more slender plant than J7. is From the experiments of Schoonbroodt _ said chemists. —F. A. vigoeh 447. ° 868), there is reason to believe that the 3 Pharm. Journ. iil. (156 Jahresbericht salty Principle of henbane can be more 4 Wiggers and Husemann, ‘ the tReet ae from the fresh than from Beret, Journ. xvii. (1858) 462; xviil. da oe hadtheopportunity ofexamining _—(1859) 174 ve substances as prepared by the 2G aoe -SOLANACEA, niger L., with stalked leaves and bracts, a native of the Mediterranean region, is sometimes used in the south of Europe as medicinal henbane. H. insanus Stocks, a plant of Beluchistan, is mentioned in the Phar- macopeia of India as of considerable virulence, and sometimes used for smoking. FOLIA TABACI. Herba Nicotiane; Tobacco ; F. Tabac; G. Tabakblétter. Botanical Origin— Nicotiana Tabacum L.—The common Tobacco plant is a native of the New World, though not now known in a wild state. Its cultivation is carried on in most temperate and sub-tropical countries. History—It is stated by ©. Ph. von Martius’ that the practice of smoking tobacco has been widely diffused from time immemorial among the natives of South America, as well as among the inhabitants of the valley of the Mississippi as far north as the plant can be cultivated, The Spaniards became acquainted with tobacco when they landed _ in Cuba in 1492, and on their return introduced it into Europe for the sake of its medicinal properties. The custom of inhaling the smoke of the herb was learnt from the Indians, and by the end of the 16th century had become generally known throughout Spain and Portugal, whence it passed into the rest of Europe, and into Turkey, Egypt, and India, notwithstanding that it was opposed by the severest enactments both of Christian and Mahommedan governments. It is commonly believed that the practice of smoking tobacco was much promoted in England, as well as in the north of Europe generally, by the example of Sir Walter Raleigh and his companions. Tobacco was introduced into China, probably by way of Japan oF Manila, during the 16th or 17th century, but its use was prohibited by the emperors both of the Ming and Tsing dynasties. It is now culti- vated in most of the provinces, and is universally employed”, i _ The first tolerably exact description of the tobacco plant 18 tha given by Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés, governor 2 Domingo, in his Historia general de las Indias; printed at Seville m 1535. In this work, the plant is said to be smoked through ‘ branched tube of the shape of the letter Y, which the natives Tabaco. ing It was not until the middle of the 16th century that grow’ tobacco was seen in Europe,—first at Lisbon, whence the eee ambassador, Jean Nicot, sent seeds to France in 1560 as those © valuable medicinal plant, which was even then diffused throughout Portugal.* : __ Monardes,’ writing in 1571, speaks of tobacco as brought to Span . ‘ . jna few years previously, and valued for its beauty and for its medic! a a i Beitriige zur Ethnographie und Sprachen- 4Nicot, Thrésor de la langue rang : eest Americas, zumal Brasiliens, i. (1867) Paris, 1606. 429. cosas qe I 5 Sequnda parte del libro de las 2 . x ° ./1 les, que May eee Kong Notes and Queries, se traen de nuestras Indias occidl ena del ys 3 F. P. Smith, Mat. Med. and _ sirven al uso de medicina. Do % Nat. Hi ; ; 7 is of China, 1871. 219. Tabaco .. . . > Sevilla, 1071, FOLIA TABACI. 467 | virtues. Of the latter he gives a long account, noticing also the methods of smoking and chewing the herb prevalent among the Indians. He also supplies a small woodcut representing the plant, which he states to have white flowers, red in the centre. Jacques Gohory,' who cultivated the plant in Paris at least as early as 1572, describes its flowers as shaded with red, and enumerates various medicinal preparations made from it. In the Maison Rustique of Charles Estienne, edition of 1583, the author gives a “Discowrs sur la Nicotiane ow Petum masele,” in which he claims for the plant the first place among. medicinal herbs, on account of its singular and almost divine virtues. The cultivation of tobacco in England, except on a very small scale in a physic garden, has been prohibited by law? since 1660. Description—Amongst the various species of Vicotiana cultivated for the manufacturing of smoking tobacco and snuff, V. Tabacwm is by far the most frequent, and is almost the only one named in the pharma- copeeias as medicinal. Its simple stem, bearing at the summit a panicle of tubular pink flowers, and growing to the height of a man, has oblong, lanceolate simple leaves, with the margin entire. The lower leaves, more broadly lanceolate, and about 2 feet long by 6 inches wide, are shortly stalked. The stem-leaves are semi-amplexi- caul, and decurrent at the base. Cultivation sometimes produces role forms of leaf, or a margin more or less uneven, or nearly revolute. All the herbaceous parts of the plant are clothed with long soft hairs, made up of broad, ribbon-like, striated cells, the points of which exude a glutinous liquid. Small sessile glands are situated here and there on the surface of the leaf? The lateral veins proceed from the thick midrib in straight lines, at angles of 40° to 75°, gently curving upwards only near the edge. In drying, the leaves become brittle and as thin as paper, and always acquire a brown colour. Even by the most careful treatment of a single leaf, it is not possible to preserve the green hue. : The smell of the fresh plant is narcotic; its taste bitter and nauseous. he characteristic odour of dried tobacco is developed during the © process of curing. . Chemical Composition—The active principle of tobacco, first meted in 1828 by Posselt and Reimann, is a volatile, highly poisonous brnloid termed Nicotine, C°H“N?, It is easily extracted from tobacco Y means of alcohol or water, as a malate, from which the ae oy Separated by shaking it with caustic lye and ether. e A e naed fe st expelled by warming the liquid, which finally has nee ee slaked lime and distilled in a coe of hydrogen, when nicotine begins to come over at about 200° C. - ; icotine is a colourless oily liquid, of sp. g. te a leviating the plane of polarization to the left; it boils a Frankfurt, 1854,—We have not ‘Instruction suy Vherbe Pet litte en Tabaks, L ; . France Vherbe de la pega Medicée : an conmalted, Fa dees Tobacco, its History, ‘Tis, 1572. Lond. 1859. 2 . : ture of tobacco leaves. Toe: $45.15 Cor, IL 0. 7.— ee pant usm. Journal, v. (1874) or further information on the history of See Pocklington, Co, see Tiedemann, Geschichte des 301. 468 - SOLANACEA, does not concrete even at— 10°C. It hasa strongly alkaline reaction, an unpleasant odour, and a burning taste. It quickly assumes a brown colour on exposure to air and light; and appears even to undergo an alteration by repeated distillation in an atmosphere deprived of oxygen. Nicotine dissolves in water, but separates on addition of caustic potash ; it occurs in the dried leaves to the extent of about 6 per cent., but is subject to great variation. The seeds of tobacco are stated by Kosutany! as grown in Hungary to contain from 0:28 to 067 per cent. of the alkaloid. It has not been met with in tobacco-smoke by Vohl and Eulenberg (1871), though other chemists assert its occurrence. The vapours were found by the former to contain numerous basic substances of the picolinie series, and ceded to caustic potash, hydrocyanie acid,’ sul- phuretted hydrogen, several volatile fatty acids, phenol and creasote. There was further observed in the imperfect combustion of tobacco the formation of laminz fusible at 94° C., and having a composition C*H™. Oxide of carbon is also largely met with. : Tobacco leaves, whether fresh or dried, yield when distilled with water a turbid distillate in which, as observed by Hermbstadt in 1823, there are formed, after some days, crystals of Nicotianin or Tobacco Camphor. According to J. A. Barral, nicotianin contains 7-12 per cent. of nitrogen (?). By submitting 4 kilogrammes of good tobacco of the previous year to distillation with much water, we obtained nicotianin, floating on the surface of the distillate, in the form of minute acicular crystals, which we found to be devoid of action on polarized light. The crystals have no peculiar taste, at least in the small quantity we tried; they have a tobacco-like smell, perhaps simply due to the water adhering to them. When an attempt was made to separate them by @ filter, they entirely disappeared, being probably dissolved by an accom- panying trace of essential oil. The clear water showed an alkaline reaction partly due to nicotine; this was proved by adding a solution of tannie acid, which caused a well-marked turbidity. Nicotianine 1 In our opinion a fatty acid contaminated with a little volatile oil as In the case of Capsicum (see page 454), or Iris (see article Rhizome Iridis). Among the ordinary constituents of leaves, tobacco contains albumm, resin and gum. In smoking, these substances, as well as the cellulose of the thick midrib, would yield products not agreeable to the com sumer. The manufacturer therefore discards the midrib, and ende = vours by further preparation to ensure at least the partial destruction of these unwelcome constituents, as well as the formation of che products of fermentation (ferment-oils), which may perhaps contribu : to the aroma of tobacco, especially when saccharine substances, Le gi or alcohol, are added in the maceration to which tobacco is subjecte is Tobacco leaves are remarkably rich in inorganic constituents, t proportion varying from 16 to 27 per cent. According to Bones they contain when dry about 1 per cent. of phosphoric acid, and jas 8 to 5 per cent. of potash, together with 24 to 44 per cent. of isi partly in the form of nitrate, so that to enable the tobacco plan ourish, it must have a rich soil or continual manuring.* , Dragendorft’s J ahresbericht, 1874. 98, 2 For further particulars on the pene * Poggiale and Marty (1870) sta Itivation see Boussings cyanic acid to be rate tanegel Steet br de > a Phys. ix. (1866) 50. * FOLIA DIGITALIS. 469 The lime, amounting to between a quarter and a half of the entire quantity of ash, is in the leaf combined with organic acids, especially malic, perhaps also citric. The proportion of potash varies greatly, but may amount to about 30 per cent. of the ash. Commerce—There were imported into the United Kingdom in the year 1872, 45,549,700 lb. of unmanufactured tobacco, rather more than half of which was derived from the United States of America. The total value of the commodity thus imported was £1,563,382; and the duty levied upon the quantity retained for home consumption amounted to £6,694,037. In 1876 the consumption of tobacco had increased to 47,000,000 Ib., 7. e. 14 lb. per head of the population. In the United States 559,049 acres of land being in 1875 under cultivation with tobacco yielded a crop of 367,000,000 lb. Uses—Tobacco has some reputation in the removal of alvine ob- structions, but it is a medicine of great potency and is very rarely used. Substitutes—Of the other species of Wicotiana cultivated as Tobacco, N. rustica L. is probably the most extensively grown. It is easily distinguished by its greenish yellow flowers, and its stalked ovate leaves. In spite of their coarser texture, the leaves dry more easily than those of NV. Z'ubacum, and with some care may even be made to retain. their green colour. NV. rustica furnishes Hast Indian Tobacco, also the kinds known as Latakia and Turkish Tobacco. ee N. persica Lindl. yields the tobacco of Shiraz. NV. quadrivalvis Pursh, V. multivalvis Lindl. and N. repanda Willd. are also cultivated plants, the last named, a plant of Havana, being used in the manufac- ture of a much valued _ kind of cigar. SCROPHULARIACE#. FOLIA DIGITALIS. Foxglove Leaves; F. Fewilles de Digitale; G. Fingerhutblitter. Botanical Origin—Digitalis purpurea L., an elegant and stately plant, common Gicouphoue chs BREE, of Europe, but preerng siliceous soils and generally absent from limestone districts. It is foun on the edges of woods and thickets, on bushy ground and commons, coming a mountain plant in the warm parts of Europe. It ocolire in the island of Madeira, in Portugal, Central and Southern Spain, hag thern Italy, France Germany, the British Isles and Southern Swe no and in N orway as far as 63° N. lat.; it is however very ee 8 tributed, and is altogether wanting in the Swiss Alps and the Jura. @ garden plant it is well known. History—-The Welsh “ Physicians of Myddvai i ‘quently made use of foxglove for the preparation 0 tines.“ Fuchs* and Tragus‘ figured the plant; the forme appear to have f external medi- r gave it the t : Dr. R. Cunningham found (1868) Digi- 2 — Myddfai (see Appendix) in 1.’ Purpurea completely naturalized about many places. . y natura 1zeC a ut ¥ ey 1542. §92. n Carlos in the Island of Chiloe in gg — nomenclaturis, etc. ut : tirpium . ee Serie hern Chili, 1 p hoe ee sylvestris seu Digitalis. 470 SCROPHULARIACE. name of Digitalis, remarking that up to the time at which he wrote, there was none for the plant in either Greek or Latin. At that period it was regarded as a violent medicine. Parkinson recommended it in 1640 in the “Theatrum botanicum,” and it had a place in the London Pharmacopceia of 1650 and in several subsequent editions. The inves- tigation of its therapeutic powers (1776-9) and its introduction into modern practice are chiefly due to Withering, a well-known English botanist and physician.’ The word fox-glove is said to be derived from the Anglo-Saxon Foaes-glew, i.e. fow-music, in allusion to an ancient musical instrument ~ consisting of bells hung on an arched support.” In the Scandinavian idioms the plant bears likewise the name of fowes bell. - _Description—Foxglove is a biennial or perennial, the leaves of which ought to be taken from the plant while in full flower. The lower leaves are ovate with the lamina running down into a long stalk; those of the stem become gradually narrower, passing into ovate- lanceolate with a short broadly-winged stalk, or are sessile. All have the margin crenate, crenate-dentate, or sub-serrate, are more Or less softly pubescent or nearly glabrous on the upper side, much paler and densely pubescent on the under, which is marked with a prominent network of veins. The principal veins diverge at a very acute angle from the midrib, which is thick and fleshy. The lower leaves are often a foot or more long, by 5 to 6 inches broad ; those of the stem are smaller. ; When magnified, the tip of each crenature or serrature of the leaf is seen to be provided with a small, shining, wart-like gland. The hairs of the lower surface are simple, and composed of jointed cells which flatten in drying; those of the upper surface are shorter. | In preparing foxglove for medicinal use, it is the custom of some druggists to remove the whole of the petiole and the thicker part of the midrib, retaining only the thin lamina, which is dried with a gente heat.’ The fresh leaf has when bruised an unpleasant herbaceous smell, which in drying becomes agreeable and tea-like. The dried leaf has & very bitter taste. Chemical Composition—Since the beginning of the present century, numerous attempts have been made to prepare the pede principle of foxglove, and the name Digitalin has been successively bestowed on widely different substances. _Among the investigators engaged in these researches, We — point out Walz (1846-1858), Kosmann (1845-46, 1860), Homoll partly with Quévenne (1845-61), Nativelle (1872), and especially Schmiedeberg (1874) The latter has prepared a new, well-defines erystallizable principle, Digitowin, from Digitalis. He exhaus with water the leaves previously dried and powdered, and. then extracted them repeatedly with dilute alcohol, 50 per cent.; l Wither aa ; : Withering (William), Account of the sarticular directions are give? in Fox-glove, Birmin QF go Pr 2p. gham, 1785. 8°, ritish Pharmacopeea. iedle- oe Se ca Names of British Plants, 4 For further particulars oD poe berg’s very elaborate researches, in Phar 3 This method of i : : preparing the leaf was may consult my abstract of them directed in the London Pharmacopeia of gad v. (1875) 741.—F.A.F. 1851, but it had long been in use. No FOLIA DIGITALIS. = tincture thus obtained was then mixed with basic acetate of lead as long as it produced a precipitate. The latter being separated, the filtered liquid was concentrated and the deposit now formed, after some days, removed from the aqueous liquid. It was then washed with a dilute solution of carbonate of sodium, by which a yellow matter (chrysophan?) was partly removed. ‘The substance was then dried, and yielded to chloroform a brownish mass, which after the chloroform had been driven off, was purified by benzin. This liquid dissolved the remainder of the yellow or orange matter, and a little fat, leaving crude digitoxin, which is to be. purified by reerystallization from warm alcohol, 80 per cent., adding a little charcoal. This purification still yields yellowish crystals, which ought to be washed again with car- bonate of sodium, ether or benzin, and then recrystallized from warm absolute alcohol, containing a little chloroform. This process, however, will only afford colourless crystals provided it be so performed as to cause the separation of digitoxin on account of the cooling of the solution, not by the evaporation of the solvent. If the liquid is instead allowed to evaporate it will soon assume a darker coloration. In the way just pointed out, perfectly colourless seales or needle- shaped crystals of pure digitoxin are at length formed, the yield = not more considerable than about one part from 10,000 of dried. eaves, _ Digitoxin is insoluble in water, to which it does not even i its intensely bitter taste as displayed in the alcoholic solution. It is likewise insoluble in benzin or bisulphide of carbon, very sparingly soluble in ether, more abundantly so in chloroform, the latter liquid however acting but very slowly on digitoxin. Its best solvent 1s alcohol, either cold or warm. The composition of digitoxin answers to the formula, C* HO’, 2 Digitoxin warmed with concentrated hydrochloric acid assumes a yellow or greenish hue, the same which is commonly attributed to commercial “ digitalin.” Digitoxin is not a saccharogenous matter; 1n alcoholic solution it is decomposed by dilute acids, and then affords Toviresin, an uncrystallizable, yellowish substance, which may easily be separated on account of its ready solubility in ether; 1t appears to © produced also if digitoxin is maintained for some time 1n the ieee of fusion at about 240°C. Toxiresin proved to be a very sages polson, acting energetically on the heart and muscles of frogs. The very specific action of foxglove is due—not exclusively—to ea ; It is so highly poisonous that Schmiedeberg thinks it not at all ae medicinal use, which might rather be confined to other constituents “ foxglove, as, for instance, to those obtained from the seeds args the names of digitalin and digitaléin. The latter, however, are oF mote difficult extraction than digitoxin. r € preparation of digitoxin is si ized “digitalin;” the former as we ound in Nativelle’s digitalin. sts ob 2h The Digitalin of Nativelle—The researches on digitalis 2. Is chemist, for which the Orfila prize of 6000 francs was awar in 2, have resulted in the extraction of a crystallized preparation milar to that of Nativelle’s crystal- ll as paradigitogenin’ are largely : ' love, Sn * A derivative of digitoxin as extvacted by Schmiedeberg from the seeds of foxglo ee me — AOANTHACE A. possessing active medicinal properties. It may be obtained by the following process :— The leaves, previously exhausted by water, are extracted by means of alcohol, sp. gr. ‘930. The tincture is concentrated until its weight is equal to that of the leaves used, and then diluted by adding thrice its weight of water. A pitch-like deposit is then formed ; digitaléin and other substances remaining in solution. The deposit dried on blotting paper is boiled with double its weight of alcohol, sp. gr. ‘907; on cooling, crystals are slowly deposited during some days. They should be washed with a little diluted alcohol (-958) and dried: to purify them, they should be first recrystallized from chloroform, and subsequently from boiling aleohol sp. gr. ‘828, some charcoal being used at the same time. Digi- talin is thus obtained in colowrless needle-shaped crystals. It assumes an intense emerald green colour when moistened with hydrochloric acid, and has an extremely bitter taste. On the animal economy, it displays all the peculiar effects of digitalis, the dose of a milligramme taken by an adult person once or twice a day occasioning somewhat alarming symptoms, but smaller doses exhibiting the sedative power of the herb. __ Another body occurring in foxglove is the erystallizable sugar called Inosite, which was detected by Marmé in the leaves, as well as in those of dandelion (p. 394). Pectic matters are also present in fox- glove leaves. Uses—Foxglove is a very potent drug, having the effect of reducing the frequency and force of the heart’s action, and hence is given special cases as a sedative; it is also employed as a diuretic. _ Adulteration—The dried leaves of some other plants have occa- sionally been supplied for those of foxglove. Such are the leaves of Verbasewm, which are easily recognized by their thick coat 0 branched stellate hairs; of Inula Conyza DC, and J. Helenium L, which have the margin almost entire, and in the latter plant the veins diverging nearly at a right angle from the midrib; in both plants me under side of the leaf is less strongly reticulated than in foxglove. Bu to avoid all chance of mistake, it is desirable that druggists should purchase the fresh flowering plant, which cannot be confounded wit any other, and strip and dry the leaves for themselves. ACANTHACEA. HERBA ANDROGRAPHIDIS. Kariydt or Creyat. Botanical Origin—Andrographis' paniculata Nees ab E. (J — urm.), an annual herb, 1 to 2 feet high, common throughout - Pes under the shade of trees, It is found likewise in Ceylon ts ava, and has been introduced into the West Indies. In some distie® of India it is cultivated. * Andrographis from évi ; d Trimet’ i : ip and ypadis, filament.—Fig. in Bentley 4™ in allusion to the brush-like anther and Med. Plants, part 23 (1877). : OLEUM SESAMI- | 473 History—It is probable that in ancient Hindu medicine this plant was administered indiscriminately with chiretta, which, with several other species of Ophelia, is known in India by nearly the same vernacular names. Ainslie asserts that it was a component of a famous bitter tincture called by the Portuguese of India Droga amara; but on con- sulting the authority he quotes’ we find that the bitter employed in that medicine was Calumba. Andrographis is known in Bengal as Maha-tita, literally king of bitters, from the Sanskrit tikta, “ bitter,” a title of which it has been thought so far deserving that it has been admitted to a place in the Pharmacopwia of India. Description—The straight, knotty branch stems are obtusely quadrangular, about } of an inch thick at the base, of a dark green colour and longitudinally furrowed. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, lanceolate, entire, the largest $ an inch or more wide and 8 inches long. Their upper surface is dark green, the under somewhat lighter, and as seen under a lens finely granular. The leaves are very thin, brittle, and, like the stems, entirely glabrous. In the well-dried specimen before us, for which we are indebted to Dr. G. Bidie of Madras, flowers are wanting and only a few roots are © present. The latter are tapering and simple, emitting numerous thin : rootlets, greyish externally, woody and whitish within. ‘The plant is inodorous and has a persistent pure bitter taste. Chemical Composition—The aqueous infusion of the herb exhibits a slight acid reaction, and has an intensely bitter taste, which appears — due to an indifferent, non-basic principle, for the usual reagents do not indicate the presence of an alkaloid. Tannic acid on the other hand produces an abundant precipitate, a compound of itself with the bitter principle. The infusion is but little altered by the salts of iron; 1t contains a considerable quantity of chloride of sodium. _ Uses—Employed as a pure bitter tonic like quassia, gentian, or chiretta, with the last of which it is sometimes confounded. SESAME/A#. OLEUM SESAMI. Sesamé Oil, Gingeli, Gin gili or Jinjili. Oil, Til or Teel Oul, Benné Oil; F. Huile de Séame; G. Sesamdl. pubescent Botanical Origin—Sesamum indicum DC., an erect, annual herb, 2 to 4 foot hieh,? indigenous to India, but propagated by cultivation throughout the warmer regions of the globe, and not now found anywhere in the wild state. In Europe, Sesamumni 3s only sit 2 Some districts of Turkey and Greece, and on a small scale a papas y and in the islands of Malta and Gozo. It does not succeed well even In the South of France. History—Sesamé is a plant which we find on the authority faa imen’ d. : 1 Paolino de Sen Bartuimisa. Poeae © 2 Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Me the Last Indies (1776-1789), translated from Plants, part 23 (1877). * German, Lond. 1800. pp. 14. 409. of the a | — SESAMEA, ‘most ancient documents of Egyptian, Hebrew,’ Sanskrit, Greek, and_ Roman literature, has been used by mankind for the sake of its oily seeds from the earliest times. The Egyptian name Semsemt already occurring in the Papyrus Ebers, is still existing in the Coptic Semsem, the Arabic _ Simsim, and the modern Sesamum. The Indian languages have their own terms for it, the Hindustani 7%/, from the Sanskrit 7%la, being one of the best known. Tila already occurs in the Vedic literature. In the days of Pliny the oil was an export from Sind to Europe by way of the Red Sea, precisely as the seeds are at the present day. During the middle ages the plant, then known as Suseman or Sempsen, was cultivated in Cyprus, Egypt and Sicily; the oil was an article of import from Alexandria to Venice. Joachim Camerarius gave a good figure of the plant in his “Hortus medicus et philosophicus” 1588 (tab. 44). In modern times sesamé oil gave way to that of olives, yet at present it is an article which, if not so renowned, is at least of far greater consumption. _ Production—The plant comes to perfection within 3 or 4 months; its capsule contains numerous flat seeds, which are about 32, of an inch long by sy thick, and weigh on an average ;, of a grain. To collect them, the plant when mature is cut down, and stacked in heaps for a few days, after which it is exposed to the sun during the day, but collected again into heaps at night. By this process the capsules gradually ripen and burst, and the seeds fall out.? : The plant is found in several varieties affording respectively white, yellowish, reddish, brown or black seeds. ‘The dark seeds may be de- prived of a part of their colouring matter by washing, which is some- times done with a view to obtain a paler oil. = We obtained from yellowish seeds 56 per cent. of oil; on @ large scale, the yield varies with the variety of seed employed and the pr cess of pressing, from 45 to 50 per cent. Description—The best kinds of sesamé oil have a mild agreeable _ taste, a light yellowish colour, and scarcely any odour; but in these respects the oil is liable to vary with the circumstances already men- tioned. The white seeds produced in Sind are reputed to yield the finest oil. We prepared some oil by means of ether, and found it to have 4 Sp. gr. of 0919 at 23° C, it solidified at 5° C., becoming rather turbi at some degrees above this temperature. Yet sesamé oil is more fut at ordinary temperatures than ground-nut oil, and is less prone to change by the influence of the air. It is in fact, when of fine quality, one of the less alterable oils, Chemical Composition—The oil is a mixture of olein, stearm™ and 1! Isaiah xxviii. 27, i. (1807) 95. and ii. 224. ‘ R 4 tha word Gingeli (or Gergelim), which ( adh curious process is described rc the bene urgh remarks was (as it is now) in Reports of Juries, Madras Exhibition, the yen ire ame Europeans, derives from p. 31.—That the colouring matter ® po seed in tak eeeeevide, denoting sesame seeds is actually soluble in water a are Rice). Th usks before being reaped (Dr. _firmed by Lépine of Pondicherry % ¥" tg West Afr ® word Benné is, we believe, of learnt from his manuscript notes P Colonies cite ao origin, and has no connection to the Musée des Produits ¢e pene 3 For farther sara “ones age de France at Paris. The seeds may °"™ ars see Journey from Madras through M. pork ah eesied eee oc OLEUM SESAMI. ei, other compounds of glycerin with acids of the fatty series. We pre- pared with it in the usual way a lead plaster, and treated the latter with ether in order to remove the oleate of lead. The solution was then decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, evaporated and exposed to hyponitric vapours. By this process we obtained 72°6 per cent. of Hlaidie Acid. The specimen of sesamé oil prepared by ourselves con- sequently contained 76-0 per cent. of olein, inasmuch as it must be supposed to be present in the form of triolein. In commercial oils the amount of olein is certainly not constant. As to the solid part of the oil, we succeeded in removing fatty acids, freely melting, after repeated crystallizations, at 67° C., which may con- sist of stearic acid mixed with one or more of the allied homologous acids, as palmitic and myristic. By precipitating with acetate of magnesium, as proposed by Heintz, we finally isolated acids melting at 525 to 53°, 62 to 63°, and 692° C., which correspond to myristic, palmitic and stearic acids. The small proportion of solid matter which separates from the oil on congelation cannot be removed by pressure, for even at many degrees below the freezing point it remains as a soft magma. In this respect sesamé oil differs from that of olive. Sesamé oil contains an extremely small quantity of a substance, perhaps resinoid, which has not yet been isolated. It may be obtained in solution by repeatedly shaking 5 volumes of the oil with one of glacial acetic acid. If a cold mixture of equal weights of sulphuric and nitric acids is added in like volume, the acetic solution acquires a greenish yellow hue. The same experiment being made with spirit of Wine substituted for acetic acid, the mixture assumes a blue colour, _ quickly changing to greenish yellow. The oil itself being gently shaken with sulphuric and nitric acids, takes a fine green hue, as shown in 1852 by Behrens, who at the same time pointed out that no other oil exhibits this reaction. It takes place even with the bleached and per- fectly colourless oil, Sesamé oil added to other oils, if to a larger extent than 10 per cent., may be recognised by this test. The reaction ought to be observed with small quantities, say 1 gramme of the oil and 1 gramme of the acid mixture, previously cooled. _, Commerce—The commercial importance of Sesame may be at isha ? illustrated by the fact that France imported in 1870, 83 millions; in — 1871, 571 millions; and 1872, 50 millions of kilogrammes (984,693 eof the seed.’ _,_+he quantity shipped from British 565,854 ewt., of which France took no less than 49 imports of the seed into the United Kingdom in 1870 wer of a about £13,000. 5 Sesamé is extensively produced in Corea a ; : ormosa, Which in 1869 ‘eported the exceptionally large geen of 46,000 peculs? (1 pecul = 133 Ib.). Zanzibar and Mozambique also fur- nish considerable quantities of sesamé, whi dia in the year 1871-72 was ghee S414 ewt2 The e to the value iti: ia with Foreign C ies, * Documents Statistiques réunis par VAd- of British India with Foreign Countries, ™Ministration des D, Calcutta, 1872. 62. 8 Louanes sur “ce de alcutta, - " France, année 1872. oe 8 Reports on Trade at the Treaty Ports in * Statement of the Trade and Navigation China for 1870, Shanghai, 1871. 81. nd in the Chinese island of —_ Ist on the West Coast of. 1 eet ae LABIATA.: a Africa the staple oil-seed is Ground-nut (Arachis hypogea L. p. 186). The chief place for the manufacture of sesamé oil is Marseilles, Uses—Good sesamé oil might be employed without disadvantage for all the purposes for which olive oil is used! As its congealing point is some degrees below that of olive oil, it is even more fitted for cool climates. Sesamé seeds are largely consumed as food both in India and Tropical Africa. The foliage of the plant abounds in mucilage, and in the United States is sometimes used in the form of poultice. LABIATA. ‘ FLORES LAVANDULZ&. Lavender Flowers; F. Fleurs de Lavande ; G. Lavendelblumen. = Botanical Origin—Lavandula vera DC., a shrubby plant growing in the wild state from 1 to 2 feet high, but attaining 3 feet or more under cultivation. It is indigenous to the mountainous regions of the countries bordering the western half of the Mediterranean basin. Thus it occurs in Eastern Spain, Southern France (extending northward to Lyons and Dauphiny), in Upper Italy, Corsica, Calabria and Northern Africa,—on the outside of the olive region.” In cultivation it grows very well in the open air throughout the greater part of Germany and as far north as Norway and Livonia; the northern plant would even _ appear to be more fragrant, according to Schiibeler.’ History—There has been much learned investigation in order to identify lavender in the writings of the classical authors, but the result has not been satisfactory, and no allusion has been found which unquestionably refers either to L. vera or to L. Spica,’ whereas L. Storchas was perfectly familiar to the ancients. ; The earliest mention of lavender that we have observed, occurs in the writings of the abbess Hildegard,> who lived near Bingen on the Rhine during the 12th century, and who in a chapter De Lavendula alludes to the strong odour and many virtues of the plant. Ina poem the school of Salerno entitled Flos Medicine® occur the following ines :— ‘* Salvia, castoreum, davendula, primula veris, Nasturtium, athanas hee sanant paralytica membra.” _,_ In 1387 cushions of satin were made for King Charles VI. of Franee, to be stutfed with “lavende.”? Its use was also popular at an early period in the British isles, for we find “ Llafant” ox “ Llafanllys mentioned among the remedies of the Physicians of Myddvai.”* An ‘ For pharmaceutical uses, the larger 4 F. de Gingins-Lassaraz, Hist. des La- bbde on of olein and consequent lesser —_ vandes, Geneve et Paris, 1826. Migne, 7 Bc spat to solidify, should be remem- 5 Opera Omnia, accurante J. P. pel Paris, 1855. 1143. ° Va- ae Sree near Avignon, the °§. de Renzi, Collectio Salernitant, ee Y dvandula vera is comprised, ac- li, i, 417-516. I — to Martins, between 1500 and 4500 a Douét d’Areq, Comptes de PArgenter N above the sea-level. Ann. des Sc. des rois de France, ii. (1874) 148. dix) at., Bot. x, (1838) 145. 149, 3 PAhanzenwelt N a. * Meddygon Myddfai (see Appem (1873-1875) 260, 9" Christiania —_287. FLORES LAVANDULA. 477 in Walton’s “ Description of an inn,” about the year 1680 to 1690, we find the walls stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelt of Benger Lavender was well known to the botanist of the 16th century. Description—The flowers of Common Lavender are produced in a lax terminal spike, supported on a long naked stalk. They are arranged _ in 6 to 10 whorls (verticillasters), the lowest being generally far remote from those above it. A whorl consists of two cymes, each having, when fully developed, about three flowers, below which is a rhomboidal acuminate bract, as well as several narrow smaller bracts belonging to the particular flowers. The calyx is tubular, contracted towards the mouth, marked with 13 nerves and 5-toothed, the posterior tooth much larger than the others. The corolla of a violet colour is tubular, two- lipped, the upper lip with two, the lower with three lobes. Both corolla and calyx, as well as the leaves and stalks, are clothed with a dense tomentum of stellate hairs, amongst which minute shining oil-glands can be seen by the aid of a lens. The flowers emit when rubbed a delightful fragrance, and have a pleasant aromatic taste. The leaves of the plant are oblong linear, or lanceolate, revolute at the margin and very hoary when young. : For pharmaceutical use or as a perfume, lavender flowers are stripped - from the stalks and dried by a gentle heat. They are but seldom kept in the shops, being grown almost entirely for the sake of their essential oil. : Production of Essential Oil—Lavender is cultivated in the parishes of Mitcham, Carshalton and Beddington and a few adjoining localities, all in Surrey, to the extent of about 300 acres. It is also grown at Market Deeping in Lincolnshire; also at Hitchin in Hertford- na where lavender was apparently cultivated as early as the year 568. At the latter place there were in 1871 about 50 acres so cropped. The plants which are of a small size, and grown 1n rows 1h dry open fields, flower in July and August. The flowers are usually ne with the stalks of full length, tied up in mats, and carried to the distillery there to await distillation. This is performed in the ori large stills that are used for peppermint. The flowers are commonly distilled with the stalks as gathered, and either fresh, or ina aot ol less dry state. A few cultivators distill only the flowering heads, there- by obtaining a superior product. Still more rarely, Se pect eg stripped from the stalks, and the latter rejected i toto. _~ ane , the careful experiments of Bell,‘ the oil made in this last ar zi i exceedingly fine quality. The produce he obtained in 18 “pe Sat ounces per 100 Ib. of flowers, entirely freed from stalks; in ghee ounces ; and in 1848, 20 ounces: the quantities of flowers nee 1 re respective years were 417, 633, and 923 lb. Oil distilled from the stalks alone was found to have a peculiar rank odour. i rf i Imes, Pharm. Journ. viii. Iona, Hist, of England, i. ch. 3, econ) $0 “3 a stihor describes alo the _” Perhs, Proc. American Pharm. Associa- _ disease which is a the lavenc tion, 1876. 819, since about the year 1860. : “ rn, Vill 9) 276. For more particulars see the interesting 4 Pharm. Journ, Vu. (1849) 27 In the distillation of - 7 one-sixth the price of the oil produced at Mitcham.? The cheaper sorts wb least are obtained by distilling the entire plant. _—6hto LL a - LABIATAR. lavender, it is said that the oil which comes over in the earlier part of the operation is of superior flavour. We have no accurate data as to the produce of oil obtained in the ordinary way, but it is universally-stated to vary extremely with the season. Warren’ gives it as 10 to 12 |b., and in an exceptional case as ~ much as 24 Ib. from the acre of ground under cultivation. At Hitchin? the yield would appear to approximate to the last-named quantity. The experiments performed in Bell’s laboratory as detailed above, show that the flowers deprived of stalks afforded on an average exactly 1} per cent. of essential oil. Oil of Lavandula vera is distilled in Piedmont, and in the mountainous parts of the South of France, as in the villages about Mont Ventoux near Avignon, and in those some leagues west of - Montpellier (St. Guilhen-le-désert, Montarnaud and St. Jean de Fos)— in all cases from the wild plant. This foreign oil is offered in com- merce of several qualities, the highest of which commands scarcely _ Chemical Composition—The only constituent of lavender flowers that has attracted the attention of chemists is the essential oil (Olewm _ Lavandule). Tt is a pale yellow, mobile liquid, varying in sp. gr. from 0°87 to 094 (Zeller), having a very agreeable odour of the flowers anda _ Strong aromatic taste. The oil distilled at Mitcham (1871) we find to rotate the plane of polarization 42° to the left, in a column of 50 mm. Oil of lavender seems to be a mixture in variable proportions of oxygenated oils and stearoptene, the latter being identical, according to _ Dumas, with common camphor. In some samples it is said to exist to the extent of one-half, and to be sometimes deposited from the oil in cold weather; we have not however been able to ascertain this fact. es oil according to Lallemand (1859) appears also to contain compoun _ ethers. _ Commerce—Dried lavender flowers are the object of some trade in the south of Europe. According to the official Z’ableaw général dt Commerce de la France, Lavender and Orange Flowers (which are not separated) were exported in 1870 to the extent of 110,958 kilo. (244,741 Ib,),—chiefly to the Barbary States, Turkey and America. There are no data to show the amount of oil of lavender imported into England. Uses—Lavender flowers are not prescribed in modern English medicine. The volatile oil has the stimulant properties common bodies of the same class and is much used as a perfume. Other Species of Lavender. 1. Lavandula Spica DC. is a plant having a very close resem © L. vera, of which Linnzeus considered it a variety, though its © sot tie is now admitted. It occurs over much of the area of L. vel" but does not extend so far north, nor is it found in such elevated situa- 1 7 ff . i T Pharm. Journ, vi, (1865) 257, chester quarts” of oil.—One Winchest? * Lbid. i, (1860) 278. The sta i 5 tement is quart = 282 litres. . that an acre of land yields ‘about 6 Win- m3 The Mitcham oil fetches 30s. io © per lb., according to the season. -. HERBA MENTHA VIRIDIS. ee. Ye tions, or beyond the limit of the olive. It is in fact a more southern plant and more susceptible to cold, so that it cannot be cultivated in the open soil in Britain except in sheltered positions. In Languedoc and Provence, it is the common species from the sea-level up to about 2000 feet, where it is met by the more hardy L. vera.’ Lavandula Spica is distilled in the south of France, the flowering wild plant in its entire state being used. The essential oil, which is termed in French Essence d’Aspic, is known to English druggists as Oleum Lavandule spice, Oleum Spice, or Oil of Spike. It resembles true oil of lavender, but compared with that distilled in England it has a much less delicate fragrance. This however may depend upon the frequent adulteration, for we find that flowers of the two plants (L. vera and L, Spica) grown side by side in an English garden, are hardly distinguishable in fragrance. Porta already even, in speaking of the oil of lavender flowers, stated:? “e spica fragrantior excipitur, ut illud quod ex Gallia provenit _ .”—Lallemand (1859) isolated from oil of spike a camphor which he believes to be identical with common camphor. : ; Oil of Spike is used in porcelain painting and in veterinary medicine, . 2. Lavandula Stachas L—This plant was well known to the ancients; Dioscorides remarks that it gives a name to the Stcechades, the modern isles of Hitres near Toulon, where the plant still abounds. It has a wider range than the two species of Lavandula already described, for it is found in the Canaries and in Portugal, and eastward oe throughout the Mediterranean region to Constantinople and Asia =~ Minor. It may at once be known from the other lavenders by its flower-spike being on a short stalk, and terminating In 2 or 3 con- Spicuous purple bracts. ea The flowers, called Flores Stechados or Stechas arabica,’ were formerly kept in the shops, and had a place in the London Pharma- Copceia down to 1746. We are not aware that they are, or ever were distilled for essential oil, though they are stated to be the source of True Oil of Spike. s HERBA MENTH VIRIDIS. Spearmint. rare : t -idis L. is a fragrant perennial plant, een pia Pel as the Common wild in countries where it ally in Britain under such — _ Botanical Origin—Mentha vi chiefly known in Europe, Asia and North Mint of gardens, and only found apparently has long been cultivated. It occurs occasion Circumstanees.* 4 Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1850) od horde we know if L. lanata Boiss., geet fragrant ies closely allied to L. Spica DC.; and anative of Spain, 18 distilled a) paca est dbook of the British Flora, 5 Bentham, /an ; 1856 18.—-Parkinson (1640) remarks of *On the high land between Nice and Turbia, I have observed the two species Saba. together, and that Z. vera is in Ower two or three weeks earlier than L. Spica.—D. H. 3 Pe distillatione, Rome, 1608. 87. : H€ Incorrectness of the term Arabica 18 noticed by Pomet. How it came to be applied we know not. - Speare Mint that it is “onely found planted in gardens with us. . ae LABIA A Mentha viridis is regarded by Bentham as not improbably a variety of M. silvestris L., perpetuated through its ready propagation by suckers. J. G. Baker remarks, that while these two plants are sufficiently distinct as found in England, yet continental forms occur which bridge over their differences." History—Mint is mentioned in all early medizeval lists of plants, and was certainly cultivated in the convent gardens of the 9th century. Turner, who has been called “the father of English botany,” states in his Herball? that the garden mint of his time was also called “ Spere Mynte.” We find spearmint also described by Gerarde who terms it Mentha Romana vel Sarracenica, or Common Garden Mint, but his statement that the leaves are white, soft, and hairy does not well apply to the plant as now found in cultivation. Description—Spearmint has a perennial root-stock which throws out long runners. Its stem 2 to 3 feet high is erect, when luxuriant branched below with short erecto-patent branches, firm, quadrangular, naked or slightly hairy beneath the nodes, often brightly tinged with purple. Leaves sessile or the lower slightly stalked, lanceolate or ovate- lanceolate, rounded or even cordate at the base, dark green and glabrous above, paler and prominently veined with green or purple beneath, rather _ thickly glandular, but either quite naked or hairy only on the midrib and principal veins, the point narrowed out and acute, the teeth sharp but neither very close nor deep, the lowest leaves measuring about 1 inch across by 3 or 4 inches long. Inflorescence a panicled arrange- ment of spikes, of which the main one is 3 or 4 inches long by inch wide, the lowest whorls sometimes 2 an inch from each other and the 2 lowest bracts leafy. Bracteoles linear-subulate, equalling or exceeding __ the expanded flowers, smooth or slightly ciliated. | Pedicels about ¢ line _ with which he has favoured us, to be identical with the spearmint : long, purplish glandular, but never hairy. Calyx also often purplish, the tube campanulato-cylindrical, 8 line long, the teeth lanceolate- subulate, equalling the tube, the flower part of which is naked, but the teeth and often the upper part clothed more or less densely with erecto- patent hairs. Corolla reddish-purple, about twice as long as the calyx, naked both within and without. Not smooth. : _The plant varies slightly in the shape of its leaves, elongation of spike and hairiness of calyx. The entire plant emits a most fragrant odour when rubbed, and has a pungent aromatic taste. Production—Spearmint is grown in kitchen gardens, and mot largely in market gardens. A few acres are under cultivation with it at Mitcham, chiefly for the sake of the herb, which is sold mostly ina dried state. ; The cultivation of spearmint is carried on in the United States i” precisely the same manner as that of peppermint, but on a much smaller scale, Mr. H. G. Hotchkiss of Lyons, Wayne County, State ot pee _ York, has informed us that his manufacture of the essential oil amount in 1870 to 1162 lb. The plant he employs appears from the specunel English gardens, and is not the Curled Mint (Mentha crispa) of Germany. Seemann’s Journal of B 2 ge Pon it 5 ‘otany, Aug. ful description of Mentha vai 1865. p. 239. We borrow Mr. Baker’s care. ? Part 2. (1568) 54. HERBA MENTH PIPERITA. 481 Chemical Composition—Spearmint yields an essential oil (Olewm Menthe viridis) in which reside the medicinal virtues of the plant. Kane,' who examined it, gives its sp. gr. as 0914, and its boiling point as 160°C. The oil yielded him a considerable amount of stearoptene. Gladstone? found spearmint oil to contain a hydrocarbon almost identical with oil of turpentine in odour and other physical properties, mixed with an oxidized oil to which is due the peculiar smell of the plant. The latter oil boils at 225° C.; its sp. gr. is 0°951, and it was found to be isomeric with carvol, C'H“O. According to our experi- ments the oil, distilled from Curled Mint grown in Germany, deviates the plane of polarization 37°-4 to the left when examined in a column of 100 millimetres, We prepared from it the crystallized compound (C°H“O)SH2 and isolated from it the liquid CHO, which differs from carvol (see Fructus Carui, page 306) by its levogyrate power.’ Uses—Spearmint is used in the form of essential oil and distilled water, precisely in the same manner as peppermint. In the United States the oil is also employed by confectioners and the manufacturers __ of perfumed soap. ._ Substitutes—Oil of spearmint is now rarely distilled in England, its high cost4 causing it to be nearly unsaleable. The cheaper foreign oil is offered in price-currents as of two kinds, namely American and German, Of the first we have already spoken: the second, termed ” German Krauseminzél,is the produce of Mentha aquatica L.var. y erispa Bentham, a plant cultivated in Northern Germany. Its oil seems to agree with the oil of spearmint. HERBA MENTH£ PIPERIT#. Peppermint ; F. Menthe poivrée ; G. Pfefferminze. Botanical Origin—Mentha piperita Hudson (non Linn.), an erect usually glabrous Saeniet ene Heese the Common Speen hy the gardens, but: differine from it in having the leaves all stalke , e flowers larger, the upper whorls of flowers somewhat crowded together, and the lower separate. In the opinion of Bentham it is possibly a mere variety of M. hirsuta L., with which it can be connected by numerous ‘intermediate forms. : fo . Peppermint rapidly propagates itself by runners, and 8 ‘Contin im wet places in several parts of England, as well as on the Co It is cultivated on the large scale in England, France, Germany, North America, i. History—Mentha piperita was first observed in gn ae WA Dr. Eales, and communicated to Ray, who in the second e : osetia f Synopsis Stirpium Britannicarwm, 1696, noticed it under the ete Mentha spicis brevioribus et habitioribus, foliis M enthe Spe "ie née Jervido piperis; and in his Historia Plantarum? as Mentha patustre: : i 1839, 40s. to 48s, 2 Philosophical Magazine, xiii. (1838) 444. ges from 1824 to ‘ ae ourn of Chemical Society, ii, (1854) per Ip iti, (1704) 284. und ent. * Plickiger, Pharm. Journ, vii. (1876) eee H 482 LABIATAE, _. . Peper-Mint.”' Dale, who found the plant in the adjoining county of Essex, states? that it is esteemed a specific in renal and vesical cal- culus; and Ray, in the third edition of his Synopszs, declares it superior to all other mints as a remedy for weakness of the stomach and for diarrhcea. Peppermint was admitted to the London Pharmacopeeia in: 1721, under the designation of Mentha piperitis sapore. The cultivation of peppermint at Mitcham in Surrey dates from about 1750,* at which period only a few acres of ground were there devoted to medicinal plants. At the end of the last century, above 100 acres were cropped with peppermint. But so late as 1805 there were no stills at Mitcham, and the herb had to be carried to London for the extraction of the oil. Of late years the cultivation has diminished in extent, by reason of the increased value of land and the competition of foreign oil of peppermint. On the Continent Mentha Piperitis was grown as early as 1771 at Utrecht; Gaubius* appears to have been the first to notice “ Camphora Europea Menthe Piperitidis,’ i.e. Menthol (see page 483). In Germany peppermint became practically known in the latter half of the last century, especially through the recommendation of Knigge? Description—The rootstock of peppermint is perennial, throwing out runners. The stem is erect, 3 to 4 feet high, when luxuriant some what branched below with erecto-patent branches, firm, quadrangular, slightly hairy, often tinged with purple. Leaves all stalked, the stalks of the lower } to ? of an inch long, naked or nearly so, the leaf lanceolate, narrowed or rather rounded towards the base, the point narrowed out and acute, the lowest 2 to 3 inches long by about 3 of an inch broad, naked and dull green above, paler and glandular all over, but only slightly hairy upon the veins beneath; the teeth sharp, fine, and erecto-patent. Inflor- escence in a loose lanceolate or acutely conical spike, 2 to 3 inches long by about $ ofan inch broad at the base, the lowest whorlsseparate,and usually the lowest bracts leaf-like. Bracteoles lanceolate acuminate, about equalling the expanded flowers, slightly ciliated. Pedicels 1 to 1} lines long, purplish, glandular but not hairy. Calyx often purplish, the tube about 1 line long and the teeth } a line, the tube eampanulate-cyli ae purplish, not hairy, but dotted over with prominent glands; the — lanceolate subulate, furnished with short erecto-patent hairs. ce reddish purple about twice as long as the calyx, naked both within an without. Nut smooth® (rugose, according to our observation). 4° odour and taste are strongly aromatic. : _An var. 2. vulgaris of Sole, M. piperita . Smith, the plant 1s more hairy, with the spikes broader and shorter, or even bluntly capitate. Chemical Composition—The constituent for the sake of whit) _ Peppermint is cultivated is the essential oil, Olewm Menthe pipert®* — : : as Pe Beil Ose gmass the original specimen 4 Adversariorum varit argument gi : Britith Mo ae Tape J Ts plants in the unus, Leide, 1771. 99. Commentatio, : fectly with the ot nd it to agree per- 5 De Mentha Piperitide oe D. iH plant now in cultivation, — Erlange, 1780. d 6 This description is borrowe . from Mr 2 ‘ wed NT ine i macologice Supplementum, Lond. Baker’s paper on the Engi Mints, . ‘ : , note |. ® Lysons, Environs of London, i. (1800)254, ferred to at page 480, n HERBA MENTH# PIPERITA, 483 colourless, pale yellow, or greenish liquid, of sp. gr. varying from 0°84 to 092, We learn from information kindly supplied by Messrs. Schimmel and Co., Leipzig, that the best peppermint grown in Germany, carefully dried, affords from 1 to 1-25 per cent. of oil. It has a strong and agree- able odour, with a powerful aromatic taste, followed by a sensation of cold when air is drawn into the mouth. We find that the Mitcham oil examined by polarized light in a column 50 mm. long, deviates from 14°2 to 10°-7 to the left, American oil 4°3. When oil of peppermint is cooled to —4° C., it sometimes deposits colourless hexagonal crystals of Peppermint Camphor, C"H“OH, called also Menthol. We have never observed it, nor are we aware that menthol has been noticed in America. but it is largely afforded by eastern mints, and found in commerce under the name of Chinese or Japanese Oil of Peppermint, either liquid, and easily depositing the apne or also forming a crystalline mass impregnated with the liquid oil. _ Pure menthol has the exquisite odour and taste of peppermint; it forms hexagonal crystals, melting at 42° C., and boiling at 212°C. By distilling menthol ‘with P20> it yields menthene, C“H”, a levogyrate liquid, boiling at 163°, the peculiar odour of which reminds of pepper- mint.2 The Chinese crystallized oil of peppermint has sometimes a bitterish after-taste and an odour similar to that of spearmint, but by recrystallization it assumes the pure flavour. ; _ the liquid part of the oil of peppermint has not yet been thoroughly investigated; it appears to consist chiefly of the compound C”H™*O. Upon the liquid portions depend the remarkable colorations which the oil of peppermint is capable of assuming. If 50 to 70 drops of the crude oil are shaken with one drop of nitric acid, sp. gr. about 1°2, the mixture changes from faintly yellowish to brownish, and, after an hour — or two, exhibits a bluish, violet or greenish colour; in reflected light, it appears reddish and not transparent. The colour thus produced lasts a fortnight. We have thus examined the various samples of peppermint oil at our command, and may state that the finest among them assume — the most beautiful coloration and fluorescence, which, however, shows very appreciable differences. An inferior oil of American origin se not coloured; and a very old sample of an originally excellent re vs 1 oil was likewise not coloured by the test. Menthol is not altere ad h = Similarly treated? The nitric acid test is not capable of rev “th adulterations of peppermint oil, for the coloration takes et Mi : an “ to which a considerable quantity of oil of turpentime has bee ed, ‘ Remarkable colorations of a different hue are ae ee, - bd € various kinds of oil of peppermint if other chemi ; A rar mixed with it. Thus green or brownish tints are produced by me od anhydrous chloral; the oil becomes bluish or greenish or rose-colour but frequently adulterated. Mr. * The Chinese oil is disti + Canton Osaka, wae exported aan "Canine in 1873 Holmes informe ty coeeh to Mentha to the extent of 800 lbs.; it was valued at — the mother ad p Dont 30s. per Ih __< rhherg 5 wim ts ts 8 Pharm, Toe Oak re isn, ae to 2 On Japanese Peppermint Camphor see Japan we are informed that there are large Beckett and Alder Wright, Yearbook of plantation: f : x “1 6 ka- Pharm. 1875. 605. no Almra.” is cesorted eons Tikes sal 3 Pharm. Journ. Feb, 25, 1871. 682. 484 Boat e uy. 2 if shaken with a concentrated solution of bisulphite of sodium. It is worthy of note that oils of different origin, which cannot be distin- guished by means of nitric acid, exhibit totally different colorations if _ mixed with either of the liquids just named, or with vapour of bromine. This behaviour may be of some use in the examination of commercial sorts of peppermint oil. As to bisulphite of sodium, it yields a solid compound with certain kinds of peppermint oil, which we have not yet examined. Production and Commerce—lIn several parts of Europe, as well asin the United States, peppermint is cultivated on the large scale asa medicinal plant. In England the culture is carried on in the neighbourhood of Mitcham in Surrey, near Wisebeach in Cambridgeshire, Market Deeping in Lin- colnshire, and Hitchin in Hertfordshire. At Mitcham in 1850 there were about 500 acres under cultivation; in 1864 only about 219 acres.'_ At Market Deeping there were in 1871 about 150 acres cropped with peppermint. The usual produce in oil may be reckoned at 8 to 12 Ib. peracre. The fields of peppermint at Mitcham are level, with a rich, friable soil, well manured and naturally retentive of moisture. The ground is kept free from weeds, and in other respects is carefully tilled. The crop is cut in August, and the herb is usually allowed to dry on the ground before it is consigned to the stills. These are of large size, holding 1000 to 2000 gallons, and heated by coal; each still is furnished with a condensing worm of the usual character, which passes out into a small iron cage secured by a padlock, in which stands the oil separator. The distillation is conducted at the lowest possible temperature. The water that comes over with the oil is not distilled with another lot of herb, but is for the most part allowed to run away, a very little only being reserved as a perquisite of the woe men. ‘The produce is very variable, and no facilities exist for estimat- Ing it with accuracy.” It is however stated that a ton of dried peppermint yields from 24 to 34 pounds of oil, which equals 0°11 to O15 per cent. But we have been assured by a grower at Mitcham that the yield is as much as 6 pounds from a ton, or 0:26 per cent. : At Mitcham and its neighbourhood two varieties of peppermint ate at present recognized, the one being knownas White Mint, the other 3 Black Mint, but the differences between the two are very slight. 1h? Black Mint has purple stems; the White Mint, green stems, and as W° have observed, leaves rather more coarsely serrated than those of! : Black. The Black Mint is more prolific in essential oil than the a and hence more generally cultivated ; but the oil of the latter 1s superior in delicacy of odour and commands a higher price. White Mint 8 said to be principally grown for drying in bundles, or as it is term “bunching.” i Peppermint is grown ona vastly larger scale in America, the ert where the cultivation is carried on being Southern Michigan, Weste Pharm. Journ, x (1851) 297. 340; also ‘These they let to smaller cultivators who , * idee a ’ . 1G Mba m Pharm. Journ. vi. ( 1865) 257. pay so iach: for distilling 4 © ar ds bah nage tet and to personal inquiries | whatever the still can be made latin: es ted for most of the particulars without reference to weight. ‘ = 6 . peppermint cultureat Mitcham. dried herb is preferred to the me time. nly the larger growers have stills. larger quantity can be distilled at 0 ae HERBA MENTHAl PIPERIT A. 485 New York, and Ohio. In Michigan where the plant was introduced in 1855, there were in 1858 about 2100 acres devoted to its growth, all with the exception of about 100 acres being in the county of St. Joseph, where there are about 100 distilleries. The average produce of this district © was estimated in 1858 at 15,000 1b; but the yield fluctuates enormously, and in the exceptionally fine season of 1855 it was reckoned at 30,000 lb. We must suppose that it is sometimes much larger, for we have been informed by Mr. H. G. Hotchkiss, of Lyons, Wayne County, State of New York, one of the most well-known dealers, in a letter under date Oct. 10,1871, that the quantity sent out by him in the previous year reached the enormous amount of 57,365 lb. It is further stated by the official statistics of Hamburg for the year 1876 that this port received 25,840 lb. of peppermint oil from the United States and 14,890 Ib. from Great Britain. From the statistics quoted by Stearns! it would appear that the produce of oil per acre is somewhat higher in America than in England, but from various causes information on this head cannot be very reliable. Peppermint is cultivated at Sens in the department of the Yonne in France? and in Germany in the environs of Leipzig, where the little town of Célleda produces annually as much as 40,000 cwts. of the herb. The annual crop of the world is supposed to yield 90,000 Ib. of peppermint oil.* : Peppermint oil varies greatly in commercial value, that of Mitcham commanding twice or three times as high a price as the finest American. Even the oil of Mitcham is by no means uniform in quality, certain plots of ground affording a product of superior fragrance. A damp — situation or badly drained ground is well known to be unfavour- able to the quantity and quality of oil. hee ; The presence of weeds among the peppermint is an important cause of deterioration to the oil, and at Mitcham some growers give @ gratuity to their labours to induce them to be careful in throwing out other plants when cutting the herb for distillation. One grower of peppermint nown to us was compelled to abandon the cultivation, owing to the enormous increase of Mentha arvensis L. which could not be ne Reet and which when distilled with the peppermint ruined the flavour ot t : latter. In America great detriment is occasioned by the growth - Lrigeron canadensis L. Newly cleared ground planted with tt cian is liable to the intrusion of another plant of the order 3 set pt hieracifolia Raf., which is also highly injurious io ie quay of the oil ; i int is a Uses—A watery or spirituous solution of oil of peppermint 1 grateful stimulant, ie is 5 oun adjunct to other medicines. Oil of Peppermint is extensively consumed for flavouring sweatmeats and cordials. : ocak ' To whose paper On the Peppermint Plan- culture en France, 8€8 age pase tin a tations of Michigan in the Proceedings of the de Tessence et moyens ae Americ. Pharm. Assoc. for 1858, we owe Paris, 1868. 43 pages. Am. Ph. Ass. 1816, pra particulars for which we can here one Proceedings Am. f°”. Procei min - Maisch American Journ. of Pharm. *Journ. de Pharm, viii. (1868) 130.— March 1870. 120. Abstract from Roze, La Menthe poivrée, sa 486 eS LABIATA. HERBA PULEGII. — Pennyroyal'; F. Menthe poulvot, Pouliot vulgaire ; G. Polei. Botanical Origin—Mentha Pulegiwm L.,a small perennial aromatic plant, common throughout the south of Europe and extending north- ward to Sweden, Denmark, England and Ireland, eastward to Asia Minor and Persia, and southward to Abyssinia, Algeria, Madeira and Teneriffe. It has been introduced into North’ and South America. For medicinal use it is cultivated on a small scale. History—Pennyroyal was in high repute among the ancients. Both Dioscorides and Pliny describe its numerous virtues. In Northem Europe it was also much esteemed, as may be inferred from the frequent reference to it in the Anglo-Saxon and Welsh works on medicine, Gerarde considered the plant to be “so exceedingly well known to all our English nation” that it needed no description. In his time (circa 1590), it used to be collected on the commons round London, whence it was brought in plenty to the London markets. At the present day pennyroyal has fallen into neglect, and is not named in the British Pharmacopceia of 1867. Description—The plant has a low, decumbent, branching stem, which in flowering rises to a height of about 6 inches. Its leaves, scarcely an inch in length and often much less, are petiolate, ovate, blunt, crenate at the margin, dotted with oil-glands above and below. The flowers are arranged in a series of dense, globose whorls, extending fora considerable distance up the stem. The whole plant is more or less hairy. It has a strong fragrant odour, less agreeable to most persons than that of peppermint or spearmint. Its taste, well perceived in the distilled water, is highly aromatic. Chemical Composition—The most important constituent of pennyroyal is the essential oil, known in pharmacy as Olewm P wlegn'y to which is due the odour of the plant. It has been examined by Kane, according to whom it has a sp. gr. of 0°927. Its boiling wa found to fluctuate between 183° and 188° C. The formula assigned to it by this chemist is C"H"O. We ascertained that it contains 0° carvol (see page 481.) Pr oduction—Pennyroyal is cultivated at Mitcham and is mostly sold dr ied ; occasionally the herb is distilled for essential oil. The 0 found in commerce is however chiefly French or German, and far costly than that produced in England. Uses—The distilled water of pennyroyal is carminative and antispasmodic, and is used in the same manner as peppermint water. * Pennyroyal, in old herbals Puloi i deoma pull ; : oil royal __ different plant, namely /Hedeom f Lauctived from Puleium regium, an old vides Pers., figured in part 21 (1877) al the are given from thesupposed efficacy Bentley and 'Trimen’s Med. Plant. 2 TL nt im destroying fleas (Prior). 3 Phil, May. xiii. (1838) 442. € native Pennyroyal is however a , HERBA THYMI VULGARIS. -—S4S HERBA THYMI VULGARIS. Garden Thyme; F. Thym vulgaire; G. Thymiankraut. Botanical Origin—Thymus vulgaris L., a small, erect, woody shrub reaching 8 to 10 inches in height, gregarious on sterile uncultivated ground in Portugal, Spain, Southern France and Italy, and in the mountainous parts of Greece. On Mont Ventoux near Avignon, it reaches an elevation above the sea of 3700 ft. (Martins). It is com- monly cultivated in English kitchens as a sweet herb,’ and succeeds as an annual even in Iceland. History—We are not aware that thyme had any reputation in the antiquity, nor do we know at what period it was first introduced in northern countries. Garden thyme was commonly cultivated in Eng- land in the 16th century, and was well figured and described by Gerarde. It is even said to have been formerly grown on a large scale for medicinal use in the neighbourhood of Deal and Sandwich in Kent.2, Camphor of Thyme was noticed by Neumann, apothecary to the Court at Berlin in 1725;° it was called Thymol, and carefully examined in 1853 by Lallemand, and recommended instead of phenol oh acid) in 1868 by Bouilhon, apothecary, and Paquet, M.D. | of Lille. Description—The plant produces thin, woody, branching stems, bearing sessile, linear-lanceolate, or ovate-lanceolate leaves. These are about } of an inch long, revolute at the margin, more or less hoary, especially on the under side, and dotted with shining oil-glands. The small purple flowers are borne on round terminal heads, with some- times a few lower whorls. The entire wild plant has a greyish tint by reason of a short white pubescence, yet as seen in gardens the plant is more luxuriant, greener and far less tomentose. It is extremely fragrant when rubbed, and has a pungent aromatic taste. Production of Essential Oil—Though cultivated in gardens for culinary use, common thyme is not grown in England on a large scale. Its essential oil (Olewm Thymi), for which alone it 1s of interest to the druggist, is distilled in the south of France. In the neighbour- hood of Nimes, where we have observed the process, the entire plant is istillation i i t two periods of the year, used, and the distillation is carried on a p d again late in namely in May and June when the plant is in flower, an : the sels "The oil has a deep, reddish-brown eae Bae — colourless though rather less fragrant by re-distillation. ze shea oy “ of oil, termed respectively Huile rouge de Thym and Hustle blanche hym, are found in commerce. The yield is about sure a7 “ m Oil of thyme is frequently termed in English shops Oil of ; iganw . : which it in no respect resembles, and which was never, so Jar as ow, found in commerce.’ 3 Phil. Trans. No. 389. ‘In many of the references to thyme, 3 Phil. Trans. op = oaeaae Wild Thyme (Thymus Serpyllum 1.) is to 4 For a note aa rm Oil of Origa © understood, and not the present species. see Hanbury, | soem to gear ie voth in Treasury of Botany, ii. (1866) 324, also Science Payers, : a SAAT, _ Chemical Composition—The only constituent of the herb that has attracted any attention is the above-named essential oil. This liquid by fractional distillation is resolved into two portions: the first, more volatile and boiling below 180° C., is a mixture of two hydro- carbons, Cymene, C"H™ (see page 333), and Thymene, CH", the latter boiling at 165° C. The second, named Thymol, C"H“O, which may also be extracted _ from the crude oil by means of caustic lye, has been described in our article Fructus Ajowan, at page 303. Commercial oil of thyme is said to be sometimes fraudulently deprived of thymol by that treatment. Uses—Oil of thyme is an efficient external stimulant, and is some- times employed as a liniment. Its chief consumption is in veterinary medicine. ‘Thymol has been proposed as a disinfectant in the place of carbolic acid, in cases in which the odour of the latter is objectionable. The herb is not used in modern English medicine, but is often employed on the Continent. HERBA ROSMARINI. Herba Anthos ; Rosemary ; F. Romarin; G. Rosmarin. Botanical Origin—Rosmarinus officinalis L., an evergreen shrub, attaining a height of 4 feet or more, abundant on dry rocky hills of the Mediterranean region, from the Spanish peninsula’ to Greece and Asia Minor. It generally prefers the neighbourhood of the sea, but occurs even in the Sahara, where it is collected and conveyed by caravans to Central Africa.? It does not succeed well in Germany. History—Rosemary* is mentioned by Pliny, who ascribes to it “humerous virtues. It was also familiar to the Arab physicians of Spall, one of whom, Ibn Baytar (13th cent.), states it to be an object of trade among the vendors of aromatics In the middle ages rosemary Was doubtless much esteemed, as may be inferred from the fact that it was one of the plants which Charlemagne ordered to be grown on the imperial farms. ( It was probably in cultivation in Britain prior to the Norman Con- quest, as it is recommended for use in an Anglo-Saxon herbal of the 11th century.” In the “ Physicians of Myddyai » 9 curious chapter is devoted to the virtues of Rosemary, called “ Ysbwynwydd, and Rosa Marina in Latin.” The essential oil was distilled by Raymundus Lullus’ about A.p. 1330. John Philip de Lignamine,’ a writer of the a oocbementd describes Rosemary as the usual condiment of 8 | meats. ‘From Galicia in Spain, stems of Herbarium Apuleti—Leechdoms el Y— Rosmarinus having 24 inches in diameter Early England, i. (1864) 185. i son to be seen at the Paris Exhibition, pdigons ‘Myddfai (see Appe oii F Le 261. 292. 440. sect curios 1 ne Lees Touaregs du Nord, 1864. 7Manget, Bibliotheca chemiwa © . Geneve, i. (1702) 829. 3 g 3 From Tosand marinus, —literally marine “pr Aegarntae Sanitatis (or —— ae dew. Various opinions have been heldas cording to Haller, Biblioth. eee to the allusion conveyed by the name, 237, De conservatione sanitatis, *Sontheimer’s translation, i, 73. 1475) cap. 81. HERBA ROSMARINI. 489 Description—Rosemary has sessile, linear, entire, opposite leaves about an inch in length, revolute at the margin ; they are of coriaceous texture, green and glabrous above, densely tomentose and white beneath. Examined under a lens, the tomentum both of the leaves and young shoots is seen to consist of white stellate hairs; in that of the shoots which is less dense, minute oil-glands are discernible. These glands are of two kinds, large and small, and probably do not yield one and the same oil. The flowers have a campanulate 2-lipped calyx, and a pale blue and white corolla, the upper lip of which is emarginate and erect, the lower 3-lobed with the central lobe concave and pendulous. The whole plant has a very agreeable smell and a strong aromatic taste. It flowers in the early spring. Production of Essential Oil—Rosemary is cultivated on a very small scale in English herb-gardens, and though a little oil has been occasionally distilled from it, English oil of rosemary is an article prac- tically unknown in commerce. That with which the market is supplied is produced in the south of France and on the contiguous coasts of Italy. The plant, which is plentifully found wild, is gathered in summer (not while in flower) and distilled, the operator being sometimes an itinerant herbalist who carries his copper alembic from place to place, erecting it where herbs are plentiful, and where a stream of water enables him to cool a condenser of primitive construction. 3 Oil of rosemary is also produced on a somewhat large scale in the island of Lesina, south of Spalato in Dalmatia, whence it is exported by way of Trieste, even to France and Italy, to the extent of 300 to 350 quintals annually.’ Some of the French manufacturers of essences offer oil of rosemary at a superior price as drawn from the flowers, by which we presume Is meant the flowering tops, for the separation of the actual flowers would be impracticable on a large scale. The great bulk of the oil found in commerce is however that distilled from the entire plant. Chemical Composition—The peculiar odour of rosemary depends on the essential oil, which is the only constituent of the plant that has afforded matter for chemical research. : _ Lallemand (1859) by fractional distillation, resolved oil of rosemary into two liquids—the one a mobile hydrocarbon boiling at 165° C. and turning the plane of polarization to the left; the other, boiling between 200° and 210° C., deposits when exposed to a low temperature a large quantity of camphor. Gladstone (1864) found the oil to consist almost wholly ‘of a hydrocarbon, CH". This, according to our experiments, constitutes about 4 of the oil; it deviates the plane of polarization ” the left, whereas a fraction boiling at 200° to 210° C. deviates to the tight. By warming the latter with nitric acid, we acreage ont, of common camphor, and may therefore infer that a compound, C°H'80, is present in the oil under examination. hat th From Montgolfier’s investigations (1876) 16, ean era , ts Stearoptene or camphor above alluded to is a mixture of a dextrogyrate and a leevogyrate substance. ‘Unger, Der Rosmarin und seine Verwen- stracted, with a few additions, in Pharm. ed in Dalmatien—Sitzungsberichte der Journ. ix, (1879) 618. ener Akademie, lvi, (1867) 587; ab- ~~ SPEANTAGINER Uses—tThe flowering tops and dried leaves are kept by the herbalists, but are not used in regular medicine. The volatile oil is employed as an external stimulant in liniments, and also as a perfume. Rosemaryis _ popularly supposed to promote the growth of the hair. PLANTAGINE. SEMEN ISPAGHUL. Ispaghil Seeds, Spogel Seeds. Botanical Origin—Plantago decumbens Forsk. (P. Ispaghula Roxb.),’ a plant of variable aspect, from an inch to a foot in height, erect or decumbent, with linear lanceolate leaves which may be nearly glabrous, or covered with shaggy hairs. The flower-spikes differ ac- cording to the luxuriance of the plant, being in some specimens cylindrical and 1} inches long, in others reduced to a globular head. The plant has a wide range, occurring in the Canary Islands, Egypt, Arabia, Beluchistan, Afghanistan, and North-western India. Stewart’ says it is common in the Peshawar valley and Trans-Indus generally up to 2000 feet ; also on the plains and lower hills of the Punjab, but that he has never seen it cultivated in the latter region. It is said to be cultivated at Multan and Lahore, also in Bengal and Mysore. History—The seeds which are found in all the bazaars of India and are held in great esteem, are generally designated by the Persian word Ispaghil; but they also bear the Arabic name Bazre-qaténd, under which we find them mentioned by the Persian physician Alhervi® in the 10th century, and about the same period or a little later by Avicenna. Several other Oriental writers are quoted by Ibn Baytar ° as referring to a drug of the same name, which may possibly have included the seeds of other species, as Plantago Psylliwm L. and P. Cynops, having sim properties, and known to have been used from an early period. J. H. Linck, whom we mentioned in our article on Oleum Cajuput (p. 278), described in 1719 the seed under notice, yet without knowing its name ; it further attracted the notice of Europeans towards the close of the last century,’ and has been often prescribed as a demulcent 1. dysentery and diarrhea. It was admitted to the Pharmacopert ° India of 1868. ____Description—The seeds, like those of other species of Plantage, ae _ of boat-shaped form, the albumen being deeply furrowed on one side an vaulted on the other. They are a little over ;4; of an inch in ge and nearly half as broad, and so light that 100 weigh seareely ti mens in Herb. I After the examination of numerous MS. note attached to speci Specinens, we adopt the course taken by Kew. the: —o (Catalogue of the Plants of 3 Liber Fundamentorum Pharmacolog —— t page and Sindh, Lond, 1869) of unit- ed. Seligmann, Vindobone, 1830. : edition, . ake eh eta to = decumbens. The 4 Lib. ii. tract. 2. c. 541. (V algrisl Species in this group may pro- 1564. i. 357. pea, $ be carried still further. ek fs "5 sinc atieaes transl. i. (1840) 13 ents see Bentley and Trimen, Med, Plants, 6 Fleming, Catal. of Indian Med. part 21 (1877). : | Drugs, Caleutta, 1810. 31. * Punjab Plants, Lahore 1869, 174—-also and Drugs sd So RADIX RHEL io grains. Their colour is a light pinkish grey with an elongated brown 08 on the vaulted back, due to the embryo, which at this point is in close contact with the translucent testa. From this brown spot the thick radicle runs to the top of the seed. The hollow side of the seed is also brown and partially covered with a thin white membrane. The seeds are highly mucilaginous in the mouth, but have neither taste nor odour. Those of the allied P. Psylliwm have nearly the same form, but are shining and of a dark brown hue. Microscopic Structure—This can be best investigated by immers- ing the seed in benzol, as in this medium the mucilage is insoluble. When thus examined, the whole surface is seen to consist of polyhedral cells, separated by a very thin brown layer from the albumen, which on the back of the seed is only 70 mkm. thick. The albumen is made up of thick-walled cells, loaded with granules of matter which acquire an orange hue on addition of iodine. The two cotyledons adhere in a direc- tion perpendicular to the bottom of the furrow ; their tissue is composed of thin-walled smaller cells, containing also albuminous granules and drops of fatty oil. _ If the seed is immersed in water, the cells composing the epidermis instantly swell and elongate, and soon burst, leaving only fragments of their walls. When examined under glycerin, the change is more gradual, and the outer walls of the cells yielding the mucilage display a series of | thin layers, which slowly swell and disappear by the action of water. — The mucilage is consequently not contained within the cells, but 1s formed of the secondary deposits on their walls, as in linseed and — quince pips. Chemical Composition—Mucilage is so abundantly yielded by ‘these seeds, that one part of them with 20 parts of water forms a thick tasteless jelly. On addition of a larger quantity of water and filtering, but little mucilage passes, the greater part of it adhering to the seeds. The mucilage separated by straining with pressure does not redden litmus, is not affected by iodine, nor precipitated by borax, alcohol or ferric chloride. The fat oil and albuminous matter of the seed have not been examined. _ _Uses—A decoction of the seeds (1 p. to 70 p. of water) 1s Eeeleyes in India as a cooling, demulcent drink. The seeds powdered and mixe with sugar, or made gelatinous with water, are sometimes given In chronic diarrhcea. POLYGONACE. RADIX RHEI. Rhubarb; F. Rhubarbe; G. Rhabarber. Botanical Origin—No competent observer, as far as sh haste ais ever ascertained as an eye-witness the species of Rheum “s nich or the commercial rhubarb. Rheum officinale, from whic ~ reggae least partly, derived is the only species yielding a roowstock W 4stces with the drug. 492 POLYGONACEA, Rheum officinale Baillon is a perennial noble plant resembling the Common Garden Rhubarb, but of larger size. It differs from the latter in several particulars: the leaves spring from a distinct crown rising some inches above the surface of the ground; they have a sub-cylindri- cal petiole, which as well as the veins of the under side of the lamina is covered with a pubescence of short erect hairs. The lamina, the _ outline of which is orbicular, cordate at the base, is shortly 5- to 7-lobed, with the lobes coarsely and irregularly dentate ; it attains 4 to 44 feet in length and rather morein breadth. The first leaves in spring display before expanding the peculiar metallic red hue of copper. The plant was discovered in South-eastern Tibet, where it is said to be often cultivated for the sake of its medicinal root ; but it is supposed to grow in various parts of Western and North-western China, whence the supplies of rhubarb are derived. It was obtained by the French missionaries about the year 1867 for Dabry, French Consul at Hankow, who transmitted specimens to Dr. Soubeiran of Paris. From one of these which flowered at Montmorency in 1871, a botanical description was drawn up by Baillon.’ To what extent the rhubarb of commerce is derived from this plant is not known. But that the latter may be a true source of the drug is supported by the fact, that there is at least no important discrepancy between it and the accounts and figures, scanty and imperfect though they are, given by Chinese authors and the old Jesuit missionaries ; and still more by the agreement in structure which exists between its root and the Asiatic rhubarb of commerce. We have engaged in 1873 Mr. Rufus Usher at Bodicott (see below, p. 500) to cultivate Rheum officinale, which is there admirably succeed- ing; but it must be granted that as yet the root, notwithstanding the most careful preparation in drying it, is far from displaying the me yellow of the commercial drug. It is most obviously marked on the other hand with the characteristic ring of stellate markings, which we have constantly observed in many roots of Rheum officinale cultiva by us at Clapham Common near London, as well as at Strassburg by other observers, at Paris, Rheum palmatum L., a species known as long as"1750, has always been supposed to yield also rhubarb, and this has again been assé by the Russian Colonel Przewalski, who observed in 1872 and 1873 that plant in the Alpine parts of Tangut round the Lake Kuku-nor, in the Chinese province of Kansu, in 36°-38° North Lat.—Rheum palmatum has been frequently cultivated in Russian Asia and in many parts ° Europe since the last century, but without producing a root agreelng with Chinese rhubarb. Now, Przewalski states that from this species the drug under notice is largely collected along the river Tetung-s® (or Datung-ho), a tributary of the upper Hoang-ho, northward : the Kuku-nor. Specimens of that root were largely brought t St. Petersburg by Przewalski, but Dragendorff expressly points si eo ahvesbericht for 1877 (p. 78) that it is dissimilar to tra "Adansonia, x. 246 ; Association Fi ‘i : - f the Phar- 3 rancaise Lanessan’s French translation © Snes Rend — t de la Science, Comptes macographia, ii, (Paris, 1878) pes joe I. x. othe = U Session, 1872. 514-529. good idea of the highly ornameD —s ¢Hgure which is reproduced in _ ter of Rheum officinale. RADIX RHEL 3 493 History’—The Chinese appear to have been acquainted with the properties of rhubarb from a period long anterior to the Christian era, for the drug is treated of in the herbal called Pen-king, which is attributed to the Emperor Shen-nung, the father of Chinese agriculture and medicine, who reigned about 2700 B.c. The drug is named there Huang-liang, yellow, excellent, and Ta-huang, the great yellow.’ The latter name also occurs in the great Geography of China, where it is stated that rhubarb was a tribute of the province Si-ning-fu, eastward of Lake Kuku Nor, from about the 7th to the 10th centuries of our era. As regards Western Asia and Europe, we find a root called pa or pjoy, mentioned by Dioscorides as brought from beyond the Bos- phorus. The same drug is alluded to in the fourth century by Ammianus Marcellinus,‘ who states that it takes its name from the river Rha (the modern Volga), on whose banks it grows. Pliny describes a root termed Rhacoma, which when pounded yielded a colour like that of wine but inclining to saffron, and was brought from beyond Pontus. The drug thus described is usually regarded as rhubarb, or at least as the root of some species of Rhewm, but whether produced in the regions of the Euxine (Pontus), or merely received thence from remoter countries, is a question that cannot be solved. : It is however certain that the name Radix pontica or Rha ponticum, used by Scribonius Largus® and Celsus,’ was applied in allusion to the region whence the drug was received. Lassen has shown that trading caravans from Shensi in Northern China arrived at Bokhara as early as the year 114 B.c. Goods thus transported might reach Europe either by way of the Black Sea, or by conveyance down the Indus to the ancient port of Barbarike. Vincent suggests’ that the rha imported by the first route would naturally be termed rha-ponticum, while that brought by the second might be called rha-barbarum. ; We are not prepared to accept this plausible hypothesis. It receives no support from the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea (circa A.D. 64), whose list of the exports of Barbarike ® does not include thubarb ; nor is rhubarb named among the articles on which duty was levied at the Roman custom-house of Alexandria (A.D. 176-180). The terms Rheum barbarum vel barbaricwm or Rew barbarum occur in the writings of Alexander Trallianus ” about the middle of the 6th century, and in those of Benedictus Crispus,” archbishop of Milan, and Isidore” of Seville, who both flourished in the 7th century. Among the Arabian writers on medicine, the younger Mesue, 1n the early ee of the 11th century, mentions the rhubarb of China as superior to the ‘For further i ticki 8 Jbid., op. cit. ii. 390. ther particulars see Fliickiger, ihe i ae Pharm. J.vi. (1876) 861; also Proc. Americ. ® 1bid., op. cit, ii. O86. aon) Pharm, Assoc. 1876. 130, with fig. show- » Lib, vill. ¢. 3 (Haller = oe en xix. 874 ing Rheum officinale grown in a poor soil. 1 Migne, Patro i magn The expla- *Bretschneider, Chinese Botanical Works, 12 Migne. op. cil. SOO this :-—‘* Reubar- Foochow, 1870, 2 nation given by Isidore 18 tis + oat 3 Flickiger, Fy barum, sive Reuponticum : illud quod trans i ps ss i i barbarico ; istud quod Scriptores Historie Romane latini ve- Danubium in solo ni nfid cae a hy ii, (1743) 511 (Amm. Mare. xxii. ¢. 8.) = et “amphor is sufficiently abundant.—Tetr. cated by Mr. A. yl) (Paris, -1861) 200. WV. sermo 4. ¢. 114, re se exankte * Weil, Geschichte der Chalifen, i. 8 The Arabian mend or men? ee: < oe 1846) 75, iy eRe andl the wy thither, He 366. te Mém. sur ? Egypte, ii. (1811) %Yule, Cathay oe —It is interesting to find that 357. a. LAURA. - the 9th century, and Ibn Khurdadbah, a geographer of the same period, _ were among the first to point out that camphor is an export of the Malayan Archipelago; and their statements are repeated by the _ Arabian writers of the middle ages, who all assert that the best -eamphor is produced in Fanstir. This place, also called Kansiér or Kaisir, was visited in the 13th century by Marco Polo, who speaks of its camphor as selling for its weight in gold; Yule’ believes it to be the same spot as Barus, a town on the western coast of Sumatra, still _ giving a name to the camphor produced in that island. From all these facts and many others that might be adduced,? it undoubtedly follows that the camphor first in use was that found native in the trunk of the Sumatran Dryobalanops aromatica, and not _ that of the Camphor Laurel. At what period and at whose instigation the Chinese began to manufacture camphor from the latter tree is not _ known. Camphor was known in Europe as a medicine as early as the 12th century, as is evident from the mention of it by the abbess Hildegard’ (who calls it ganphora), Otho of Cremona,‘ and the Danish canon Harpestreng (ob. A.D. 1244). - _ Garcia de Orta states (1563) that it is the camphor of China which alone is exported to Europe, that of Borneo and Sumatra being a hundred times more costly, and all consumed by eastern nations. They partly devoted the latter to ritual purposes, as for instance embalming, partly to “ eating,” 7c. for the preparation of the betel- leaves for chewing. Neuhof® states that the other ingredients used in China for that purpose are: Areca nuts (see article Semen Arec®) and lime or Lycium (see page 35), Caphur de Burneo, aloé (i.e. Aloe _ wood, see Aloé), and musk. Kampfer,’ who resided in Japan m 1690-92, and who figured the Japanese camphor tree under the name Lawrus camphorifera, expressly declares the latter to be entirely different from the camphor tree of the Indian Archipelago. He further states that the camphor of Borneo was among the more profitable commodities imported into Japan by the Dutch, whose homeward cargoes included Japanese camphor to the extent of 6,000 to 12,000 ih annually’ This camphor was refined in Holland by a process long kept secret, and was then introduced into the market. In Pomets time (1694 and earlier), crude camphor was common in France, but it had to be sent to Holland for purification. é It is doubtful whether at that period, or even much later, any camphor was obtained from Formosa. Du Halde® makes no allusion It as a production of that island; nor does he mention it among the, commodities of Emouy (Amoy), which was the Chinese port then 12 most active communication with Formosa. é ‘ in Production—The camphor of European commerce 18 produced ! ig Ag of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1874) 4Choulant, Macer Floridus, Lips. ge 282, 285. a eee 161. *For further historical details, compare ‘ Gesantschaft, ete. Amsterdam, 100 sr Paper in the Schweizerische Wochen- 363. ris _ hog Pharmacie, 27 Sept., 4 and 11 6 Amenitates exotice (1712) 770. chzer, = Phase oe per eg Repertorium f. "Hist. of Japan, translated by Scheu cite, xvii. —F. A. F. i. (1727) 353. 370. me "S. Hildegardis Opera Omnia, accurante 8 Decree de la Chine, i. (1789) or’ J. P. Migne, Paris, 1855, 1145. CAMPHORA. ae 513 the island of Formosa and in Japan. We have no evidence that any is manufactured at the present day in China, although very large trees, often from 8 to 9 feet in diameter, are common, for instance in Kiangsi, and camphor wood is an important timber of the Hankow market. In Formosa, the camphor-producing districts lie in the narrow belt of debateable ground, which separates the border Chinese settlements from the territory still occupied by the aboriginal tribes. The camphor is prepared from the wood, which is cut into small chips from the trees, by means of a gouge with a long handle. In this process there is great waste, many trees being cut and then left with a large portion of valuable timber to perish. The next operation is to expose the wood to the vapour of boiling water, and to collect the camphor which volatilizes with the steam. or this purpose, stills are constructed thus : —a long wooden trough, frequently a hollowed trunk, is fixed over a furnace and protected by a coating of clay. Water is poured into it, and a board perforated “with numerous small holes is luted over 1t. Above these holes the chips are placed and covered with earthen pots. A fire having been lighted in the furnace, the water becomes heated, and the steam passing through the chips, carries with it the camphor, which condenses in minute white crystals in the upper part of the pots. From these it is seraped out every few days, and is then very pure and clean. Four stills, each having ten pots placed in a row over one trough, are generally arranged under one shed. These stills are moved from time to time, according as the gradual exhaustion of timber im the locality renders such transfer desirable. A considerable quantity of camphor is owever manufactured in the towns, the chips being convey ed thither from the country. A model of a much better still, which was con- tributed from Formosa to the Paris Exhibition in 1878, is perhaps referring to a town manufacture. : i Met oe Camphor is brought from the interior to Tamsui, the chief base Formosa, the baskets holding about half a pecul each (1 pecul - 4 3 lbs.), lined and covered with large leaves. Upon arrival, it is store a vats holding from 50 to 60 peculs each, or it is packed at once in t tubs, or lead-lined boxes, in which it is exported. From the ocd or tubs there drains out a yellowish essential oil known a& sect lie i, which is used by the Chinese in rheumatism.’ In 1877 hye aan 3 pressure has been established for the separation of the oil and mois ; the raw camphor loses about 20 per cent. of these we arrace es Kampfer in his account? of the manufacture of camphor 1 J apanese province of Satzuma and in the islands of Gotho, ee ling of the chips in an iron pot covered with Se elias o containing straw in which the camphor collects. Lk ar quite. oon- osa, island of Sikok, there is now a still in use, W ting of a wooden veniently combined with a cooling apparatus consis trough, over which cold water is flowing. azine, 1877, 263 and 319. ‘The foregoing particulars are chiefl the Geogr. Mag extracted from the Trade Report of Tamaui «Op. ile PTT ined stills by gC. Taintor, Acting Commissioner of sBoth of the a are figured in my Customs, published in the Reportson Trade from Sikok and aoe hibition,” Archiv at the Treaty Ports in China for 1869, ‘* Account of the 14 (1879) 12,—F.A.F. Sh: nghai, 1870, and from James Morrison’s der Pharmacie, 214 (18 ~ eseription of the island of Formosa, in ; K 514 , LAURACER, Purification—Camphor as it is exported from Japan and Formosa requires to be purified by sublimation. The crude drug consists of small crystalline grains, which cohere into irregular friable masses, of a greyish white or pinkish hue. Dissolved in spirit of wine, it leaves from 2 to 10 per cent. of impurities consisting of gypsum, common salt, sulphur, or vegetable fragments. | In Europe, crude camphor is sublimed from a little charcoal or sand, iron filings or quick-lime, and sent into the market as Refined Camphor in the form of large bowls or concave cakes, about 10 inches in diameter, 3 inches in thickness, and weighing from 9 to 12 lb. Each bowl has a large round hole at the bottom, corresponding to the aperture of the _ vessel in which the sublimation has been conducted. This operation is performed in peculiar glass flasks termed bomboloes, in the upper half of which the pure camphor concretes. These flasks having been charged and placed in a sand-bath, are rapidly heated to about 120°-190° C. in order to remove the water. Afterwards the temperature is slowly in- creased to about 204° C., and maintained during 24 hours. The flasks are finally broken. As camphor is a neutral substance, the addition of lime probably serves merely to retain traces of resin or empyreumatic oil. Iron would keep back sulphur were any present. _ Inthe United States the refiners use iron vessels ; their product is in flat disks, about 16 inches in diameter by one inch in thickness. The refining of camphor is carried on to a large extent in England, _ Holland, Hamburg, Paris, Bohemia (Aussig), in New York and Philadelphia. It is a process requiring great care on account of the inflammability of the product. The temperature must also be nicely regulated, so that the sublimate may be deposited not merely in loose crystals, but in compact cakes. In India where the consumption of camphor is very large, the natives effect the sublimation in a copper vessel, the charge of which is 1} maunds (42 Ib.): fire is applied to the lower part, the upper being kept cool.” Description—Purified Camphor forms a colourless crystalline, translucent mass, traversed by numerous fissures, so that notwithstand- ing a certain toughness, a mass can readily be broken by repeated blows. By spontaneous and extremely slow evaporation at ordinary tempel® tures, camphor sublimes in lustrous hexagonal plates or prisms, having but little hardness. If triturated in a mortar, camphor adheres to +h pestle, so that it cannot be powdered per se. But if moistened _ Spirit of wine, ether, chloroform, methylic alcohol, glycerm, % “ essential or fatty oil, pulverization is effected without difficulty. y keeping a short time, the powder acquires a crystalline form. wine 4 equal weight of sugar, camphor may also be easily powdered. hat Camphor melts at 175° ©., boils at 204°, and volatilizes somew o rapidly even at ordinary temperatures. To this latter property, eS bined with slight solubility, must be attributed the curious TO oO motion which small lumps of camphor (as well as barium butyra 4 stannic bromide, chloral hydrate, and a few other substances) & - when thrown on to water. * These are the dimensions of the cakes that they may vary with different eS manufactured in the laborato D ry of Messrs, 2Mattheson, Zngland to Howards of Girasteed, but it is obvions 1870, 474 CAMPHORAE 7 2 Rg The solubility of camphor in water is very small, 1300 parts dissoly- ing about one; but even this small quantity-is partially separated on addition of some alkaline or earthy salt, as sulphate of magnesium. Alcohols, ethers, chloroform, carbon bisulphide, volatile and fixed oils and liquid hydrocarbons, dissolve camphor abundantly. The sp. gr. of camphor at 0° C. and up to 6° is the same as that of water ; yet at a somewhat higher temperature, camphor expands more quickly, so that at 10° to 12°C. its sp. gr. is only 0992. In concentrated solution or in a state of fusion, camphor turns the plane of polarization strongly to the right. Officinal solution of camphor (Spiritus Camphore) is too weak, and does not deviate the ray of light to a considerable amount.' Crystals of camphor are devoid-of rotatory power. The taste and odour of camphor are sui generis, or at least are com- mon only to a group of nearly allied substances. Camphor is not altered by exposure to air or light. It burns easily, affording a brilliant smoky flame. Chemical Composition.—Camphor, C"H™O, by treatment with various reagents, yields a number of interesting products: thus when repeatedly distilled with chloride of zinc or anhydrous phosphoric acid, it is converted into Cymene or Cymol, CYH", a body contained in many essential oils, or obtainable therefrom. in de Camphor, and also camphor oil, when subjected to powerful oxidizing agents, absorbs oxygen, passing gradually into crystallized Camphoric Acid, O° H60+ or C8H(COOH)?, water and carbonic acid being at the same time eliminated. Many essential oils, resins and gum-resins likewise yield these acids when similarly treated. ohqae By means of less energetic oxidizers, camphor may be ont in Oxy-Camphor, CH02, still retaining its original odour and tas (Wheeler, 1868). Se aerced Eire kinds of crude camphor are kno mar et, namely : : 3 1. Sotnads or China Camphor, imported in chests lined ae lead or tinned iron, and weighing about 1 ewt. each ; 1 1s of a light _ . small in grain, and always wet, as the merchants cause weit i! poured into the eases before shipment, with a view, it 1s a re = lessening the loss by evaporation. The exports of this “gi _ - amsui in Formosa? were in peculs (one pecul = 13°33 1b. avdp. = 60-479 kilogrammes) as follows : 1870 1871 1872 1875 1876 ease 14,481 9691 10,281 7139 8794 , iagge The shipments of camphor from Takow, the other See) fie hte vir. are of insignificant amount. Pe of camp! ow exported in some quantity from tamsul. — ae m9 his Papin Camphor is Hphtee id colour and occasionally io chpichea tint ; it is also in larger grains. It arrives In double tu gfe the other) without metal lining, and hence 18 drier ca hi _ ; nae reghae ee tubs hold about 1 ewt. It fetches a somewhat Wie an the Form . " Pharm. Journ, ak pee 2 Returns of Trade at the Nae Ports m China for 1872, part. 2, P- wn in the English 516 - LAURACEA. Hiogo and Osaka exported in 1871, 7089 peculs (945,200 Ib,), and Nagasaki 745 peculs (99,333 Ib.), the total value being 116,718 dollars: In 1877 the value of camphor exported from Japan was stated to be equal to 240,000 dollars. The imports of Unrefined Camphor into the United Kingdom amounted in 1870 to 12,368 ewt. (1,385,216 lb.); of Refined Camphor in the same year to 2361 ewt.* Camphor is largely consumed by the natives of India ; the quantity of the crude drug imported into Bombay in the year 1872-73 was 3801 ewt.’ Uses—Camphor has stimulant properties and is frequently used in medicine both internally and externally. It is largely consumed in India. Other kinds of Camphor ; Camphor Oils. : Camphor, as stated above at page 512, was the name originally ap- plied to the product of Dryobalanops ; it was then also given to that of Camphor Laurel, and in 1725 Caspar Neumann, of Berlin, first pointed out that many essential oils afford crystals (“stearoptenes ” of later chemists), for which he proposed the general name of camphor, Many of them are agreeing with the formula C"H"O, and there are also numerous liquids of the same composition. It would appear, howevel, that no stearoptene of any other plant is absolutely identical with com- mon camphor; Lallemand’s statement (see p. 479), that oil of spike affords the latter, requires further examination. Many other liquid and solid constituents of essential oils, or sub- stances afforded by treating them with alcoholic potash, answer to the _ formula C”H"(OH). Among them we may point out the two following: they are the only substances of the class of “ camphors,” besides common camphor, which are of some practical importance. __ Barus Camphor, Borneo Camphor, Malayan Camphor, Dryo- balanops Camphor—This, as already explained, is the substance to which the earliest notices of camphor refer. The tree which aiffo it is Dryobalanops wromatica Girtn, (D. Camphora Colebrooke), of the order Dipterocarpe, one of the most majestic objects of the vege . kingdom. The trunk is very tall, round, and straight, furnished nea? the base with huge buttresses; it rises 100 to 150 feet without a branes — then producing a dense crown of shining foliage, 50 to 70 feet mat meter, on which are scattered beautiful white flowers of ee fragrance. The tree is indigenous to the Dutch Residencies on 4 north-west coast of Sumatra, between 0° and 3° N. lat. from AY Bangis to Barus and Singkel, and to the northern part of Borneo the small British island of Labuan. ares : The camphor is obtained from the trunk, in longitudinal fissure : of which it is found in a solid crystalline state, and extractel ed wf . . (hg a laboriously splitting the wood. It ean only be got by the ei i ‘Commercial Reports from H, M. Consuls 3 Statement of the Trade and Not ih apan, No. 1, 1872.—The returns for of Bombay for 1872-73. i. Me “i : iy and Osaka are upon the authority of 4For a full account and eg ¢ Chamber of Commerce. see W. H. de Vriese’s excellent "pny, * Statement of the Trade and Navigati : d i se a le Camphrier de Sumatra of the United Kin f nd Navigation Camp uumatra, later returns omaha or 1870. p. 61—no _Leide, 1857. 23 p. #. ane “ plates. CAMPHORA, ae tion of the entire tree ;— in fact, many trees afford none, so that to avoid the toil of useless felling, it is now customary to try them by cutting a hole in the side of the trunk, but the observation so made is often fallacious. Spenser St. John, British Consul in Borneo, — was told that trees in a state of decay often contain the finest cam- — phor.' The camphor when collected is carefully picked over, washed and cleaned, and then separated into three qualities, the best being formed of the largest and purest crystals, while the lowest is greyish and pulverulent. Dryobalanops attaining more than 150 feet in height, the quantity of camphor which it yields must necessarily be greatly variable. The statements are from about 8 to 11 lb. i A good proportion of the small quantity produced is consumed in the funeral rites of the Batta princes, whose families are often ruined by the lavish expense of providing the camphor and buffaloes which the custom of their obsequies requires. The camphor which is exported is eagerly bought for the China market, but some is also sent to Japan, Laos, Cochin China, Cambodia, and Siam. _ The quantity annually shipped from Borneo was reckoned by Motley in 1851 to be about 7 peculs (933 Ibs.). The export from Sumatra was estimated by De Vriese at 10 to 15 quintals per annum.’ The quantity imported into Canton in 1872 was returned as 23,%, peculs (3,159 1b.), value 42,326 taels, equivalent to about 80s. per lb.* In the Annual Statement of the Trade of Bombay for the year 1872-3, 2 ewt. of Malayan Camphor is stated to have been imported; it was valued at 9,141 Rs. (£914). In the “Indian tariff” 1875, the duty is fixed per cwt. at 40 rupees for crude camphor, 65 rupees for refined camphor, and 80 rupees ‘per pound for Baros camphor (“ Bhemsaini camphor”). The price in Borneo in 1851 of camphor of fine quality was 30 dollars per catty, or about 95s. per Ib: consequently the drug never finds its way into European commerce, haul Borneo Camphor, also termed by chemists Borneol or Camphy Alcohol, is somewhat harder than common camphor, also a little heavier so that it sinks in water. It is less volatile, and does not crystallize on the interior of the bottle in which it is kept; and it requires for — a higher temperature, namely 198° C. It has a somewhat pee odour, resembling that of common camphor with the addition : - re ouli or ambergris, The composition of borneol is represented Dy vi d formula CH” (OH). It may be converted by the action of gatte ae into common camphor, which it nearly resembles in most of its p ” ec properties, Conversely, borneol may also be pares Teka oa” camphor. By continued oxydation borneol y ields camphoric acid. Camphor Oil of Borneo—Besides camphor, the Dryobalanops furnishes another Bere a liquid termed Camphor “8 woe Sarat not be confounded with the camphor oil that drains out o Sinis ret camphor. This Bornean or Sumatran Camphor Oil oe Sowa tapping the trees, or in felling them (see also p. 229). In the la y i that Life i ; eres dot’s statement (see Cassia Buds) a nue the Forests of the Far East, ii. ren a imports of Barus camphor ahout .. In Milburn’s time (Oriental Commerce, 800 Is annually is preg pig Pe 2. 1812. 308), Sumatra was reckoned to ex- 3 Returns of Me at the Treaty Port 50 peculs, and Borneo 30 peculsayear. China for 1872, p. 90. 518 ‘LAURACEAL Motley in cutting down atree in Labuan in May, 1851, pierced a reser- voir in the trunk from which about five gallons of camphor oil were obtained, though much could not be caught.!| The liquid was a volatile oil holding in solution a resin, which after a few days’ exposure to the air, was left in a syrupy state. This camphor oil, which is termed Bor- neene, is isomeric with oil of turpentine, C°H", yet in the crude state holding in solution borneol and resin. By fractional distillation, it may be separated into two portions, the one more volatile than the other but _ not differing in composition. Camphor Oil of Formosa, which has been already referred to as draining out of the crude camphor of Cinnamomum Camphora, isa brown liquid holding in solution an abundance of common camphor, which it speedily deposits in crystals when the temperature is slightly reduced. From Borneo Camphor Oil it may be distinguished by its odour of sassafras. We find no optical difference in the rotatory power of the oils; both are dextrogyre to the same extent, which is still the case if the camphor from the lauraceous camphor oil is separated by cooling. Borneo camphor oil, for a sample of which we are indebted to Prof. de Vriese, deposits no camphor even when kept at -15° C. Ngai Camphor, Blumea Camphor—lIt has been known for many years that the Chinese are in the habit of using a third variety of camphor, having a pecuniary value intermediate between that of common camphor and of Borneo camphor. This substance is manufactured at Canton and in the island of Hainan, the plant from which it js obtained being Blumea balsamifera DC., a tall herbaceous Composita, of the a Inuloidee, called in Chinese Ngai, abundant in Tropical Eastern sia, The drug has been supplied to us? in two forms,—crude and pure— _ the first being in crystalline grains of a dirty white, contaminated with vegetable remains; the second in colourless crystals as much as an inch in length. By sublimation the substance may be obtained m distinct, brilliant crystals, agreeing precisely with those of Borneo camphor, which they also resemble in odour and hardness, as well as in being a little heavier than water and not so volatile as common camphor. The chemical examination of N gai camphor, performed by Plowman, under the direction of Prof. Attfield, has proved that it has the compost tion C"H™O, like Borneo camphor. But the two substances differ optical properties,‘ an alcoholic solution of N gai camphor being levogy?® in about the same degree that one of Borneo camphor is dextrogyé. oe boiling nitrie acid, Borneo camphor is transformed into common — (deatrogyre) camphor, whereas Ngaicamphor affords a similar yetlevogy”™ — camphor, in all probability identical with the stearoptene of Chrysil— themum Parthenium Pers. Pca Ngai camphor is about ten times the price of Formosa camphor ee it never finds its way to Europe as an article of trade. In China ee consumed partly in medicine and partly in perfuming the fine kinds! ‘Ibn Khurdidbah in the 9th ce : ci 199,388 Ente bei ntu Canton,—Hanbury, Science Papers, s ne Thee i ha ng obtained in this way. 3 Pharm. ss March 7, 1874. es a tough the courtesy of Mr. F. #. ‘ Fliickiger in Pharm. Journ. April bo Ewer, of the Imperial Maritime Customs, —-1874, 829, CORTEX CINNAMOML 519 Chinese ink. The export of this camphor by sea from Canton is valued at about £3,000 a year; it is also exported from Kiungchow, in the island of Hainan. CORTEX CINNAMOMI. Cortex Cinnamomi Zeylanici; Cinnamon; F. Cannelle de Ceylan; G. Zimmt, Ceylon Zimmt, Kaneel. Botanical Origin—Cinnamomum zeylanicum Breyne,—a small evergreen tree, richly clothed with beautiful, shining leaves usually some- what glaucous beneath, and having panicles of greenish flowers of dis- agreeable odour. neath It is a native of Ceylon, where, according to Thwaites, it is gene- rally distributed through the forests up to an elevation of 3,000 feet, and one variety even to 8,000 feet. It is exceedingly variable in stature, and in the outline, size and consistence of the leaf; and several of the extreme forms are very unlike one another and have received specific names. But there are also numerous intermediate forms; and in a large suite of specimens, many occur of which it is impossible to determine whether they should be referred to this species or to that. Thwaites’ is of opinion that some still admitted species, as C. obtusi- foliwm Nees and C. iners Reinw., will prove on further investigation to be mere forms of C0. zeylanicwm. es : Beddome,? Conservator of Forests in Madras, remarks that in the moist forests of South-western India there are 7 or 8 well-marked varieties which might easily be regarded as so many distinct species, but for the fact that they ‘are so connected inter se by intermediate forms, that it is impossible to find constant characters worthy o Specific distinction. They grow from the sea level up to the ig oo elevations, and, as Beddome thinks, owe their differences chiefly to — circumstances, so that he is disposed to class them simply as forms 0 C. zeylanicum. 526) History—(For that of the essential oil of cinnamon see page 9-0). Chinsaian was held in high esteem in the most remote We . history. In the words of the learned Dr. Vincent, Dean of ¥ oe" minster,’ it seems to have been the first spice sought enaiiie oriental voyages. Both cinnamon and cassia are pees ‘blie i Sinks odoriferous substances in the Mosaic writings and in the se s Theo. of Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, Ezekiel and sete “af aati phrastus, Herodotus, Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, mess Save ‘Giue come Writers of antiquity: and from the accounts whic the spices referred down to us, there appears reason for believing 5 e : “The ok Sinnamon to were nearly the same as those of the Peel by ite remark of Galen, and cassia were extremely analogous, is proved ‘ ‘ that the finest cassia differs so little from the lowest quality of cinnamon, that the first may be substituted for the second, provided a double weight of it be used : ica for Southern India, Pe Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylania, 1864. : Pipa Sylwatica fe ~»2.—Consult also Meissner in De Cand. 187 Commerce ant Navigation of the An- Prod. xv. sect, i, 10, cients in the Indian Ucean, UL. (1807) 512, 520 a LAURACEA:, It is also evident that both were regarded as among the most costly of aromatics, for the offering made by Seleucus II. Callinicus, king of Syria, and his brother Antiochus Hierax, to the temple of Apollo at Miletus, B.c. 243, consisting chiefly of vessels of gold and silver, and olibanum, myrrh (cuvpyy), costus (page 382), included also two pounds of Cassia (kacia), and the same quantity of Cinnamon (ktvyduwmor).’ In connexion with this subject there is one remarkable fact to be noticed, which is that none of the cinnamon of the ancients was obtained from Ceylon. “In the pages of no author,” says Tennent,’ “ European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to cinnamon as an indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce in Ceylon.” Nor do the annuals of the Chinese, between whom and the inhabitants of Ceylon, from the 4th to the 8th centuries, there was frequent intercourse and exchange of commodities, name Cinnamon as one of the productions of the island. The Sacred Books and other ancient records of the Singhalese are also completely silent on this point. Cassia, under the name of Kwei, is mentioned in the earliest Chinese herbal,—that of the emperor Shen-nung, who reigned about 2700 BC., in the ancient Chinese® Classics, and in the Rh-ya, a herbal dating from 1200 B.c. In the Hai-yao-pén-ts‘ao, written in the 8th century, mention is made of Tien-chw kwei. Tien-chu is the ancient name for India: perhaps the allusion may be to the cassia bark of Malabar. ames In connexion with these extremely early references to the spice, it may be stated that a bark supposed to be cassia is mentioned as im- ported into Egypt together with gold, ivory, frankincense, precious woods, and apes, in the 17th century B.c.! The accounts given by Dioscorides, Ptolemy and the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, indicate that cinnamon and cassia were obtained from Arabia and Eastern Africa; and we further know that the importers were Phcenicians, who traded by Egypt and the Red Sea with Arabia. Whether the spice under notice was really a produe- tion of Arabia or Africa, or whether it was imported thither from Southern China (the present source of the best sort of cassia), is a question which has excited no small amount of discussion. We are in favour of the second alternative,—firstly, because no sub- stance of the nature of cinnamon is known to be produced in Arabia oF Africa; and secondly, because the commercial intercourse which was undoubtedly carried on by China with India and Arabia, and whieh also existed between Arabia, India and Africa, is amply sufficient to explain the importation of Chinese produce.’ That the spice Was ® able; for *Chishull, Antiquities Asiatice, 1728, and the 65-72, : Ceylon, i (1859) 575. e are indebted to Dr. Bretschneider of Pekin for these references to Chinese = ture. For information about some of : e works quoted, see his pamphlet On te Study and Value of Chinese Botanical from Arabia, Persia and Egypt might possibly have been in an ee 3 versally as the Arabians. . = iret 1870. _Vimichen, Fleet x, i Leipzig 1868" : of an Egyptian Queen, - - » That there was an ulterior com- op. cit, ii, 284, 285,—In the Polo, the trade of China babes og the trade of the Red Sea, no aber Ee Ceylon, but on the coast of CORTEX CINNAMOML —O_—soB2I production of the far Kast is moreover implied by the name Darchini (from dar, wood or bark, and Chini, Chinese) given to it by the Arabians and Persians. If this view of the case is admissible, we must regard the ancient cinnamon to have been the substance now known as Chinese Cassia _ lignea or Chinese Cinnamon, and cassia as one of the thicker and perhaps less aromatic barks of the same group, such in fact as are still found in commerce. Of the circumstances which led to the collection of cinnamon in Ceylon, and of the period at which it was commenced, nothing is known. That the Chinese were concerned in the discovery is not an unreasonable supposition, seeing that they traded to Ceylon, and were in all probability acquainted with the cassia-yielding species of Cin- namomum of Southern China, a tree extremely like the cinnamon tree of Ceylon. Whatever may be the facts, the early notices of cinnamon as a pro- duction of Ceylon are not prior to the 13th century. The very first, according to Yule} is a mention of the spice by Kazwini, an Arab writer of about A.D. 1275, very soon after which period it is noticed by the historian of the Egyptian Sultan Kelaoun, A.D. 1283. The prince of Ceylon is stated to have sent an ambassador, Al-Hadj-Abu-Othman, to the Sultan’s court. It was mentioned that Ceylon produced elephants, Bakam (the wood of Cesalpinia Sapan L.—see page 216), pearls and also cinnamon. LOE: A still more positive evidence is due to the Minorite friar, John of Montecorvino, a missionary who visited India. This man, in a letter under date December 20th, 1292 or 1293, written at “ Mabar, citté dell India di sopra,” and still extant in the Medicean library at Florence, says that the cinnamon tree is of medium bulk, and in trunk, bark and foliage, like a laurel, and that great store of its bark is carried forth from the island which is near by Malabar.’ Again, it is mentioned by the Mahomedan traveller Ibn Batuta about A.D. 1340,‘ and a century later by the Venetian merchant Nicolo di Conti, whose description of the tree is very correct.” = de The cireumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope led to the real dis- covery of Ceylon by the Portuguese in 1508, and to their permanent occupation of the island in 1536, chiefly for the sake of the cinnamon. It is from the first of these dates that more exact accounts of the spice began to reach Europe. Thus in 1511 Barbosa distinguished the fine cinnamon of Ceylon from the inferior Canella trista of Malabar. Garcia de Orta, about the middle of the same century, stated that Cey lon cinna- mon was forty times as dear as that of Malabar. Clusius, the translator apparently at Calicut, where the Portu- 3 Yule, Cathay and the tg nog peers guese found it on their first arrival. Here, also Kunstmann, Anzeigen Ce 1885 ron says Marco, the ships from Aden obtained Akademie, 24 and 25 December — th i eee : their lading from the East, and carried it and 169. of Ton Batuta, Sete by into the Red Sea for Alexandria, whence 4 Travels it passed int : Lee, Lond. 1829. 184. ae Weustiajic, ies ste ak. "isk or er > Ramusio, Raccolta delle i rg a . Marco Polo, ii, (1871) 325. 327 Viaggi, i. (1563) 339 5 Rune hundert 1 Marco Polo, ii. 255. _ oe niss Iniliens im fiinfzehnten Jahrnnenty * Quatremére (in the book quoted at 1864, 39. Page 511, note 4), ii, 284, 522 : - LAURACE. of Garcia, saw branches of the cinnamon-tree as early as 1571 at Bristol. - and in Holland. At this period cinnamon was cut from trees growing wild in the forests in the interior of Ceylon, the bark being exacted as tribute from the Singhalese kings by the Portuguese. A peculiar caste called chalias, who are said to have emigrated from India to Ceylon in the 13th century, and who in after-times became cinnamon-peelers, delivered the bark to the Portuguese. The cruel oppression of these chalias was not mitigated by the Dutch, who from the year 1656 were virtually masters of the whole seaboard, and conceded the cinnamon trade to their East India Company as a profitable monopoly, which the Company exercised with the greatest severity... The bark previous to shipment was minutely examined by special officers, to guard against frauds on the part of the chalias. About 1770 De Koke conceived the happy idea, in opposition to the universal prejudice in favour of wild-growing cinnamon, of attempting the cultivation of the tree. This project was carried out under Gover- nors Falck and Van der Graff with extraordinary success, so that the _ Dutch were able, independently of the kingdom of Kandy, to furnish about 400,000 Ib. of cinnamon annually, thereby supplying the entire European demand. In fact, they completely ruled the trade, and would even bwin the cinnamon in Holland, lest its unusual abundance should reduce the price. : After Ceylon had been wrested from the Dutch by the English in 1796, the cinnamon trade became the monopoly of the English East India Company, who then obtained more cinnamon from the forests, especially after the year 1815, when the kingdom of Kandy fell under British rule. But though the chalias had much increased in numbers, the yearly production of cinnamon does not appear to have exceed 500,000 Ib. The condition of the unfortunate chalias was not amelio- rated until 1833, when the monopoly granted to the Company Wa finally abolished, and Government, ceasing to be the sole exporters 0 cinnamon, permitted the merchants of Colombo and Galle to share the trade. Cinnamon however was still burdened with an export duty equal to a third or a half of its value; in consequence of which and of the com: petition with cinnamon raised in Java, and with cassia from China an other places, the cultivation in Ceylon began to suffer. This duty was not removed until 1853. The earliest notice of cinnamon in connexion with Northern Ton that we have met with, is the diploma granted by Chilperic IL, ee i the Franks, to the monastery of Corbie in Normandy, A.D. 716, in W™ provision is made for a certain supply of spices and grocery, inci 5 lb, of Cinnamon. bl : The extraordinary value set on cinnamon atthis period is remarka Be illustrated by some letters written from Italy, in which mention 15 and there incidentally made of presents of spices and incense. sah : In A.D. 745, Gemmulus, a Roman deacon, sends to Boniface, archb a5 } on, of Mayence (“ewm magnd reverentid”), 4 ounces of Cumnami 1 Tennent, op. cit. ii, 52, 3 Jaffé, Bibliotheca Rerum si. ag tet Piplomata, etc., Paris, 1849, Berlin, iii. (1866) 154. 199. 21 “4, 216-8 10 CORTEX CINNAMOML Zo ounces of Costus, and 2 pounds of Pepper. In A.p. 748, Theophilacias, a Roman archdeacon, presents to the same bishop similar spices and incense. Lullus, the successor of Boniface,sends to Eadburga, abbatissa Thanetensis, circa A.D. 732-751—‘ unum graphium argenteum et storacis et cinnamomi partem aliquam” ; and about the same date, another present of cinnamon to archbishop Boniface is recorded. Under date A.D. 732-742, a letter is extant of three persons to the abbess Cuneburga, to whom the writers offer—“turis et piperis et cinnamomi permodica xenia, sed omni mentis affectione destinata.” In the 9th century, Cinnamon, pepper, costus, cloves, and several indigenous aromatic plants were used in the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland as ingredients for seasoning fish.’ Of the pecuniary value of this spice in England, there are many notices from the year 1264 downwards.* In the 16th century it was probably not plentiful, if we may judge from the fact that it figures among the New Year's gifts to Philip and Mary (1556-57), and to Queen Elizabeth (1561-62), Production and Commerce’—The best cinnamon is produced, according to Thwaites,* from a cultivated or selected form of the tree (var. a.), distinguished by large leaves of somewhat irregular shape. But the bark of all the forms possesses the odour of cinnamon in a greater or less degree. It is not however always possible to judge of the quality of the bark from the foliage, so that the peelers when col- lecting from uncultivated trees, are in the habit of tasting the bark before commencing operations, and pass over some trees as unfit for their purpose. The bark of varieties 8. multiflorwm and y. ovalifolium is of very inferior quality, and said to be never collected unless for the pur- pose of adulteration. ; The best variety appears to find the conditions most favourable to its culture, in the strip of country, 12 to 15 miles broad, on the south-west coast of Ceylon, between Negumbo, Colombo and Matura, where the tree is grown up to an elevation of 1500 feet. A very sandy clay soil, or fine white quartz, with a good sub-soil and free exposure to the sun and rain, are the circumstances best adapted for the cultivation. The management of the plantations resembles that of oak coppice in England. ‘The system of pruning checks the plant from becoming a tree, and induces it to form a stool from which four or five shoots are allowed to grow; these are cut at the age of 1} to 2 years, when the gteyish-green epidermis begins to turn brown by reason of the sgperetepie ofa corky layer. They are not all cut at the same time, but on As they arrive at the proper state of maturity ; they are then 6 to 10 i igh and 4 to 2 inches thick. In some of the cinnamon _atontay Colombo, the stools are very large and old, dating back, it 1s supposed, from the time of the Dutch. In consequence of the increased ' Doubtless Eadburh, third abbess of ‘Hnster in the Isle of Thanet in Kent. She died a.p. 751. sm Journ. vill. (1877) 121. Annals of aden, State of the Poor, ii. (1797) ap- A aces “a pendix; Rogers Mine gf priwtere and $46 sevalao Leastenault de 6 Tou, Me ari fa ine 4 ee : dit iW Us ed? “i o * yA x le nylund, ii, (1866) 543. 6 Up. cit, 252-252, flow of sap which occurs after the 4 Nicholls, Progresses and Processions of Q. Elizabeth, i. ( 1823) xxxiv. 118. : 5 Additional information may be found in two papers by Marshall, in Thomson's Philosophy, x. (1817) 241 and eS | LAURACEA, — a heavy rains in May and June, and again in November and December, the bark at those seasons is easily separated from the wood, so that a principal harvest takes place in the spring, and a smaller one in the latter part of the year. The shoots having been cut off by means of a long sickle-shaped hook called a catty, and stripped of their leaves, are slightly trimmed with a knife, the little pieces thus removed being reserved and sold as Cinnamon Chips. The bark is next cut through at distances of about a foot, and slit lengthwise, when it is easily and completely removed by the insertion of a peculiar knife termed a mama, the separation being assisted, if necessary, by strongly rubbing with the handle. The pieces of bark are now carefully put one into another, and the compound sticks firmly bound together into bundles. ‘Thus they are left for 24 hours or more, during which a sort of “fermentation” (?) goes on which facilitates the subsequent removal part. This is accomplished by placing each quill on a stick of wood of suitable thickness, and carefully scraping off with a knife the outer and middle cortical layer. In a few hours after this operation, the peeler commences to place the smaller tubes within the larger, also inserting the small pieces so as to make up an almost solid stick, of about 40 inches in length. The cinnamon thus prepared is kept one day in the shade, and then placed on wicker trays in the sun to dry. When sufficiently dry, it is made into bundles of about 30 Tb. each.’ The cinnamon gardens of Ceylon were estimated in 1860-64 to occupy an area of about 14,400 acres; in the catalogue of the British Colonies, Paris Exhibition, 1878, about 2 millions of acres are stated to be under cultivation in the island, 26,000 acres with cinnamon. — The exports of cinnamon from Ceylon have been as follows :— 1871 1872 1875 1,359,327 lb., value £67,966. 1,267,953 lb., value £64,747. 1,500,000 Ib. At present the cultivation of coffee is displacing that of cinnamon, the exports of the former in 1875 being 928,606 cwts. valued at millions sterling. Of the crop of 1872 there were 1,179,516 ih. : cinnamon shipped to the United Kingdom, 53,439 tb. to the Uni States of North America, and 10,000 tb. to Hamburg. ‘ Besides the above-named exports of cinnamon, the official statistics? record the export of “Cinnamon Bark”—8846 tb ™ 1871—23,449 tb. in 1872. This name includes two distinct articles, namely Cinnamon Chips, and a very thick bark derived from 0 stems. The Cinnamon Chips which, as explained on the previous page, are the first trimmings of the shoots, are very aromatic ; they ¥ dl to be considered worthless, and were thrown away. The second articlé to which in the London drug sales the name “Cinnamon Bark *® restricted, is in flat or slightly channelled fragments, which are as petit aS x‘5 of an inch in thickness, and remind one of New Granada cinchon Dotan 4 called fardela or fardello,a we may judge by the statement — ignifying in the Romance languages _ five principal cinnamon gardens alle, and bundle or package. The word fardel, having Negumbo, Colombo, Barberyn, @ pe in the same meaning, is found in old English Matura, were each from 15 to -U 163). “oo PSs circumference (‘Tennent’s Ceylon, oe 1872, _” Yet the cultivation was far more exten- 3 Cvylon Blue Books for 1s7la sive in the earlier part of the century, as printed at Colombo. CORTEX CINNAMOML 525 bark. It is very deficient in aromatic qualities, and quite unfit for use in pharmacy. In most other countries into which Cinnamomum zeylanicum has been transplanted, it has been found that, partly from its tendency to pass into new varieties and partly perhaps from want of careful cultiva- tion and the absence of the skilled cinnamon-peeler, it yields a bark appreciably different from that of Ceylon. Of other cinnamon-producing districts, those of Southern India may be mentioned as affording the Malabar or Tinnevelly, and the Tellicherry Cinnamon of commerce, the latter being almost as good as the cinnamon of Ceylon.’ The cultiva- tion in Java commenced in 1825. The plant, according to Miquel, is a variety of C. zeylanicum, distinguished by its very large leaves which are frequently 8 inches long by 5 inches broad. The island exported in 1870, 1109 peculs (147,866 lb.); in 1871 only 446 peculs (59,466 lb.).? | Cinnamon is also grown in the French colony of Guyana and in Brazil, but on an insignificant scale. The samples of the bark from those countries which we have examined are quite unlike the cinnamon of Ceylon. That of Brazil in particular has evidently been taken from — stems several years old. The importations of cinnamon into the United Kingdom from Ceylon are shown by the following figures :— 1867 1869 1870 1871 1872 1876 859,034 1b. 2,611,4731b. 2,148,4051b. 1,430,518 1b. 1,015,461 1b. 1,339,060 Ib. During 1872, 56,000 1b. of cinnamon were imported from other countries. _ Description—Ceylon cinnamon of the finest description is imported in the form of sticks, about 40 inches in length and 2 of an inch in thickness, formed of tubular pieces of bark about a foot long, dexter-. ously arranged one within the other, so as to form an even rod of con- siderable firmness and solidity, The quills of bark are not rolled up as simple tubes, but each side curls inwards so as to form a channel with In-curving sides, a circumstance that gives to the entire stick a somewhat flattened cylindrical form. The bark composing the stick is extremely thin, measuring often no more than to's of an inch in thickness. _Ithas : light brown, dull surface, faintly marked with shining wavy lines, an bearing here and there scars or holes at the points of insertion of ae or twigs. The inner surface of the bark is of a darker hue. The mi 1s brittle and splintery, with a fragrant odour, peculiar to itself and t 4 allied barks of the same genus. Its taste is saccharine, pungent, an aromatic, _ The bales of cinnamon which arrive in in the dock warehouses, in doing which a ce eceurs. The spice so injured is kept separate § namon, and is very generally used for pharmaceutica often of excellent quality. _ Microscopic Structure—By the peelin cinnamon is deprived of the suberous coat an middle cortical layer, so that it almost consis 2 Consular Reports, Aug. 1873. 952. London are always re-packed rtain amount of breakage and sold as Small Cin- ] purposes. It is « above described, Ceylon | id the greater part of the ts of the mere liber (endo- ’ Some of it however is very thick, though neatly quilled, 526 - LAURACEA. phleum). Three different layers are to be distinguished on a transverse section of this tissue :— 1. The external surface which is composed of one to three rows of large thick-walled cells, forming a coherent ring; it is only interrupted by bundles of liber-fibres, which are obvious even to the unaided eye; they compose in fact the wavy lines mentioned in the last page. 2. The middle layer is built up of about ten rows of parenchymatous - thin-walled cells, interrupted by much larger cells containing deposits of mucilage, while other cells, not larger than those of the parenchyme itself, are loaded with essential oil. 3. The innermost layer exhibits the same thin-walled but smaller cells, yet intersected by narrow, somewhat darker, medullary rays, and likewise interrupted by cells containing either mucilage or essential oil. Instead of bundles of liber-fibres, fibres mostly isolated are scattered through the two inner layers, the parenchyme of which abounds in small starch granules accompanied by tannic matter. Ona longitu- dinal section, the length of the liber-fibres becomes more evident, as well as oil-ducts and gum-ducts. Chemical Composition—The most interesting and noteworthy constituent of cinnamon is the essential oil, which the bark yields to the extent of } to 1 per cent., and which is distilled in Ceylon,—very seldom in England. It was prepared by Valerius Cordus, who stated,’ - somewhat before 1544, that the oils of cinnamon and cloves belong to the small number of essential oils which are heavier than water, “fundum petunt.” About 1571 the essential oils of connamon, mate, cloves, pepper, nutmegs and several others, were also distilled by Guin- therus of Andernach,? and again, about the year 1589, by Porta.’ ; In the latter part of the last century, it used to be brought to Europe by the Dutch. During the five years from 1775 to 1779 clusive, the average quantity annually disposed of at the sales of the Dutch East India Company was 176 ounces. The wholesale price London between 1776 and 1782 was 21s. per ounce; but from 1785 to 1789, the oil fetched 63s. to 68s., the increase in value being doubtless occasioned by the war with Holland commenced in 1782. The oil is now largely produced in Ceylon, from which island the quantity exported in 1871 was 14,796 ounces ; and in 1872, 39,100 ounces.’ oil is shipped chiefly to England. f Oil of cinnamon is a golden-yellow liquid, having @ sp. gt. © 1-035, a powerful cinnamon odour, and a sweet and aromatic but burning taste. It deviates a ray of polarized light a very. little to the left. The oil consists chiefly of Cinnamic Aldehyde, C°H°(CH)°COH, together with a variable proportion of hydrocarbons. At a low temperature it becomes turbid by the deposit of a calll- phor, which we have not examined. ‘The oil easily absorbs oxyge i ; : . omit Boned becoming thereby contaminated with resin and cinnamic abs C*H® (CH)’ COOH. ic Cinnamon contains sugar, mannite, starch, mucilage, and tant Py ea pom extractioni- ’ Magie Naturalis libri 7. Neapoll , 18 y Gesner, Argentorati, 1589. 184. ” : 1561, fol. 226, — * Ceylon Blue Books for 1871 and 1672 * De medicina veteri et nova, Basi D7 sas den ova, Basilew, 1571. CORTEX CASSLE LIGNEZ, 597 acid. The Cinnamomin of Martin (1868) has been shown by Wittstein to be very probably mere mannite. The effect of iodine on a decoction of cinnamon will be noticed under the head of Cassia Lignea. Cinna- mon afforded to Schitzler (1862) 5 per cent. of ash consisting chiefly of the carbonates of calcium and potassium. Uses—Cinnamon is used in medicine as a cordial and stimulant, but is much more largely consumed as a spice. Adulteration—Cassia lignea being much cheaper than cinnamon, is very commonly substituted for it. So long as the bark is entire, there is no difficulty in its recognition, but if it should have been reduced to powder, the case is widely different. We have found the following tests of some service, when the spice to be examined is in powder :—Make a decoction of powdered cinnamon of known genuine- hess; and one of similar strength of the suspected powder. When cool and strained, test a fluid ounce of each with one or two drops of tincture of iodine, A decoction of cinnamon is but little affected, but in that of cassia a deep blue-black tint is immediately produced (see further on, Cort. Cassize). The cheap kinds of cassia, known as Cassia vera, may be distinguished from the more valuable Chinese Cassia, as well as from cinnamon, by their richness in mucilage. This can be extracted by cold water as a thick glairy liquid, giving dense ropy precipitates with corrosive sublimate or neutral acetate of lead, but not with alcohol. Other products of the Cinnamon Tree. Essential Oil of Cinnamon Leaf (Oleum Cinnamomi foliorum) —This is a brown, viscid, essential oil, of clove-like odour, which is sometimes exported from Ceylon. It has been examined by Stenhouse (1854), who found it to have a sp. gr. of 1:053, and to consist of a mixture of Hugenol (p. 284) with a neutral hydrocarbon having the formula CH". ‘It also contains a small quantity of benzoic acid. Essential Oil of Cinnamon Root (Olewm Cinnamoni radicis)— A yellow liquid, lighter than water, having a mixed odour of camphor and cinnamon, and a strong camphoraceous taste. Both this oil and that of the leaf were described by Kiampfer (1712) and by Seba in 1731,! and perhaps by Garcia de Orta so early as 1563. Solid camphor may also be obtained from the root. A water distilled from ae flowers, and a fatty oil expressed from the fruits are likewise notice by old writers, but are unknown to us. CORTEX CASSL#© LIGNE. Cassia Lignea, Cassia Bark. Botanical Origin—Various species of Cinnamomum occurring : the warm countries of Asia from India eastward, afford what is terme in commerce Cassia Bark. The trees are extremely variable in foliege, inflorescences and aromatic properties, and the distinctness, of several o the species laid down even in recent works is still uncertain. 1 Phil, Trans, xxxvi. (1731) 107. 528 : LAURACE. The bark which bears par excellence the name of Cassia or Cassia lignea, and which is distinguished on the Continent as Chinese Cinna- mon, is a production of the provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Kweichau in Southern China. The French expedition of Lieut. Garnier for the exploration of the Mekong and of Cochin China (1866-68) found cassia growing in about N. lat. 19° in the forests of the valley of the Se Ngum, one of the affluents on the left bank of the Mekong near the frontiers of Annam. A part of this cassia is carried by land into China, while another part is conveyed to Bangkok.’ Although it is customary to refer it without hesitation to a tree named Cinnamomum Cassia, we find no warrant for such reference: no competent observer has visited and described the cassia-yielding districts of China proper, and _ brought therefrom the specimens requisite for ascertaining the botanical origin of the bark.? Cassia lignea is also produced in the Khasya mountains in Eastern Bengal, whence it is brought down to Calcutta for shipment.’ In this region there are three species of Cinnamomum, growing at 1000 to 4000 feet above the sea-level, and all have bark with the flavour of cinnamon, more or less pure: they are C. obtusifoliwm Nees, C. pauciflorum Nees, and C. Tamala Fr. Nees et Eberm. . Cinnamomum imers Reinw., a very variable species occurring in Continental India, Ceylon, Tavoy, Java, ‘Sumatra and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, and possibly in the opinion of Thwaites a mere variety of C. zeylanicum, but according to Meissner well distinguished by its paler, thinner leaves, its nervation, and the character of its aroma, paid appear to yield the cassia bark or wild cinnamon of Southern ndia.* | C. Tamala Fr. Nees et Eberm., which besides growing in Khasya 1s found in the contiguous regions of Silhet, Sikkim, Nepal, and Kumaon, and even reaches Australia, probably affords some cassia bark in Northern India. Large quantities of a thick sort of cassia have at times been imported from Singapore and Batavia, much of which is produced in Sumatra. In the absence of any very reliable information as to its botanical sources, we may suggest as probable mother-plants, C. Cassia Bl and C. Bur mann Bl, var. a. chinense, both stated by Teijsmann and Binnendij : to be cultivated in Java. The latter species, growing also 10 the Philippines, most probably affords the cassia bark which is ship from Manila. History—In the preceding article we have indicated (p. 520) ie remote period at which cassia bark appears to have been known to the Chinese ; and have stated the reasons that led us to believe the “” * Thorel, Notes médicales du Voyage d’ Ex- 3 Hooker, Himalayan Jou ploration du Mékong et de Cochinchine, Paris, (1855) 303. C. iners 1870. 30.—Garnier, Voyage en Indo-Chine, * A specimen of the stem-bark of re Dr. ii. (Paris, 1873) 438. from Travancore, presented meer ig quite ae * The greatest market in China for cassia. Warin g, has a delightful odour, and cinnamon according to Dr. F. Porter devoid of the taste of cinnamon. | Horto Smith, - Taiwu in Ping-nan hien (Sin-chau 5 Catalogues Plantarum 4 ue a 1866. hi - Kwangsi province.— Mat. Med. and Botanico Bogoriensi coluntur, Batavia, Nat, Hist, of China, 1871. 52.—The capital 92. of Kwangsi is Kweilin fu, literally Cassia- Forest, CORTEX CASSLE LIGNEZ, 599 namon of the ancients was that substance. It must, however, be observed that Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Strabo and others, as well as the remarkable inscription on the temple of Apollo at Miletus, represent cinnamon and cassia as distinct, but nearly allied sub- stances. While, on the other hand, the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, in enumerating the products shipped from the various commercial ports of Eastern Africa! in the first century, mentions Cassia (kusla or xagota) of various kinds, but never employs the word Cin- naMon (Kiwva“wmoy). In the list of productions of India on which duty was levied at the Roman custom house at Alexandria, circa A.D. 176-180,Cinnamomun is mentioned as wellas Cassia turiana, X ylocassia and Xylocinnamomum.? Of the distinction here drawn between cinnamon and cassia we can give no explanation ; but it is worthy of note that twigs and branches of a Cinnamomum are sold in the Chinese drug shops, and may not im- probably be the xylocassia or xeylocinnamon of the ancients.? The name Cassia lignea would seem to have been originally bestowed on some such substance, rather than as at present on a mere bark. The spice was also undoubtedly called Cassia syrina and Cassia fistularis (p. 221),— names which evidently refer to a bark which had the form of a tube. In fact there may well have been a diversity of qualities, some perhaps very costly. It is remarkable that such is still the case in China, and that the wealthy Chinese employ a thick variety of cassia, the oe of which is as much as 18 dollars per catty, or about 56s. per lb. Whether the Aromata Cassiw, which were presented to the Church at Rome under St. Silvester, A.D. 314-335, was the modern cassia bark, is rather doubtful. The largest donation, 200 Ib. which was accompanied by pepper, saffron, storax, cloves, and balsam, would appear to have arrived from Egypt. Cassia seems to have ee cas Western Europe as early as the 7th century, for it is mentioned st cinnamon by St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville.’ Cassia 1s name 2 one of the Leech-books in use in England prior to the Norman pane! The spice was then sold in London as Canel in 1264, at 10d. a ns sugar being at the same time 12d., cumin 2d., and ginger 18d. 29. Se Boke of Nurture, written in the 15th century by John Russell, cham- berlain to Humphry, duke of Gloucester, cassia 1s spoken of as i H ii. (1850) Vincent, Commerce and Navigati 6 Migne, Patrologie Cursus, 1xxxii. ( chinks : gation of ene, : otes Galen, the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, ti. (1807) 622,—St. Isidore evident! Ds: " 130. 134. 149. 150, 157,—That the ancients but. his remarks imply should confound the auiforent kinds of cassia © were know at the ee ag oe is really no matter for surprise, when we 7 Cockayne, ions 143. te moderns, whether botanists, pharmacolo- England, ‘i. (1869) Agriculture and Prices gists, or spice-dealers, are unable to point Ps ay H een 8 543 out characters by which to distinguish the —_ in Eng nd, ii. (1 ahs reprinted for the barks of this group, or even to give definite 9 The book has Societ Pr968.—Russell , names to those found in our warehouses. Early English Text ¢ Mar sukken of syna- 2 Vincent, op. cit, ii. 701-716. says ?—“ Looks tnd and fayre in colewr phn tier on, Allied Products, Cassia = mome be not so good in this 8, page . aca 8 8 ” in his directions : Very Tne specimens of this costly bark crafte and cure. aa" a ocseuriben have been kindly supplied to us by Dr. H. “how to ™ Out “for lordes,” but F. Hance, British Vice-Consul at Whampoa. syna 2 at t for “‘ commyn peple. " Vignolius, Liber Pontificalis, Rome, i. ‘* canelle” in tha (1724) 94, 95, : 2L 530 - LAURACEA. resembling cinnamon, but cheaper and commoner, exactly as at the present day. . Production—We have no information whether the tree which affords the cassia bark of Southern China is cultivated, or whether it is exclusively found wild. The Calcutta cassia bark collected in the Khasya mountains and brought to Calcutta is afforded by wild trees of small size. Dr. Hooker who visited the district with Dr. Thomson in 1850, observes that the trade in the bark is of recent introduction.!. The bark which varies much in thickness, has been scraped of its outer layer. Cassia is extensively produced in Sumatra, as may be inferred from the fact that Padang in that island, exported of the bark in 1871, 6127 peculs (817,066 lb.), a large proportion of which was shipped to America.2 Regarding the collection of cassia on the Malabar coast, in Java and in the Philippines, no particular account has, so far as we know, been published. Spain imported from the Philippines by way of Cadiz in 1871, 93,000 lb. of cassia.* Description — Chinese Cassia lignea, otherwise called Chinese Cinnamon, which of all the varieties is that most esteemed, and ap- proaching most nearly to Ceylon cinnamon, arrives in small bundles about a foot in length and a pound in weight, the pieces of bark being held together with bands of bamboo. The bark has a general resemblance to cinnamon, but is in simple quills, not inserted one within the other. The quills moreover are less straight, even and regular, and are of a darker brown; and though some of the bark is extremely thin, other pieces are much stouter than fine cinnamon,—in fact, it is much less uniform. The outer coat has been removed with less care than that of Ceylon cinnamon, and pieces can easily be found with the corky layer untouched by the knife. Cassia bark breaks with a short fracture. The thicker bark cut transversely shows a faint white line in the centre running lel with the surface. Good cassia in taste resembles cinnamon, than which it is not less sweet and aromatic, though it is often described as Jess fine and delicate in flavour. . : An unusual kind of cassia lignea is imported since 1870 from Chins and offered in the London market as China Cinnamon, though 18 not the bark that bears this name in continental trade. The new aM is In wnscraped quills, which are mostly of about the thickness ©, ordinary Chinese cassia lignea; it has a very saccharine taste am pungent cinnamon flavour. ee The less esteemed kinds of cassia bark, which of late yea! Le been poured into the market in vast quantity, are known in com a as Cassia lignea, Cassia vera or Wild Cassia, and are farther ae guished by the names of the localities whence shipped, aS es: e Java, Timor, ete. The barks thus met with vary exceedingly in colour, thickn aroma, so that it is vain to attempt any general classification. > Com 4 of of Cadiz for 1871, where the spice 18 - ular Leeports, August 1873, 953, ** cinnamon.” a 3 Consul Reade, Repor ton the Trade, elC., 4 Fliickiger in Wiggers and Huseman® : Jahresbericht for 1872. 52. ee —— CORTEX CASSLE LIGNE, — avg have a pale cinnamon hue, but most are of a deep rich brown. They present all variations in thickness, from that of cardboard to more than a quarter of an inch thick. The flavour is more or less that of cinna- mon, often with some unpleasant addition suggestive of insects of the genus Cimex. Many, besides being aromatic, are highly mucilaginous, the mucilage being freely imparted to cold water. Finally, we have met with some thick cassia bark of good appearance that was distinguished by astringency and the almost entire absence of aroma, Microscopic Structure—A transverse section of such pieces of Chinese Cassia ligneu as still bear the suberous envelope, exhibits the following characters. The external surface is made up of several rows of the usual cork-cells, loaded. with brown colouring matter. In pieces from which the cork-cells have been entirely scraped, the surface is formed of the mesophlceum, yet by far the largest part of the bark belongs to the liberorendophloeum. Isolated liber-fibres and thick-walled cells (stone-cells) are scattered even through the outer layers of a trans- verse section. In the middle zone they are numerous, but do not form a coherent sclerenchymatous ring as in cinnamon (p. 526). The inner- most part of the liber shares the structural character of cinnamon with differences due to age, as for instance the greater development of the medullary rays. Oil-cells and gum-ducts are likewise distributed in the parenchyme of the former. Be The “China Cinnamon” of 1870 (p. 530) comes still nearer to Ceylon cinnamon, except that it is coated. A transverse section of a quill, not thicker than one millimetre, exhibits the three layers de- scribed as characterizing that bark. The sclerenchymatous ring Is covered by a parenchyme rich in oil-ducts, so that it 1s obvious that ae flavour of this drug could not be improved by scraping. The corky layer is composed of the usual tabular cells. The liber of this drug in © fact agrees with that of Ceylon cinnamon. _ In Cassia Barks of considerable thickness, tissues is met with, but their strong developm aa similarity. Thus the thick-walled cells are more and more sande one from another, so as to form only small groups. The same applies also to the liber-fibres, which in thick barks are surrounded by a Pet he chyme, loaded with considerable crystals of oxalate of ae om gum-duets are not larger, but are more numerous 10 these barks, w swell considerably in cold water. : wes its aromatic properties Chemical Composition—Cassia bark ow! D ; to an essential oil, wane in a chemical point of view, aero = that of Ceylon cinnamon. The flavour of cassia oil is ey ee agreeable, and as it exists in the less valuable sorts of —_ ec : ifferent in aroma from that of cinnamon. We find the oped apie & Chinese cassia oil to be 1:066, and its rotatory ampere _= . mm. long, only 0°1 to the right, differing consequently in p tom that of cinnamon oil (p. 526). : : _ Oil of cassia ane ae a stearoptene, which . aioe 1S a colourless, inodorous substance, erystallizing in shining prisms.’ We have never met with it. 1 Rochleder and Schwarz (1850) in Gmelin’s Chemistry, the same arrangement of ent causes a certain dis- xvii, 395. 582 -- LAURACEA If thin sections of cassia bark are moistened with a dilute solution of perchloride of iron, the contents of the parenchymatous part of the whole tissue assume a dingy brown colour ; in the outer layers the starch granules even are coloured. Tannic matter is consequently one of the chief constituents of the bark; the very cell-walls are also imbued with it. A decoction of the bark is turned blackish green by a persalt of iron. If cassia bark (or Ceylon cinnamon) is exhausted by cold water, the clear liquid becomes turbid on addition of iodine; the same occurs if a concentrated solution of iodide of potassium is added. An abundant precipitate is produced by addition of iodine dissolved in the potassium salt. The colour of iodine then disappears. There is consequently a substance present which unites with iodine; and in fact, if to a decoction of cassia or cinnamon the said solution of iodine is added, it strikes a bright blue coloration, due to starch. But the colour quickly disappears, and becomes permanent only after much of the test has been added. We have not ascertained the nature of the substance that thus modifies the action of iodine: it can hardly be tannic matter, as we have found the reaction to be the same when we used bark that had been previously repeatedly treated with spirit of wine and then several times with boiling ether. The mucilage contained in the gum-cells of the thinner quills of cassia is easily dissolved by cold water, and may be precipitated together with tannin by neutral acetate of lead, but not by alcohol. In the _ barks it appears less soluble, merely swelling into a slimy Jenty. Commerce—Cassia lignea is exported from Canton in enormous and increasing quantities. The shipments which in 1864 amounted to 13,800 peculs, reached 40,600 in 1869,' 61,220 in 1871, and 76,404 peculs (10,195,200 lb.) value £267,703, in 1872.2 In 1874 the exports — were 54,268 peculs (1 pecul = 133} Jb.) and 58,313 peculs in 1878; from the other ports of China cassia is not shipped to any extent. England usually receives no more than about 1,000,000 1b, of cassia, which only 40,000 Ib. appear to be consumed in the country. Hamburg imports about 2,000,000 lb. annually immediately from China. Yet in 1878 the quantity imported into London was 26,744 peculs (3,500,000 Ib), that received at Hamburg 13,548 peculs. Cassia lignea is exported in chests containing 2 peculs each. a Oil of cassia was shipped from the south of China to the Mage Kingdom, to the extent in 1869 of 47,517 lb.; in 1870, of 28,389 2 Hamburg is also a very important place for this oil; in the ome Statistics of that port for 1875 the imports from China are stat ' have amounted to 30,000 Ib., besides 10,000. lb. imported from Oo Britain; in 1876 Hamburg imported 5,900 1b, from Chinaand 17) Ib. from England. Uses—The same as those of cinnamon. Y and : Canton Trade Report for 1869. ® Annual Statement of ie De Sor Commercial Reports from H.M. Consuls Navigation of the United al in 1877 in China, presented to Parliament 1873,— 1870. 290,—66,650 were expo (Consul Robertson), from Pakhoi. ; CORTEX CASSLAH LIGNEA, 533 Allied Products. Cassia Twigs.—The branches of the cassia trees, alluded to at page 529, would appear to be collected from the same trees which yield the cassia lignea. Garnier (/.c. at p. 528) says that the youngest branches are made into fagots, adding that they have the odour of bugs. Cassia twigs are not as yet exported to Eurepe, but they constitute a very important article of the trade of the interior of China. In 1872 no Jess than 456,533 lb. of this Wood of Cassia or Cassia Twigs were shipped from Canton, for the most part to other Chinese ports.—The imports of Hankow, in 1874, of these twigs were 1925 peculs (259,667 lb.) valued at 5677 taels (1 tael about equal to 5s, 11d.).’ 192 In the Paris Exhibition of 1878 we had the opportunity of examining some bundles of cassia twigs from western Kwangtung. The branches Were as much as 2 feet in length and of the thickness of a finger. We found their bark to possess the usual flavour of cassia lignea. Cassia Buds, Flores Cassie—These are the immature fruits of the tree yielding Chinese cassia lignea, and have been used in Europe since the middle ages. In the journal of expenses (A.D. 1359-60) of John, king of France, when a prisoner at Somerton Castle in England, there are several entries for the spice under the name of Flor de Canelle; it was very expensive, costing from 8s. to 13s. per lb., or more than double the price of mace or cloves. On one occasion two pounds of it had to be obtained for the king’s use from Bruges.? From the Form of Oury? written in 1390, it appears that cassia buds (“F76 de queynel”) were used in preparing the spiced wine called Hippocras. , Cassia buds are shipped from Canton, but the exports have muc declined. Rondot, writing in 1848,* estimated them as averaging 400 peculs (53,333 Ib.) a year. In 1866 there were shipped from eee only 233 peculs (31,066 Ib.); in 1867, 165 peculs (22,000 Ib.) a quantity of cassia buds imported into the United Kingdom in 4 : was 29,321 lb.;° the spice is sold chiefly by grocers. The great —_ al for this drug is Hamburg, where in 1876, according to the officia statistics, 1324 ewt. of cassia buds were imported. ae In Southern India, the more mature fruits of one of the varie ron’ . Cinnamomum iners Reinw. are collected for use, but are very mle to the Chinese cassia buds. ‘von to the dried, Folia Malabathri or Folia Indi—is the name given I , former! aromatic leaves of certain Indian species oe ee Goder. the me employed’ in European medicine, but now Taj-pat, the lentes ate still used in India; they are collected in Mysore from wild t rees, : as . x of a tree of Ishpingo—This is the designation in Quito hepa of cinnamon. the laurel ‘tribe, used in Ecuador and Peru in t rt Sie history. ough but little known in Europe, it has a remar. a, Pot t the Treaty | ' Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports in + Repos D Siangal, 1868. 49. China for 1872 p. 34; for 1874, p. 7. in China for 1867, * io the Trade and , : Doiiet d’Areq, Comptes de P-Argenterie oss A — of the U.K: for 1870. 101. pol - de France, 1851. 206. 218. 222. 4 $8 further information consult Heyd, 3 See p. 245, note 8 Levantehandel, ii. (1879) 663. * Commerce dexportation de la Chine, 45. 534 LAURACE, — The existence of a spice-yielding region in South America, having come to the ears of the Spanish conquerors, was regarded as a matter of interest. It would appear that cinnamon was enumerated in the earliest accounts among the precious products of the New World! Such high importance was attached to it that in Ecuador an expedition was fitted out. The direction of the enterprise was confided to Gonzalo Pizarro, who with 340 soldiers, and more than 4000 Indians, laden with supplies, quitted the city of Quito on Christmas Day, 1539. The expedition, which lasted two years, resulted in the most lamentable failure, only 130 Spaniards surviving the hardships of the journey. In the account of it given by Garcilasso de la Vega, the cinnamon tree is described as having large leaves like those of a laurel, with fraits resembling acorns growing in clusters.” Fernandez de Oviedo has also given some particulars regarding the spice, together with a figure fairly representing its remarkable form; and the subject has been noticed by several other Spanish writers, including Monardes,* Notwithstanding the celebrity thus conferred on the spice, and the fact that the latter gives its name to a large tract of country,’ and is still the object of a considerable traffic, the tree itself is all but unknown to science. Meissner places it doubtfully under the genus Vectandra, with the specific name cinnamomoides, but confesses that its flowers and fruits are alike unknown.® The spice, for an ample specimen of which we have to thank Dr. Destruge, of Guayaquil, consists of the enlarged and matured woody calyx, 1} to 2 inches in diameter, having the shape of a shallow funnel, the open part of which is a smooth cup (like the cup of an acorn), sur- rounded by a broad, irregular margin, usually recurved. The outer surface is rough and veiny, and the whole calyx is dark brown, and has a strong, sweet, aromatic taste, like cinnamon, for which in Ecuador it is the common substitute. Dr. Destruge has also furnished us with a specimen of the bark, which is in very small uncoated quills,exactly simulating true cinnamon. We are not aware whether the bark is thus prepared in quantity. * Account of Petrus Martyr d’Angleria 5 The village of San José de erence to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, in Michael which may be considered as the centre Herr’s Die new Welt, etc., Strassburg, the cinnamon region, was determin y 1534. fol. 175, Mr. Spruce to be in lat. 1°20 S., long. 77, 2 Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon, A.D. 45 W., and at an altitude above the sea 0 1532-50, translated by Markham (Hakluyt 1590 feet. The forest of canelos, he Society) Lond, 1864. chap. 39-40; also us, has no definite boundaries; but Expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro to the Land term is popularly assigned to all the sept of Cinnamon, by Garcilasso Inca de la region of the Pastasa and its tributaries, V ega, forming part of the same volume. from a height of 4000 to 7000 foot ets Historia de las Indias, Madrid, i. (1851) slopes of the Andes, down to the ect to 357. (lib. ix. c. 31). plain, and the confluence of the Bombon “De la Canela de nuestras Indias,— and Pastasa. i. Historia de las cosas que se traen de 6 De Candolle, Prodromus, Xv sect, _ Indias occidentales, Sevilla, 1574. 167. CORTEX BIBIRU, 538 CORTEX BIBIRU. Cortex Nectandre ; Greenheart Bark, Bibiru or Bebeeru Bark. Botanical Origin—Nectandra Rodiwi Schomburgk—The Bibiru or Greenheart is a large forest tree,! growing on rocky soils in British Guiana, twenty to fifty miles inland. It is found in abundance on the hill sides which skirt the rivers Essequibo, Cuyuni, Demerara, Pomeroon and Berbice. The tree attains a height of 80 to 90 feet, with an undivided erect trunk, furnishing an excellent timber which is ranked in England as one of the eight first-class woods for shipbuilding, and is to be had in beams of from 60 to 70 feet long. . History—In 1769 Bancroft, in his History of Guiana, called attention to the excellent timber afforded by the Greenheart or Sipeira. About the year 1835 it became known that Hugh Rodie, a navy surgeon who had settled in Demerara some twenty years previously, had discovered an alkaloid of considerable efficacy as a febrifuge, in the bark of thistree? In 1848 this alkaloid, to which Rodie had given the name Bebeerine, was examined by Dr. Douglas Maclagan ; and the following year the tree was described by Schomburgk under the name of Nectandra Rodiwi2 Description—Greenheart bark oceurs in long heavy flat. pieces, not unfrequently 4 inches broad and ;%; of an inch thick, externally of a light greyish brown, with the inner surface of a more uniform cinnamon ue and with strong longitudinal striz. It is hard and brittle; the fracture coarse-grained, slightly foliaceous, and only fibrous in the inner layer. The grey suberous coat is always thin, often formin small nigel and leaving when removed longitudinal depressions analogous to the digital furrows of Flat Calisaya Bark (p. 353), but mostly ngs Greenheart bark has a strong bitter taste, but is not aromatic. its watery infusion is of a very pale cinnamon brown. Microscopic Structure—The general features of this bark are very Silma: ahiod the whole tissue having been changed into ane walled cells. Even the cells of the corky layer show sconeery nay m ne primary, envelope has entirely disappeared, and no pla € suberous coat to liber is obvious. __ The prevalent forms of the tissue are the stone-cells and very se liber-fibres, intersected by smal] medullary rays ane, croaeett A Tittle lees by parenchyme or small prosenchyme sells. ine ie 1 : uares thickened, so as to appear in a transverse section as a oh ae ted or groups. The only cells of a peculiar character are t fe way ee Jed bres of the inner liber, which are curiously saw-shaped, elng p with numerous protuberances and sinuosities. , he very unit lumen of the thick-walled ek ot in fed ve brown mass which is coloured greenish-black by sulpha : same coloration takes place throughout the less dense tissue surround- ’ Fig. i ; ’ : _ substitute for Cinchona, the latter P — aii Trimen’s Medic. or Sulphate of er eee Med. , Halliday, On the Bebeeru tree of British and Surg. Ay toad if Bot, 1844. 624. Guiana, and Sulphate of Bebeerine, the 3 Hooker's Journ. : 536 LAURACE. ing the groups of stone-cells, and may in each case be due to tannic matter. | Chemical Composition —Greenheart bark contains an alkaloid which has long been regarded as peculiar, under the name of Bibipine or Bebirine. It was however shown by Walz in 1860 to be apparently identical with Buxine, a substance discovered as early as 1830 in the bark and leaves of the Common Box, Buxus sempervirens L. In 1869 the observation of Walz was to some extent confirmed by one of us; who further demonstrated that Pelosine, an alkaloid occurring in the stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L. and Chondodendron tomen- _tosum Ruiz et Pavon (p. 28), is undistinguishable from the alkaloids of greenheart and box. The alkaloid of bibiru bark, which may be conveniently prepared from the crude sulphate used in medicine under the name of Sulphate of Bibirine, is a colourless amorphous substance, the composition of which is indicated by the formula C*H™NO* It is soluble in 5 parts of absolute alcohol, in 13 of ether, and in 1400 (1800, Walz) of boiling water, the solution in each case having a decidedly alkaline reaction on litmus. It dissolves readily in bisulphide of carbon, as well as in dilute acids, The salts hitherto known are uncrystallizable. The solu- tion of a neutral acetate affords an abundant white precipitate on the addition of an alkaline phosphate, nitrate or iodide, of iodo-hydrargyrate or platino-cyanide of potassium, perchloride of mereury, or of nitric or iodic acid, Maclagan, one of the earliest investigators of greenheart, has obtained in co-operation with Gamgee? certain alkaloids from the wood of the tree, to one of which these chemists have assigned the formula C°H*NO* and the name Nectandria. Two other alkaloids, the charac- ters of which have not yet been fully investigated, are stated to have been obtained from the same source. F Bibirie Acid, which Maclagan obtained from the seeds, is described as a colourless, crystalline, deliquescent substance, fusing at 150° C. and volatile at 200° C., then forming needle-shaped groups. Commerce—The supplies of greenheart bark are extremely wi- certain, and the drug is scarcely to be found in the market. It has been imported in barrels containing 80 to 84 1b. each, or in bags holdig 4 to 3 ewt. Uses—-The bark has been recommended as a bitter tonic and febrifuge, but is hardly ever employed except in the form of what is called Sulphate of Bibirine, which, as we have said, is crude Sulphate of Buwine® It is a dark amorphous substance which, having while ee a Sytupy state heen spread ont on glazed plates, is obtained in thin translucent lamine. We find it to yield scarcely one-third of its Wels of the pure alkaloid, "Fitickiger, Neues Jahrbuch fiir Phar- 2Mr. W. H. Campbell, of Georgetowls macie, Xxxi. (1869) 257 ; Pharm. Journ. Demerara, has assured me that neither | ss x1. (1879) 192. bark nor its alkaloid is held in este * Pharm. Journ, xi. (1870) 19, the colony.—D.H. 2 RADIX SASSAFRAS 537 RADIX SASSAFRAS. Sassafras Root ; F. Bois de Sassafras, Lignum Sassafras ; G. Sassafrasholz. Botanical Origin—Sussafras officinalis Nees (Laurus Sassafras L.), a tree growing in North America, from Canada, southward to Florida and Missouri. In the north it is only a shrub, or a small tree 20 to 30 feet high, but in the Middle and Southern United States, and especially in Virginia and Carolina, it attains a height of 40 to 100 feet. The leaves are of different forms, some being ovate and entire, and others two- or three-lobed, the former, it is said, appearing earlier than the latter. History—Monardes relates that the French during their expedition to Florida (1562-1564) cured their sick with the wood and root of a tree called Sassafras, the use of which they had learnt from the Indians.’ Laudonniére, who was a member of that expedition, and diligently set forth the wonders of Florida, observes that, among forest trees, the most remarkable for its timber and especially for its fragrant bark, is that called by the savages Pavame and by the French Sassafras. The drug was known in Germany, at least since 1582, under the above names or also by that of Lignwm Floridwm or Fennel-wood, Xylomarathrum? The sassafras tree had been introduced into England in the time of Gerarde (circa 1597), who speaks of a specimen growing at Bow. At that period the wood and bark of the root were used chiefly in the treatment of acue. In 1610, a paper of instructions from the Government of England to that of the new colony of Virginia, mentions among commodities to be sent home, “ Small sassafras Rootes,” which are “to be drawen in the winter and dryed and none to be medled with in the somer ;—and yet 1s worthe £50 and better per tonne.”* ‘The shipments were afterwards much overdone, for in 1622 complaint is made that other things than tobacco and sassafras® were neglected to be shipped. . Angelus Sala, an Italian chemist living in Germany about the year 1610-1630, in distilling sassafras noticed that the oil was heavier than water;> it was quoted in 1683 in the tariff of the ee cary of the elector of Saxony, at Dresden.’ John Maud in 1738 0 tained crystals of safrol as long as 4 inches ‘Sin 1844 they were examined by Saint-Evre. Lae en - Description—Sassafras is imported in large branching logs, often Eaxtude the lower portion of the stem, 6 to 12 inches in diameter.’ istori i ica, Francofurti, "Historia medicinal de las cosas que se 6 Opera medico-chymica, traendenuestras Indias occidentales, (Sevilla, 1682, p. 83 1574) 51, 7 Fliickiger, Documente (quoted at p. 404, *De Lact, Novus Orbis, 1633. 215.— note 7) 70. oe René de Laudonniére Histeire neh de la & Phil. Trans. R. Soc. of London, vii. Ploride. 1586. : (1809) 243. et with in English 3 Pharm. Journ, y (1876) 1023. 9 The sassafras logs ert anlar mins pr * Colonial Papers vol. i. No, 23 (MS, in trade often include aconst pig tor red the Record Office, London). : trunk-wood, which, as wel wid ms woo ° Colonial Papers, wii nee covers it, is inert, and should be sa and rejected before the wood is ras 538 LAURACEA, The roots proper, which diminish in size down to the thickness of a quill, are covered with a dull, rough, spongy bark. This bark has an inert, soft corky layer, beneath which is a firmer inner bark of brighter hue, rich in essential oil. The wood of the root is light and easily cut, in colour of a dull reddish brown, and with a fragrant odour and spicy taste similar to that of the bark but less strong. It is usually sold in the shops rasped into shavings. The bark of the root (Cortex sassafras) is a separate article of commerce, but not much used in England. It consists of channelled, flattish, or curled, irregular fragments seldom exceeding 4 inches long by 3 inches broad and generally much smaller, and from ,, to } of an inch in thickness. The inert outer layer has been carefully removed, _ leaving a scarred, exfoliating surface. The inner surface is finely striated and exhibits very minute shining crystals. The bark has a short, corky fracture, and in colour is a bright cinnamon brown of various shades. It has a strong and agreeable smell, with an astringent, aromatic, bitterish taste. Microscopic Structure—The wood of the root exhibits, in trans- verse section, concentric rings transversed by narrow medullary rays. Each ring contains a number of large vessels in its inner part, and more densely packed cells in its outer. The prevailing part of the wood consists of prosenchyme cells. Globular cells, loaded with yellow essential oil, are distributed among the woody prosenchyme. ‘The latter as well as the medullary rays abounds in starch. ; The bark is rich in oil-cells and also contains cells filled with mucilage ; it owes its spongy appearance and exfoliation to the formation of secondary cork bands (rhytidoma) within the mesophlceum and even in the liber. The cortical tissue abounds in red colouring matter, and further contains starch and, less abundantly, oxalate of calcium. Chemical Composition—The wood of the root yields 1 to 2 pet cent. of volatile oil” and the root-bark twice as much. The stem am leaves of the tree contain but a very small quantity. The oil, which as found in commerce is all manufactured in America, has the specific odour of sassafras, and is colourless, yellow, or reddish-brown, according, a the distillers assert, to the character of the root emploved. Asthe colour 0 the oil does not affect its flavour and market value, no effort is made to keep separate the different varieties of root. Oil of Sassafras has a sp. gr. of 1087 to 1:094, increasing somewhat by age (Procter). Whencooled, it deposits crystals of Safrol or Sassafras Cumphor. This body, which we obtained in the form of hard, four- or SX sided prisms with the odour of sassafras, often attaining more than | inches in length and 1 inch in diameter, belongs to the monosymmetrl’ system, as shown by Arzruni? Safrol, C!H!°O?, liquefies at 8? (47° F.), having at 12°C.a sp. gr. of 1:11; it boils at 232° C.,, ae devoid of rotatory power, nor is it soluble in alkalis. ‘The researe . of Grimaux and Ruotte (1869) show the oil to contain nine- tent of its weight of Safrol which they observed only in the liquid ae ' According to informati as inthe Progr Procter, 11 that of coe — Pu ingore 3 pre bonroemgg Association, still) yields from 1 to 5 Ib. of oil, the amount 1866, 217. viii. (1876) 249, varying with the , aang of the root and 2 Poggendorfi’s Annalen, ol the proportion of bark it may contain,— with gures of the crystals. RADIX SASSAFRAS. 539 Another constituent of sassafras oil has been termed by Grimaux and Ruotte Safrene; it boils at 155° to 157° C., has a sp. gr. of 0834 and the formula C!°H!®, it has the same odour as safrol, but deviates the plane of polarization to the right. _ It was further found by the same observers that the crude oil contains an extremely small quantity of a substance of the phenol class, which ean be removed by caustic lye and separated by an acid. We succeeded in obtaining this substance by using that portion of the erude oil from which the safrol had separated. The phenol remains in the mother-liquor after it has again been cooled and has afforded a new crystallization of safrol. The phenol thus obtained _ assumes a beautiful greenish blue hue on addition of an alcoholic solution of perchloride of iron. The Sassarubin and Sassafrin of Hare (1837) are impure products of the decomposition of sassafras oil by means of sulphuric acid. The bark and also to some extent the wood, in both cases of the root, contain tannic acid which produces a blue colour with persalts of iron. By oxidation, we must suppose, it is converted into the red colouring matter deposited in the bark and, in smaller quantity, in the heart-wood of old trees. The young wood is nearly white. The said red substance probably agrees with that to which Reinsch in 1845 and 1846 gave the name of Sussafrid, and is doubtless analogous to cin- — chona-red and ratanhia-red. Reinsch obtained it to the extent of 92 per cent. Production and Commerce—Baltimore is the chief mart. for sassafras root, bark and oil, which are brought thither from within a circuit of 300 miles. The roots are extracted from the ground by the help of levers, partly barked and partly sent untouched to the market, or are cut up into chips for distillation on the spot. Of the bark as much as 100,000 Ib. were received in Baltimore in 1866. The quantity of oil annually produced previous to the war is estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 lb. There are isolated small distillers in Pennsylvania and West New Jersey, who are allowed by the owners of a “sassafras wilderness” to remove from the ground the roots and stumps without — charge. Sassafras root is not medicinal in the United States, the more aromatic root-bark being reasonably preferred.’ : Uses—Sassafras is reputed to be sudorific and parirepes tay - ritish practice it is only given in combination with aout a an guaiacum. Shavings of the wood are sold to make Sassafi ot ed. Tn Ameri¢a:the essential oil is used -to pive a pleneams Ravows ©© effervescing drinks, tobacco and toilet soaps.” tacit ot Substit The odour of sassafras is common to sev the order Gee Thus the bark of Mesphilodaphne crt TUs Meissn., a tree of Brazil, resembles in odour true a a st seen a very thick sassafras bark brought from ss : . cee sabato as that which Mason* describes as on Receive, an Australian “ . 1871. 470. * Besides this, the pith of sassafras is also 2 American Journ. i deta ibe vt ere used as a ‘popular remedy ; it is oh- 1 Burmah, its people an’ nam ¥ 2 > : ne P tirely devoid of odour and taste, and is ductions, 1860. 497. very slightly mucilaginous. te. PH YMELEA, bark. It has the odour of the true drug, but differs from it by its grey _ colour. The large separate cotyledons of two iauraceous trees of the Rio Negro, doubtfully referred by Meissner to the genus Nectandra, furnish the so-called Sassafras Nuts or Puchury or Pilchurim Beans of Brazil, occasionally to be met with in old drug warehouses, On the Orinoko and in Guiana an oleo-resin, called Sassafras Oil or Laurel Oil, is obtained by boring into the stem of Oreodaphne opifera Nees, which sometimes contains a cavity holding a large quantity of this fluid.’ A similar oil (Aceite de Sassafras) is afforded on the Rio Negro by Nectandra Cymbarum Nees. THY MELE. CORTEX MEZEREI. . Mezereon Bark; F. Ecorce de Mézéréon, Bois gentil ; G. Seidelbast- Rinde. Botanical Origin—Daphne Mezereum L., an erect sbrub, 1 to 3 feet high, the branches of which are crowded with purple flowers in the early spring, before the full expansion of the oblong, lanceolate, de- ciduous leaves. The flowers are succeeded by red berries. It 1s @ native of the hilly parts of almost the whole of Europe, from Italy to the Arctic regions, and extends eastward to Siberia. In Britain it occurs here and there in a few of the southern and midland counties, and even reaches Yorkshire and Westmoreland, but there is reason to think it is not truly indigenous. Gerarde, who was well acquain with it, did not regard it as a British plant. History—The Arabian physicians used a plant called Mdzariyin, the effects of which they compared to those of euphorbium; it was _ probably a species of Daphne. The word mdzariyim is, we are t by competent Arabic scholars, not of Arabic origin, but in all probability derived from the Greek idiom, in which however we are unable to trace its origin. D. Mezerewm was known to the early botanists of Europe, as Daphnoides Chamelea, Thymelea, Chamedaphne. Tragus de- scribed it and figured it in 1546 under the name of MJezerewm Ger- manicum. The bark had a place in the German pharmacy of the 17 century under the name of cortex Coccognidii s. Mezerei; the bernes were the Cocca gnidia s. knidia of the old pharmacy. Description—Mezereon has a very tough and fibrous bark er removed in long strips which curl inwards as they dry; it 18 ©° in winter and made up into rolls or bundles. The bark, which rarey exceeds >, of an inch in thickness, has an internal greyish or T layer, brown corky coat which is easily separable from a green 1per se : white and satiny on the side next the wood. That of younger bran@y” 1s marked with prominent leaf-scars. The bark is too toug has an : broken, but easily tears into fibrous strips. When fresh, it bas ® ' Brit. Guiana at the Paris Exhibition, 2 Spruce in Hooker’s Journ. 1 1878, Sect. C. p. 7. (1855) 278. CORTEX MEZEREL oe ie unpleasant odour which is lost in drying; its taste is persistently burning and acrid. Applied in a moist state to ‘the skin, it occasions, after some hours, redness and even vesication. Microscopic Structure—The cambial zone is formed of about ten rows of delicate unequal cells. The libre consists chiefly of simple fibres alternating with parenchymatous bundles, and traversed by medullary rays. The fibres are very long,—frequently more than 3 mm.,and from 5 to 10 mkm. in diameter, their walls being always but little thickened. In the outer part of the liber there occur bundles of thick-walled bast- tubes, while chlorophyll and starch granules appear generally through- out the middle cortical layer. The suberous coat is made up of about 30 dense rows of thin-walled tabular cells, which examined in a tan- gential section, have an hexagonal outline. Small quantities of tannic matter are deposited in the cambial and suberous zones, Chemical Composition—The acrid principle of mezereon is a resinoid substance contained in the inner bark; it has not yet been examined. The fruits were found by Martius (1862) to contain more than 40 per cent. of a fatty, vesicating oil, which appears to be likewise present in the bark. The name Daphnin has been given to a crystallizable substance obtained by Vauquelin in 1808 from Daphne alpina, and afterwards found by C. G. Gmelin and Baer in the bark of D. Mezerewm. Zwenger in 1860 ascertained it to be a glucoside of bitter taste, having the composition C™H™O9 + 2 OH?, the same as that of Aisculin, the fluorescing principle occurring in the bark of dsculus Hippocas- tanum and the root-bark of Gelsemiwm nitidwm Michaux (G. sem- pervirens Aiton).—Coccognin, isolated in 1870 by Casselmann from bi fruits of D. Mezerewm, appears to be closely allied to if not identica with daphnin. - oie When daphnin is boiled with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid, it furnishes Daphnetin, C®H%0* + OH, described by Zwenger as crystallizing in colourless prisms. By dry distillation of an alcoholic rage of mezereon bark, the same chemist obtained Umbelliferone p. 322), Uses—Mezereon taken internally is supposed to be alterative ~ sudoritic, and useful in venereal, rheumatic and scrofulous complain F but in English medicine it is never now given except as an — of the Compound Decoction of Sarsaparilla. An ethereal precmnt the bark has been introduced (1867) as an ingredient Vy she " stimulating liniment. On the Continent, the bark itsel , soake vinegar and water, is applied with a bandage as a vesicant. + i f the Substitutes—Owing to the difficulty of procuring the bark of 1 root of D. Mezerewm, the herbalists who supply the London i have been long in the habit of substituting that of D. tn several evergreen species, not uncommon in woods and rosie oo tte parts of England. The British Pharmacopera (1864 and | : 7) P rice Corte Mezerei to be obtained indiscriminately from either 0 = Species, and does not follow the London College in insisting ma a bark of the root alone. That of the stem of D. Laureola corresponds Structure with the bark of the true mezereon, but wants the prominent : | ie ARTOCARPACE. leaf-scars that mark the upper branches of the latter; it is reputed to be somewhat less acrid than mezereon bark. The mezereon bark of English trade is now mostly imported from Germany, and seems to be derived from D. Mezerewm. In France, use is made of the stem-bark of D. Gnidium L., a shrub growing throughout the whole Mediterranean region as far as Moroceo, The bark is dark grey or brown, marked with numerous whitish leaf. scars, which display a very regular spiral arrangement. The leaves themselves, some of which are occasionally met with in the drug, are sharply mucronate and very narrow. As to structural peculiarities, the bark of D. Gnidiwm has the medullary rays more obvious and more loaded with tannic matters than those of ). Mezereum; but the middle cortical layer is less developed. The bark, which is called Lcorce de Gaoru, is employed as an epispastic. ARTOCARPACE:. CARICA. Fructus Carice, Fici; Figs; ¥. Figues; G. Feigen. Botanical Origin—Ficus Carica L., a deciduous tree, 15 to 20 feet in height, with large rough leaves, forming a handsome mass of foliage. The native country of the fig stretches from the steppes of the Eastern Aral, along the south and south-west coast of the Caspian Sea (Ghilan, Mazanderan, and the Caucasus), through Kurdistan, to Asia Minor and Syria. In these countries the fig-tree ascends into the mountain region, growing undoubtedly wild in the Taurus at an elevation of 4,800 feet.’ ; The fig-tree is repeatedly mentioned in the Scriptures, where with the vine it often stands as the symbol of peace and plenty. The fig was not known in Greece, the Archipelago, and the neighbouring coasts of Asia Minor during the Homeric age, though both were very common in the time of Plato. The fig-tree was early introduced into Tialy, whence it reached Spain and Gaul. In the opinion of paleontol the fig-tree was originally indigenous to the last-named Mediterranean regions. Charlemagne, A.D. 812, ordered its cultivation in Central ee It was brought to England in the reign of Henry VIII. by erie Pole, whose trees still exist in the garden of Lambeth Palace. Bu had certainly been in cultivation at a much earlier period, a historian Matthew Paris relates? that the year 1257 was so incle ef that apples and pears were scarce in England, and that figs, igeic! and plums totally failed to ripen. : f the At the present day the fig-tree is found cultivated in most vith temperate countries both of the Old and New World.’ It is ap? the in the plains of north-western India, and in the outer hills cis north-western Himalaya as high as 5,000 feet; also in the De and in Beluchistan and Afghanistan. 5 ‘Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, vii. (1844) * Introduced into Mexico by Co ca ya ; A.D. 1560. * Eng. Hist., Bohn’s ed., iii. (1854) 255. CARICA. 543 History—Figs were a valued article of food among the ancient. Hebrews" and Greeks, as they are to the present day in the warmer countries bordering the Mediterranean.’ In the time of Pliny many varieties were in cultivation The Latin word Carica was first used to designate the dried fig of Caria, a strip of country in Asia Minor opposite Rhodes, an esteemed variety of the fruit corresponding to the Smyrna fig of modern times. In a diploma granted by Chilperic IT. king of the Franks, to the monastery of Corbie, A.D. 716, mention is made of “ Karigas” in con- nection with dates, almonds and olives, by which we think dried figs (Carice) were intended.’ Dried figs were a regular article of trade during the middle ages, from the southern to the northern parts of Europe. In 1380 the citizens of Bruges, in regulating the duties which the “Lombards,” i.e. Italians, had to pay for their imports, > also figs from Cyprus and from Marbella, a place south-west of alaga. In England the average price between A.D. 1264 and 1398 was about 12d. per tb., raisins and currants being 23d.° Description—A fig consists of a thick, fleshy, hollow receptacle of a pear-shaped form, on the inner face of which grow a multitude of minute fruits.’ This receptacle, which is provided with an orifice at the top, is at first green, tough and leathery, exuding when pricked a milky juice. The orifice is surrounded, and almost closed by a number of thick, fleshy scales, near which and within the fig, the male flowers are situated, but they are often wanting or are not fully developed. The female flowers stand further within the receptacle, in the body of which they are closely packed; they are stalked, have a 5-leafed perianth and a bipartite stigma. The ovary, which is generally one- celled, becomes when ripe a minute, dry, hard nut, popularly regarded as a seed. As the fig advances to maturity, the receptacle enlarges, becomes softer and more juicy, a saccharine fluid replacing the acrid milky | sap. It also acquires a reddish hue, while its exterior becomes — purple, brown, or yellow, though in some varieties it continues green. The fresh fig has an agreeable and extremely saccharine taste, but it wants the juiciness and refreshing acidity that characterize many other fruits. : Ifa fig is not gathered its stalk loses its firmness, the ig at pendulous from the branch, begins to shrivel and become more an <— saccharine by loss of water, and ultimately, if the climate is favourable, it assumes the condition of a dried fig. On the large scale a figs are not dried on the tree, but are gathered and exposed to the sun a air in light trays till they acquire the proper degree of dryness. They 4 Recesse und andere Akten der Hansetage, ii. (Leipzig, 1872) 235. — es & Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture an ices in Hngland, i. (1866) 632. ‘See in particular 1 Sam. xxv, 18 and 1 Chron. xii. 40; where we read of large supplies of dried figs being provided for the use of fighting men. Also Num. xx. 5; er. xxiv. 2; 2 Reg. xx. 7. *On the Riviera of Genoa dried figs eaten with bread are a common winter food of the 4 * Pardessus, Diplomata, Chart, etc., ii, (1840) 909: ¢ Albertus Magnus, in allusion to the nliar growth of the fig, remarks that the Bi Arlo faa autem profert sime flore.” Page 386 of the work quoted in : the Appendix. 54d MORACEA. can only be preserved in those regions where the summer and autumn are very warm and dry. Dried figs are termed by the dealers either natural or pulled. The first are those which have not been compressed in the packing, and still retain their original shape.’ The second are those which after drying have been made supple by squeezing and kneading, and in that state packed with pressure into drums and boxes. Smyrna figs, which are the most esteemed sort, are of the latter kind. They are of irregular, flattened form, tough, translucent, covered with a saccharine efflorescence; they have a pleasant fruity smell and luscious taste. Figs of inferior quality, as those called in the market Greek Figs, differ chiefly in being smaller and less pulpy. Microscopic Structure—The outer layer of a dried fig is made up of small, thick-walled and densely packed cells, so as to form a kind of skin. The inner lax parenchyme consists of larger thin-walled cells, traversed by vascular bundles and large, slightly branched, laticiferous vessels, The latter contain a granular substance not soluble in water. In the parenchyme, stellate crystals of oxalate of calcium occur, but in no considerable number. Chemical Composition—The chemical changes which take place in the fig during maturation are important, but no researches have yet been made for their elucidation. The chief chemical substance m the ripe fig is grape sugar, which constitutes from 60 to 70 per cent of the dried fruit. Gum and fatty matter appear to be present only mn very small quantity. We have observed that unripe figs are rich in starch. Production and Commerce—Dried figs were imported into the United Kingdom in 1872 to the amount of 141,847 ewt., of which 91,721 ewt. were shipped from Asiatic Turkey, the remainder being from Portugal, Spain, the Austrian territories and other countries. In 1876 the imports were 163,763 ewt., valued at £318,717. : Kalamata, in the Gulf of Messenia, Greece, and Cosenza 1 the Italian province of Calabria citeriore, are also particularly known as supplying figs to some parts of continental Europe. 1n 1876 the exports of Kalamata to Trieste were 94 millions of kilogrammes. Uses—Dried figs are thought to be slightly laxative, and as such ne occasionally recommended in habitual constipation. They enter into composition of Confectio Senne. MORACE. FRUCTUS MORI. Bacce Movi, Mora; Mulbervies; F. Mires; G. Maulbeeren. : ws ; ub Botanical Origin—Morus nigra L., a handsome bushy tree, ee oe 30 feet in height, growing wild in Northern Asia Minor, Armenia, ‘aa the southern Caucasian regions as far as Persia. In Italy, 16 eco ion of 1 The word Zleme applied in the London (** Eleme Figs”) is probably a corr ah ; shops to dried figs of superior quality the Turkish ellémé, signifying han FRUCTUS MORL 545 ployed for feeding the silkworm until about the year 1434, when M. alba L. was introduced from the Levant; and has ever since been commonly preferred. Yet in Greece, in many of the Greek islands, Calabria and Corsica, the species planted for the silkworm is still MM, nigra. : The mulberry tree is now cultivated throughout Europe, yet, except- ing in the regions named, by no means abundantly, It ripens its fruit in England, as well as in Southern Sweden and Gottland, and in Chris- tiania (Schiibeler). History—The mulberry tree is mentioned in the Old Testament,’ and by most of the early Greek and Roman writers. Among the large number of useful plants ordered by Charlemagne (A.D. 812) to be cultivated on the imperial farms, the mulberry tree (Morarius) did not escape notice.” We meet with it also in a plan sketched A.D. 820, for the gardens of the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland.! The cultiva- tion of the mulberry in Spain is implied by a reference to the prepara- tion of Syrup of Mulberries in the Calendar of Cordova,’ which dates | from the year 961. A curious reference to mulberries, proving them to have been far more esteemed in ancient times than at present, occurs in the statutes of the abbey of Corbie of N ormandy, in which we find a Brevis de Melle, showing how much honey the tenants of the monastic lands Robie required to pay annually, followed by a statement of the quantity o Mulberries which each farm was expected to supply.® Description—The tree bears unisexual catkins; the female, of oe ovoid form, consists of numerous flowers with green four-lobed perian : and two linear stigmas. The lobes of the perianth overlapping eac other become fleshy, and by their lateral aggregation form the s ci berry, which is shortly stalked, oblong, an inch in length, om , prs ripe, of an intense purple. By detaching a single fruit, the lobes lenticular nucule, covering a pendulous seed with curved embryo fleshy albumen. : acid, Mulberries are extremely juicy and have a oe = — saccharine taste; but they are devoid of the fine aroma that dis guishes many fruits of the order Rosacee. seals Chemical Composition—In an analysis made by Bm (1857) 100 parts of mulberries yielded the following constituents: . Glucose and unerystallizable sugar Tee ano 186 Free acid (supposed to be malic) . + + * 0°39 Albuminous matter . . ; , ; | 203 yep: matter, fat, salts, and gum . : : - 057 8 : : : “ * e ad € - Insoluble matters (the seeds, pectose, cellulose, &e.) a 1 Water . : . : : j iss des Kolsters 8. 1A. D ' , i 4F, Keller, Bauriss (1855) Fee Candolle, Géogr. botanique, ii Gallen, facsimile, cide da Pade 961, 22 Sam. v, 23, 94, i teas, Lavde, 1873 87. * Pertz, Monumenta Germania historica, _ publié par R. Dozy, aid de C.Abbé Irminon, es, iii, (1835) 181.—Consult also Hehn, § Guérard, Polyplig Kulturpflanzen, 1877. Paris, ii. 335. 2M a CANNABINEA. With regard to the results of researches on other edible fruits, made — about the same time in the laboratory of Fresenius, it would appear that the mulberry is one of the most saccharine, being only surpassed by the cherry (10°79 of sugar) and grape (10°6 to 19-0) It is richer in sugar than the following, namely :— . Raspberries, yielding 4 per cent. of sugar and 1°48 of (malic) acid. Strawberries a 57 ” ” 131 ” ” Whortleberries ,, 58 = e 1:34 a ee Currants : 61 ' - 2°04 ak The amount of free acid in the mulberry is not small, nor is it exces- sive. The small proportion of insoluble matters is worthy of notice in comparison, for instance with the whortleberry, which contains no less than 13 per cent. The colouring matter of the mulberry has not been examined. The acid is probably not simply malic, but in part tartaric. 2 -.Uses—-The sole use in medicine of mulberries is for the preparation of a syrup employed to flavour or colour any other medicines. In Greece, the fruit is submitted to fermentation, thereby furnishing an inebriating beverage. CANNABINEAi, HERBA CANNABIS. Cannabis Indica; Indian Hemp; F. Chanvre Indien ; G. Hanfhraut. _ Botanical Origin—Cannabis sativa L., Common Hemp, an annual dicecious plant, native of Western and Central Asia, cultivated in tem perate as well as in tropical countries. It grows wild luxuriantly on the banks of the lower Ural and Volga near the Caspian Sea, extending thence to Persia, the Altai range, 40 Northern and Western China. It is found in Kashmir and on We Himalaya, growing 10 to 12 feet high, and thriving vigorously at an elevation of 6000 to 10,000 feet. It likewise occurs in Tropical Aa on the eastern and western coasts as well as in the central tracts watered by the Congo and Zambesi, but whether truly indigenous * doubtful. It has been naturalized in Brazil, north of Rio de Janel, the seeds having been brought thither by the negroes from — : Africa, The cultivation of hemp is carried on in many parts te nental Europe, but especially in Central and Southern Russia. 4 The hemp plant grown in India exhibits certain differences 95 0°" trasted with that cultivated in Europe, which were noticed by Rum phius in the 17th century, and which (about A.D. 1790), induced 2a F to claim for the former plant the rank of a distinct species, unde? name of Cannabis indica. But the variations observed 1m plants are of so little botanical importance and are so inconstant, the maintenance of C. indica as distinct from C. sativa has abandoned by general consent. * The fig excepted, which is much more saccharine than any- HERBA CANNABIS. ae. In a medicinal point of view, there is a wide dissimilarity between hemp grown in India and that produced in Europe, the former being vastly more potent. Yet even in India there is much variation, for, according to Jameson, the plant grown at altitudes of 6000 to 8000 feet affords the resin known as Charas, which cannot be obtained from that cultivated on the plains.! History—Hemp has been propagated on account of its textile fibre and oily seeds from a remote period. The ancient Chinese herbal called Rh-ya, written about the 5th cen- tury B.C., notices the fact that the hemp plant is of two kinds, the one producing seeds, the other flowers only.” In Susruta, Charaka and other early works on Hindu medicine, hemp (Bhanga) is mentioned as a remedy. Herodotus states that hemp grows in Scythia both wild and cultivated, and that the Thracians made garments from it which can hardly be distinguished from linen. He also describes how the Scythians expose themselves as in 4 bath to the vapour of the seeds thrown on hot coals : The Greeks and Romans appear to have been unacquainted with the medicinal powers of hemp, unless indeed the care-destroying NywerOés should, as Royle has supposed, be referred to this plant. According to Stanislas Julien,‘ anzesthetic powers were ascribed by the ang: to preparations of hemp as early as the commencement of the ra century. The cee of hemp both medical and dietetic appears to have spread slowly through India and Persia to the Arabians, amongst whom the plant was used in the early middle ages. The famous heretical sect of Mahomedans, whose murderous deeds struck terror into the hearts of the Crusaders during the 11th and 12th centuries, derived their cre of H. ashishin, or, as it is commonly written, assassins, from hashish the Arabic for hemp,’ which in certain of their rites they used as a in- toxicant.’ In 1286 of our era, the Sultan of Egypt, Bibars al Bondok ees , Spear the sale of hashish, the monopoly of which had been eased before.’ j : The use of hemp (bhang) in India was particularly Lie D edae de Orta ® (1563), and the plant was subsequently figured by R enon described the drug as largely used on the Malabar coast. It wou ' 1 th i ionally, about this time to have been imported into Europe, eT ne re for Berlu in his Treasury of Drugs, 1690, describes 1 Bantam in the eta: cof an infatwating quality and per nicious use.” é' : : . oie of n It was Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt that was the means of agat ; i Justice * Journ. of the Agric. and Hortic. Soc. of ¢ The miscreant who assassineser is said ndia, viii, 167, 3 : Norman at Caleutts, 20 Seco of hashish. * Bretschneider, On Chinese Botanical to have acted unde e Tigris, 1874. 218) Works, 1870. 5. 10. Part of the Rh-ya Bellew (Indus (o i i chief who m No een scnrhoeag a k ie Batees the 31S, had for some days pre- w > nae es d 1 4, chap, 74.5. nispemacamsenaetcne aii" viously been more or less intoxicated wi * Comptes Rendu: i= (1849) 195. Charas or Bhang. ; " ERounte ik one ae 0k 18, Oana om, the. w i however, is of opinion ane" ear ne ioe simples e drogas € ome ord assassin is bably derive Co ‘ Li 7 from sikkin, a, degess — Geteeelia der medicinaes da India, ed. 2. Lisboa, Chalifen, iv, (1860) 101, 27. is. ~ CANNABINEZ. calling attention to the peculiar properties of hemp, by the accounts of De Sacy (1809) and Rouger (1810). But the introduction of the Indian drug into European medicine is of still more recent date, and is chiefly due to the experiments made in Calcutta by O'Shaughnessy in 1838-39, Although the astonishing effects produced in India by the administra- tion of preparations of hemp are seldom witnessed in the cooler climate of Britain, the powers of the drug are sufficiently manifest to give it an established place in the pharmacopceia. Production—Though hemp is grown in many parts of India, yet asa drug it is chiefly produced in a limited area in the districts of Bogra and Rajshahi, north of Calcutta, where the plant is cultivated for the purpose in a systematic manner. The retail sale, like that of opium and spirits, is restricted by a license, which in 1871-2 produced to the Government of Bengal about £120,000, while. upon opium (chiefly con- sumed in Assam) the amount raised was £310,000.2 Bhang is one of the principal commodities imported into India from Turkestan. Description—The leaves of hemp have long stalks with small stipules at their bases, and are composed of 5 to 7 lanceolate-acuminate leaflets, sharply serrate at the margin. ‘Fhe loose panicles of male flowers, and the short spikes of female flowers, are produced on separate plants, from the axils of the leaves. The fruits, called Hemp-seeds, are small grey nuts or achenes, each containing a single oily seed. In common with other plants of the order, hemp abounds in silica which gives a roughness to its leaves and stems. In European medicine, the only hemp employed is that grown in India, which occurs in two prit- cipal forms, namely :— 1. Bhang, Siddht or Sabzt (Hindustani); Hashish or Qunnag (Arabic). This consists of the dried leaves and small stalks, which are of a dark green colour, coarsely broken, and mixed with here and there a few fruits. It has a peculiar but not unpleasant odour, and scarcely any taste. In India, it is smoked either with or without tobacco, but more commonly it is made up with flour and various additions into & sweetmeat or majun; of a green colour. Another form of taking sae ee of an infusion, made by immersing the pounded leaves m © water. : 2. Ganja (Hindustani); Qinnab (Arabic); Guaza* of the La drug-brokers. These are the flowering or fruiting shoots of the femaie plant, and consist in some samples of straight, stiff, woody stems ee inches long, surrounded by the upward branching flower-s a others of more succulent and much shorter shoots, 2 to 3 inches long; and of less regular form. In either case, the shoots have a ea spe and glutinous appearance, are very brittle, and of a brownish-gro hue. In odour and in the absence of taste ganja resembles bhang. is said that after the leaves which constitute bhang have been g* : ’ For a notice of them,seeO’Shaughnessy, Han/, by Dr. G. Martius ( Brlange™ “ On the preparation of the Indian Hemp 2 Blue Book quoted at p. pre for elee- or Gunjah, Calcutta, 1839 ; also Bengal * Magi-oun is the Porgan Dispensatory, Calcutta, 1842, 579-604. tuaries, of which more than oe vig Persicl An immense number of references to for instance, in the Pharmacopela writers who have touched on the medicinal _—_ (see Appendix, Angelus); P. rie ore properties of hemp, will be found in the ‘This name is not used 19 a rate essay entitled Studien iiber den seems to be a corruption of ga7y® HERBA CANNABIS. 549 little shoots sprout from the stem, and that these picked off and dried form what is called ganja.’ Chemical Composition—The most interesting constituents of hemp, from a medical point of view, are the resin and volatile oil, The former was first obtained in a state of comparative purity by T.and H. Smith in 18462 It is a brown amorphous solid, burning with a bright white flame and leaving no ash. It has a very potent action when taken internally, two-thirds of a grain acting as a powerful narcotic, and one grain producing complete intoxication. From the — experiments of Messrs. Smith, it seems to us impossible to doubt that to this resin the energetic effects of cannabis are mainly due. a When water is repeatedly distilled from considerable quantities of hemp, fresh lots of the latter being used for each operation, a volatile oil hghter than water is obtained, together with ammonia. This oil, according to the observations of Personne (1857), is amber-coloured, and has an oppressive hemp-like smell. It sometimes deposits an | abundance of small crystals. With due precautions it may be separated into two bodies, the one of which, named by Personne Cannabene,? is liquid and colourless, with the formula CH”; the other, which is called Hydride of Cannabene, is a solid, separating from alcohol in platy crystals to which Personne assigns the formula C'H™. He asserts that cannabene has indubitably a physiological action, and even claims it as the sole active principle of hemp. Its vapour he states to produce when breathed a singular sensation of shuddering, a desire of locomotion, followed by prostration and sometimes by syncope.* Bohlig in “ited tei similar effects from the oil, nace aa from the fres erb, just after flowering, to the extent of 0: per. cent. : It remains to be noved whether an alkaloid is present in hemp, as Suggested by Preobraschensky. ile : The Siar constituents of hemp are those teres occurring 1n other plants. The leaves yield nearly 20 per cent. ofash, __ As to the resin of Indika hemp, Bolas and Francis in treating 1t tee nitric acid, converted it into Oxycannabin, C?H*N?0". This pe peo ad substance may, they say, be obtained in large prisms from a solu - be methylic alcohol. “It melts at 176° C. and then evape sree ehnsiom decomposition ; it is neutral.’ One of us (F.) has endeavou it from the purified resin of charas, but without neteced ee Uses—Hemp is employed asa soporific, anodyne, pa SAT 2 eteaak as a nervous stimulant. It is used in the form of a oe 2 yh ‘a ae administered either in a solid or liquid form. In a iodo Sumed to an enormous extent by Hindus and Mahomedans, soda lime, and exposure to . | Powell, Economi Pun- __ caustic lime or F)! That ih Roel e glte of e Pw se ae ee , Pharm, Journ. vi. (1847) 171. the resin of t ? sey $6 volatile matter, is akat ghar. xxix. (1857) 48; not owe its aeUY Oe criment of expot- Canstatt’s Jahreshericht for 1857, i. 28. roved by vity in a very thin layer “Sypoma ban. ast its the activit g : nedicinal action of the resin prepared by Smith's proces, to 82° C. for 8 Saned oohremee to be un- fontends that it is a mixed bod , and that of the Ae ees so urther purification deprives it ofall volatile impaired. dorit’s Jahresbericht, 1876. 98. matter and renders it inert. ‘This is not ° Dragendo: Weams, xxiv. (1871) 77> Aonishing when one finds that the ‘‘ puri- ¢ Chemical News, . fication” wag effected by treatment with 550 oo CANNABINEA. smoke it with tobacco, or swallow it in combination with other substances.’ Charas. No account of hemp as a drug would be complete without some notice of this substance, which is regarded as of great importance by Asiatic nations. Charas or Churrus is the resin which exudes in minute drops from the yellow glands, with which the plant is provided in increasing num- ber according to the elevated temperature (and altitude?) of the country where it grows. The varieties of hemp richest in resin, at least in the Laos country in the Malayan Peninsula, scarcely attain the height of 3 feet, and show densely curled leaves.’ Charas is collected in several ways :—one is by rubbing the tops of the plants in the hands when the seeds are ripe, and scraping from the fingers the adhering resin. Another is thus performed :—men clothed in leather garments walk about among growing hemp, in doing which the resin of the plant attaches itself to the leather, whence it is from time to time scraped off. A third method consists in collecting, with many precautions to avoid its poisonous effects, the dust which is caused when heaps of dry bhang are stirred about.’ By whichever of these processes obtained, charas is of necessity @ foul and crude drug, the use of which is properly excluded from civiliz medicine. As before remarked (p. 547) it is not obtainable from hemp grown indiscriminately in any situation even in India, but is only to be got from plants produced at a certain elevation on the hills. The best charas, which is that brought from Yarkand, is a brown, earthy-looking substance, forming compact yet friable, irregular masses of considerable size. Examined under a strong pocket lens, it appeat to be made up of minute, transparent grains of brown resin, agglutinated with short hairs of the plant. It has a hemp-like odour, with but little taste even in alcoholic solution. A second and a third quality of Yar- kand charas represent the substance in a less pure state. Charas viewed under the microscope exhibits a crystalline structure, due to inorganle matter. It yields from } to 4 of its weight of an amorphous resin, which is readily dissolved by bisulphide of carbon or spirit of wine The resin does not redden litmus, nor is it soluble in caustic potash. b has a dark brown colour, which we have not succeeded in removing by animal charcoal. The residual part of charas yields to water 4 tule chloride of sodium, and consists in large proportion of carbonate ° calcium and peroxide of iron. These results have been obtained 1 examining samples from Yarkand.!| Other specimens which we have also examined, have the aspect of a compact dark resin. oh Charas is exported from Yarkand® and Kashgar, the first of whi * For further information consult Cooke’ i It is by n° : ’ 8 n the Kew Museum. Seven Sisters of Sleep, Lond., chap. xv,— ioaile wridedd by what process they wer Shed also Jahresbericht of Wiggers and _ collected. oe ie usemann, 1872. 600. > Forsyth, Correspondence on bare’ : Chine, i. (israyate @’ Exploration en Indo- Yarkand, ordered by Ba ergs Le ae iss . mons to be printed, Feb. <9, > ; Rant Economie Products of the Pun- ona a Mn ad Hume, Lahore to Yarkl J se Ob taney 1888, 298 Lond. 1873. 334. * Obtained by Colonel H, Strachey, and STROBILI HUMULL 551 places exported during 1867, 1830 mauwnds (146,400 lb.) to Lé, whence the commodity is carried to the Punjab and Kashmir. Smaller quan- tities are annually imported from Kandahar and Samarkand; some charas appears also (1876) to be exported from Mandshuria to China. The drug is mostly consumed by smoking with tobacco ; it is not found in European commerce. STROBILI HUMULI. Humulus vel Lupulus; Hops; ¥. Houblon ; G. Hopfen. Botanical Origin—Humulus Lupulus L.—a dicecious perennial plant, producing long annual twining stems which climb freely over trees and bushes. It is found wild, especially in thickets on the banks of rivers, throughout all Europe, from Spain, Sicily and Greece to Scandinavia; and extends also to the Caucasus, the South Caspian region, and through Central and Southern Siberia to the Altai mountains. It has been introduced into North America, Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), and Australia. History—Hops have been used from a remote period in the brewing of beer, of which they are now regarded as an indispensable ingredient. Hop gardens, under the name humularia or humuleta, are pad as existing in France and Germany in the 8th and 9th centuries vind Bohemian and Bavarian hops have been known as an epg since the 11th century. ] James I, (anno 1603) cap. 18. QTROBILT HUMOULL OS colour and become brown, at the same time acquiring an unpleasant odour, by reason of the formation of a little valerianic acid. Exposure to the vapour of sulphurous acid retards or prevents this alteration. For medicinal use, hops smelling of sulphurous acid should be avoided, though in reality the acid speedily becomes innocuous. Liebig has refuted the objections raised by brewers to the sulphuring of hops. Chemical Composition—Besides the constituents of the glands which are described in the next article, hops contain according to Etti’s elaborate investigations (1876, 1878) humulotannic acid and phloba- phene. The former is a whitish amorphous mass, soluble in alcohol, hot water or acetic ether, not in ether. By heating the humulotannic acid at 130° C., or by boiling its aqueous or alcoholic solutions, it gives off water, and is transformed into phlobaphene, a dark red amorphous substance, (C=H40")? = OH? . C*H*0*, humulotannic acid. phlobaphene. The latter substance, on boiling it with dilute mineral acids, again loses water and furnishes glucose. ‘ae From raw phlobaphene ether removes the bitter principles of hops, _ a colourless erystallizable and a brown amorphous resin, besides chloro- phyll and essential oil. ‘ . By distilling hops with water, 0°9 per cent. of essential oul are obtained. Personne (1854) stated it to contain Valerol,' C°H"O, which passes into valerianic acid; the latter in fact occurs 1n the glands, yet according to Méhu? only to the extent of 0-1 to 0°17 per cent. ia. distilled from the fresh strobiles the oil has a greenish colour, but a reddish-brown when old hops have been employ ed. We find it to bi devoid of rotatory power, neutral to litmus paper, and not striking any remarkable coloration with concentrated sulphuric acid. : Griessmayer (1874) has shown that hops contain Mies serie and in small proportion a liquid volatile alkaloid not yet analysed, which he terms Lupuline. The latter is stated to have the odour i Sone and to assume a violet hue when treated with chromate 0 potassium and sulphuric acid. . & Lastly, Etti in found arabic (pectic) acid, phosphates, ae malates, citrates, and also sulphates, chiefly of potassium, to cect it hops. The amount of ash afforded by hops dried at 100° ©. w appear to be on an average about 6-7 per cent. see - timated as having in Beowenan rce—England was es having it 1873, 63,276 acre onder oe ae Chief district for the Sak # the county of Kent, where in that year 39,040 acres were riate) er Feat Hops are grown to a much smaller extent in ee ics " a diminished quantity in Herefordshire, Hampshire, Worces : ae) het ey, The other counties of Engiate. and ae a y produce but a trifling amount, and Scotland non! _ Incontinental arog hops are most largely ames angie a urtemberg, Belgium and France, but in each onasm cai es ngland. France in 1872 is stated to have 9223 acres under hops urns of Great Britain, “A substance with’ which we are not 3 Agricultural Ret to Parliament, 48. 49. uainted., &e., 1 873, presented These, Montpellier, 1867. 70. 71. B64 : - CANNABINEA. Notwithstanding the extensive production of hops in England, there is a large importation from other countries. The importation in 1872 was 135,965 cwt., valued at £679,276: of this quantity, Belgium supplied 66,630 cwt., Germany 36,612 cwt., Holland 16,675 ewt., the United States 10,414 ewt., France 5328 cwt. During the same period hops were exported from the United Kingdom to the extent of 31,215 ewt: Uses—Hops are administered medicinally as a tonic and sedative, chiefly in the form of tincture, infusion or extract. GLANDULZ HUMULI. Lupulina; Lupulin, Lupulinic Grains; F.Lupuline; G.H opfendriisen, Hopfenstaub. Botanical Origin—Humulus Lupulus L. (see preceding article). The minute, shining, translucent glands of the strobile constitute when detached therefrom the substance called Lwpulin. History—The glands of hop were separated and chemically ex- amined by L. A. Planche, a pharmacien of Paris, whose observations _ were first briefly described by Loiseleur-Deslongchamps in 1819.’ In _the following year, Dr. A. W. Ives of New York® published an account of his experiments upon hops and their glands, to which latter he applied the name of Iwpulin. Payen and Chevallier, Planche and others,made further experiments on the same subject, endorsing the recommendation of Ives that lupulin (or, as they preferred to call it, Lupuline) might be advantageously used in medicine in place of hops. Production—Lupulin is obtained by stripping off the bracts of hops, and shaking and rubbing them ; and then separating the powder by a sieve. The powder thus detached ought to be washed by decantation, so as to remove from it the sand or earth with which it is always con- taminated ; finally it should be dried, and stored in well-closed bottles. From the dried strobiles, 8 to 12 per cent. of lupulin may be obtained. Description—Lupulin seen in quantity appears as a yellowish- brown granular powder, having an agreeable odour of hops and a bitter aromatic taste. It is gradually wetted by water, instantly by alcohol or ether, but not by potash or sulphuric acid. By trituration in a mortar the cells are ruptured so that it may be worked into a plastic mass. Thrown into the air and then ignited, it burns with a brilliant flame like lyecopodium. Microscopic Structure—The lupulinie gland or grain, like 7 generality of analogous organs, is formed by an intumescence 0° ©, cuticle of the nucule and bracts of hop (see p. 552). Each Gia originally attached by a very short stalk, which is no longer percept)® in the drug. The gland, exhausted by ether and macerated in water, @ globular or ovoid thin-walled sac, measuring from 140 to 240 all It consists of two distinct, nearly hemispherical parts; that orig? y rr Amiual Statement of the Trade of the 4 Silliman’s Journ, of Seience, ii. (18%) bg og for 1872. 49, 93. 302. RU es tes . Ee gehes, 1819. He Bog & et GLANDULA HUMULL 555 provided with the stalk is built up of tabular polyhedrie cells, whilst the upper hemisphere shows a continuous delicate membrane. This part therefore easily collapses, and thus exhibits a variety of form, the greater also as the grains turn pole or equator to the observer.’ The hop gland is filled with a thick, dark brown or yellowish liquid, which in the drug is contracted into one mass occupying the centre of the gland. It may be expelled in minute drops when the wall is made to burst by warming the grain in glycerin. The colouring matter, to which the wall owes its fine yellow colour, adheres more obstinately to the thinner hemisphere, and is more easily extracted from the thicker part by means of ether. Chemical Composition—The odour of lupulinic grains resides in the essential oil, described in the previous article. The bitter principle formerly called Lwpulin or Lupulite was first isolated by Lermer (1863) who called it the bitter acid of hops (Hopfenbittersdwre). It ery: Bialines in large brittle rhombic prisms, and possesses in a high degree the peculiar bitter taste of beer, in which however it can be present only in very small proportion, it being nearly insoluble in water, though easily dissolved by many other liquids. The composition of this’ acid, — C*H"0’, appears to approximate it to absinthiin ; it is contained in the glands in but small proportion. Still smaller is the amount of another crystallizable constituent, regarded by Lermer as an alkaloid. gi ish The main contents of the hop gland consist of wax (Myr Nie palmitate, according to Lermer), and resins, one of which is crystalline and unites with bases. : Snilmesd A good specimen of German lupulin, dried over cm se vn : yielded us 7°3 per cent. of ash. The same drug exhausted by boiling ether, afforded 76:8 per cent. of an extremely aromatic extract, — on exposure to the steam bath for a week, lost 3:03. 'per ccont, Sle loss corresponding to the volatile oil and acids. The residual ey belle soluble in glacial acetic acid and could therefore contain but very little fatty matter. : f Uses—The drug has the properties of hops, tnt wilt eee astringency. It is not often prescribed. 2 on ideation Adulteration—Lupulin is apt to contain sand, and on inciners™ often leaves a large Ain cfihis of ae Other extraneous imagen are not unfrequent may be easily recognized by means . oa eistrd the essential oil in lupulin is soon resinified, the latter shou Er ferred fresh, and should be kept excluded from the air. . : ? oublon et du ‘For a full account of the formation of be found M ee bg fi the glands, see Trécul, Annales des Sciences Lupulin, Montpeer, Vat., Bot., i, (1854) 299, An abstract may ULMACE A. or oO ora ULMACEZ. CORTEX :-ULMI. Elm Bark; ¥F. Ecorce @Orme ; G. Ulmenrinde, Riisterrinde. Botanical Origin—Ul/mus campestris Smith, the Common Elm, a stately tree, widely diffused over Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, _ southward to Northern Africa and Asia Minor, and eastward as far as - Amurland, Northern China, and Japan. It is probably not truly indigenous to Great Britain; but the Wych Elm, U. montana With. is certainly wild in the northern and western counties ;’ the latter is, according to Schiibeler, the only species indigenous to Norway. History—tThe classical writers, and especially Dioscorides, were familiar with the astringent properties of the bark of rreAéa, by which name Ulmus campestris is understood. Imaginary virtues are ascribed _ by Pliny to the bark and leaves of Ulmus. Elm bark is frequently prescribed in the English Leech Books of the 11th century, at which period a great many plants of Southern Europe had already been introduced into Britain Its use is also noticed in Turner's Herbal (1568) and in Parkinson’s Theater of Plants (1640), the author of the latter remarking that “all the parts of the Elme are of much use m Physicke.” In the Scandinavian antiquity the fibrous bark of Ulmus montana used to be made up into ropes.’ Description—Elm bark for use in medicine should be removed from the tree in early spring, deprived of its rough corky outer coat, and then dried. Thus prepared, it is found in the shops in the form of bt flattish pieces, of a rusty yellowish colour, and striated surface especiauy on the inner side. It is tough and fibrous, nearly inodorous, and has @ woody, slightly astringent taste. Microscopic Structure—The liber, which is the only officinal ie consists of thick-walled, tangentially extended parenchyme, in W2 ch there are some large cells filled with mucilage, while the rest contain : red-brown colouring matter. The mucilage forms a stratified depos! within the cell. Large bast-bundles, arranged in irregular rows, alternate with the parenchyme, and are intersected by narrow, reddish, medullar ‘Tays consisting of 2 or 3 rows of cells. The bast-bundles contain numerous long tubes about 30 mkm, thick, with narrow cavities; besides these, somewhat larger tubes with porous transverse Wi : (cribriform vessels). Each cubic cell of the neighbouring bast pare eo encloses a large crystal, seldom well defined, of oxalate calcium. | 127 ‘On the word elm, Dr. Prior remarks Cockayne, ii (1865) pp. 53. 67. 79. ee that it is nearly identical in all the Ger- and. v7i2-Inthe Ang o-Saxon ree PW elsh mary rye Scandinavian dialects, yet does Elm and Wych Elm are name in pendix) no its root in any of them, but isan ‘* Meddygon Myddfai” (see “PE nas; adaptation of the Latin Ulmus._—P, ] El id or Ilwyf and ‘‘ Ulmus roms Ne gras of British Plants, ed. 2, 1870. 71 =i lwyt Rhufain, bes met with. rivegetits Cae yee Wortcunning and Starcraft *Nchiibeler, Pflanzenwelt No hee of Harly England, edited by Rev, 0, 1873-75, p. 216. CORTEX ULMI FULVA 537 Chemistry—The chief soluble constituent of elm bark is mucilage with a small proportion of tannic acid, the latter, according to Johanson (1875), probably agreeing with that of oak bark and bark of willows, The concentrated infusion of elm bark yields a brown precipitate with perchloride of iron; the dilute assumes a green coloration with that test. Starch is wanting, or only occurs in the middle cortical layer, which is usually rejected. Elms in summer-time frequently exude a gum which, by contact with the air, is converted into a brown insoluble mass, called Ulmin. This name has been extended to various decomposition-products of organic bodies, the nature and affinities of which are but little known! Uses—Elm bark is prescribed in decoction as a weak mucilaginous astringent, but is almost obsolete, CORTEX ULMI FULV&. Slippery Elm Bark. Botanical Origin—U/mus fulva Michaux, the Red or Slippery Elm, asmall or middle-sized tree,? seldom more than 30 to 40 feet high, grow- ing on the banks of streams in the central and northern United States from Western New England to Wisconsin and Kentucky, and found also in Canada. : History—The Indians of North America attributed medicinal virtues to the bark of the Slippery Elm, which they used as a healing negates to wounds, and in decoction as a wash for skin diseases. It is the “ Salve Bark” or “ Cortex unguentarius” of Schépf’ Bigelow, writing in 1824, remarks that the mucilaginous qualities of the inner bark are well nown. Description—The Slippery Elm Bark used in medicine consists of the liber aay It fois ae flat pieces, often. 2 to 3 feet long by several inches broad, and usually z}, to 3; of an inch thick, of oe ex- tremely tough and fibrous texture. It has a light reddish-brown colour, os vote resembling that of fenugreek (which is common to the leaves also), and a simply mucilaginous taste. : In collecting the base the tree is destroyed, and no effort is spre : replace it, the wood being nearly valueless. Thus the supply 7 ishing year by year, and the collectors who formerly sen ange quantities of the bark in New York and other eastern states have no to go westward for supplies.* Microscopic Structure—The trans : ei undulating leyenn of large yellowish bundles of soft liber fibres, alter nating with small brown parenchymatous ba oot Tpted fe igs traversed by numerous narrow medullary rays, an latter: longitu- intercellular mucilage-ducts. In order to examine aey é dinal sections BE be moistened with benzol, os yep Seepage. great alteration. Ina longitudinal section, the mucilage-duc verse section shows @ series of meric., Erlanger, 1787. 32. ‘ Gmelin, ey xvii. (1866) seg A ee ee gt mi Pharma- ig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. : ati i, 435. Plants, part 34 (1878). ceutical Association for 1873, xx 558 _ EUPHORBIACEA. to be 70 to 100 mkm. long, and to contain colourless masses of mucilage, distinctly showing a series of layers. Crystals of calcium oxalate, as well as small starch grains, are very plentiful throughout the surround- ing parenchyme. Chemical Composition—The most interesting constituent of the bark is mucilage, which is imparted to either cold or hot water, but does not form a true solution. The bark moistened with 20 parts of water swells considerably, and becomes enveloped by a thick neutral mucilage, which is not altered either by iodine or perchloride of iron. This mucilage when diluted, even with a triple volume of water, will yield only a few drops when thrown ona paper filter. The liquid which drains out is precipitable by neutral acetate of lead. By addition of absolute alcohol, the concentrated mucilage is not rendered turbid, but forms a colourless transparent fluid deposit. Adulteration—Farinaceous substances admixed to the powdered _ drug may be detected by means of the microscope. Uses—Slippery Elm Bark is a demulcent like althzea or linseed. ‘The powder is much used in America for making poultices; it is said to preserve lard from rancidity, if the latter is melted with it and kept in contact for a short time. EUPHORBIACE. EUPHORBIUM. Euphorbium, Gum Euphorbium; F. Gomme-résine Wd Ewphorbe ; G. Euphorbiwm. Botanical Origin—Huphorbia resinifera Berg, a leafless, glaucous, perennial plant resembling a cactus, and attaining 6 or more feet 10 height. Its stems are ascending, fleshy and quadrangular, each he measuring about an inch. The angles of the stem are furnished at intervals with pairs of divergent, horizontal, straight spines about 2 9 an inch long, and confluent at the base into ovate, subtriangular discs. These spines represent stipules: above each pair of them is a depression, indicating a leaf-bud. The inflorescence is arranged at the sue the branches, on stalks each bearing three flowers, the two outer © which are supported on pedicels. The fruit is tricoccous, ix of an ine wide, with each earpel slightly compressed and keeled.” the _ The plant isa native of Morocco, growing on the lower slopes of Atlas in the southern province of Suse. Dr. Hooker and his gre travellers met with it in 1870 at Netifa and Imsfuia,” south-east of city of Morocco, which appears to be its westward limit. : ‘Jog? and _ History—Euphorbium was known to the ancients. Dioscoride ia Pliny* both describe its collection on Mount Atlas in Africa, an© sais 3 its extreme acridity. According to the latter writer, the drug Freee Pua in corr eee Trimen’s Med. the Linnean ag Bot. xvi. (1878) 662. ve 3 Lib. iii. c. 86. 2 Or Sd solneg, seading bo Bal, who also 4 Lib. v. c. 1; lib, xxv. © 38. quotes the province Demenet.—Journ. of EUPHORBIUM. — 659 its name in honour of Euphorbus, physician to Juba IL, king of Mauri- tania. This monarch, who after a long reign died about A.p. 18, was distinguished for his literary attainments, and was the author of several books" which included treatises on opium and euphorbium. The latter work was apparently extant in the time of Pliny. _ Euphorbium is mentioned by numerous other early writers on medi- cine, as Rufus Ephesius, who probably flourished during the reign of trajan, by Galen in the 2nd century, and by Vindicianus and Oribasius in the 4th. Aétius and Paulus Aigineta, who lived respectively in the 6th and 7th centuries, were likewise acquainted with it; and it was also known to the Arabian school of medicine. In describing the route from Aghmat to Fez, El-Bekri? of Granada, in 1068, mentioned the humerous plants “ El-forbioun” growing in the country of the Beni Ouareth, a tribe of the Sanhadja; the author noticed the spiny herba- ceous stems of the shrub abounding in the purgative milky juice. Host* (1760-1768) stated that the plant, which he also correctly compared with Opuntia, is growing near Agader, south of Mogador. The plant yielding euphorbium was further described at the beginning of the present century by an English merchant named Jack- son, who had resided many years in Morocco. From the figures he published,‘ the species was doubtfully identified with Zuphorbia cana- riensis L., a large cactus-like shrub, with quadrangular or hexagonal stems, abounding on scorched and arid rocks in the Canary Islands, _In the year 1749 it was pointed out in the (Admiralty) Manual of Scientific Enquiry, that the stems of which fragrants are found in com- mercial euphorbium, do not agree with those of 4. canariensis. Berg carried the comparison further, and finally from the fragments in ques- tion drew up a botanical description, which with an excellent figure he published ° as Euphorbia resinifera. The correctness of his observa- tions has been fully justified by specimens* which were transmitted to the Royal Gardens, Kew, in 1870, and now form flourishing plants. The drug has a place in all the early printed pharmacopcias. Collection—Euphorbium is obtained by making incisions 1n the green fleshy branches of the plant. These incisions occasion an abun- dant exudation of milky juice which hardens by exposure to the oe encrusting the stems down which it flows; it is finally collected in the latter part of the summer. So great is the acridity of the ravers that the collector is obliged to tie a cloth over his mouth and nostri o to prevent the entrance of the irritating dust. The drug 1s said to collected in districts lying east and south-east of the city of Morocco. Description—The drug consists of irregular pieces, seldom more than an inch across and oisely smaller, of a dull yellow or brown waxy- i The latter is a branch of the natural size. ter is Jraphy, ii, (1846) 636. really the figure of a aif a ent species trad escription de Afrique septentrionale, apparently shat ~ “of ae ay ih (Pane, 185), ‘i eagles ey ‘and Schmidt, Uffzinelle Gewiichse, "Smith, Dict. of Greek and Roman Bio- xii, Feet: 1859) 413. iy, (1863) xxxiv. d. achrichten von Marokos und Fes, Vv. \ procured by Mr. William openhagen, 1781. 308. Graae aad forwarded to England by Mr. * Account . : it the district Mar trsigs tf Erbe ae red C. F. Carstensen, British Vice-Consul at 7.—The plate represents an entire plant, Mogador. and also what purports to be a portion of 360 - EUPHORBIACE. locking substance, among which portions of the angular spiny stem of the plant may be met with. Many of the pieces encrust a tuft of spines - or a flower-stalk or are hollow. The substance is brittle and trans- lucent; splinters examined under the microscope exhibit no particular structure, even by the aid of polarized light; nor are starch granules visible.” The odour is slightly aromatic, especially if heat is applied; but 10 Ib. of the drug which we subjected to distillation afforded no essential oil, Kuphorbium has a persistent and extremely acrid taste; its dust excites violent sneezing, and if inhaled, as when the drug is powdered, occasions alarming symptoms. Chemical Composition—Analysis of euphorbium performed by one of us* showed the composition of the drug to be as follows:— Amorphous resin, CHO? sis sed «39 7 OO Euphorbon, C°H”O __... mas ii ae Mucilage ... ay on io ae selene Malates, chiefly of calcium and sodium post} pee Mineral compounds eT uke ee iinae 100 The amorphous resin is readily soluble in cold spirit of wine con- taining about 70 per cent. of alcohol. The solution has no acid re- action, but an extremely burning acrid taste: in fact it is to the amorphous indifferent resin that euphorbium owes its intense acridity. By evaporating the resin with alcoholic potash and neutralizing the residue with a dilute aqueous acid, a brown amorphous substance, the Euphorbic Acid of Buchheim, is precipitated. It is devoid of ye acridity of the resin from which it originated, but has a bitterish taste. From the drug deprived of the amorphous resin as above stated, ether (ether or petroleum) takes up the Huphorbon, which may be obtained in colourless, although not very distinct crystals, which are at first not free from acrid taste. But by repeated ‘crystallizations and finally boiling in a weak solution of permanganate of potassium, they may : so far purified as to be entirely tasteless, Euphorbon is insolu ra in water; it requires about 60 parts of alcohol, sp. gr. 0°830, - solution at the ordinary temperature. In boiling alcohol euphorbon dissolves abundantly, also in ether, benzol, amylic alcohol, chloroform, acetone, or glacial acetic acid. igs Euphorbon melts at 116° C. (113° to 114°, Hesse) without emitting any odour. By dry distillation a brownish oily liquid is obtained, fe :. claims further examination. If euphorbon dissolved in alan 2 allowed to form a thin film in a porcelain capsule, and 1s ' se _ Moistened with a little concentrated sulphuric acid, a fine violet hue : produced in contact with strong nitric acid slowly added by wer a glass rod. The same reaction is displayed by Lactucervn (see Lac d carium), to which in its general characters euphorbon is closely allied. ' By careful investigation a very few are _ selected fragrants, free from extra” found at last. : substances. — presbericht, ; * Fliickiger in Wittstein’s Vierteljahres- 3 Wiggers and Husemann, Jali ae schrift fiir prakt. Pharmacie, xvii 1868 3, 59 : : * 1873. 539. $2-102.—The drug analysed sebiobat of CORTEX CASCARILLA ==——i(est~*é«sSS'Y Hesse (1878) assigns to euphorbon the formula C“HO, and points out that its solutions in chloroform or ether are dextrogyrate. As to the mucilage of euphorbium, it may be obtained from tha portion of the drug which has been exhausted by cold aleohol and by ether. Neutral acetate of lead, as well as silicate or borate of. sodium, precipitate this mucilage, which therefore does not agree with gum arabic. ‘ If an aqueous extract of euphorbium is mixed with spirit of wine, and the liquid evaporated, the residual matter assumes a somewhat crystalline appearance, and exhibits the reactions of Malice Acid. Subjected to dry distillation, white scales and acicular crystals of Maleic and Fumarie Acids, produced by the decomposition of the malic acid, are sublimed into the neck of the retort. A sublimate of the same kind may sometimes be obtained directly by heating frag- ments of euphorbium. Among the mineral constituents of the drug, chloride of sodium and calcium are noticeable; scarcely any salt of potassium is present. _ Commerce—The drug is shipped from Mogador. The quantity Imported into the United Kingdom in 1870 is given in the Annual Statement of Trade as 12 ewt. Uses—Euphorbium was formerly employed as an emetic and pur- gative, but as an internal remedy it is completely obsolete. We have been told that it is now in some demand as an ingredient of a paint for the preservation of ships’ bottoms. CORTEX CASCARILLA. Cortex Eleutherice ; Cascarilla Bark, Sweet Wood Bark, Eleuthera’ Bark ; F. Ecorce de Cascarille ; G. Cascarill-Rinde. Botanical Origin—Croton Eluteria Bennett,’ a shrub or small tree, exclusively native of the Bahama Islands. : a _ _ History—It is not improbable that cascarilla bark was impor into Europe in the first half of the 17th century, as rar best er intercourse subsequent to the year 1630 between 1641 by the the Bahamas. ? These islands were occupied fs ‘ni with the Spaniards, who became at that time oes ara have shown eruvian bark or Cascarilla (see page 346) hae park of Eluteria at page 343. The external appearance of ba Bitig Note Whi similar to ek of Cinchona quills, the former ina nova. This gan soon to be known under the name of Ch ; ion is made of 1From Eleuthera, one of the Bahama documents, asia gong adler oa: of Islands, so named from the Greek éXzv0epos, the introduction, hm 1eba000, 8g, Pepper, signify ing free or independent. useful plants, ss et risti, cat “fas; “Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, pomegrens = sand jalap; and there is grisel coeds a ae sion to the importation of nr veer pom islands, but no mention Charles I, f r é : Cuan the produ ee Wf cong Haan eer ise daa iy and a complete record is extant of the pro- Colonial users M46. 148. 149. 164. ceedings of the Company for the firsteleven _ bury, ogee . + PP- years of its existence. In some of ee 168. 185. ete. N *In that year a patent was granted by 7 562 EUPHORBIACEAE. drug occurs along with true Cinchona bark, China de China, in the tariff of the year 1691 of the pharmaceutical shops of the German town Minden, in Westphalia. There can be no doubt that the cheaper kind of “China,” called China nova, was really the bark under exami- nation, for in many other tariffs a few years later distinct mention is made of Cortex Chine nove seu Schacorille; and Savary, in his “Dictionnaire de Commerce” (1723, 1750), confirms the fact, adding that it was first seen in the great fair of Brunswick.’ Another early statement concerning Cascarilla bark likewise refers to the duchy of Brunswick. Stisser, a professor of anatomy, chemistry, and medicine in the University of Helmstedt in Brunswick, relates that he received the drug under the name of Cortex Eleuterii from a person who had returned from England, in which country, he was assured, it was customary to mix it with tobacco for the sake of correcting the smell of the latter when smoked. He also mentions that it had been confounded with Peruvian bark, from which however it was very distinct in odour, ete? Eleutheria bark was then frequently prescribed as a febrifuge in the place of Cinchona bark, then a more expensive medicine. Hence the name cascarilla, signifying in Spanish little bark, which was the customary designation of Peruvian bark, was erroneously applied to the Bahama bark, until at last it quite super- seded the original and more correct appellation. That of China nova was subsequently applied to a quite different bark (see page 364). The drug under notice was first introduced into the London Pharma- copeia in 1746 as Hleutherie Cortez, which was its common name among druggists down to the end of the last century. In the Bahamas the name cascarilla is. still hardly known, the bark being there called either Sweet Wood Bark or Eleuthera Bark. : The plant affording cascarilla has been the subject of much dis- cussion, arising chiefly from the circumstance that several nearly allied West Indian species of Croton yield aromatic barks resembling more or less the officinal drug. Catesby in 1754 figured a Bahama plant, Croton Cascarilla Bennett, from which the original Hleuthera Bark was probably derived, though it certainly affords none of the cascarilla of modern commerce. Woodville in 1794, and Lindley in 1838, both investigated the botany of the subject, the latter having the advantage of authentic specimens communicated by the Hon. J. C. Lees of New — Providence, to whom one of us also is indebted for a similar favour. The question was not however finally set at rest until 1859, when J. il Bennett by the aid of specimens collected in the Bahamas by Dan! ad in 1857-8, drew up lucid diagnoses of the several plants whic been confounded, and disentangled their intricate synonymy.” Description—Cascarilla occurs in the form of tubular or channe 'Fliickiger, Pharm. Journ., vi. (1876) Nor have we seen the paper of ve be 1022, and “Documente” quoted there, pp. Garcia Salat, ‘* Unica westiunculd ag - 74:77, ete. examinatur pulvis de urango, Vit tie. Stisser (J. A.) Actorum Laboratorii carilla, in curatione tertian®, Bi Bee specimen secundum, Helmestadi, 1692. It is quoted by Haller, 5 1693. ¢. ix. Stisser is said to have men- __ ii. (1772) 688, and several later an : por Cascarilla bark in his pamphlet — but appears to be extremely rare. Soe € machinis fumiductoriis,” Hamburg, 3 Journal of Proceedings of Linn. ea 1686, but we found this to be incorrect. (1860) Bot. 29. ene air seth di CORTEX CASCARILLA.” (tsi pieces of a dull brown colour, somewhat rough and irregular, rarely exceeding 4 inches in length by } an inch in diameter. The chief bulk of that at present imported is in very small thin quills and fragments, often scarcely an inch in length, and evidently stripped from very young wood. The younger bark has a thin suberous coat easily detached, blotched or entirely covered with the silvery-white growth of a minute lichen (Verrucaria albissima Ach.), the perithecium of which appears as small black dots. The older bark is more rugose, irregularly tessellated by longitudinal cracks and less numerous ooo fissures. Beneath the corky envelope the bark is greyish- rown, The bark breaks readily with a short fracture, the broken surface displaying a resinous appearance. It has a very fragrant odour, especially agreeable when several pounds of it are reduced to coarse powder and placed in a jar; it has a nauseous bitter taste. When burned it emits an aromatic smell, and hence is a common ingredient in fumigating pastilles. Microscopic Characters—The suberous coat is made up of numerous rows of tabular cells, the outermost having their exterior walls much thickened. The mesophleeum exhibits the usual tissue, containing starch, chlorophyll, essential oil, crystals of oxalate of calcium, and a brown colouring matter. The latter assumes a dark bluish coloration on addition of a persalt of iron. In the inner portion of that layer ramified laticiferous vessels are also present. The liber consists of parenchyme and of fibrous bundles, intersected by small medulla tion, the fibrous bundles show a ullary rays. On the transverse sec nalt ips wot pr ali wedge-shaped outline; they are for the most part b her three but of cylindrical cells having their transverse Bic perforated sieve-like (vasa cribriformia). i aria eso- parenchymatous part of the liber are the same as in the ot 4 phleeum; as to the oxalate of calcium, the variety of its crystals remarkable. : i ile oil, which . Chemical Composition—Cascarilla contams volsiaie ye ada te the ci . t of 11 per cent. According to Volckel O50) is a mixture of at least two oils, the more volatile of whieh a ae of free from oxygen. Gladstone (1872) assigns 10 ne an 2 the cascarilla oil the composition of oil of turpentine. By ee fvatel oil optically we found it to have a weak rotatory apse cascarilla eualed to the right, some to the left. ie a mY ee 1S rich, has not yet been examined more exactly. The bitter reiiceas was isolated in 1845 by ey os Ecpoat Cascarillin. ©. and E. Mylius (1873) have obtained : la ble in ether mm the officinal extract, in microscopic prisms readily eat of wine. or hot aleoh ol, very sparingly in water, chloroform eet composition It melts at 205° GC, is not volatile, nor a glucoside. . answers to the formula C“#HO*. : ae the chief town of Commerce—The bark is shipped from ¥ caked 4 sacks. The ew Providence (Bahamas), and is usually pac 3961 cots quantity epee sa the United Kingdom 10 1870 was 12, : , iii, (1873) 664, For more particulars see Pocklington, Pharm. Journ. ii. (1879) ‘Beh - EO PHORBIACE AT: valued at £16,482. The exports from the Bahamas were 676 ewt. in 1875, and 1,093 ewt. in 1876. Uses—Cascarilla is prescribed as a tonic, usually in the form of a tincture or infusion. Adulteration—A spurious cascarilla bark has lately been noticed in the London market ; it was imported from the Bahamas mixed with the genuine, to which it bears a close similarity. The quills of it resemble _ the larger quills of cascarilla ; though covered with a lichen, the latter has not the silvery whiteness of the Verrucaria of cascarilla. The spurious bark has a suberous coat that does not split off; its inner surface is pinkish-brown, and distinctly striated longitudinally. In microscopic structure the bark may be said to resemble cascarilla and still more copalchi. But it is at once distinguishable by its numerous roundish growps of sclerenchymatous cells, which become very evident when thin sections are moistened with ammonia, and then with solution of iodine in iodide of potassium. The bark has an astringent. taste, without bitterness or aroma; its tincture is not rendered milky by addition of water, but is darkened by ferric chloride,—in these respects differing from a tincture of cascarilla. Mr. Holmes! suggests that this spurious cascarilla is probably the bark of Croton lucidus L. Copalchi Bark; Quina blanca of the Mexicans. This drug is derived from Croton niveus® Jacquin (C. Pseudo-Chint — Schlechtendal), a shrub growing 10 feet high, native of the West Indian Islands, Mexico, Central America, New Granada and Venezuela. _ It has occasionally been imported into Europe, in quills a foot or two in length, much stouter and thicker than those of eascarilla, to which in odour an taste it nearly approximates. The bark has a thin, greyish, pape'y suberous layer, which when removed shows the surface marked with minute transverse pits, like the lines made by a file; it has a short fracture.’ _ Copalchi bark was examined by J. Eliot Howard,‘ and found to con- tain a minute proportion of a bitter alkaloid soluble in ether, whic resembled quinine in yielding a deep green colour when treated wit chlorine and ammonia, though it did not afford any characteristic co” pound with iodine. Mauch,> whoalso analysed the bark, could not obtain : from it any organic base. He extracted by distillation the essential ou, which he found to consist of a hydrocarbon and an organic acid; “ 2 latter not examined ; he likewise got from the bark an uncrystallizable bitter principle, which proved to be not a glucoside. arm. 8 Pharm. Journ. iv. (1874) 810. Schlagdenhauffen, Journ. de Ph ; De Candolle’s Prodromus, xv. part 2, (1878) 248. . ( 862) 513; beautifully figured in Hayne, 4’ Pharm Journ. xiv. (1855) 319. fit Araneigewiichse, xiv. (1843) plate 2. 5 Wittstein’s Vierteljarhresschrift For more particulars see Oberlin and prakt, Pharm. xviii. (1869) 161. SEMEN TIGLIL _ oe SEMEN TIGLII. Semen Crotonis ; Croton Seeds, F. Graines de Tilly ow des Moluques, Petits Pignons d'Inde; G. Purgirkérner, Granatill. Botanical Origin—Croton Tiglium' L. (Tigliwm officinale Klotzsch), a small tree, 15 to 20 feet high, indigenous to the Malabar Coast and Tavoy, cultivated in gardens in many parts of the East, from Mauritius to the India Archipelago. The tree has small inconspicuous flowers, and brown, capsular, three-celled fruits, each cell containing one seed. The leaves have a disagreeable smell and nauseous taste. History—In Europe, the seeds and wood of the tree were first described in 1578 by Christoval Acosta—the former, with a figure of the plant, appearing under the name of Péiiones de Maluco2 The plant was also described and figured by Rheede (1679)* and Rumphius (1743). The seeds, which were officinal in the 17th century, but had become obsolete, were recommended ‘about 1812 by English medical officers in India,’ and the expressed oil by Perry, Frost, Conwell and others about 1821-24. The it then in use was imported from India, and was often of doubtful purity, so that some druggists felt it necessary to press the — seeds for themselves.® Description—Croton seeds are about half an inch long, by nearly 5 of an inch broad, ovoid or bluntly oblong, divided Lsccpsoae pet rate two unequal parts, of which the more arched constitutes the dorsa as the flatter the ventral side. From the hilum, a fine raised line (rap! °) Passes to the other end of the seed, terminating in a darker tae | indicating the chalaza. The surface of the seed is more or less Sib with a bright cinnamon-brown coat, which when scraped shows the t “i brittle, black testa filled with a whitish, oily kernel, invested bbe . delicate seed-coat. The kernel is easily split into two halves as of oily albumen, between which lie the large, veined, leafy coty bat and the radicle. The taste of the seed is at first merely oleaginous, bu soon becomes unpleasantly and persistently acrid. | é f Microscopic Structure—The testa consists of an — re oss radially acres, much elongated and thick-walled oe ; - edi parenchymatous layer contains small vascular bundles. oo. aad by of the albumen is loaded with drops of fatty oil. If this l elaa te means of ether and weak potash lye, there remain sma gener albuminoid matter, the so-called Alewron, and crystals of 0 calcium, br weds . gi . n . Chemical Composition—The principa on iglit SP ibdemicy ot 1s the fatty oil, the Oleum Crotonis or Olewm Lug . hoi iv. tab. 42. 1 Fig, j ‘ , lic. 4 Herbarium Amboinense, 1 tan, 1813. Plan : Big pare! Roe Trimen’s Medic. 5 Ainslie, ‘Mat, M ed. of Hindoostan * Tractado, etc., Burgos, 1578, c. 48.— 292. il was very expensive. I find by fter Speaking of the virtues of the seeds, + Tne.o Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, ne adds—* tambien las buenas mugeres de _the books of M&S 1854", and in 1827, ‘quellas partes, amigas de sus maridos, les _ that the gic oil was purchased in 1826 da hasta quatro destos por la boca, para 18s. pet Ib. at 8s. to 10s, perounce.— eubiar alos pobretos al otro mundo” ! by the same house y Hortus Malabaricus, ii. tab. 33. D. H. 566 EUPHORBIACEA,. which the kernels afford from 50 to 60 per cent. That used in England is for the most part expressed in London, and justly regarded as more reliable than that imported from India, with which the market was formerly supplied. It is a transparent, sherry-coloured, viscid liquid, slightly fluorescent, and having a slight rancid smell and an oily, acrid taste. Its solubility in aleohol (794) appears to depend in great measure on the age of the oil, and the greater or less freshness of the seeds from which it was expressed,—oxidized or resinified oil dissolving the most readily.’ We found the oil which one of us had extracted by means of bisulphide of carbon to be levogyre. _ Croton oil consists chiefly of the glycerinic ethers of the common - fatty acids, such as stearic, palmitic, myristic and lauric acids. They partly separate in the cold; the acids also may partly be obtained by passing nitrous acid through croton oil. There are also present in the latter, in the form of glycerinic ethers, the more volatile acids, as formic, acetic, isobutyric and one of the valerianic acids.2 The volatile _ part of the acids yielded by croton oil contains moreover an acid which _ was regarded by Schlippe (1858) as angelic acid, C°H80?,_ Yet in 1869 it was shown by Geuther and Frilich to be a peculiar acid, which _ they called Tiglinic acid. Its com position answers to the same formula, _ CtH’COOH, as that of angelic acid; but the melting points (angeli¢ acid 45°, tiglinie 64° C.) and boiling points (angelic acid 185°, tiglimie 198°°5) are different. Both these acids have been mentioned in our article on Flores Anthemidis, at page 386. Tiglinic acid may also be obtained artificially ; it is the methylerotonic acid of Frankland and Duppa (1865). Schlippe also stated croton oil to afford a peculiar liquid acid termed Crotonic Acid, C*H602, According to Geuther and Frolich, © however, an acid of this formula does not occur at all in croton oil. By synthetic methods three different acids of that composition are obtainable. The drastic principle of croton oil has not yet been isolated. Buchheim* suggested that the action of the oil depends upon “ Crotonoleic acid,’ which however he failed in isolating satisfactorily. It is remarkable that the wood and leaves of Croton Tiglium appeat to partake also of the drastic properties of the seeds. p Schlippe asserts that he has separated the vesicating matter 0 croton oil: if the oil be agitated with alcoholic soda, and afterwards with water, the supernatant liquor will be found free from acridity ee _ while the alcoholic solution will yield, on addition of hydrochloric acl, a small quantity of a dark brown oil, called Crotonol, possessims vesicating properties. We have not succeeded in obtaining it, 20% 8 far as we know, has any other chemist except its discoverer. eee The shells of the seeds (testa) yield upon incineration 26 per iad of ash; the kernels dried at 100° C. 3-0 per cent. | Commerce—The shipments of croton seeds arrive chiefly es a hin or Bombay, packed in cases, bales or robbins; but there 81° 5 Statistics to show the extent of the trade. ; 32.36 ton, Pharm. Journ. vi, (1865) %In the i of Wiggers po 2 Schmidt and Berendes, 1878, Husemann, 1 i le as SEMEN RICINL __ a? ge _ Uses—Croton seeds are not administered. The oil is given internally as a powerful cathartic, and is applied externally as a rubefacient. Substitutes—The seeds of Croton Pavane Hamilton, a native of — Ava and Camrup (Assam), and those of C. oblongifolius Roxb., a small tree common about Calcutta, are said to resemble those of C. Tiglium L., but we have not compared them. Those of Baliospermum montanum Mull. Arg. (Croton polyandrus Roxb.) partake of the nature of croton seeds, and according to Roxburgh are used by the natives of India as a purgative. . SEMEN RICINI. Semen Cataputice majoris ; Castor Oil Seeds, Palma Christi Seeds ; F. Semence de Ricin; G. Ricinussamen. Botanical Origin—Ricinus communis L., the castor oil plant, is @ native of India where it bears several ancient Sanskrit names. By cultivation, it has been distributed through all the tropical and many — of the temperate countries of the globe. In the regions most favourable — to its growth, it attains a height of 40 feet. In the Azores, and the warmer Mediterranean countries as Algeria, Egypt, Greece, and the Riviera, it becomes a small tree, 10 to 15 feet high; while in France, a Germany, and the south of England, it is an annual herb of noble foliage, growing to a height of 4 or 5 feet. In good summers, It ripens a England and even as far north as Christiania in Norway. lof ‘ veral of Ricinus communis exhibits a large number ee Miiller, which have been described and figured as eo ew th me after a careful examination of the whole series, ota wil eh ni single species, of which he allows 16 forms, more or less we : i Ils History—The castor oil plant was known to Herodotus who cal it Kéce, mat ates that it fiance an oil much used by the ih a in whose ancient tombs seeds of Ricinus are, in fact, met with. = ip . period when Herodotus wrote, it would appear to have been rat y - : troduced into Greece, where it is cultivated to the present day unde ue h, rendered the same ancient name! The Kikajon of De caiever tte the Seine by the translators of the English Bible gourd, ‘ plant. Kix is also vieuteohed by Strabo as a production of PaTES the oil from which is used for burning in lamps and ie gi aeoe nea Theophrastus and Nicander give the castor o! Y couiibed st as of Kpérer. Dioscorides, who calls it Kice or tee ade and seeds in a the stature of a small fig-tree, with leaves like a plat ‘ i 5 ; y lied to the prickly pericarp, observing that the name ttle 1s Soinus Satht seed on account of its resemblance to an insect Bie Known by that appellation. He also gives an a a eth for for extracting castor oil (Kécwov €Aator), whic os the seeds as food, but is used externally in medicine ; he represe 79, 54. ‘The most ancient and most usual is 3 Journ. of sonal tl Griechenla Eranda ; this word has passed into several 4 Beltre nds, other Indian languages. Athen, 1862. 55. * De Candolle, Prodr., xv. sect. 2. 1017. ‘ * 568 * EUPHORBIACES, ~ extremely purgative. There is a tolerably correct figure of Ricinus in the famous MS. Dioscorides which was executed for the Empress Juliana Anicia in A.D. 505, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna. The castor oil plant was cultivated by Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, in the middle of the 13th century.) It was well known asa garden plant in the time of Turner (1568), who mentions the oil as Olewm crcinum vel ricininum,? Gerarde, at the end of the same century, was familiar with it under the name of Ricinus or Kik. The oil he says is called Olewm cicinwm or Olewm de Cherua,* and used externally in skin diseases. After this period the oil seems to have fallen into complete neglect, and is not even noticed in the comprehensive and accurate Pharmacologia of Dale (1693). In the time of Hill (1751) and Lewis (1761) Palma Christi seeds were rarely found in the shops, and the oil from them was scarcely known.* In 1764 Peter Canvane, a physician who had practised many years in the West Indies, published a “Dissertation on the Oleum Palme Christi, sive Olewm Ricini; or (as it is commonly call’d) Castor Oil,” strongly recommending its use as a gentle purgative. This essay, which passed through two editions, and was translated into French, was followed by several others,® thus thoroughly drawing attention to the value of the oil. Accordingly we find that the seeds of Ricinus were admitted to the London Pharmacopeeia of 1788, and directions given for preparing oil from them. Woodville in his Medical Botany (1790) speaks of the oil as having “lately come into Frequent use.” tas At this period and for several years subsequently, the small supplies of the seeds and oil required for European medicine were obtained from Jamaica.’ This oil was gradually displaced in the market by that produced in the East Indies: the rapidity with which the consumption mereased may be inferred from the following figures, representing the value of the Castor Oil shipped to Great Britain from Bengal in vo Naa gg years, namely 1813-14, £610; 1815-16, £1269; 1819-20, Description—The fruit of Ricinus is a tricoccous capsule, usually _ provided with weak prickles, containing one seed in each of its three cells. The seeds attain a length of 53, to 5,, and a maximum bread of 55 of an inch, and are of a compressed ellipsoid form. The apex % the seed is prolonged into a short beak, on the inner side of which 184 Lens, Dict. de Mat. Méd. vi. (1834) 9- 7 How small was the traffic in Cast in those days, may be judged erie ie that the stock in 1777 of a Lo ' De Vegetabilibus, ed, Jessen, 1867. 34 2 Turner’s H, erbal, pt. ii, 116, ' *From the Arabic khirva, i.e. Palma hristi, ee — Hist. pg the Mat, Med., Lond. 1751. -—Lewis, Hist. of the Mat. ‘ I aa of at. Med., Lond. 5 The word castor in connection with the seeds and oil of Ricinus has come to us from Jamaica, in which island, by some strange mistake, the plant was once called Agnus Castus. The true Agnus Castus (Vitex Agnus castus L.) is a native of the Mediterranean countries and not of the: West Indies, ° For a list of which consult Mérat et De sale druggist (Joseph Gurney Bevan, Pe a decessor of Allen and i emadet valued Bottles (1 Bottle = 18 to 20 meee | at 8s. per bottle. ‘The accounts 0 1732, 8 house show at stocktaking i 100, per Bottles of the oil, which. had <— he bottle. In 1799 Jamaica ex i tk Casks of Castor Oil and 10 € 95 (Renny, Hist. of Jamaica, 1807. 2007 iy 8H. H. Wilson, Review of ;: ‘5 18) Commerce of Bengal from aa re Caleutta, 1830, tables pp. 14-19. SEMEN RICINL * aes a large tumid caruncle: from this latter proceeds the raphe as far as the lower end of the ventral surface, where it forks, its point of disappear- ance through the testa being marked by a minute protuberance. If the earuncle is broken off, a black scar, formed of two little depressions, remains. | The shining grey epidermis is beautifully marked with brownish bands and spots, and in this respect exhibits a great variety of colours and markings. It cannot be rubbed off, but may after maceration be — peeled off in leathery strips. The black testa, grey within, is not thicker than in croton seed, but is much more brittle. The kernel or nucleus fills the testa completely, and is easily separated, still covered by the soft white inner membrane. The kernel in respect to structure and situation of the embryo, agrees exactly with that of Croton Tigliwm (p. 565), excepting that the some- what gaping cotyledons of Ricinus are proportionately broader, and have their thick midrib provided with 2 or 3 pairs of lateral veins. If not rancid, the kernel has a bland taste, with but very slight acridity. Microscopic Structure—The thin epidermis consists of pentagonal or hexagonal porous tabular cells, the walls of which are penetrated in certain spots by brownish colouring matter, whence the singular markings on the seed. It is these cells only that become blackened when a thin tangential slice is saturated with a solution of ferric chloride in alcohol, : : Beneath these tabular cells there is found in the unripe ep iekaris of encrusted colourless cells, deposited in a radial direction on ees ee In the mature seed this layer of cells is not perceptible, and ‘ mgge appears to perish as the seed ripens. The testa itself is built up ns cylindrical, densely packed cells, 300 to 320 mkm. long, and 6 to mkm. in diameter. The kernel shares the structure of that of C. Tigliwm, but is devoid of crystals of oxalate of calcium. ee ae BT of Ricinus is moistened with dilute sulphuric acid, paicnlas yaa sulphate of calcium separate from it after a few hours. ied When thin slices of the kernel are examined under eam ae f glycerin, no drops of oil are visible, notwithstanding the pga this latter; and it becomes conspicuous only by addition of payee 4 it Hence it is probable that the oil exists 1m iby Ae ig e tl compound with its albuminoid contents’ As to the latter, ade @ 4 form in the albumen of Ricinus beautiful octohedra or tetrahedra, which are also found in many other seeds.” j tituent of the Chemical Composition—The most important cons | seed is the fixed ofl, oxlled Castor Oil, of which the peeled kernels afford at most half of their weight. : The oil, if most carefully prepared from peeled eee, cosine by pressure without heat, has but a slightly acrid ; ecient at only a very small proportion of the still unknown dras ic cig the seeds. Hence the seeds themselves, or 40 emulsion prepar snartiger Korper, Leipzig, = . — Annales des Sciences Nat., Bot., i ree Lrgecapy 10; Pfeffer, yee V. sl) 5~ . 61. a , } phe ne : Sache Tehrbonk der Botunil; 1816. 0A: | teen Sag eon 8 i ae fb ; * For further particulars, seeTrécul, Ann. wissenschaftliche Botanix, . des Se. Nat., Bot.,x., (1858) 355; Radlkofer, 464. — . 570 tae EUPHORBIACEA. them, act much more: strongly than a corresponding quantity of oil. Castor oil, extracted by absolute alcohol or by bisulphide of carbon, likewise purges much more vehemently than the pressed oil. ‘The castor oil of commerce has a sp. gr. of about 0°96, usually a pale yellow tint, a viscid consistence, and a very slight yet rather mawkish odour and taste. Exposed to cold, it does not in general entirely solidify until the temperature reaches — 18° C. In thin layers it dries up to varnish-like film. Castor oil is distinguished by its power of mixing in all proportions with glacial acetic acid or absolute alcohol. It is even soluble in four parts of spirit of wine (838) at 15° C., and mixes without turbidity with an equal weight of the same solvent at 25° C. The commercial varieties of the oil however differ considerably in these as well as in some other respects. _ The optical properties of the oil demand further investigation, as we have found that some samples deviate the ray of polarized light to _ the right and others to the left. . By saponification castor oil yields several fatty acids, one of which appears to be Palmitic Acid. The prevailing acid (peculiar to the oil) is Ricinoleic Acid, C*H*O®; it is solid below 0° C., does not solidify in contact with the air by absorption of oxygen, and is not homologous with oleic or linoleic acid, neither of which is found in castor oil. Castor oil is nevertheless thickened if 6 parts of it are warmed with 1 part of starch and 5 of nitric acid (sp. gr. 1:25), Ricinelaidin being thus formed. From this Ricinelaidic Acid may easily be obtained in brilliant crystals, As to the albuminoid matter of the seed, Fleury (1865) obtained 3°23 per cent. of nitrogen which would answer to about 20 per cent. 0 such substances. The same chemist further extracted 46°6 per cent. fixed oil, 2°2 of sugar and mucilage, besides 18 per cent. of cellulose. Tuson in 1864, by exhausting castor oil seeds with boiling water, obtained from them an alkaloid which he named Ricinine. He states that it crystallizes in rectangular prisms and tables, which when heated fuse, and upon cooling solidify as a crystalline mass; the crystals may even be sublimed. Ricinine dissolves readily in water or alcohol, less freely in ether or benzol. With mercuric chloride, it combines to form tufts of silky crystals, soluble in water or alcohol. Werner (1869) on repeating Tuson’s process on 30 Ib. of Italian castor oil seeds, also ob- tained a crop of crystals, which in appearance and solubility had many _ of the characters ascribed to ricinine, but differed in the essential point that when incinerated they left a residuum of magnesia. Werner regarded them as the magnesium salt of a new acid. Tuson* repudiates the suspicion that ricinine may be identical with Werner's magnes!Um compound. E. 8. Wayne of Cincinnati (1874) found in the leaves a Ricinus a substance apparently identical with Tuson’s ricinine; bu he considers that it has no claim to be called an alkaloid. The testa of castor oil seeds afforded us 10:7 per cent. of ash, one tenth of which we found to consist of silica. The ash of the kern previously dried at 100 C. amounts to only 3°5 per cent. Production and Commerce—Castor oil is most extensively he * Chemical News, xxii. (1870) 229. SEMEN RICIN. = iti—itisL:CS duced in India, where two varieties of the seeds, the large and the small, are distinguished, the latter being considered to yield the better pro- duct. In manufacturing the oil, the seeds are gently crushed between rollers, and freed by hand from husks and unsound grains. At Caleutta, 100 parts of seed yield on an average 70 parts of cleaned kernels, which by the hydraulic press afford 46 to 51 per cent. of their weight of oil; the oil is afterwards subjected to a very imperfect process of purifica- tion by heating it with water. The exports of castor oil from Calcutta? in the year 1870-71 amounted to 654,917 gallons, of which 214,959 gallons were shipped to — the United Kingdom. ‘The total imports of castor oil into the United Kingdom‘ in the year 1870 were returned as 36,986 ewt. (about 416,000 gallons), valued at £82,490. Of this quantity, British India (chiefly Bengal) furnished about two-thirds; and Italy 11,856 ewt. (about 133,000 gallons), while a small remainder is entered as from “ other parts.” In 1876 the imports were 79,677 ewt., valued at £133,838. _ Italian Castor Oil, which has of late risen into some celebrity, is pressed from the seed of plants grown chiefly about Verona and Legnago, in the north of Italy. The manufactory of Mr. Bellino Valeri at the latter town produced in the year 1873, 1200 quintals of castor oil, entirely from Italian seed. Two varieties of Ricinus are cultivated in these localities, the black-seeded Egyptian and the red-seeded American; the latter yields the larger percentage, but the oil is not so pale in colour, The seeds are very carefully deprived of their gg Sear and having been crushed, are submitted to pressure In apa tate ‘ hydraulic presses, placed in a room which in winter is heated to abi tee 21°C. The outflow of oil is further promoted by plates of a 7 keéds " 2 ae C. being placed between the press-bags. The: peeled ‘see oe yield about 40 per cent. of oil. : All the ae oil pressed in Italy is not pressed ane ae pes By an official return’ it appears that in the year 1872-7 3 aa ei exported from Bombay to Genoa 1350 ewt. of castor oil = 8, set 2452 gallons of castor oil. There are no data to show what was ported from the other presidencies of India in that year. ce i fe purgative; while — Uses—Castor oil is much valued as a mild ane rv FE nee burning the commoner qualities are used in soap-making, in lamps. Tho seeds are not now administered. emir ge hci plant applied in decoction to the breasts of women are a hice ae or even to occasion the secretion of milk. This pro ie SS he par- long been known to the inhabitants of the Cape Verd Ge " It has even ticularly observed by Dr. M‘William about the year 185 ed when been found that the galactagogue powers of the plant are e leaves are administered internally. t the Trade and 0 yp eoase Exhibition of Raw a ete. mS sa parrre , Say of Bombay for outhern India,—Reports by the Juries, a 7. 88, Madras, 1856.28, 8 1872-78, part ii 87 ike South Seas, Lond. Annual Volume of Trade and Naviga- Poet hed in his Herbal (1568) tion for the Bengal Presidency for 1870-71, 1717. P. lant an opposite character, for Calcutta, 1871. 119. ae as leaves, says he, ‘‘swage the * Annual Statement of the Trade, ete. of = tes or pappes swellinge wyth to muche the U.K. for 1870.—No later returns. qlenty of milke.” ak “e Groves, Pharm. Journ. viii. (1867) me EUPHORBIACEA. KAMALA. Kamela, Glandule Rotilere. Botanical Origin—Mallotus philippimensis* Miiller Arg. (Croton philippensis Lam., Rottlera tinctoria Roxb., Echinus philippinensis Baillon), a large shrub, or small tree, attaining 20 or 45 feet in height, of very wide distribution. It grows in Abyssinia and Southern Arabia, throughout the Indian peninsulas, ascending the mountains to 5000 feet above the sea-level, in Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago, the Philip- pines, the Loo-choo islands, Formosa, Eastern China and in North _ Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. ; The tricoccous fruits of many of the Euphorbiacee are clothed with prickles, stellate hairs, or easily removed glands. This is especially the case in. the several species of Mallotus, most of which have the capsules covered with stellate hairs, together with small glands. In that under notice, the capsule is closely beset with ruby-like glands - which, when removed by brushing and rubbing, constitute the powder known by the Bengali name of Kamala. These glands are not con- fined to the capsule, but are scattered over other parts of the plant, especially among the dense tomentum with which the under side of the leaf is covered. History—In India the glands of Mallotus have been long known, for they have several ancient Sanskrit names: one of these is Kapila, which as well as the Telugu Kapila-podi, is sometimes used by Europeans, though not so frequently as the word Kamala or Kamela, which belongs to the Hindustani, Bengali and Guzratt languages. The Sanskrit word Kapila signifies tawny ot dusky red, the Tamil Podi means the pollen of a flower or dust in general. It does not appear that as a drug the glandular powder of M allotus, or as it is more conveniently called, Kamala, attracted any particular notice in Europe until a very recent period, though it is named by Ainslie, Roxburgh, Royle and Buchanan, the last of whom gives an interesting account of its collection and uses. In 1852, specimens 0 it as found in the bazaar of Aden, under the old Arabic name of Wars, were sent to one of us by Port-Surgeon Vaughan, with information sed to its properties as a dye for a silk and as a remedy in cutaneous diseases. But the real introduction of the drug as a useful medicine 18 due to Mackinnon, surgeon in the Bengal Medical Establishment, administered it successively in numerous cases of tapeworm. | se of Calcutta, C. A. Gordon, and Corbyn in India, and Leared in lone : confirmed the observations of Mackinnon, and - fully established o fact that kamala is an efficient tenifuge.* It was introduced into "° British Pharmacopeia in 1864. fig: in Bentley and ‘Trimen’s Med. (Lond. 1807) i. 168. 204. 211, ti. 34%, 459 Plants, part i (1875.)—A. beauti "n, Xils i : i a tiful figure 3 Hanbu Pharm, Journ. o in Roxburgh, Plants of the ahi i. goon Papers, 73: a ae mandel i, (1798) tab 168, 08 % COO 386. Shs or Bienes 408 5 Science POPe * Journey through Mysore, Canara, etc., 75. KAWALAST¢ 573 An analogous drug is mentioned by Paulus Aegincta’ in the 7th century as well as by the Arabian physicians? as early as the 10th century, under the name of Kanbil or Wars. ° Ibn Khurdédbah, an Arab geographer, living A.D. 869-885, states that from Yemen come striped silks, ambergris, wars, and gum.’ It is described to be a reddish yellow powder like sand, which falls on the ground in the valleys of Yemen, and is a good remedy for tapeworm and cutaneous diseases. One writer compares it to powdered saffron ; another speaks of two kinds,—an Abyssinian which is black (or violet), and an Indian which is ved. Masudi,‘ in the first half of the 10th cen- tury speaks of ginbil, which he says consists of sandy fruits of red hue. They are useful as an anthelminthic and for cutaneous diseases. A similar explanation of the qinbil is found in Qamus, a dictionary writer in the 13th century in Yemen. About the year 1216, a learned traveller, Abul Abbas Ahmad Annabati,’ (Annabati=the botanist) or Abul Abbas el-Nebdti, who was a native of Seville, remarks that the drug is known in the Hejaz and brought from Yemen, but that it is unknown in Andalusia and does not grow there. : ; Kazwini,’ nearly at the same period, was also acquainted with wars, a plant sown in Yemen and resembling Sesam; Constantinus Africanus wei mentioned “huars.’ Wars, Wors, Wurrus or Warras in rabia properly signifies saffron. In sisi ‘ikiael ae find Niebuhr’ speaks of the same substance : (as “wars ”), stating it to be a dye-stuff, of which quantities are con- — veyed from Mokha to Oman. Production—Kamala is one of the minor products of the Govern- ment forests in the Madras Presidency, but is also collected in many other parts of India. The following particulars have been commnnut: cated to us by a correspondent * in the North-west Provinces :— ice “. . . Enormous quantities of Rotilera tunctorva 7 prac Srowing at the foot of these hills, and every season numbers 0 re chiefly women and children, are engaged in collecting. the pow rains exportation to the plains. They gather the berries in large ager and throw them into a great basket in which they roll them oe rubbing them with their hands so as to divest them of the powder, _ Tubbing ‘ ‘ ived below which falls through the basket as through a sieve, rae e awhila ee on a cloth spread for the purpose. This powder forn : 3 commerce, nd is in arse seniite as an asain Eps ef sing bee tensively used as a dye. The adulterations are chie 1, e ~acishe age leaves, and the fruit-stalks with a little earthy matter, but te peressise is not large. The operations of picking the fruit i 4 fate about 6 powder commence here in the beginning of ae month “ : it i Se ee a : : bia, whence it 1s A similar powder is collected in sghege Aine RE under shipped to the Persian Gulf and Bombay. brought, un he name of Wars, from Hurrur, a town in Eastern Africa, which is a ae sries dor, i. (Paris, 1861) 367. , Adams’ translat. iii. 457. ° 5 mee by Ibn we bem Quoted by Ibn Baytar,—see Sonthei- 6 }:d, Lichtenfels, i. (Géttingen, 1849). mer’s translation, ii. (1842) 326. 585. 7 Description de VA rabie, 1774. 133. Ibn Khordadbeh, Livre des routes etc.— 8 F, E. G. Matthews, Esq., of Nainee Tal. Journ, Asiatique, v. (1865) 295. ; : ae _ EUPHORBIACER, great trading station between the Galla countries and Berbera! Yet the Arabian and African drug consists in most cases not of kamala, but of those dark glands which we describe further on, at p. 575. Description—Kamala is a fine, granular, mobile powder, consisting _of transparent, crimson granules, the bright colour of which is mostly somewhat deadened by the admixture of grey stellate hairs, minute fragments of leaves and similar foreign matter. It is nearly destitute of taste and smell, but an alcoholic solution poured into water emits a _ melon-like odour. Kamala is scarcely acted on by water, even at a boiling heat; on the other hand, alcohol, ether, chloroform or benzol extract from it a splendid red resin. Neither sulphuric nor nitric acid _ acts upon it in the cold, nor does oil of turpentine become coloured by it unless warmed. It floats on water, but sinks in oil of turpentine. When sprinkled over a flame, it ignites after the manner of lycopodium. Heated alone, it emits a slight aromatic odour; if pure, it leaves after incineration about 1°37 per cent. of a grey ash. _ Microscopic Structure—The granules of kamala are irregular _ spherical glands, 50 to 60 mkm. in diameter ; they have a wavy surface, are somewhat flattened or depressed on one side, and enclose within their delicate yellowish membrane a structureless yellow mass in which are imbedded numerous, simple, club-shaped cells containing a homogeneous, transparent, red substance. These cells are grouped ina radiate manner around the centre of the flattened side, so that on the side next the observer, 10 to 30 of them may easily be counted, while the entire gland may contain 40 to 60. In a few cases, a very short stalk-cell is also seen at the centre of the base. When the glands are exhausted by alcohol and potash, and broken by pressure between flat pieces of glass, they separate into individual cells which swell up slightly, while the membranous envelope is com- pletely detached, and appears as a simple coherent film. After this treatment the cells, but not their membranous envelope, acquire by prolonged 'contact with strong sulphuric acid and iodine water a more or less brown or blue colour: the wllas of the cells alone correspon therefore to cellulose. Vogl (1864) supposes that a cell of the epidermis of the fruit first developes a young cellule, which by partition is resolve mto the stalk-cell and the true mother-cell of the small clavate resi0- cellules. At first, the contents of the latter do not differ from the mass in which they are imbedded, and perhaps pass gradually into resin by metamorphosis of the cellular substance. The glands of kamala are always accompanied by colourless 0 brownish, thick-walled, stellate hairs, two or three times as long as te glands, often containing air, which do not exhibit any peculiarity ° form, but resemble the hairs of other plants, as Verbascwm or Althea. Chemical Composition—Kamala has been analysed by Anderson of Glasgow (1855) and by Leube (1860). From the labours of er chemists, it appears that the powder yields to alcohol or ether st 80 per cent. of resin. We find it to be soluble also in glacial acetic acl f or in bisulphide of carbon, not in petroleum ether. By treatment 0 the resin extracted by ether with cold alcohol, Leube resolved 1t 1 ‘Burton, Journ, of R. Geogr. Society, Mittheilungen, Ergiinzungsheft, xiv. dae i ‘9, xxv. (1855) 146, Hage nmmach ise i das Somaliland, in Mibekas Gaye two brittle reddish yellow resins, of which the one is more easily soluble and fuses at 80° C., and the other dissolves less readily and fuses at 191°. Both dissolve in alkaline solutions, and can be precipitated by acids without apparent change. Anderson found that a concentrated ethereal solution of kamala allowed to stand for a few days, solidified into a mass of granular erystals, which by repeated solution and crystallization in ether were obtained in a state of purity. This substance, named by Anderson Rottlerin,’ forms minute, platy, yellow crystals of a fine satiny lustre, readily soluble in ether, sparingly in cold alcohol, more so in hot, and insoluble in water. The mean of four analyses gave the composition of rottlerin as C22H2908, We have been able to confirm the foregoing observations so far as that we have obtained an abundance of minute acicular crystals, by allowing an ethereal solution of kamala to evaporate spontaneously to a syrupy state. But the purification of these crystals, which was also attempted by our friend Mr. T. B. Groves, was unsuccessful, for when freed from the protecting mother-liquor, they underwent a change and assumed an amorphous form. We have, on the other hand, succeeded in isolating the crystals from the “Kamalin,” as sold by E. Merck of Darmstadt. By fusing them with caustic potash we obtained paraoxy- benzoic acid (see page 408). : Uses—The drug is administered for the expulsion of tapeworm ; it has also been used as an external application in herpes circvmnatus. In India it is employed for dyeing silk a rich orange-brown. Adulteration—Kamala is very liable to adulteration with earthy substances, even to the extent of 60 per cent. This contamination eh easily be known by the grittiness of the drug, and by a at ait sinking when it is stirred up with water, but in the “ a “ Lig manner by incineration. Sometimes kamala contains an Y Aree portion of foreign vegetable matter, as remains of the a se i ete, which can partly be separated by a lawn sieve. ‘3 : pies with a large quantity of very impure Kamala in the daa (1878), which was offered for cleaning polished metallic sur: ea fins Substitute—A very remarkable form of so-called kamala 1 #8 . ; : Allen and Hanburys, druggists, imported in 1867 from Aden by Messrs. Alle hite calico bage, of of London? It arrived neatly packed in oblong, whl di oe ne 83 three sizes, each inscribed with Arabic characters, 1m oe age eahk name of the vendor or collector, a native of Hurrur, Be ture which was either 100, 50, or 25 Turkish ounces. Nom supplies, in all 136 Ib., could be obtained. ; The oe a: in coarser particles than gece * So oe purple, and had a distinct odour resembling that w Ah set when a tincture of kamala is poured into water. itch upon carefully collected and was free from earthy admixture, ‘ FF priented incineration 12 per cent. of ash, Under the microsco] : : indri beonical, 170 still greater differences, the grains being eyunsoes sa = ie to 200 mkm. long, by 70 to 100 mkm. broad, with oblong ‘See Science Papers, 78 one of us in re Journ. ix. (1868) 279, * Yearbook of Phermains 1872. 599. with wood-cuts. * It has been particularly described by ee ee -PIPERACEA. arranged perpendicularly in three or four storeys; mixed with the grains were a few long, simple hairs. Another fact of some interest is, that at a temperature of 93° to 100° C., this drug becomes quite black, while kamala undergoes no change of colour. In 1878 our friend Professor Schir was informed by a Swiss firm, Messrs. Furrer and Escher of Aden, that Kanbil, Qinbil or Kamala are unknown there. But they sent under the name of Vars a powder, which Prof, Schiir as well as one of us (F.) find identical with the drug which had been imported by Messrs. Allen and Hanbury. Prof. Schir was also informed that Vars is used chiefly in the coast distriets of Mascat (Oman) and Hadramaut, in skin diseases, for expelling the tape worm and as a dye. Thus the appellation Wurrus or Waras is to be restricted to the dark purple or violet glands occurring in eastern Africa and Yemen, although the Waras sent to one of us’ by Vaughan was kamala. As to the mother-plant of Waras? we have no information to offer; we attempted in vain to ascertain its origin. It is evident that it is the “black Abyssinian” powder already alluded to at page 573. PIPERACEA. FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRI. Piper nigrum; Black Pepper ; ¥. Poivre noir; G. Schwarzer Pfeffer: Botanical Origin—Piper nigrum L—The pepper plant is @ perennial climbing shrub, with jointed stems branching dichotomously, and broadly ovate, 5- to 7-nerved, stalked leaves. The slender flower- spikes are opposite the leaves, stalked, and from 3 to 6 inches long; and the fruits are sessile and fleshy. d Piper nigrum is indigenous to the forests of Travancore at Malabar, whence it has been introduced into Sumatra, Java, —_ the Malay Peninsula, Siam, the Philippines and the West Indies. History—Pepper? is one of the spices earliest used by mankind, and although now a commodity of but small importance in Gol ave with sugar, coffee, and cotton, it was for many ages the staple artic s _ of trade between Europe and India. It would require in fact a Mein to give a full idea of the prominent importance of peppet i middle ages. _ In the 4th century B.c.,, Theophrastus noticed the existence of - kinds of pepper (xé7epz), probably the Black Pepper and Long ebisse of modern times. Dioscorides stated pepper to be a production °s India, and was acquainted with White Pepper (Aevkov mémept)s Pliny information on the same subject is curious; he tells us that in = eae a pound of long pepper was worth 15, of white 7, and of black ae 4 denarii; and expresses his astonishment that mankind pease ? Hanbury, Science Papers 73 varieties has passed into almost al! c *s 2 Some information will be met with in guages, wotiga ful the Sanskrit at ai : Po Siegen Account of Aden, 1877. p. Long Pepper, pippali, the chan » rsians, i i n 1875-1876 there were exported into r having been made by er ting: er Aden 42,975 Ib. of Waras. whose ancient language the / 1s — he word pepper, which with slight - FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRL == »~—s577 highly esteem pepper, which was neither a sweet taste nor attractive appearance, or any desirable quality besides a certain pungency. In the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about A.D, 64, it is stated that pepper is exported from Baraké, the shipping place of Nelkunda, in which region, and there only, it grows in great quantity. These have been identified with places on the Malabar Coast between Mangalore and Calicut.’ Long pepper and Black pepper are among the Indian spices on which the Romans levied duty at Alexandria about A.D. 176 Cosmas Indicopleustes, a merchant, and in later life a monk, who wrote about A.D. 540, appears to have visited the Malabar Coast, or at all events had some information about the pepper-plant from an eye- witness. It is he who furnishes the first particulars about it, stating that it is a climbing plant, sticking close to high trees like a vine. Its native country he calls Male* The Arabian authors of the middle ages, as Ibn Khurdddbah (circa A.D. 869-885), Edrisi in the middle of the 12th, and Ibn Batuta in the 14th century, furnished nearly similar searoha lant with some exact- Among Europeans who described the pepper plant wi ness, one of the first was Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the Malabar Coast in A.D. 1166, Another was the Catalan friar, Jordanus,’ about 1330; he described the plant as something like ivy, climbing trees and forming fruit, like that of the wild vine. “This fruit, he says, “is at first green, then, when it comes to maturity, black.’ Nearly the arty statements are repeated by Nicolo Conti, a Venetian, nin: Su arg beginning of the 15th century, spent twenty-five years 1m whe bling He observed the plant in Sumatra, and also described it as resem ivy. SIPs ed In Europe, pepper during the middle ages was pthc BENE PE and fiipertant of Mall spices, and the very symbol of the TS wari which Venice’ Genoa, and the commercial cities of es ap dere pe were indebted for a large part of their wealth ; and its a al means of promoting commercial activity during anebersa ne aa be the civilizing intercourse of nation with nation, can scatee y overrated. d Tribute was levied in n° an Spice, which was often ae medium of mE of the Goths, was scarce. During the siege of Rome by. mee Ted among other A.D. 408, the ransom demanded from the city inelu a 3000 pounds things 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds ee. oS . . Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of — solem. the Ancients. ii av. Jah 5th century PVinesnk: palisienid Se also Meyer, 7In the tI = in pepper Geschichte der Botanik, ii, (1865) 167. a eS a been the vicinity of the * Migne, Patrologie Cursus, series Grea, appears Giacomo de Rialto at Venice. Ixxxviti, (1860) 443, 446. rae o capitolate* dei ee ar (as in Malad ly signifies in n ; + (German court) in bei oe Malabar) merely sign fontego dei eee rhoms, Berlin, 1874, 5 Mirabilia descrinia by Friar Jordanvs, Venezia, 116, is devoted to translated oa Col. Vale ” socided Hakluyt — the chapter ae Pe ever.” society, 1863.27, : “La mereadanin Thea of this, see Histoire eee Piperis arbor persimilis est edere, 8 —, an Fr aneaie, : par le G gana ejus viridia ad formam grani juniperi, de la vie pr velle éd., ii. (1815) 182. que modico cinere aspersa torrentur “s Pca: now a ees PIPERACE:, of pepper... After the conquest of Ceesarea in Palestine, a.p. 1101, by the Genoese, each of them received two pounds of pepper and 48 soldi for his part of the booty.2 Facts of this nature, of which a great number might be enumerated, sufficiently illustrate the part played _ by this spice in medizeval times. : The general prevalence during the middle ages of pepper-rents, which consisted in an obligation imposed upon a tenant to supply his lord with a certain quantity of pepper, generally a pound, at stated times, shows how acceptable was this favourite condiment, and how great the desire of the wealthier classes to secure a supply of it when the market was not always certain.* The earliest reference to a trade in pepper in England that we have met with, is in the Statutes of Ethelred, A.D. 978-1016,‘ where it is enacted that the Easterlings coming with their ships to Billingsgate should pay at Christmas and Easter for the privilege of trading with London, a small tribute of cloth, five pairs of gloves, ten pounds of pepper, and two barrels of vinegar. . Fae The merchants who trafficked in spices were called Piperarii,—in English Pepperers, in French Poivriers or Pebriers. As a fraternity or guild, they are mentioned as. existing in London in the Reign of Henry IL (aD, 1154-1189). They were subsequently incorporated as the Grocers’ Company, and had the oversight and control of the trade in spices, drugs, dye-stuffs, and even metals.° : _ The price of pepper during the middle ages was always exorbitantly high, for the rulers of Egypt extorted a large revenue from all those who were engaged in the trade in it and other spices.’ Thusin England between A.D. 1263 and 1399, it averaged 1s. per lb., equivalent to about 8s. of our present money. It was however about 2s. per lb. (= 16s) between 1350 and 13603 In 1370 we find pepper in France valued 7 “id 6 a per Ib. (= fr. 21. ¢: 30) :—in 1542 at a price equal to fr. per lb. dl The high cost of this important condiment contributed to incite the Portuguese to seek for a sea-passage to India. It was envi time after the discovery of this passage (A.D. 1498) that the price of pepper first experienced a considerable fall; while about the same period the cultivation of the plant was extended to the western islands of the Malay Archipelago. The trade in peppel continued to be a monopoly of the Crown of Portugal as late as . 18th century. ee: The Venetians used every effort to retain the valued traffic in their own hands, but in vain; and it was a fact of general interest when o» the 21st of January 1522 a Portuguese ship brought for the first 4™° 27 Feb. 1874, Zosimus, Historia (Lips. 1784) lib. v. ec. ment in a commercial paper, the public 2 Bel : ; that the stock of pepper 7 wee 18 grano, Vita privata dei Genovesi warehouses of London the prev! 87 5. 152. : was 6035 tons! at Livery ] Rogers, Agriculture and Prices in Eng- Herbert, Hist. of the twelve gr 303, 310 ey eg 626. The term peppercorn Companies of London, Lond. ee siatiques | onle which has survived to our times, now 7 Reinaud, Nouveau Journ . =. | rs ot marina) payment. 1829, Juillet, 22-51. ae “ 8 and Institutes of England, 8 Rogers, op. cit. i. . privée sain ent by the Record Commission, i. ® Leber, A ppréciation de a iter 305. iki au moyen-dge, 6d. 2, Paris, 1 7. °A striking contrast to tie dincnicis. yen-dige, - FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRI. ee the spices of India direct to the city of Antwerp. Strange to say, they were received with great mistrust! Pepper was heavily taxed in England. In 1628 the imposts levied on it amounted to 5s per lb.; and even down to 1823 it was subject to a duty of 2s. 6d. per tb. Production—In the south-west of India, the plant, or Pepper Vine as it is called, grows on the sides of the narrow valleys where the soil is rich and moist, producing lofty trees by which a constant, favourable coolness is maintained. In such places the pepper-vine rans along the ground and propagates itself by striking out roots into the soil. The natives tie up the end of the vines lying on the ground to the nearest tree, on the bark of which the stems put out roots so far as they have been tied, the shoots above that hanging down. The plant is capable of growing to a height of 20 or 30 feet, but for the sake of convenience it is usually kept low, and is often trained on poles. In places where no vines occur naturally, the plant is propagated by planting slips near the roots of the trees on which it is to climb. . The pepper plants if grown on a rich soil begin to bear even in the first year, and continue to increase in productiveness till about the fifth, when they yield 8 to 10 lb. of berries per plant, which is about the average produce up to the age of 15 to 20 years; after this they begin to decline. : : When one or two berries at the base of the spike begin to turn red, the whole spike is pinched off. Next day the berries are rubbed off with the hands and picked clean; then dried for three days on mats, or on smooth hard ground, or on bamboo baskets near a gentle fire. ee In Malabar the pepper-vine flowers in May and June, a we fruits become fit for gathering at the commencement of the following year.’ d in the island of Rhio a d in the isian ‘ _ The largest quantities of pepper are produce coast of the Malayan hear Singapore, in Djohor (in the south-eastern Peninsula)’ and in Peosad The latter island affords on an average about one-half of the total crop. uits grow somewhat Description—The small, round, berry-like fr : loosely to the number of 20 to 30, on a common pendant aeoeeeen hey are at first green, then become red, and if allow d by dr rig yellow ; but they are gathered before complete maturity, otis cf he in that state turn blackish grey or brown. If left until rc ring y ose some of their pungency, and gradually fall off. tele tay diameter The berries after drying are spherical, about + aie ecaatnn of wrinkled on the surface, indistinctly pointed = ait - by the 3- or the very short pedicel, and crowned still more indistinctly y seed, the 4-lobed stigma. The thin pericarp tightly encloses & a dawaleped embryo of which in consequence of premature eee oa The seed and merely replaced by a cavity situated below the ap albumen, grey itself contains within the thin red-brown testa a ie and peculiar and horny without, and mealy within. The pungent Smell of pepper are familiar to all. : f a grain of Microscopic Structure—The —o ial ii For a full account of the cultivation of through EO < erggein ae Pepper, see Buchanan, Journey from Madras (1807) : 580 PIPERACE. black pepper exhibits a soft yellowish epidermis, covering the outer pericarp. ‘This is formed of a closely-packed yellow layer of large, mostly radially arranged, thick-walled cells, each containing in its small cavity a mass of dark-brown resin. The middle layer of the pericarp consists of soft, tangentially-extended parenchyme, containing an abundance of extremely small starch granules and drops of oil. The shrinking of this loose middle layer is the chief cause of the deep wrinkles on the surface of the berry. The next inner layer of the pericarp exhibits towards its circumference tangentially-arranged, soft parenchyme, the cells of which possess either spiral striation or spiral fibres, but towards the interior loose parenchyme, free from starch, and containing very large oil-cells. The testa is formed in the first place of a row of small yellow thick-walled cells. Next to them follows the true testa, as a dense, dark-brown layer of lignified cells, the individual outlines of which are undistinguishable. The albumen of the seeds consists of angular, radially-arranged, large-celled parenchyme. Most of its cells are colourless and loaded with starch; others contain a soft yellow amorphous mass. If thin slices are kept under glycerin for some time, these masses are slowly transformed into needle-shaped crystals of piperin. Chemical Composition—Pepper contains resin and essential oil, to the former of which its sharp pungent taste is due. The essential oil has more of the smell than of the taste of pepper! The drug yields from 1°6 to 22 per cent. of this volatile oil, which agrees with oil of turpentine in composition as well as in specific gravity and _ boiling point. We find it, in a column 50 mm. long, to deviate the ray © polarized light 1°-2 to 3°-4 to the left. : The most interesting constituent of pepper, Piperin, which pepper yields to the extent of 2 to 8 per cent., agrees in composition with the formula C’H"NO’, like morphine. Piperin has no action on litmus paper; it is not capable of combining directly with an acid, yet unites with hydrochloric acid in the presence of mercuric and other me 2 chlorides, forming crystallizable compounds. It is insoluble in water ; when perfectly pure, its crystals are devoid of colour, taste and, sme Its alcoholic solution is without action on polarized light. Piperin may be resolved, as found by Anderson in 1850, into Piperie Acid, CH" fs and Piperidine, CH"N. The latter is a liquid colourless alka boiling at 106° C., having the odour of pepper and ammonia, and direct yielding erystallizable salts. i] in Besides these constituents, pepper also contains some fatty * . the mesocarp. Of inorganic matter, it yields upon incineration 41 to 5:7 per cent. hich Commerce—Singapore is the great emporium for peppe meee 197,478 peculs (261 aliens lb.) waoiigsoies there in1877. Thelen ‘he part of it finds its way to England. The import of pepper 070 United Kingdom during 1872, was 27,576,710 lb. valued at #/° eritls ‘ As noticed by Rheede in 1688: “ ever obtained long before by: and : pete ex pipere destillatum levem piperis Cordus, Guintherus Andernacenst namowll Hort. Malabe@a Saporis parum acris.”— Porta (see our article Cortex ee - Malad. vii, 24.—The oil was how- ge 526). FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRI. ; 581 Of this quantity, the Straits Settlements supplied 25,000,000 Ib., and British India 256,000 lb. Of the quantity of 25,917,070 lb., imported in 1876 into Great Britain, the home consumption was 9 million 1b. The exports of pepper from the United Kingdom in 1872 amounted to 17,891,620 lb., the largest quantity being taken by Germany (5,201,574 1b.) Then follows Italy (2,288,647 Ib.); and Russia, Holland and Spain, each of which took more than a million pounds.’ The varieties of pepper quoted in price-currents are Malabar, Aleppee and Cochin, Penang, Singapore, Siam. : A large quantity is also shipped from Singapore to China, the im- ports of that country in 1877 of both black and white pepper, being 53,844 peculs (7,179,200 Ib.) Uses—Pepper is not of much importance as a medicine, and is rarely if ever prescribed, except indirectly as an ingredient of some preparation, Adulteration—Whole pepper is not, we believe, liable in Europe to adulteration ;? but the case is widely different as regards the pulver- ized spice. Notwithstanding the enormous penalty of £100, to which the manufacturer, possessor, or seller of adulterated pepper 1s liable? and the low cost of the article, ground pepper has hitherto been on per sophisticated by the addition of the starches of cereals and potatoes, 0 sago, mustard husks, linseed and capsicum. _The admixture of these substances may for the most part be readily detected, after some practice, by the microscope.! White Pepper. This form of the spice is prepared from black pepper oe Pigesthin its dark outer layer of pericarp, and thereby depriving id oh pte: of its pungency. It is mentioned by Dioscorides, yet phe! al ane very little known in Europe even during the middle aoe a ala of Platearius, white pepper was supposed to se dnote te? pas ie from Piper nigrum. 5 uchanan,’ referring to Travancore, remark made by allowing the penis to ripen; the bunches eae and having been kept for three days 1m the — fe and polp are bruised in a basket with the hand till all the s removed. rer The finest white pepper is obtained from Tellicherry, on the Malab: that white pepper is : aces for its _ Coast, but only in small quantity. The more np ene export 0 preparation are the Straits Settlements, nope stig, Most of the white pepper from Singapore in 1877 was 48,400 pe In Europe, : eee ed. Spice finds its way to China, where it 1s highly nt Pepper in its natural state is with good reason P 11, Food and its Adulter- * Annual Statement of the Trade of the * Consult, won 42; Evans, Pharm. U.K. for 1872. 59. 125. Tome i860) 605. gore * According to Moodeen Sheriff (Suppl. to Journ. 1. O° antidotarium Nicolai. ecxlvi. Pharm. of India, 134) the berries of Embelia 5 Gloss ™ a ae (Samara) Ribes, order Myrsinea, are said to baci the work quoted, page 579, ii. 465, Sometimes used for adulterating black In d iii. 224. Pep per in the Indian bazaars. gastousaetae By the 59 George III. c. 53 § 22 (1819). . 582 PIPERACEA, The grains of white pepper are of rather larger sizé than those of black, and of a warm greyish tint. They are nearly spherical or a little flattened. At the base the skin of the fruit is thickened into a blunt prominence, whence about 12 light stripes run meridian-like towards the depressed summit. If the skin is scraped off, the dark-brown testa is seen enclosing the hard translucent albumen. In anatomical struc- ture, as well as in taste and smell, white pepper agrees with black, which in fact it represents in a rather more fully-grown state. White pepper appears to afford on an average not more than 19 per cent. of essential oi) but to be richer in piperin, of which Cazeneuve and. Caillol (1877) extracted as much as 9 per cent. The amount of ash yielded by white pepper is 1‘ per cent. on an average, that is to _ say, considerably less than by black pepper. FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGI. Piper longum ; Long Pepper; ¥F. Poivre long ; G. Langer Pfeffer. Botanical Origin—Piper officinarum OC. DC. (Chavica* offer narum Miq,), a dicecious shrubby plant, with ovate-oblong acuminate leaves, attenuated at the base, and having pinnate nerves. It 1s a native of the Indian Archipelago, as Java, Sumatra, Celebes and Timor. Long pepper is the fruit spike, collected and dried shortly before it reaches maturity. Piper longum L? (Chavica Roxburghit Miq.), a shrub indigenous ~ Malabar, Ceylon, Eastern Bengal, Timor and the Philippines, also yields long pepper, for the sake of which it is cultivated along the eastern and western coasts of India, It may be distinguished from the previous species by its 5-nerved leaves, cordate at the base.* Cae History—A drug termed Ilézep: waxpov, Piper longum, was kno to the ancient Caseks and Sake and cae Te Sastril same as the Long Pepper of modern times. ; In the Latin verses bearing the name of Macer Floridus,* which were probably written in the 10th century, mention is made of Black, White, and Long Pepper. The last-named spice, or Macropiper, 18 namee © Simon of Genoa,’ who was physician to Pope Nicolas IV. and chaplain to Boniface VIII. (a.p. 1288-1303), and travelled in the East for the study of plants. Piper longum is also met with in the list of drugs 07 which (A.D. 1305) duty was levied at Pisa.’ Nicolo Conti of Venice, who lived in India from 1419 to 1444, noticed Long Pepper. pus _ dinus* in the middle of the 15th century enumerates long peppet eae the drugs necessary to be kept by apothecaries. and it has had a p in the pharmacopceias to the present time. ‘ ' The genus Chavicaseparated from Piper © 4 Choulant, Macer Flovidus de Viribus rk Miquel, has been re-united to it by Herbarum, Lipsix, 1882. 114. " asimir de Candolle (Prod. xvi. s. 1). The 5 Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510. ae praangh Dapéet ow composed of not fewer 6 Bonaini, Statute inediti. della ¢ ro ee Pisa, iii. (1857) 492. Sora en ne in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. 7 Eoenac: Kenntniss Indiens im 15 3 Ro. part 18 (1877). Jahrhundert, Miinchen, 1863. 40. or good figures of the two plants, see 8 See Appendix. H. %, ‘on . er ar 8 Arzney-Gewiichse, xiv, (1843) tab. FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGL 583 Production—In Bengal the plants are cultivated by suckers, and require to be grown on a rich, high and dry soil; they should be set about five feet asunder. An English acre will yield in the first year about three maunds (1 maund = 80 lbs.) of the pepper, in the second twelve, and in the third eighteen; after which, as the plant becomes less and less productive, the roots are grubbed up, dried, and sold as Pipli-mil, of which there is a large consumption in India as a medicine. The pepper is gathered in the month of January, when full grown, and exposed to the sun until perfectly dry. After the fruit has been col- lected, the stem and branches die down to the ground.’ Description—Long pepper consists of a multitude of minute baccate fruits, closely packed around a common axis, the whole forming a spike of 1} inch long and } of an inch thick. The spike is supported on a stalk } an inch long; it is rounded above and below, and tapers slightly towards its upper end. The fruits are ovoid, 7'5 of an inch long, crowned with a nipple-like point (the remains of the stigma), and arranged spirally with a small peltate bract beneath each. A transverse section of a spike exhibits 8 to 10 separate fruits, disposed radially with their narrower end pointed towards the axis, Beneath the pericarp, the thin brown testa encloses a colourless albumen, of which the obtuser end is occupied by the small embryo. : +p The long pepper of the shops is greyish-white, and mi ey as if it had been rolled in some earthy powder. When washed, the spikes 3 acquire their proper colour,—a deep reddish-brown. The drug has a burning aromatic taste, and an agreeable but not powerful rs lish The foregoing description applies to the long pepper sobealbr commerce, which is now obtained chiefly from Java (see next page) where P. oficinarwm is the common species. In fact the frui head a latter, as presented to us by Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanica i i Buitenzorg, near Batavia, offer no characters by which we ae 18 , guish them from the article found in the London shops. ye - P. Betle L. var. y. denswm are extremely similar, but we do not Kno that they are collected for use. : 2s the individual fruits Microscopic Structure—The structure of : resembles that of black pepper, exhibiting however i anil differences. The epicarp has on the outside, tange ew dda of thick-walled, narrow cells, containing gum; the middle layer ah and wider, thin-walled, obviously porous parenchyme goer 8 ere a drops of oil. In the outer and middle layers of the fru : : icarp of Piper large thick-walled cells are scattered, as in oe era spot #85 te nigrum; in long pepper, however, they do not form Sah inner pericarp 3 Foribl of a row of large, eubie or ee ataly- arranged cells, filled with volatile oil. ‘A row of sm : own t sa teat extended cells separates these oil-cells from the eo say toate of clas which consists of lignified cells like the mner layer 0 a latter. The pepper, but without the thick-walled cells pou k r by the albumen of long pepper is distinguished from that of black peppe absence of ile oi e of volatile oil. nts of long pepper appear Chemical Constituents—The constitue pagent to be the same as those of black pepper ae _ the p i. ( ds 1 Roxburgh, Flora Indica, 584 a PIPERACEA, of piperin; 8 pounds of the drug were not sufficient to afford us an appreciable quantity of the volatile oil. The resin and volatile oil reside exclusively in the pericarp. Long pepper, according to Blyt (1874), yields 84 per cent of ash. Commerce-—-Long pepper is at present exported from Penang and Singapore, whither it is brought chiefly from Java, and to a much smaller extent from Rhio. The quantity exported from Singapore in 1871 amounted to 3,366 ewt., of which only 447 cewt. were shipped to the United Kingdom, the remainder being sent chiefly to British India.’ The export from Penang is from 2,000 to 3,000 peculs annually. There is also a considerable export of long pepper from Calcutta. Uses—Long pepper is scarcely used as a medicine, black pepper having been substituted in the few preparations in which it was formerly ordered, but it is employed as a spice and in veterinary medicine. The aromatic root of Piper longum, called in Sanskrit Pippali-mula’ (whence the modern name pipli-mil), is a favourite remedy of the Hindus and also known to the Persians and Arabs. CUBEBZ. Fructus vel Baccee vel Piper Cubebe®; Cubebs; F. Cubebes ; G. Cubeben. Botanical Origin—Piper Cubeba Linn. f. (Cubeba officinalis Miq), a climbing, woody, dicecious shrub, indigenous to Java, Southern Borneo — and Sumatra.* -History—Cubebs have been introduced into medicine by the Arabian physicians of the middle ages, who describe them as having the form, colour, and properties of pepper. Masudi> in the 10th century stated them to bea production of Java. Edrisi," the geographer, in A.D. 1153 enumerated them among the imports of Aden. Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus of Salerno wis acquainted with this drug as early as the 11th century; and in the beginning of the 13th its virtues were noticed in the writings of the Abbess Hildegard in Germany, and even in those of Henrik Harpestrens in Denmark.’ » Cubebs are mentioned asa production of Java (“grant isle de Javve ) by Marco Polo; and by Odoric, an Italian friar, who visited the islam about forty years later. In the 13th century the drug was an aa ly 2 é ae bas as sold in the fairs of Champagne in France, the price being fcto 1284 : Z * Blue Book of the Straits Settlements for 7 Meyer, Geschichte der Botanit ae - 187 1, : 8 Munimenta Gildhalle Lonaor 3 Already in the Ramayana. Liber albus, i. (1859, State papers) faring Cubeba from the Arabic Kabdbah. ® Capmany, Memorias ware 79) 44. Fe Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. ete., de Barcelona, i. (Madrid, ye e3 ae lants, rt 27 (1877). 10 Bourquelot, Etudes sur od hw *, > Les Prairies d’or, i. 341 Ch . — , i. 341. thampagne, Mémoires etc. ° Géographie, trad. par J aubert, i. 51. 89. (1865) 288. GUBEBEEE 8 385 they are enumerated with almonds, saffron, raisins, white pepper, grains [of paradise], mace, galangal, and gingerbread, and entered as costin 2s. per lb. In 1285—2s. 6d. to 3s. per lb.; while in 1307, 1 Ib. purch for the King’s Wardrobe cost 9s." From the journal of expenses of John, king of France, while in England during 1359-60, it is evident that cubebs were in frequent use as a spice. Among those who could command such luxuries, they were eaten in powder with meat, or they were candied whole. A patent of pontage granted in 1305 by Edward L,, to aid in repairing and sustaining the Bridge of London, and authorizing toll on various articles, mentions among groceries and spices, cubebs as liable to impost.” Cubebs occur in the German lists of medicines of Frankfort and Nordlingen, about 1450 and 1480;° they are also mentioned in the Confecthuch of Hans Folez of Nuremberg, dating about 1480. It cannot however be said that cubebs were a common spice, at all comparable with pepper or ginger, or even in such frequent use as grains of paradise or galangal. Garcia de Orta (1563) speaks of them as but seldom used in Europe ; yet they are named by Saladinus as necessary to be kept in every apotheca® In a list of drugs to be sold in the apothecaries’ shops of the city of Ulm, a.p. 1596, cubebs are mentioned as Fructus carpesiorum vel cubebarum, the price for half an ounce being quoted as 8 kreuzers, the same as that of opium, best manna, and amber, while black and white pepper are priced at 2 krewzers.” Although it was always well known that the eubebs were a product — of Java and that island is stated to have exported in 1775 as much as 10,000 tb. of this spice,” its mother plant was made known only in 1781 by the younger Linnaeus. The action of cubebs on the urino-genital organs was known to the old Arabian physicians. Yet modern writers on materia medica even at — the commencement of the present century, mentioned the drug simply as an aromatic stimulant resembling pepper, but inferior to that spice and rarely employed,'—in fact it had so far fallen into disuse that it was omitted from the London Pharmacopeeia of 1809. According to Crawfurd, its importation into Europe, which had long been discontinued, recom- menced in 1815, in consequence of its medicinal virtues having been brought to the knowledge of the English medical’ officers serving ™ Java, by their Hindu servants.’ Cultivation and Productio me ek Hd ti be herent and Epon! ie: idea of the relative value of commodities briefly described, ee caution bya now, multiply the ancient prices portne 6th edition ofthe sane wo ( oes ,, Liber niger Scaccarii, Lond. 1771, i. _ it was altogether omit i. ; sr : ri ation may be foun in Mee ray see of Mat. Med. and Pharm. i : 8 of London Bridge, 1827, 150. et te i nds, 1856. a tet Bharat, '201 (ST) 81, PSN at al ome : *Choulant, Macer Floridus, etc., Lips. t0 the Edinburgh Medical and te, 832, 188, ; Journal of 1818 (xiv. 32) 4 paper mals ® Compendiu a Bo known the “wonderful success with which 1488, m aromatariorum, Bonon-, — + cbs had been used in _geoseneeae pore” 6 Richard, Beitriige zur Geschichte der pide opsieas Ricans Bit " tinea n’—Cubebs are cultivated in small ® In Duncan’s Edinburgh New Dispensa- ae = 1804, Piper Cubeba is very A potheken, 1825, 194 under this head : ce eKen, y ‘i i F Botanical Garden ‘ Miquel, Commentarii phytographici, 1. dyk, < Rae gory Dr. "De Vive td , (Lugd. Bat., 1839). 586 : PIPERACEA. special plantations and also in coffee plantations, in the district of Banjoemas in the south of Java. The fruits are bought by Chinese who carry them to Batavia. They are likewise produced in Eastern Java and about Bantam and Soebang in the north-west; and extensively in the Lampong country in Sumatra. There has of late been a large dis- tribution of plants among the European coffee planters. The cultivation of cubebs is easy. In the coffee estates certain trees are required for shade: against these Piper Cubeba is planted, and climbing to a height of 18 to 20 feet, forms a large bush. Description—The cubebs of commerce consist of the dry globose fruits, gathered when full grown, but before they have arrived at maturity. The fruit is about + of an inch in diameter, when very young sessile, but subsequently elevated on a straight thin stalk, a little longer or even twice as long as itself. By this stalk the fruit is attached in considerable numbers (sometimes more than 50) to a common thickened stalk or rachis, about 14 inch long. Commercial cubebs are spherical, sometimes depressed at the base, very slightly pointed at the apex, strongly wrinkled by the shrinking of the fleshy pericarp; they are of a greyish-brown or blackish hue, frequently covered with an ashy-grey bloom. The stalk is the elongated base of the fruit, and remains permanently attached. The common axis or rachis, which is almost devoid of essential oil, is also frequently mixed with the drug. The skin of the fruit covers a hard, smooth brown shell containing the seed, which latter when developed has a compressed spherical form, a smooth surface, and adheres to the pericarp only at the base ; its apex either projects slightly or is pressed inwards. The albumen is solid, whitish, oily, and encloses a small embryo below the apex. In the _ cubebs of the shops, the seed is mostly undeveloped and shrunken, and the pericarp nearly empty. : Cubebs have a strong, aromatic, persistent taste, with some bitterness and acridity. Their smell is highly aromatic and by no means dis- agreeable. _ Microscopic Structure—This exhibits some peculiarities. The skin of the fruit below the epidermis, is made up of small, cubic, thiek- walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large asm black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small cubic thick- walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large a8 10 black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small-celled un- — developed tissue containing drops of oil, granules of starch, and crystalline groups of cubebin, probably also fat. This middle layer is interrup by very large oil-cells, which frequently enclose needle-shaped crys of cubebin, united in concentric groups. The much narrower inner layer consists of about four rows of somewhat larger tangent ly- extended soft cells, holding essential oil. Next to these comes te — light-yellow brittle shell, formed of a densely packed row of encruste@, — radially-arranged, elongated thick-walled cells. Lastly, the embryo ® covered with a thin brown membrane, and exhibits the structw and contents as that of Piper nigrum, excepting that in P. Cu’ pe pri are rounder, and the crystals consist of cubebin and not 0 7 ‘CUBEBALH Se Chemical Composition-——The most obvious constituent of cubebs is the volatile oil, the proportion of which yielded by the drug varies from 4 to 13 per cent. The causes of this great variation may be found in the constitution of the drug itself, as well as in the alterability of the oil, and the fact that its prevailing constituents begin not to boil below 264° C. It is, as shown in 1875 by Oglialoro, a mixture of an oil C°H", boiling at 158°-163°, which is present to a very small amount, and two oils of the formula C”H™, boiling at 262°-265° C. One of the latter deviates the place of polarization strongly to the left, and yields the crystallized compound C’*H™ 2 HCl, melting at 118°C. The other hydrocarbon is less leevogyrate and cannot be combined with HCl. One part of oil of cubebs, diluted with about 20 parts of bisulphide of carbon, assumes at first a greenish, and afterwards a blue coloration, if one drop of a mixture of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids (equal weight of each acid) is shaken with the solution. The oil distilled from old cubebs on cooling at length deposits large, transparent, inodorous octohedra of camphor of cubebs, O"H* + 2 OH’, belonging to the rhombic system. They melt at 65° and may be sublimed at 148°. We have not succeeded in obtaining them by keeping the oil of fresh cubebs for two years in contact with water, to which a little aleohol and nitric acid was added. ; Another constituent of cubebs is Cubebin, crystals of which may sometimes be seen in the pericarp even with a common lens. It was discovered by Soubeiran and Capitaine in 1839; it is an inodorous substance, crystallizing in small needles or scales, melting at 125, having a bitter taste in alcoholic solution; it dissolves freely in boiling alcohol, but is mostly deposited upon cooling ; it requires 30 parts of cold — for solution, and is also abundantly soluble in a seen or ound thi i ; e; it turns red on a . und this solution to be slightly leevogyre; f cubebin in chloroform is concentrated sulphuric acid. If the solution o shaken with aig penkaside of phosphorus, it turns blue and Sore 4 comes red by the influence of moisture. Cubebin is nearly ied nes | cold, but slightly soluble in hot water. Bernatzik (1866) os The cubebs 0:40 per cent. of cubebin, Schmidt (1870) 25 pe ct if crystals, which are deposited in an alcoholic or ethereal niet f cubebs, consist of cubebin in an impure state. Cubebin = vata 55 any remarkable therapeutic action. Its or ie ee =e with Weidel (1877) answers to the formula C*H"O'; by melting 1 caustic potash, cubebin is resolved as follows :— oe OTT 1043 po 2 40° . C°H*(OH)'C es SO nt Oe ie Pika Where a ‘Acid. The resin extracted from cubebs consists of an indifferent portion, ; . ; 1 per cent. nearly 3 per cent., and of Cubebie Acid, oe pee es a the of the drug. Both are amorphous, and so, accor’ wean ri é 80: them, as that salts of cubebic acid. Bernatzic however, found some we Datetic acid of barium, to be crystallizable. Schulze (1873) i to get it other than from the crystallized sodium-salt, but was unable : , th res nbes The resins, the indifferent as well as the acid, possess the erapeutie properties of the drug. : (8 nee Schmidt further pointed out ‘the presence 1n a of gam cent.), fatty oil, and malates of magnesium and calcium, 588 PIPERACE. Commerce—Cubebs were imported into Singapore in 1872 to the extent of 3062 ewt., of which amount 2348 cwt. were entered as from Netherlands India. ‘The drug was re-shipped during the same year to the amount of 2766 ewt., the quantity exported to the United Kingdom being 1180 ewt., to the United States of America 1244 cwt., and to British India 104 ewt.’ In the previous year, a larger quantity was shipped to India than to Great Britain. Uses—Cubebs are much employed in the treatment of gonorrhcea. - The drug is usually administered in powder; less frequently in the form of ethereal or alcoholic extract, or essential oil. Bernatzik and Schmidt, whose chemical and therapeutical experi- ments have thrown much light on the subject, have shown that the efficacy of cubebs being dependent on the indifferent resin and cubebie acid, preparations which contain the utmost amount of these bodies and exclude other constituents of the drug, are to be preferred. They would reject the essential oil, as they find its administration devoid of thera- peutic effects. The preparations which consequently are to be recommended, are the berries deprived of their essential oil and constituents soluble in water, and then dried and powdered; an alcoholic extract prepared from the same, or the purified resins. _ _ Adulteration—Cubebs are not much subject to adulteration, though it is by no means rare that the imported drug contains an undue pro- portion of the inert stalks (rachis)? that require to be picked out before the berries are ground. Dealers judge of cubebs by the oiliness and strong characteristic smell of the berries when crushed. Those which have a large proportion of the pale, smooth, ripe berries, which look dry when broken, are to be avoided. We have occasionally found in the commercial drug a small, smooth two-celled fruit, of the size, shape, and colour of cubebs, but wanting the long pedicel. A slight examination suffices to recognize it as not being cubebs. We have also met with some cubebs of larger size than the ordinary sort, much shrivelled, with a stouter and flattened pedicel, one _ and a half times to twice as long as the berry. The drug has an agree able odour different from that of common cubebs, and a very bitter taste. From a comparison with herbarium specimens, we judge that it may possibly be derived from Piper crassipes Korthals (Cubeba crassypes Migq.), a Sumatran species. Be The fruits of Piper Lowong BI. (Cubeba Lowong Miq.), & nal _dava, and those of P. ribesioides Wall. (Cubeba Wallichii. Miq,) ret extremely cubeb-like.? Those of Piper caninum A. Dietr. (Cu hi canina Miq.),a plant of wide distribution throughout the Malay Arch pelago as far as Borneo, for a specimen of which we have to than ia Binnendyk of Buitenzorg, are smaller than true cubebs, and have sta : only half the diameter of the berry. been n In the south of-China the fruits of Lawrus Cubeba Lour. have Straits Settlements Blue Book for 1872. 3 Figured in Nees von Esenbeck, Re : . 294. 338,—There are no statistics for show- medicinales, Diisseldorf, 1. Sere quel Comet ing the total import of cubebs into the A different figure is given MY United Kingdom. ment. phytogr. (1839), tab. 3. They yielded to Schmidt 1-7 per cent. of oil and 3 per cent of resin, HERBA MATICO. = 589 frequently mistaken by Europeans for cubebs. The tree which affords them is unknown to modern botanists; Meissner refers it doubtfully to the genus Tetranthera, Ashantee Pepper, African Cubebs, or West African Black Pepper. This spice is the fruit of Piper Clusii Cas. DC. (Cubeba Clusii Miq.), a species of wide distribution in tropical Africa, most abundantly occurring in the country of the Niamniam, about 4° to 5° N. lat., and 28° to 29° E. long. Its splendid red fruit bunches are spoken of with admiration by Schweinfurth,? who states that Piper Clusii is one of the characteristic and most conspicuous plants of those regions. The dried fruit is a round berry having a general resemblance to common cubebs but somewhat smaller, less rugose, attenuated into a slender pedicel once or twice as long as the berry and usually curved. The berries are crowded around a common stalk or rachis; they are of an ashy grey tint, and have a hot taste and the odour of pepper. According to Sten- house, they contain piperin and not eubebin.* The fruit of Piper Clusii was known as early as 1364 to Lor merchants of Rouen and Dieppe, who imported it from the Grain Coast, now Liberia,‘ under the name of pepper. The Portuguese likewise exported it from Benin as far back as 1485, as Pimienta de rabo, i.e. — tailed pepper, and attempted in vain to sell it in Flanders. err received from London a specimen of this drug, of which he ecter ni good figure in his Exotica.® He says that its importation was forbi a by the King of Portugal for fear it should depreciate the ig aye India. The spice was also known to Gerarde and Parkinson at Tr : times it has been afresh brought to notice by the late Dr. Danie 1 < tropical Western Africa it is used as a condiment, and might a fee: collected in large quantities, provided it should prove a good substi for pepper. HERBA MATICO. Matico. A Botanical Origin—Piper angustifolium’ guuebed aa Pork elongata Miq.), a shrub growing in the moist W 5 te bois localities, Brazil, New Granada and Venezuela, also cultivated ™ A slightly different, somewhat stouter form 0 Sat ; razilian 7 to 8 inches long (var. a. cordulatum Cas. DC), meg a oe A ike provinces of Bahia, Minas Geraes and Ceara, as we northern parts of South America. : i di ia, i. (Venet. 1 De Candolle, Prod’ xv. sock 108; SGoramms a Beem FARO *' Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 205, 1561) 80. p. 184 (1605). ire are ; also Science hy a - : oe ba a oO 855) 08 oe m Ierzen Afri i, (1874 3 lL : ffered for sale 1 399. fricas, 1. ( ) , 8 One cask of it cate 1858. < Cubebs, . * Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 363. London as ier a ie * Margry, Les navigations frangaises et la Fig. in eisy7) oe maritimedu XIV¢auXVEsiecle, Planis, part ) fe 2 f the plant with leaves — 590 ay PIPERACEA. History—The styptic properties of this plant are said to have been discovered by a Spanish soldier named Matico,' who having applied some of the leaves to his wounds, observed that the bleeding was thereby — arrested ; hence the plant came to be called Yerba or Palo del Soldado (soldier’s herb or tree). The story is not very probable, but it is current in many parts of South America, and its allusion is not confined to the plant under notice. The hemostatic powers of matico, which are not noticed in the works of Ruiz and Pavon, were first recognized in Europe by Jeffreys, ‘a physician of Liverpool, in 1839, but they had already attracted attention in North America as early as 1827. Description—Matico, as it arrives in commerce, consists of a com- pressed, coherent, brittle mass of leaves and stems, of a light green hue and pleasant herby odour. More closely examined, it is seen to be made up of jointed stems bearing lanceolate, acuminate leaves, cordate and unequal at the base, and having very short stalks. The leaves are rather thick, with their whole upper surface traversed by a system of minute sunk veins, which divide it into squares and give it a tessellated appear- ance. On the under side, these squares form a corresponding series of depressions which are clothed with shaggy hairs. The leaves attain a length of about 6 inches by 1} inches broad. ‘he flower and fruit spikes which are often 4 to 5 inches long, are slender and cylindrical with the flowers or fruits densely packed. The leaves of matico have a bitterish eons taste; their tissue shows numerous cells, filled with essential oil. Chemical Composition—The leaves yield on an average 2°77 pet cent.‘ of essential oil, which we find slightly’ dextrogyre; a large pro- portion of it distills at 180° to 200° C., the remainder becoming thickish. Both portions are lighter than water; but another specimen of the oil of matico which we had kept for some years, sinks in water. We have observed that in winter the oil deposits remarkable crystals of a cam- phor, more than half an inch in length, fusible at 103° C; they belong to the hexagonal system, and have the odour and taste of the oil from which they separate. : ; Matico further affords, according to Marcotte (1 864),° a cry stallizable acid, named Artanthic Acid, besides some tannin. The latter 18 made evid ent by the dark brown colour which the infusion assumes on addition of ferric chloride. The leaves likewise contain resin, but as shown by Stell in 1858, neither piperin, cubebin, nor any analogous principle sue as the so-called Maticin formerly supposed to exist in them. Commerce—The drug is imported in bales and serons by way of Panama. Among the exports of the Peruvian port of Arica in 1877, we noticed 195 quintales (19,773 tb) of Matico. f Uses—Matico leaves, previously softened in water, or in @ se * Matico is the diminutive of Mateo, the 4As Messrs. Schimmel & Co, Leipmiés Spanish for Matthew. kindly informed me.—F.A.F. - Jump 50 Remarks on the efficacy of Matico as « 5 Deviating only 0°.7 in a co styptic and astringent, 3rd ed., Lond. 1845. mm. long. Hist. (de Microscopic examination of the leaves, 6Guibourt (et Planchon), per nob Pocklington, Pharm, Journ. v (1874) Dro ii 278.—We , vee f gues, ii, (1869) ape 301. acquainted with “artanthie acid.” RADIX SERPENTARIZ sO powder, are sometimes employed to arrest the bleeding of a wound. The infusion is taken for the cure of internal hemorrhage. Substitutes—Several plants have at times been brought into the market under the name of matico. One of these is Piper adwnewm L. (Artanthe adwnca Miq.), of which a quantity was imported into London from Central America in 1863, and first recognized by Bentley (1864). In colour, odour, and shape of leaf it nearly agrees with ordinary matico ; but differs in that the leaves are marked beneath by much more pro- minent ascending parallel nerves, the spaces between which are not rugose but comparatively smooth and nearly glabrous. In chemical characters, the leaves of P.adunewm appear to accord with those of P. angustifoliwm. : Piper adwnewm is a plant of wide distribution throughout Tropical America. Under the name of Nhandi or Piper longum it was men- tioned by Piso in 16482 on account of the stimulant action of its leaves and roots,—a property which causes it to be still used in Brazil, where however no particular styptic virtues seem to be ascribed to it. The fruits are there employed in the place of cubebs. Sloane’s figure‘ of © “Piper longum, arbor folio latissimo” also shows Piper aduncwm. According to Triana, Piper lanceeefoliwm HBK. (Artanthe Miq.), and another species not recognized, yield matico in New Granada. Wal- theria glomerata Presl (Sterculiacee) is called Palo del Soldado at Panama and its leaves are used as a vulnerary.’ In Riobamba and ee Eupatoriwm glutinosum Lamarck, is also called Chusalonga or atico,? ARISTOLOCHIACEA:. RADIX SERPENTARIZ. Radia Serpentaria Virginiane ; Virginian Snake-root, oe nentary Root ; F. Serpentaire de Virginie; G. Schlangenwurzel. Botanical Origin—Aristolochia Serpentaria L. ie 2h at in hee . commonly under a foot high, with simple or meng sae he Sadun. stems, producing small, solitary, dull purple area sa i and Indiana It grows in shady woods in the United States, from heute and in the to Florida and Virginia,—abundantly in aa ca 4 Michi an and the Cumberland Mountains, less frequently in New toed ly in the shape of other Northern States. ‘The plant varies excoeding!y its leaves. History—The botanists of the 16th century, tions alluding to the animal kingdom, gave the names ae 7—Catalogue de M. ’ For a good figure, see Jacquin, [cones gn rset de 186 TI. (1781-1793) tab, 210. ey * De Medicina Brasiliensi, lib. 4. ¢. 57. 35 : d Langgaard, Diccionario de Medicina Ap sere Plantae Hartwegiane, Lon. omesti i iro, ii. (1865) an e popular, Rio de Janeiro, 1 1839. 198. ‘i gglwge t0 Jamaica I. (1707) 135, and being fond of appella- of Serpentaria po of the Herald, 1852- 599 ARISTOLOCHIACEA, or Colubrina, z.e. snake-root, to the rhizome of Polygonum Bistorta, L. In America it was not the appearance, but the application of the drug — under notice to which it owes the name snake-root. The earliest account of Virginian snake-root is that of Thomas Johnson, an apothecary of London who published an edition of Gerarde’s Herbal in 1636. It is evident however that Johnson confounded a species of Avistolochia from Crete with what he calls “ that snake-weed that was brought from Virginia and grew with Mr. John Tradescant - at South Lambeth, anno 1632.” It was very briefly noticed by Cornuti in his Canadensium Plantarwm Historia (1635), and in a much more intelligent manner by Parkinson in 1640. These authors, as well as Dale (1693) and Geoffroy (1741), extol the virtues of the root as a remedy for the bite of the rattlesnake, or of a rabid dog. Serpentary was introduced into the London Pharmacopceia in 1650. Description—The snake-root of commerce includes the rhizome, which is knotty, contorted, scarcely 1 inch in length by } of an inch in thickness, bearing on its upper side the short bases of the stems of previous years, and throwing off from the under, numerous, slender, matted, branching roots, 2 to 4 inches long. The rhizome is often still attached to portions of the weak, herbaceous stem, which sometimes bears the fruit—more rarely flowers and leaves. The drug has a dull brown hue, an aromatic odour resembling valerian but less unpleasant, and a bitterish aromatic taste, calling to mind camphor, valerian and turpentine. Microscopic Structure—In the rhizome, the outer layer of the bark consists of a single row of cuboid cells ; the middle cortical portion (mesophlaewm) of about six layers of larger cells. In the liber, which is built up of numerous layers of smaller cells, those belonging to the medullary rays are nearly cuboid with distinctly porous walls, those 0 _ the liber bundles being smaller and arranged in a somewhat crescent- shaped manner. Groups of short, reticulated or punctuated vessels alternate in the woody rays with long, porous, ligneous cells; those close to the pith having thick walls. The largest cells of all are those com- posing the pith ; the latter, seen in transverse section, occupies not t nf very centre of the rootstock, but is found nearer to its upper side. The rootlets exhibit a central fibro-vascular bundle, surrounded by a nucleus sheath. In the mesophlceum both of the rootstock and the rootlets, there occur a few cells containing a yellow essential oil. The other cells are loaded with starch. Chemical Composition—Essential oil exists in the drug to the extent of of about } per cent. ; and resin in nearly the same proportion. The outer cortical layer, as well as the zone of the nucleus-sheath, cone tains a little tannin, and a watery infusion of the drug 18 ote | greenish by perchloride of iron. Neutral acetate of lead precipita : _ Some mucilage as well as the bitter principle, which Jatter may ais0 oe obtained by means of tannic acid. It is an amorphous, bitter substan’ = which deserves further investigation. By an alkaline solution of tari of copper the presence in serpentary of sugar is made evident. a Commerce—Virginian snake-root is imported from New York and Boston, in bales, casks or bags. ae CORTEX QUERCUS, 593 Uses—The drug is employed in the form of an infusion or tincture as a stimulating tonic and diaphoretic; it is more often prescribed in combination with cinchona bark than by itself. Its ancient reputation for the cure of snake-bites is now disregarded. Adulteration and Substitution—Virginian snake-root is said to be sometimes adulterated with the root of Spigelia marilandica L., which has neither its smell nor taste (see p. 433); or with that of — Cypripedium pubescens L., which it scarcely at all resembles. It is not uncommon to find here and there in the serpentary of commerce, a root of Panaa quinquefolium L. accidentally collected, but never added for the purpose of adulteration. - : Bs. The root of Aristolochia reticulata Nutt., a plant of Louisiana and Arkansas, has been brought into commerce in considerable quantity as Texan or Red River Snake-root: We are indebted for an authentic specimen from the Cherokee country to Mr. Merrell, a large dealer in herbs at St. Louis, Missouri, who states that all the serpentary grown south-west of the Rocky Mountains is the produce of that species. The late Prof. Parrish of Philadelphia was kind enough to supply us with specimens of the same drug, as well as with reliable samples of true Virginian or Middle States Snake-root. The Texan snake-root is somewhat thicker and less matted than that ) derived from A. Serpentaria, but has the odour and taste of the latter ; some say it is less aromatie. The plant, portions of which are often present, may be easily distinguished by its leaves being corvaceous, sessile and strongly reticulated on their under surface. CUPULIFERZ. CORTEX QUERCUS. Oak Bark ; F. Ecorce de Chéne ; G. Eichenrinde. i ive of almost the Botanical Origin—Quercus Robur L., a tree, native 0 Whole of Europe, ans Portugal and the Greek Foie = ere 58° N. lat. in Scotland, 62° in Norway, and 56° in oe: ra Eertad by There are two remarkable forms of this tree whic eS Candoll? many botanists as distinct species, but which are classed by as sub-species. ‘ ee Sub-species I. pedunculata—with leaves ogee eel ee can and acorns borne on a long peduncle, and acorns e1ther ing on a short peduncle. te hashed. Sub-species IT, sessiliflora—with leaf-stalks SS oor the Both forms occur in Britain. The first is th ‘ greater part of England and the lowlands of Bote: Bee at it frequently scattered in woods in which the first og an of Englan d. rarely constitutes the mass of the oak woods sg : yorth of England In North Wales however, in the hilly parts Sone Bentham) ; and in Scotland, it is the commoner of the two forms ( : om a - xxi. (187 . é * Association, * Wiegand in American Journ. of Pharm. mis, xvi. (1864) sect. 2. fase. 1.) x (1845) 10; also Proceedings of ma ‘ we CUPULIFERA. History—The astringent properties of all parts of the oak’ were well known to Discorides, who recommends a decoction of the inner bark in colic, dysentery and spitting of blood. Yet oak bark seems at no time to have been held in great esteem as a medicine, probably on account of its commonness; and it is now almost superseded by other astringents. For tanning leather it has always been largely employed. Description—For medicinal use the bark of the younger stems or branches is collected in the early spring. It varies somewhat in appear- ance according to the age of the wood from which it has been taken: that usually supplied to English druggists is in channelled pieces of variable length and a tenth of an inch or less in thickness, smooth, of a shining silvery grey, variegated with brown, dotted over with little scars. The inner surface is light rusty-brown, longitudinally striated. The fracture is tough and fibrous. A transverse section shows a thin, greenish cork-layer, within which is the brown parenchyme, marked with nume- rous rows of translucent colourless spots. The smell of dry oak bark is very faint; but when the bark is moistened the odour of tan becomes evident. The taste is astringent and in old barks slightly bitter. Microscopic Structure—The outer layer of young oak bark con- sists of small flat cork-cells; the middle layer of larger thick-walled cells slightly extended in a tangential direction, and containing brown grains and chlorophyll. This tissue passes gradually into the softer narrower parenchyme of the inner bark, which is irregularly traversed by narrow medullary rays. It exhibits moreover a ring, but slightly - interrupted, of thick-walled cells (sclerenchyme) and isolated shining bundles of liber fibres. 3 Groups of crystals of calcium oxalate are frequent in the middle and inner bark, but the chief constituents of the cells are brown granules G colouring matter and tannin. As the thickness of the bark increases the liber is pushed more to the outside, the middle cortical layer being partly thrown off by secondary cork-formation (rhytidoma, see PP: 3o4 and 538). Hence the younger barks, which alone are medicinal, are widely different from the older in structure and appearance. Chemical Composition—The most interesting constituent 18 4 peculiar kind of tannin. Stenhouse pointed out in 1843 that = tannic acid of oak bark is not identical with that of nutgalls; ands many years afterwards was proved to be the case. 3 oe The first-named substance, now called Querci-tannic Acid, y} by destructive distillation pyrocatechin, and according to J — (1875) very little pyrogallol. By boiling it with dilute sulphuric a0 querci-tannie acid is split up into a red derivative and sugat h solution of gelatine is precipitated by querci-tannic acid as well as PY gallo-tannic acid; yet the compound formed with the latter 18 poe lable to putrefaction, whereas the tannin of oak bark, which 1s accom u panied by a large amount of extractive matter, furnishes 4 stable com pound, and is capable of forming good leather. the As querci-tannic acid has not yet been isolated in a pure peg i. exact estimation of the strength of the tanning principle conor : has not been accomplished, although it is important from an paver ; as well as from a scientific point of view. The method of Neu ! Probably not Q. Robur L. s GALLE HALEPENSES, 505° (1873) depends upon the amount of permanganate of potassium decom- posable by the extract of a given weight of oak bark. Neubauer found in the bark of young stems, as grown for tanning purposes, from 7 to 10 per cent. of querci-tannic acid, soluble in cold water. Braconnot (1849) extracted from the seeds of the oaks under notice a crystallized sugar, which was shown in 1851 by Dessaignes to be a peculiar substance, which he termed Quercite. Prunier proved (1877- 1878) that it agrees with the formula C°H"(OH)> + 40H®, and is closely allied to kinic acid, C°H7(OH)*COOH (see page 363). Quercite gives off water at 100°, melts at 225° C., and again losing water yields a crystallized anhydride. In the oak bark extremely small quantities of querite appear also to be present, as pointed out by Johanson. A colourless, crystallizable, bitter substance, soluble in water, but not in absolute alcohol or ether, was extracted from oak bark in 1843 by Gerber, and named Quercin. It requires further examination: Eckert (1864) could not detect its existence in young oak bark. Uses—Occasionally employed as an astringent, chiefly for external — application, GALL HALEPENSES. Galle Turcice; Galls, NV’ utgalls, Oak Galls, Aleppo or Turkey Galls; F. Noix de Galle, Galle ¢ Alep; G. Levantische oder Aleppische Gallen, Gallééipfel. infectoria (Q. _ Botanical Origin—Quercus lusitanica Webb, var. infectoria mfectoria Oliv.),! a shrub or rarely a tree, found in — “i _—_ Cyprus and Syria. It is probable that other varieties 0 -peclipenees well as allied species, contribute to furnish the Aleppo pr og History—Oak galls are named by Theophrastus, and we : own to cee ee writers, Alexander Trallianus prescribed them aS a remedy in diarrhcea,” The Sasi accurate descriptions and figures of the oe a insect producing the galls are due to Olivier. femme: f galls may be interesting fact that paper saturated with ee - Tad ‘ag és used as a test for discovering sulphate of bryesns: lore to Kopp, is adulteration to the more costly verdigris: peg rg h stad reaction.” the earliest instance of the scientific application of a the earliest times, For tanning and dyeing, galls have been used from wely an article of during the middle ages however they were not a replaced by great importance, being then, no doubt, for a large sumach. Western Nutgalls have long been an object of egy Tndias® written Asia and China. Barbosa in his Description of t ht from the Levant in 1514 calls them Magican, and says they are broug Pi Geschichte der Chemie, ii. (1844) 51. — ue Prodromus, xvi. sect. 2. 6 Published by the Hakluyt Society, nae : 191. e oats eu * Puschmann’s edition, quoted in the ee se same name is still used in Appendix, i. 237. | the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalim and Canarese on, Oye l "Empire Othoman, i. (1801), pL 14-15, — : languages. * Lib. 34. c. 26, ee CUPULIFERA. to Cambay by way of Mekka, and that they are worth a great deal in China and Java. From the statements of Porter Smith! we learn that they are still prized by the Chinese. _Formation—Many plants are punctured by insects for the sake of depositing their eggs, which operation gives rise to those excrescences which bear the general name of gall.’ Oaks are specially liable to be visited for this purpose by insects of the order Hymenoptera and the genus Cynips, one species of which, Cynips Galle tinctorie Olivier (Diplolepis Galle tinctorie Latreille), ~ occasions the galls under notice. _. The female of this little creature is furnished with a delicate borer or ovipositor, which she is able to protrude from the extremity of the abdomen; by means of it she pierces the tender shoot of the oak, and deposits therein one or more eggs. This minute operation occasions an abnormal affluence to the spot of the juices of the plant, the result of which is the growth of an excrescence often of great magnitude, in the centre of which (but not as it appears until the gall has become full- grown) the larva is hatched and undergoes its transformations. _ When the larva has assumed its final development and become a winged insect, which requires a period of five to six months, the latter bores itself a cylindrical passage from the centre of the gall to its surface, and escapes. In the best kind of gall found in commerce, this stage has not yet arrived, the gall having been gathered while the insect is still in the larval state. In splitting a number of galls, it is not difficult to find specimens in all stages,from those containing the scarcely distinguishable remains of the minute larva, to those which show the perfect insect to have perished when in the very act of escaping from its prison. Description—Aleppo galls® are spherical, and have a diameter of +45 to 385 of an inch. They have a smooth and rather shining surface, marked in the upper half of the gall by small pointed knobs and ridges, arranged very irregularly and wide apart; the lower half 1s mote frequently smooth. The aperture by which the insect escapes 18 always near the middle. When not perforated, the galls are of a dark olive green, and comparatively heavy ; but after the fly has bored 1ts way oul, they become of a yellowish brown hue, and lighter in weight. ee the distinction in commerce of Blue or Green Galls, and White i Aleppo galls are hard and brittle, splitting under the hammer; they have an acidulous, very astringent taste followed by a slight swore : but. have no marked odour. Their fractured surface is sometimes ose- grained, with a waxy or resinous lustre ; sometimes (especially elie the kernel-like centre) loosely granular, or sometimes again it exhibits an : crystalline-looking radiated structure or is full of clefts. ‘The colowt the interior varies from pale brown to a deep greenish yellow. ; PS Nils and Nat. Hist. of China, — gall, for descriptions ¢ of some - 0) Pe - 100. Jui ist. des Drogues, U- 1869) 2 Guibourt, Hist, des Drog cs a French writers, as Moquin-Tandon dis- and for information on + na the thick-walled galls of Cyni »¢ insects of the family Cynipside wee ‘Aphis Saeed eae ~~ — y erescences they produce, cont Sint s e former galles and th by Abl in Wittstein’s sa latter coques (shells). q Si ie pasog Pharm. vi. (1857) 343-361. eg ere are many other varieties of oak — GALLE HALEPENSES.. sis 597 central cavity, sometimes nearly } of an inch in diameter, which served as a dwelling for the insect, is led with a thin hard shell. If the insect has perished while still very young, the central cavity and the — aperture contain a mass of loose starchy cellular tissue, or its pulveralent remains: if the insect has not been developed at all, the centre of the gall is entirely composed of this tissue. Microscopic Structure—The cellular tissue of the gail is formed in the middle layer of large spherical cells with rather thick porous walls, becoming considerably smaller towards the circumference. The outermost rows are built up of cells having but a very small lumen and comparatively thick walls, so that they form a sort of rind. Here and there throughout the entire tissue, there occur isolated bundles of vessels which pass through the stalk into the gall. Towards the kernel, the parenchyme gradually passes into radially-extended, wider, thin-walled cells, the walls of which are marked with spiral striz. The hard shell of the chamber! is composed of larger, radially-extended, thick-walled cells, with beautifully stratified porous walls. On the inner side of this shell there are found, after the escape of the insect, the remains of the starchy tissue already mentioned, which originally filled the chamber and had been consumed by the insect as nourishment. The parenchyme-cells outside the shell contain chlorophyll and | tannin; the latter is in transparent, colourless, sharp-edged masses, insoluble in benzol, but dissolving slowly in water, quickly in eae Thin slices soaked in glycerin appear after some time covered on beautiful crystals of gallic acid. The thick-walled cells oa ells) and the neighbouring striated cells, are rich in octahedra of ca uA oxalate. The tissue of the gall situated within the shell of gree : cells contains starch in large, compressed, mostly spherical ieip yi also isolated masses of brown resin. Besides these, there appears . in this part of the tissue an albuminoid compound. fe Nae ugh taste 0 s 1s aue ro hale tannic ‘Acta, C%H"O", or O'H*(OH)°COOH O, the type of a numerous family of substances to hi : i operties. Tannic matter was which vegetables owe their astringent * oi found in the oak gall, ak galls. Lowe in 1873 came to - the same conclusion. The best oak galls yield O Gallie 5 ready-formed to the extent of about 3 per cent. Free sugar, resin, protein-substances, have also been found. Neither gum nor dextrin is present. Commerce—The introduction into dyeiD * Couche protectrice of Lacaze-Duthiers— —Anmn. des Sc Recherches pour servir a Vhistoire des galles. 278-854. g of new chemical sub- iences Nat., Bot. xix. (1853) 598 ; CUPULIFERA. stances, and the increased employment of sumach and myrobalans, have caused the trade in nutgalls to decline considerably during the last few years. The province of Aleppo which used to export annually 10,000 to 12,000 quintals, exported in 1871 only 3000 quintals.’ A staple market for the galls which are collected in the mountains of Kurdistan is Diarbekir, whence they are sent to Trebizond for shipment. Galls are also shipped in some quantity at Bussorah, Bagdad, Bushire, and Sinyrna. There were imported into the United Kingdom from ports of Turkey and Persia during 1872, 6349 ewt. of galls, valued at £18,581. Uses—Oak galls in their crude state are seldom used in medicine . unless it be externally ; but the tannic and gallic acids extracted from them are often administered. Other kinds of Gall. Chinese or Japanese Galls—The only kind of galls, besides those _ of the oak, which are of commercial importance. They are described — at page 167. _ Pistacia Galls—The genus Pistacia, which belongs to the same order as Rhus, is very liable to the attacks of Aphis, which produce upon its leaves and branches excrescences of exactly the same nature as Chinese galls. In the south of Europe, horn-like follicles, often several inches long,’ are frequently met with on the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus (page 165). These Galle vel Folliculi Pistacine, im Italian Carobbe di Giudea, were formerly used in medicine and in dyeing.* They were noticed in 1555 by Belon, but already well known as early as the time of Theophrastus. _ Another much smaller gall of different shape is formed (by the same Insect ?) on the ribs of the leaves of Pistacia Terebinthus; P. Lentiscus (page 161) affords also a similar small excrescence. Again, another growth of the same character constitutes the small and very astringent galls known in the Indian bazaars by the names of Bazghanj and Gule-pistah, the latter signifying flower of pistachio; they have been termed in Europe Bokhara Galls. They were impo by sea into Bombay in the year 1872-73, to the extent of 184 cw _ chiefly from Sind ;*'and are also carried into North-western India by _way of Peshawar and by the Bolan Pass. Occasionally a package finds its way into a London drug sale. _ Tamarisk Galls—These are roundish knotty excrescences of the size of a pea up to 4 an inch in diameter, found in North-western . on the branches of Tamarix orientalis L., a large, quick-growing a common on saline soils. The galls are used in India in the phe oak galls, and are mentioned as “non-officinal” in the Pharmacopen, . of India, 1867 We are not aware that they have been the subject : ss any particular chemical research ; their microscopic structure : investigated by Vogl.° ee be found # 1 Consul Skene—Reports of H.M. Con 3 Analvsi i : MM, . alysis by Martius may [ie gor oe 1. 1872. 270. Liebig’s Ani 3 Pharm, xxi. (1837) 179 & ieee a fi see Pharm. Journ. iii. 4From the returns quo’ at page oe (1844) 387, orthestracturesee Marchand, _ note 3. : Apothe- in the paper quoted at page 166, note 4, 5 Zeitschrift des Oecsterreichischen “PO” Plate iii. kervereines, 1877. 14. LIGNUM SANTALL 599 SANTALACE. LIGNUM SANTALI. Lignum Santalinum album vel citrinum; Sandal Wood; F. Bois de Santal citrin; G. Weisses oder Gelbes Sandelholz. Botanical Origin—Santalum album’ L., a small tree, 20 to 30 feet high, with a trunk 18 to 35 inches in girth, a native of the moun- tainous parts of the Indian peninsula, but especially of Mysore and parts of Coimbatore and North Canara, in the Madras Presidency; it grows in dry and open places, often in hedge-rows, not in forests. The same tree is also found in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, notably of Sumba (otherwise called Chandane or Sandal-wood Island), and Timur. In later times, sandal wood has been extensively collected in the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, where its existence was first pointed out about the year 1778, from Santalum Freycinetianwm Gaud. and S. pyrularium A. Gray ;* in the Viti or Fiji Islands from S. Yasi Seem. ; in New Caledonia from S. austro-caledonicwm, Vieill®; and in Western Australia from Fusanus spicatus Br. (Santalum spicatum a DC., 8. cygnorum Miq.)4 The mother plants of Japanese and West India sandal wood are not known to us. ieee In India the sandal-wood tree is protected by Government, and is the source of a profitable commerce. In other countries it been left to itself, and has usually been extirpated, at least from all accessible Places, within a few years of its discovery. History—Sandal wood, the Sanskrit f Indi for degne dict in the Since Cote dest Vedic commentary extant, Nirukta or writings of Yaska, the ol 2 written not later shies the 5th century B.c. The wood is oer referred to in the ancient Sanskrit epic poems, the Ramayana an rata, parts of which may be of nearly as early date. bout the - _ The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, ss daht ) middle of the 1st century, enumerates sandal wood ee meio among the Indian commodities imported into Omana in the Gulf.° ae peed, h century b The Téarédva mentioned towards the middle of sete ca China Cosmas Indicopleustes,’ as brought to Taprobane (Cey ee ration. In and other emporia, was probably the wood under oak seater? in Ceylon its essential oil was used as early as the embalming the corpses of the princes. Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic. ern part 18 (1877). ie 2 Seeman ogee : 210-215 n, Flora Vitiensis, 1865~ * The natural woods having been nearly exhausted, the tree is now under culture in the island. Catalogue des produits des colonies Jrancaises, Exposition de 1878. . 332 ; they state there that ossi-bé, on the north-western coast of the island of - Wa heties Santalum yee aes a ‘found throughout N. and E, Australia, Lee! called sandal wood by the colonists, 18 = object of trade, we know not. 5 Vincent, Gioia Navigation of ncients, ii. (1807) 378. - Migne Pa Nae Cursus, series Graeca, tom. 88. 446. — 600— SANTALACEA, | Sandal wood is named by Masudi' as one of the costly aromatics of the Eastern Archipelago. In India it was used in the most sacred buildings, of which a memorable example still exists in the famous — gates of Somnath, supposed to be 1000 years old.” In the 11th century sandal wood was found among the treasures of the Egyptian khalifs, as stated in our article on camphor at page 511. Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus, who flourished at Salerno in the 11th century, was one of the earliest to mention Sandalum.* Ebn Serabi, called Serapion the Younger, who lived about the same period, was acquainted with white, yellow, and ved sandal wood.* All three kinds of sandal wood also occur in a list of drugs? in use at Frankfort, circa A.D. 1450; and in the Compendiwm Aromata- _ riorum of Saladinus, published in 1488, we find mentioned as proper to be kept by the Italian apothecary,—* Sandali trium generum, seilicet albi, vrubii et citrini.” Whether the ved sandal here coupled with white and yellow was the inodorous wood of Pterocarpus santalinus, now called Lignum santalinum rubrum or Red Sanders (see p. 199), is extremely doubtful. It may have meant real sandal wood, of which three shades, designated — white, red, and yellow, are still recognized by the Indian traders.® _ On the other hand, we learn from Barbosa’ that about 1511 white and yellow sandal wood were worth at Calicut on the Malabar Coast from eight to ten times as much as the red, which would show that in his day the red was not a mere variety of the other two, but something _ far cheaper, like the Red Sanders Wood of modern commerce. In 1635 the subsidy levied on sandal wood imported into England was Is. per lb. on the white, and 2s, per lb. on the yellow.’ The first figure and satisfactory description of Santalwin album occur in the Herbariwm Amboinense of Rumphius (ii. tab. 11). Production—The dry tracts producing this valuable wood occupy — patches of a strip of country lying chiefly in Mysore and Coimbatore, about 250 miles long, north and north-west of the Neilgherry Hill, — and having Coorg and Canara between it and the Indian Ocean; also piece of country further eastward in the districts of Salem and No Arcot, where the tree grows from the sea-level up to an elevation ss 3000 feet. In Mysore, where sandal wood is most extensively Py duced, the trees all belong to Government, and can only be felled ny the proper officers. This privilege was conferred on the East ree - Company by a treaty with Hyder Ali, made 8 August 1770, and | ‘I. 222 in the work quoted in the + Liber Serapionis aggregatus in” oe Appendix, * They are 11 feet high and 9 feet wide, and richly carved out of sandal wood; they were constructed for the temple of Som- nath in Guzerat, once esteemed the holiest temple in India. On its destruction in a.p. 1025, the gates were carried off to Ghuzni in Afghanistan, where they remained until the capture of that city by the English in 1842, when they were taken back to India, ey are now preserved in the citadel of Agra. Fora representation of the gates, a Pie id, XXx. (1844) pl. 14. era, - 1536-39, Lib. de Gradibus, simplicibus, 1473. ie a 5 Fliickiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, nn : 1873. 11. - fi Thus Milburn in his Oriental Comer 2 (1813) says—‘“‘. . . the — eo the higher is the perfume; 40 dal intored merchants sometimes divide eo different yellow, and white, but these are vot ail? shades of the same colour, an os of the from any difference in the specie a fi, 291. ine pet hanigttdond et Viaggi, ee Venet, 1554. fol. 357 b., Barbosu Portoghese. 8 The Rates of Marchandizes, Lond. LIGNUM SANTALL ~ , 601 monopoly has been maintained to the present day. The Mysore annual exports of sandal wood are about 700 tons, valued at £27,000.! They are shipped from Mangalore. _ A similar monopoly existed in the Madras Presidency until a few years ago, when it was abandoned. But sandal wood is still a source of revenue to the Madras Government, which by the systematic management of the Forest Department has of late years been regularly increasing. The quantity of sandal wood felled in the Reserved I ae during the year 1872-3 was returned as 15,329 maunds (5473 ons).? The sandal-wood tree, which is indigenous to the regions just men- tioned, used to be reproduced by seeds sown spontaneously or by birds; but it is now being raised in regular plantations, the seeds being sown two or three in a hole with a chili (Capsicum) seed, the latter producing a quick-growing seedling which shades the sandal while young. It is probable that the nurse-plant affords sustenance, for it has been shown‘ that Santalum is parasitic, its roots attaching themselves by tuber-like processes to those of many other plants ; and it is also said that young sandal plants thrive best when grass is allowed to grow up in the seed-beds. The trees attain their prime in 20 to 30 years, and have then trunks as much as a foot in diameter. A tree having been felled, the branches are lopped off, and the trunk allowed to lie on the oe ae several months, during which time the white ants eat away the greater part of the inodorous sapwood. The trunk is then roug ly trimmed, sawn into billets 2 to 24 feet long, and taken to th ful There the wood is weighed, subjected to a second and more sage trimming, and classified according to quality. In some papeeogie: customary not to fell but to dig the tree up; 1 : after the ae has been cut down,—the root affording valuable w which with the chips and sawdust are preserved for erbeta% or for burning in the native temples. The sap Wood aud teen worthless.° : 599) In 1868 a sort of sandal wood afforded by Fusanus spicatus (p- ; r ja, whence it was was one of the chief exports of Western Australia, to cut growing shipped to China. A trifling payment for permission ren oe eg . : ‘or placed on the felling of t timber of any kind was the only barrier places dull season in trees. The farmers employed their teams during the had been felled — bringing to Perth or Guildford the logs of sandal which hac Des Tt and trimmed in the bush; and there was a flourishing 2 S cill i of trees of a fair size could be obtained within 100 or a a ton. But the towns, where the commodity was worth £6 to £6 10s. Po hs sr the ill-regulated and improvident destruction of ei a ahah iia thal easily accessible districts has so reduced their numbers : ‘cult. and Horti- +B. H. Baden Powell, Report on the . ‘Scott m — nian oa ii. part 1 "Administration of the Forest Department in cult. Soc. of India, the several provinces under the Government of sz rir Experiences of @ Planter in the India, 1872-73, Caleutta, 1874. vol. i. 27. sriot Mysore, ii. (1871) 2373 also * Report of the Administration of the Jungles Oo tio a communicated by Ca Madras Presidency during the year 1872-73, ven es Iker, Deputy Conservator of Madras, 1874, 18. 143, Song aaa : 3 Bal. oe ’ Forests, Madras. India, 1873 ok ra Sylvatica for Southern e forest depots. — n others the rootis dug up ee a ANT ATAOHAL - in that part of Australia soon came toanend.' Australian sandal wood _ appears however to be still an article of commerce, if one may draw such an inference from the fact that 47,904 cwt. of sandal wood were imported into Singapore from Australia in the year 1872. It was mostly re-shipped to China.? Description—Sandal wood is not much known in English commerce, and is by no means always to be found even in London. That which - we have examined, and which we believe was Indian, was in cylindrical logs, mostly about 6 inches in diameter (the largest 8 inches—smallest - 8 inches) and 3 to 4 feet long, extremely ponderous; the bark had been removed. A transverse section of sandal wood exhibits it of a pale brown, marked with rather darker concentric zones and (when seen under a lens) numerous open pores. The tissue is traversed by medul- lary rays, also perceptible by the aid of a lens. The wood splits easily, emitting when comminuted an agreeable odour which is remarkably persistent; it has a strongish aromatic taste. The varieties of sandal wood are not classified by the few persons who deal in the article in London, and we are unable to point out cha- - raeters by which they may be distinguished. In the price-currents of commercial houses in China three sorts of sandal wood are enumera namely, South Sea Island, Timor, and Malabar; the last fetches three or four times as high a price as either of the others. Even the Indian sandal wood may vary in an important manner. Beddome,’ conser-— vator of forests in Madras, and an excellent observer, remarks that the finest sandal wood is that which has grown slowly on rocky, dry and poor land; and that the trees found in a rich alluvial soil, though of very fine growth, produce no heart-wood and are consequently valueless. A variety _ of the tree with more lanceolate leaves (var. 8 myrtifolium DC.), native of the eastern mountains of the Madras Presidency, affords a sandal w which is nearly inodorous. Microscopic Structure—The woody rays or wedges show a breadth ie varying from 35 to 420 mkm., the primary being frequently divided by secondary medullary rays. These latter rays consist of one, often of two, rows of cells of the usual form. The woody tissue which they enclose is chiefly made up of small ligneous fibres with pointed ends, some larget parenchymatous cells, and thick-walled vessels. The resin and essen oil reside chiefly in the medullary rays, as shown by the darker colour of these latter. Chemical Composition—The most important constituent is the essential oil, which the wood yields to the extent of from 2 to 5 pe e cent.’ In India, with imperfect stills, 2:5 per cent. of the oil are obtain the roots yield the largest amount and the finest quality of it Bee light yellow, thick liquid, possessing the characteristic odour of sandal, that which we examined had a sp. gr. of 0:963. We did not succeed ‘al : finding a fixed boiling point of the oil; it began to boil at 214 C, * Millett, An Australian Parsonage 3 Op. cit. i : Tond., 1872, 43. 95. 382. $3 ‘ Information obligingly communicate : Straits Settlements Blue Book Jor 1872, by Messrs. Schimmel and Co., Re hatte 1873. 298. 347.—It is possible (1878). ia of Indi, mae the sandal wood in “ete may have * Dr. Bidie, in Pharmacopoeia ou en the produce of the South Sea Islands, 1868, p. 461. , shipped from an Australian port. : LIGNUM :SAMTALE = ae the temperature quickly rose to 255°, the oil acquiring a darker hue. Oil of sandal wood varies much in the strength and character of its aroma, according to the sort of wood from which it is produced. The oil as largely prepared by Messrs. Schimmel & Co.,ina column 100 millimetres long, deviates the plane of polarization 18°6° to the left. — Oil of Venezuela sandal wood, from the same distillers, examined in the same manner, deviates 6°°75 to the right. From the wood, treated with boiling alcohol, we obtained about 7 per cent. of a blackish extract, from which a tannate was precipitated by alcoholic solution of acetate of lead. Decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, the tannate yielded a tannic acid having but little colour, and striking a greenish hue with a ferric salt. The extract also contained a dark resin. Commerce—The greatest trade in sandal wood is in China, which country in the year 1866 imported at the fourteen treaty ports then open 87,321 peculs, equivalent to 5,197 tons; of this vast quantity the city of Hankow on the river Yangtsze, received no less than 61,414 peculs, or more than seven times as much as any other port.’ The imports into Hankow have recently been much smaller, namely, 14,989 peculsin 1871 0 and 12,798 peculs in 1872.2 On the other hand, Shanghai lying near the mouth of the same great river, imported in 1872, 59,485 peculs of sandal wood, the estimated’ value of which was about £100,000. In : ae 1877 the imports of all China were 72,934 peculs. oN A considerable trade in sandal wood is done in Bombay, the quantity imported thither annually being about 650 tons, and the annual export: about 400 tons.* Oil of sandal wood is largely manfactured on the ghats apatne Mangalore and Mysore, where fuel for the stills is roe hy returns‘ represent the quantity of the oil imported into bombay the year 1872-73 as 10,348 lbs., value £8,374; 4,500 Ibs. were re-expo by sea. : Uses—The essential oil has of late been prescribed as shigion for copaiba, otherwise sandal wood has hardly any 4k es fabri- European medicine. It is employed as a perfume and for of Tadis cation of small articles of ornament. Among peyton Gualthy it is largely consumed in the celebration a aes i ai ange sticks of Hindus showing their respect for a tog selansb of the wood madeintoa — sandal wood to the funereal pile. The po edicinal paste with water is used for making the caste mark, a hopes be purposes. The consumption of sandal wood in principally for the incense used in the temples. ; ) 1872 (pp. 62. 1 Reports on Trade at the ports in China China for 1871 (p. 50) and PPp- open to foreign trade for 1866, published by ae es the official document quoted at ae of the Inspector-General of er p. 601 note 1. . eh! . 7 z ae 1867. 120, 121.—One pecu ‘ See p. 333, note 3. * Commercial Reports of H.M. Consuls in 604 ees CONIFER, Gomnosperms, CONIFER. TEREBINTHINA VULGARIS. Crude or Common Turpentine; F. Térebenthine commune ; G. Gemeiner Ferpenthin. Botanical Origin—The trees which yield Common Turpentine may be considered in two groups, namely, European and American. 1. European—In Finland and Russia Proper, the Scotch Pine, Pinus silvestris L.; in Austria and Corsica, P. Laricio Poiret; and in South-western France, P. Pinaster Solander (P. maritima Poiret), extensively cultivated as the Pin maritime, yield turpentine in their respective countries. 2. American—In the United States, the conifers most important for _terebinthinous products are the Swamp Pine, Pinus australis Michaux (P. palustris Mill.), and the Loblolly Pine, P. Toda L. History—The resin of pines and firs was well known to the ancients, who obtained it in much the same manner as that practised at the present day. The turpentine used in this country has for many yeas past been derived from North America. Up to the last century, bo' it and the substance called Common Frankincense were imported from France. The late civil war in the United States and the blockade of the Southern ports, occasioned a great scarcity of American turpentine; and terebinthinous substances from all other countries were pour into the London market. The actual supplies, however, were mainly a nished by France. 4 Kopp’ quotes a passage showing that the essential oil of turpemtime was known to Marcus Greecus, who termed it Aqua ardens. Ths _ unknown personage is the reputed inventor of Greek Fire, a dreaded engine of destruction in medieval warfare. : Secretion—The primary formation of resin-ducts in the bark of coniferous trees has been explained by Dippel? Miiller, d, heart-WO0 The subsequent diffusion of the resinous juice through the “yon Sap-wood, and bark, has been elaborately investigated by Hugo er Mohl.’ From the various forms under which this diffusion exists 12 , Geschichte der Chemie, iv. (1847) 392. * Beitrige cur Pflancenphysiologis MY ; tanische Zeitung, 1863. wig 1868. 119. 329 7 Duct ee Jahrb, Sir wissenschaftl. Botanische Zeitung, 1859. 320 TEREBINTHINA. VULGARIS. 605 different species have arisen the diverse methods of obtaining the terebinthinous resins. Thus in the wood of the Silver Fir (Pinus Picea L.) resin-duets are altogether wanting;—and led by experience, the Alpine peasant collects _ the turpentine of this tree by simply puncturing the little cavities which form under its bark. In the Scotch Pine (P. silvestris L.), they are more abundant in the wood than in the bark, a fact which might be anticipated — by observing how rarely this tree exudes resin spontaneously. Oil of turpentine, like volatile oils in general, undergoes on exposure to the air certain alterations giving rise to what is called resinification. The formic acid which is produced in small quantity during this change characterizes it as one of oxidation; the chief products however are not exactly known, and not one of them has been proved identical with any natural resin, The common assumption that resins are produced from volatile oils by simple oxidation, is consequently not yet entirely justified, Extraction—In the United States! turpentine is obtained to the largest extent from Pinus australis, of which tree there are vast forests, the piny woods or pine-barrens, extending from Virginia to epbemegrer: Gulf, especially through North and South Carolina, Georgia and Ale” bama. But it is in North Carolina that the extraction of turpentine 1s principally carried on. i In the winter, 7.e. from November to March, the negroes in a@ Turpentine Orchard, as the district of forest to be worked is oF ay erie occupied in making in the trunks of the trees, cavities which are technically known as bowes. For this purpose a song cote esate used, and some skill is required to wield it properly. cay made from 6 to 12 inches above the ground, and are sha ed ry a a tended waistcoat-pocket, the bottom being about 4 inc " : pel : lower lip, and 8 or 10 below the upper. On a tree satis anti the box should be made to hold a quart. The less the axe OE re ex- centre of the tree the better, as vitality is the less endangered. to pert workman will make a box in less than 10 minutes. Aan el four boxes are made in each tree, a few inches of a cose is now them. The greater number of trees from which bse es shaied obtained, are from 12 to 18 inches in diameter, and have thre each d a little of the wood The boxes having been made, the pris hele isc hacked ; and immediately beneath it, which are above t : this exouriation; the sap begins to flow about pe airec red yi gradually filling the box. Each tree requires to be sit that is needed. 8 or 10 days, a very slight wound above the last —— hes 12 to 15 feet The hacking is carried on year after year, until hick: is called dip, is or more, ladders being used. The turpentine, bas uliar form, and removed from the boxes by a spoon or ae alice of very rude collected into barrels, which are made on the spot xs ving but a small — construction. The first year's flow of a new tree, hav a oodness and surface to traverse before it reaches the box, is of special g' . ls termed Virgin dip. 338, ete. 1 The account here given is taken from Slave States, New York, 1856, p. 338, F. L. Olmsted’s Journey in the Seaboard . 606 . es. CONIFER, The turpentine which concretes upon the trunk is occasionallyseraped _ off and barrelled by itself, and is known in the market as serape, or by English druggists as Common Frankincense or Gum thus. Although a large amount of turpentine is shipped to the northern ports for distillation, a still larger is distilled in the neighbourhood of the turpentine orchards. Copper stills are used, capable of containing 5 to 20 barrels of turpentine. ‘The turpentine is distilled without water, the volatile oil as it flows from the worm being received in the barrel in which it is afterwards sent to market. When all the oil that can be profitably drawn off has been obtained, a spigot is removed from an opening in the bottom of the still, and the residual Rosin, appearing asa viscid fluid-like molasses, is allowed to flow out. Only the first qualities of rosin, as that obtained from Virgin dip, are generally - considered worth saving, the less pure sorts being simply allowed to run to waste. When it is intended to save the rosin, the latter is drawn off — into a vat of water, which separates the chips and other rubbish, and _ the rosin is then placed in barrels for the market. A North Carolina turpentine orchard will remain productive under ordinary treatment ‘for fifty years. - _ The collection of turpentine in the departments of the Landes. and Gironde in the south-west of France, is performed in a more rational manner than in America, inasmuch as the plan of making deep cavities | in the tree for the purpose of receiving the resin, is avoided by the simple expedient of placing a suitable vessel beneath the lowest incision. - The turpentine which concretes upon the stem is termed in France Galipot or Barras. Description—Common turpentine is chiefly of two varieties, namely, American and Bordeaux; the first alone is commonly found in the English market. American. Turpentine—A. viscid honey-like fluid, of yellowish colour, somewhat opaque, but becoming transparent by exposure to the air; it has an agreeable odour and warm bitterish taste. When long kept in a bottle, it is seen to separate into two layers, the upper oe and faintly fluorescent, the lower somewhat turbid or granular. When the latter portion is examined under the microscope, it is found to con- sist mainly of minute crystals of peculiar curved or bluntly elliptie form. These crystals are abietic acid ; when the turpentine 18 W : the crystals are speedily dissolved. is Bordeaux Turpentine—in all essential particulars agrees wie American Turpentine ; it appears to separate rather more readily than — the latter into two layers,—a transparent and an opaque OF talline. j __ Chemical Composition—The turpentines are mixtures o and essential oil. The latter, which amounts to from 15 to 30 per Or consists for the greater part of various hydrocarbons, correspo? a - to the formula C"H". Many of the crude turpentine oils, and some, them even after rectification, are energetically acted on ye ‘For further particulars, see Guibourt, 1874. 24 pages, 1 plate ; Matthieu, Fl" Hist. des drog. ii. (1869 ere 1860, p. 353. Produits sieheaue de Par Gecion. 9 raga nck oe TEREBINTHINA VULGARIS. ee sodium. This re-action proves the presence of a certain quantity of oxygenated oils, not one of which has thus far been isolated. e turpentine oils, although agreeing in composition, exhibit a series of physical differences according to their origin. One and the same tree, indeed, yields from its several organs oils of different proper- ties. The boiling point varies between 152° and 172°C. The sp. gr. at mean temperatures ranges from 0°856 to 0°870. Greater differences are exhibited in the optical properties, some varieties of the oil turning the plane of polarization to the right, others to the left. This potst power differs in many cases from that of the turpentine from whic: - the oil was derived.) The odour of oil of turpentine varies with the species from which it has been obtained. When crude turpentine is distilled with water, nearly the whole of the oil passes over,while the resin remains. This resin is called Colophony or Rosin. When it still contains a little water, it is distinguished in English trade as Yellow Rosin ; when fully deprived of water, it becomes what is called Transparent Rosin. That of deeper colour . toa by a still longer application of heat, bears the name of Black sin. Colophony softens at 80° C., and melts completely at 100° into a clear liquid. At about 150° it forms a somewhat darker liquid, but without undergoing a loss in weight; at higher temperatures, it gradually de- composes. Pure colophony has a sp. gr. of 1-07, and is rp en transparent, amorphous, and very brittle. At temperatures between Oi and 20°C, it requires for solution 8 parts of dilute alcohol (0°883). is ster of a caustic alkali, it dissolves . spirit much more freely. is plentifully soluble in acetone or benzol. ee The ‘esiepeateinn of colophony agrees with the an aches oe Pix Burgundica has a wider pre owed to include the tu i : ifere. e employ it fi he Hapa sense rpentines of other Conifer i arkinson, an apothecary of London and herbarist to King Charies oe “ Bur ony Pitch” as a thing well known in his time.” Dale ported boats ogia (1693) mentions Piz Burgundica as being ef a England from Germany, and it is also noticed by Salmo 1868. bear Husemann, Jahresbericht, 2 Pesse or Hpicéa of the French; Fiche or Rothtanne of the Germans. ; ® Theater of Plants, 1640. 1542 PIX BURGUNDICA. _ 617 (1693), who says “it is brought to us out of Burgundy, Germany and other places near Strasburgh.”' Pomet, writing in Paris about the same period, discards the prefix Burgundy as a fiction, remarking that the best Poiw grasse comes from Holland and Strassburg.” Whether this resin ever was collected in Burgundy we are unable to determine. It may probably have acquired the name through having been brought into commerce from Switzerland and Alsace by way of Franche Comté, otherwise called Comté de Bourgogne or Haute Bourgogne.’ Burgundy pitch is enumerated among the materia medica of the London Pharmacopceia of 1677, and in every subsequent edition. In that of 1809 it was defined under the name of Pia arida, as the pre- pared resin of Pinus Abies. Production—Burgundy pitch is produced in Finland, in the Black Forest in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Austria and Switzerland. On the estate of Baron Linder at Svarta near Helsingfors, it is obtained by melting the crude resin in contact with the vapour of water, and straining. The quantity annually produced there was stated in 1867 to be 35,000 kilogr. (689 cwt.);* that afforded by an establishment at Ilm in the same country amounted to 80,000 kilogr. (1,575 ewt.).’ In the neighbourhood of Oppenau and on the Kniebis mountain in the Grand Duchy of Baden the stems of the firs are wounded at equal distances by making perpendicular channels, 1} inches wide and the same in depth. The resin which exudes from these channels is scraped off with an iron instrument made for the purpose, and purified by being melted in hot water and strained. This is performed in three or four small establishments at Oppenau and the neighbouring village of Lécherberg. In this state the resin, which is opaque and contains much moisture, is called Wasserharz. By further training and evaporating a portion of the water its quality is improved. ; The manufacture in that part of Germany is on the decline, partly in Consequence of the timber being injured by the wounding of the trees, so that the collecting of resin is not permitted in the large forests belonging to the governments of Baden and Wiirtemberg. We have had the opportunity of observing® that in the establishments in question French turpentine or galipot, imported from Bordeaux, as well as American rosin or colophony, are used in quantities certainly exceeding that of the resin grown on the spot. : In the middle of the last century some Burgundy pitch was pro- duced, according to Duhamel,’ in the present canton of Neuchatel, but no such branch of industry is now pursued there, at least on a large scale. On the other hand, in the districts of Moutier and Delémont in the Bernese Jura this resin is still collected, though it is not known as Burgundy Pitch, but is termed simply Pow blanche (White Pitch). , Compleat English Physici s urn. ix. (1876) 164; also i 1693. 1031. Pharm. Journ, ix. (1876) ; also in ® Hist. des a. anata 3 i Hanbury’s Science Papers, pp. 46 to 53. 7 Se 5 ai ekiecher Ausstellungs- Bericht, x, * Chabreus in his Stirpium Seiagraphia (Wien, 1868) 471. ip) remarks that he had seen the Pesse 6 J spent several days in the localities in iy, Abies L.] in great plenty “in Burgun- _1873.—F. A. F. ae To. moniibus,” yet makes no particular 7 Traité des Arbres, etc. 1. (1775) 12. allusion to its yielding resin, __ their transparency if allowed to dry slowly in the air, becoming at 618. : CONIFER. | The surveyor of the forests of this district, which is one of the richest in Pinus Abies, has informed one of us that from 790 to 850 quintals are collected and exported to Basle, Ziirich, Aarau and Vaud. The pitch is worth in loco (1868) 100 to 110 franes (£4 to £4 8s.) the bosse of 6 quintals. The quantities collected in other parts of Switzerland are even less considerable. Description—Pure Burgundy pitch, of which we have numerous authentic specimens, is a rather opaque, yellowish-brown substance, hard and brittle when cold, yet gradually taking the form of the vessel in which it is kept. It is strongly adhesive, breaks with a clear con- choidal fracture, and has a very agreeable, aromatic odour, especially when heated. It does not exhibit a crystalline structure, although, as we have frequently observed, the resin on the stem of the tree is dis- tinctly crystalline. ; Burgundy pitch is readily soluble in glacial acetic acid, acetone, absolute alcohol, and even in alcohol of 75 per cent (sp. gr. 0°860), yet _ its solubility in these liquids is considerably altered by the presence of water or essential oil; and still more by the formation of abietic acid in the resin itself. The same influences also affect. the melting point. The crude resin of Pinus Abies, deprived of essential oil and dis- solved in one part of absolute alcohol, was found to deviate a ray of polarized light 3° to the left, in a column of 50 mm.; the essential oil deviated 8°5° to the same direction. The oil contains a small amount of an oxygenated oil. After treatment with sodium the oil which remains does not form a solid compound if saturated with hydrochloric acid. Chemical Composition—The investigations of Maly nea at p. 6 07 afford a satisfactory elucidation of the chemical properties of the pinic resinous exudations. They all, according to that chemist, are mixtures of the same amorphous resin, C“HO*, with essential oils 0 the composition C"H™. These terebinthinous juices are collected and sold either in their natural state as turpentine, or deprived more or pe completely of their volatile oil, in which condition they are represented by Burgundy Pitch, and finally by rosin or colophony. The turpentines flowing down the stems of the trees gradually = same nie dined -anid wpenciad granular. This alteration is due to the incorporation of water, which at last is not only mixed with components of the resinous juice, but to some extent combines rae cally with the resin so as to transform it into a erystalline body the characters of an acid. The fact is easily observed if clear PG the turpentine of Pinus silvestris, P. Abies or P. Picea are collected vials and kept perfectly dry. Thus treated these turpentines remap transparent, but the addition of water causes after a short tame a formation of microscopic crystals of abietic acid, rendering them more or less opaque. i ‘If turpentines are collected before they lose their essential evaporation and oxidation, and before they have become cae tile they can be retained perfectly transparent by distilling off the vied . oil without water. The distillation being most commonly carried ° with water, the remaining resin is opaque. ‘Collected by myself.—F. A. F, PIX LIQUIDA 619 Maly is of opinion that the same amorphous resin occurs in all the Conifer, and that it yields by hydration the same acid, namely A bietic, which has been described by former chemists as Pinic, Silvic, and Pimaric acids, all of which indeed are admitted to have the same com- position. We must however remember that several sorts of turpentine, as Canada Balsam, appear incapable, according to our experiments, of yielding any crystalline resinoid compound whatever; and that their amorphous resin being but partially soluble is certainly not a homo- geneous substance. The crystals as formed naturally in the common turpentines do not — exhibit precisely the same forms as those obtained artificially when the resins are agitated with warm diluted alcohol, as in the preparation of © abietic acid. As to Pimaric Acid, we have prepared it in quantity from galipot, the resin of Pinus Pinaster, but have always found its crystalline character entirely different from that of abietic acid.’ We are inclined, therefore, to think that the composition of the resins of Conifer is not so uniform as Maly suggests. The remarkable variety of their essential oils is a fact which seems in favour of our view, Uses—Burgundy pitch is prescribed as an ingredient of plasters, and thus employed is useful as a mild stimulant. In Germany it has some economic applications, one of which is the lining of beer casks, for which purpose a composition is used called Brauerpech (brewers pitch), made by mixing it with colophony or galipot. — Adulteration—No drug is the subject of more adulteration than Burgundy pitch, so much so that the very name is understood by some pharmacologists to be that of a manufactured compound. The substance commonly sold in England is made by melting together colophony with palm oil or some other fat, water being stirred in to render the mixture opaque. In appearance it is very variable, different samples presenting ditferent shades of bright or dull yellow or yellowish-brown. Many when broken exhibit numerous cavities containing air or water ; all are more or less opaque, becoming in time transparent on the surface by the loss of water. Artificial Burgundy pitch is offered for sale in bladders; it has a weak terebinthinous odour, and is devoid of the peculiar fragrance of the genuine. The presence of a fatty oil is easily discovered by treatment with double its weight of glacial acetic acid, which forms a turbid mixture, separating by repose into two layers, the — upper being oily. PIX LIQUIDA. Wood Tar; F. Goudron végétal, Poix liquide; G. Holztheer, Fichtentheer. Botanical Origin—Tar is obtained by submitting the wood of the stems and roots of coniferous trees to dry or destructive distillation. That found in commerce is produced in Northern Europe, chiefly from two species, namely Pinus silvestris L. and P. Ledebournt Endl. (Larix sibirica Ledeb.). " These trees constitute the vast forests of Arctic Europe and Asia. 1 Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann for 1867. 37. 620 CONIFERA. ‘History—Theophrastus gives a circumstantial description of the preparation of tar, which applies with considerable accuracy to the processes still practised in those districts where no improved methods of manufacture have yet been introduced. Production—The great bulk of the vegetable tar used in Europe, and known in commerce as Archangel or Stockholm Tar, is prepared in Finland, Central and Northern Russia, and Sweden. The process is conducted in the following manner :—vast stacks of pine wood consisting chiefly of the roots and lower portions of the trunks (the more valuable parts of the trees being used as timber), and containing as much as 30,000 to 70,000 cubic feet, are carefully packed together, and then covered with a thick layer of turf, moss, and earth, beaten down with heavy stampers. The whole stack of billets is constructed over a conical or funnel-like cavity made in the ground, if possible on the side of a hill, this arrangement being adopted for the purpose of carrying on a downward distillation. Fire being applied the combustion of the mass of wood has to be carried on very slowly and without flame in order to obtain the due amount of tar and a charcoal of good quality. During its progress the products, chiefly tar, collect in the funnel-like cavity, from which they are discharged by 4 tube into a cast-iron pan placed beneath the stack, or simply into hollow tree trunks. The time required for combustion varies from one to four weeks, according to the size of the stack. During the last few years this rude process has been improved and accelerated by the introduction of rationally constructed wrought-iron stills, furnished with refrigerating condensers, as proposed in Russia by Hessel in 1861. By this mode of manufacture the yield in tar of pine wood is about 14 per cent. from stems, dried by exposure to the open _ air; and 16 to 20 per cent. from roots. Large quantities of pyroligneous acid and oil of turpentine are at the same time secured. The wood of the beech and of other non-coniferous trees appears not to afford more than 10 per cent. of tar, while turf yields only from 3 to 9 per cent. Description—The numerous empyreumatic products which result from the destructive distillation of pine wood, and which we call tar’, constitute a dark brown or blackish semi-liquid substance, of peculiar _ odour and sharp taste. When deprived of water and seen layers, tar is perfectly transparent. The magnifying glass shows a of the varieties to contain colourless crystals of Pyrocatechin, scatter throughout the dark viscid substance, and to these tar owes its occasio® ally granular, honey-like consistence.’ A gentle heat causes them to melt and mix with the other constituents. : True vegetable tar has always a decidedly acid reaction. It 38 readily miscible with alcohol, glacial acetic acid, ether, fixed and volatile oils, chloroform, benzol, amylic aleohol or acetone. It is soluble ie caustic alkaline solutions, but not in pure water or watery liquids. sp. gr. of tar from the roots of conifers is about 1:06 (Hessel) yet es somewhat elevated temperature, it becomes lighter than warm water. Water agitated with tar acquires a light yellowish tint, and the bei and odour of tar, as well as an acid reaction. On evaporation ioe crystals are a pretty object for the microscope, when examined by polarized PIX LIQUIDA. : 92k solution becomes brown, and at last microscopic crystals are obtained with a brown residue like tar itself, which is no longer soluble in water. A microscopical examination of tar which has been exhausted with water, shows that all crystals have disappeared. Chemical Composition—Dry wood may be heated to about 150° C. without decomposition ; but at a more elevated temperature, it ‘com- mences to undergo a change, yielding a large number of products, the nature and comparative quantity of which depend upon circum- stances. If the process is carried on in a closed vessel, a residue will be got which has more or less resemblance to coal. By heating fir-wood enclosed with some water to 400° C., Daubrée (1857) obtained a coal- like substance, which yielded by a subsequent increase of temperature scarcely any volatile products. The results are widely different if a process is followed which permits the formation of volatile bodies; and these substances are formed in largest proportion, if the heat acts quickly and intensely. At lower degrees of heat, more charcoal results and more water is evolved. Among the volatile products of destructive distillation, those alone which are condensed at the ordinary temperature of the air are of pharmaceutical interest ; and of these, chiefly the portion not soluble in water, or that which is called Tar or Liquid Pitch. The aqueous portion of the products consist principally of empyreumatic acetic acid, to which tar owes its acid reaction. : _ The tissue of wood is chiefly formed of cellulose, intimately combined with a saccharine substance, which may be separated if the wood is boiled with dilute acids. The remaining cellulose is however not yet pure, but is still united to a substance which, as shown by Erdmann, _ 18 capable of yielding pyrocatechin. _ dt is well known that sugar subjected to an elevated temperature, | yields a series of pyrogenous products; and the same fact is observed if purified cellulose is heated in similar manner. But for tar-making, Wood is preferred which is impregnated with resins and essential oils, - and these latter furnish another series of empyreumatic products. From — ése circumstances, the components of wood-tar are of an extremely complicated character, which is still more the case when other woods _ than those of conifers form part of the material submitted to distilla- tion. _ In the case of beech-wood, Creasote is formed, which is obtained only in very small quantity from the Coniferw. Volatile alkaloids and carbolic acid, which are largely produced in the destructive distillation of coal, appear not to be present in wood-tar. — € components of the latter may be considered under two heads: —first, the lighter aqueous portion, which separates from the other products of distillation, forming what is called Impure Pyroligneous Acid. This contains chiefly acetic acid and Methyl Alcohol or Wood Naphtha, CH‘O: Acetone, O'H°O ; besides other liquid products abun- dantly soluble in water and acetic acid. In this portion, some pyro- catechin also occurs, ; € second class of pyrogenous products of wood consists of a omologous series of liquid hydrocarbons, sparingly soluble in water, and Which therefore are chiefly retained in the heavy layer below the Pyroligneous acid, forming the proper wood-tar. The liquid in question : Liebig, Annalen dev Chemie u. Pharmacie, Suppl. v. (1867) 229. - in North Carolina exported in 1871, 25,260 barrels of tar, 49 ~ 22 CONIFER Z. furnishes Toluol or Toluene, C’0% (boiling point 114° C.), Xylole CH”, and several other analogous substances. If tar is redistilled, an elevated temperature being used towards the end of the process, some crystallizable solid bodies are obtained, the ‘most important of which is that called Parafiim, having the formula C=H2"*2, m varying from 20 to 24. The crystals already mentioned as occurring in tar are Pyrocatechin. They are easily sublimed at some degrees above their fusing point (104° C.), or removed by acetic acid, in which as well as in water they are readily soluble. Hence in some sorts of tar this substance does not occur, it having probably been removed by water. Pyrocatechin, C°H*(OH)’, can be obtained by the destructive distil- — lation of many other substances, as catechu, kino, the extracts of rhatany and bearberry leaves, and other extracts rich in that form of tannin which produces greenish (not blue-black) precipitates in salts of iron. It is extracted from the granular sorts of wood-tar, by exposing them ata proper temperature to a current of heated dry air, or by exhausting them with water. Ether when shaken with the concentrated aqueous solution and left to evaporate, leaves colourless crystals of pyrocatechin which after purification are devoid of acid reaction. They havea peculiar burning persistent taste, and are very pungent and irritating when allowed to evaporate. A solution of pyrocatechin yields with perchloride of iron a dark green coloration changing to black after a few moments, and becoming red on the addition of potash. This mixture finally acquires a magnificent violet hue, like a solution of alkaline perman- ganate. No alteration is produced in a solution of pyrocatechin by protosalts of iron. Among the few medicinal preparations of tar, is Tar Water, called Aqua vel Liquor Picis, made by agitating wood-tar with water. | The presence in it of pyrocatechin is easily proved by the above-mentioned reactions, or by a few drops of red chromate of potassium, which pro- duces a brownish black colouration. It may hence be inferred that pyrocatechin is perhaps the active ingredient in tar-water, and that for making this liquid the granular, crystalline sorts of tar should be preferred.’ _ Commerce—Tar as well as pitch is manufactured in Finland, and shipped from various ports in the Gulf of Bothnia, as Uleaborg; Gam Carleby, Jacobstad, Ny Carleby and Christinestad ; also from Archangel and Onega on the White Sea. Some tar is also produced in Volhyni, and finds its way by the Dnieper to the Black Sea. The North of Sweden likewise produces tar, chiefly about Umea and Lulea, the distillation being now performed in well-constru¢ apparatus of iron. ; The pine forests of North America afford tar and pitch. Wilmingr ss barrels of pitch. 1 The imports of tar into the United Kingdom in 1872, were 189,29 * We may suppose that the authors : thrownaway: of the maceration of the tar, shall be ie Codex were not of this opinion, in- 2 Consul Walker, Report on the peg ord sig eter m making Zau de Goudron, they North and South Carolina—Consue eS er that the liquid obtained by the first ports presented to Parliament, May, 2 PIX NIGRA. - ee barrels, valued at £218,339. Of this quantity 145,483 barrels were shipped from the northern ports of Russia. The barrels in which tar arrives hold about 30 gallons. Smaller sized vessels termed half-barrels are also used, though less frequently. Uses—In medicine of no great importance: an ointment of tar is a common remedy in cutaneous diseases, and tar water is sometimes taken internally. The consumption of tar in ship-building and for the preservation of fences, sufficiently explains the large importations. Other Varieties of Tar. Juniper Tar, Pyrolewm Oxycedri, Oleum Junipert empyrewma- ticum, Olewm Cadinum, Huile de Cade.—This is a tar originally ob- tained by the destructive distillation of the wood of the Cade, Juniperus Oxycedrus L., a shrub or small tree, native of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. It was for centuries used in the South of France as an external remedy, chiefly for domestic animals, but had fallen into complete oblivion until ten years ago, when it began to be prescribed in skin complaints. The Huile de Cade now in use, is transparent and devoid of crystals. It is somewhat thinner than Swedish tar, but closely agrees with it in other respects. It is imported from the Continent, but where made and from what wood we know not. Huile de Cade is mentioned by Olivier de Serres, a celebrated French writer on agriculture of the 16th century ; it is named by Parkinson? in 1640; also by Pomet,’ in whose time (1694) it was rarely genuine, common tar being sold in its place. Beech Tar—Tar is also manufactured from the wood of the beech, Fagus silvatica L., and has a place in some pharmacopeeias as the best Source of creasote. Birch Tar—is made to a small extent in Russia, where it is called Dagget, from the wood of Betula alba L. It contains an abundance of pyrocatechin, and is esteemed on account of its peculiar odour well known in the Russia leather, A purified oil of birch tar is sold by the Leipzig distillers, PIX NIGRA. Pie sicca vel solida vel navalis ; Pitch, Black Pitch ; ¥. P oie novre ; G. Schiffspech, Schusterpech, Schwarzes Pech, Botanical Origin—see Pix liquida. oie . Production—When the crude products of the dry distillation of pine wood, as described in the previous article, are submitted to re-dis- tillation, the following results are obtained. The first 10 to 15 per cent. of volatile matter consists chiefly of. methylie alcohol and acetone. A igher temperature causes the vaporization of the acetic acid, while the still retains the tar. This last, subjected to a further distillation, may © separated into a liquid portion called Oil of Tar (Oleum Pris liquide), and a residuum which, on cooling, hardens and forms the , Lhédtre @ Agriculture, Paris, 1600. 941. 3 Hist. des Drogues, Paris, 1694. part i. Theatrum Botanicuin, 1033. : chap. Xi. Xiv. aS CONIFERZ. produet under notice, namely Black Pitch. Again heated to a very elevated temperature, it is capable of yielding paraffin, anthracene and naphthalene. Description—Pitch is an opaque-looking, black substance, breaking with a shining conchoidal fracture, the fragments showing at the thin translucent edges a brownish colour. No trace of distinct crystallization is observable when very thin fragments are examined, even by polarized light. Pitch has a peculiar disagreeable odour, rather different from that of tar. Its alcoholic solution has a feeble taste somewhat like that of tar, but pitch itself when masticated is almost tasteless. It softens by the warmth of the hand, and may then be kneaded. It readily dissolves in those liquids which are solvents of tar. Alcohol of 75 per cent. acts freely on it, leaving behind in small proportion a dark viscid residue. The brown solution reddens litmus paper, and yields a dingy brownish ‘precipitate with perchloride of iron, and whitish precipitates with. alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead, or with pure water. Pitch dissolves in solution of caustic potash, evolving an offensive odour. Chemical Composition—From the method in which pitch is pre- _ pared, we may infer that it contains some. of the less volatile and less erystallizable compounds found in tar, Ekstrand (1875) extracted from it ae C*H”™, a colourless, inodorous crystalline substance, melting at 90° C. The pitch of beechwood boiled with a caustic alkali, yields a fetid volatile oil; when this solution is acidulated, fatty volatile acids are evolved. These principles however have not yet been isolated either from the pitch of pine or beech. The whitish compound formed by acetate of lead in an alcoholic solution of pitch deserves investigation, and perhaps might be the starting point for acquiring a better know- ledge of the chemistry of this substance. -Commerce—The same countries that produce tar produce also pitch. The quantity of the latter imported into the United Kingdom ~ during 1872 was 35,482 ewt., four-fifths of which were supplied by Russia. Pitch is also manufactured from tar in Great Britain. Uses—Pitch is occasionally administered in the form of pills, ot externally as an ointment; but its medicinal properties are, to say the least, very questionable. FRUCTUS JUNIPERI. Bacee Galbuli Juniperi; Juniper Berries, F. Baies de Genievre; G. Wacholderbeeren, Kaddigbeeren. Botanical Origin—J uniperis communis L., a dicecious evergreen, occurring in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Aretie regiom® throughout Russian Asia as far as Sachalin, and in the north-west alaya, where it is ascending in Kashmir at 5400 feet, in Lahou ds 12,500, on the upper Bias and in Gurhwal to 14,000 feet. It ase: in the islands of Newfoundland, Saint Pierre, and Miquelon, a t also found in Continental North America. Dispersed over this “i area the Common J uniper presents several varieties. In Englan¢ -- FRUCTUS JUNIPERL 625 in the greater part of Europe it forms a bushy shrub from 2 to 6 feet high, but in the interior of Norway and Sweden it becomes a small forest tree of 30 to 36 feet, often attaining an age of hundreds of years.! In high mountain regions of temperate Kurope and in Arctic countries it assumes a decumbent habit (Juniperus nana Willd), rising only a few inches above the soil. History—The fruits of juniper, though by no means exclusively those of J. communis, were commonly used in’ medicine by the Greek and Roman a8 well as by the Arabian physicians; they had a place among the drugs of the Welsh “ physicians of Myddvai” (see Appendix), and are mentioned in some of the earliest printed herbals. The oil was distilled by Schnellenberg? as early as 1546, _ Popular uses were formerly assigned in various parts of Europe to Juniper berries. They were employed as a spice to food ;3 and a spirit, of which wormwood was an ingredient, was obtained from them by fermentation and distillation. The spirit called in French Genzévre became known in English as Geneva, a name subsequently contracted Into Gin.! Description—The flowers form minute axillary catkins; those of the female plant consist of 3 to 5 whorls of imbricated bracts. Of these the uppermost three soon become fleshy and scale-like, and alternate With three upright ovules having an open pore at the apex. After the flowers have faded these three fleshy bracts grow together to form a berry-like fruit termed a galbulus, which encloses three seeds. The three points and sutures of the fruit-scales are conspicuous in the upper part of the young fruit; but after maturity the sutures alone are visible, forming a depressed mark at its summit. A small point, sur- yas by two or three trios of minute bracts, indicates the base of e fruit. This fruit or pseudo-berry remains ovate and green during its first year, and it is not until the second autumn that it becomes ripe. It is then spherical, ,3, to 34; of an inch in diameter, of a deep purplish colour, with a blue-grey bloom. Its internal structure may be thus described :—beneath the thin epicarp there is a loose yellowish-brown “arcocarp, enclosing large cavities, the oil-ducts; the three hard seeds lying close together, triangular and sharp-edged at the top, are attached to the Sarcocarp at their outer sides, and only as far as the lower half. The upper half, which is free, is covered by a thin membrane. In the longitudinal furrows of the hard testa towards the lower half of the seed are small prominent sacs growing out into the sarcocarp. Each Seed bears on its inner side 1 or 2, and on its convex outer surface 4 to 8 of these sacs, which in old fruits contain the resinified oil in an “morphous colourless state. : ; Juniper berries when crushed have an aromatic odour, and a spicy, ‘Weetish, terebinthinous taste. Microscopic Structure—The outer layer of the fruit omega 4 colourless transparent cuticle, which covers a few rows of large cubic 4 The gin distilled in Holland is flavoured "Schiibeler, Cj ! porate Christiania, 1873-1 BR 140, with fee with juniper berries, yet, as we are i ipr ye 5 Arteneybuch, Konigsberg, 1556. 35. very slightly, only 2 tb. being used to .. Yalmont de B Seer es fe ii. (1775) 45, € bomare, Dict. d’ Hist. nat. g | 2R 626 CONIFER. or tabular cells having thick, brown, porous walls. These cells contain a dark granular substance and masses of resin. The sarcocarp, which in the ripe state consists of large, elliptic, thin-walled, loosely coherent cells, contains chlorophyll, drops of essential oil, and a crystalline sub- stance soluble in aleohol,—no doubt a stearoptene. Before maturity it likewise contains starch granules and large oil-cells. This tissue is traversed by very small vascular bundles containing annulated and dotted vessels. Chemical Composition—The most important constituent of juni- per berries is the volatile oil, obtainable to the extent of 0-4 to 12 er cent. The latter amount is obtained from Hungarian, 0°7 per cent. trom German fruits." It is a mixture of levogyre oils, the one of which having the composition C"H”* boils at 155° C.; the prevailing portion of the oil, boiling at about 200°, consists of hydrocarbons, which are polymeric with terpene, C°H™. The crude oil as distilled by us deviated 3°5 to the left in a column of 50 mm. By passing nitrosyl] chloride gas, NOCI, into it, Tilden (1877) obtained from the portion boiling below 160° the crystallized compound C*°H® (NOCI), which is yielded by all the terpenes. Another important constituent of juniper berries is the glucose, of which Trommsdorff (1822) obtained 33 per cent., while Donath (1873) found 41:9, and Ritthausen (1877) not more than 16 per cent. in the berries deprived of water. Of albuminoid substances about 5 per cent. are present, of inorganic matters 3 to 4 per cent. The fruit, moreover, contains also according to Donath small amounts of formic, acetic, and malic acids, besides resin. Collection and Commerce—Juniper berries are largely collected in Savoy, and in the departments of the Doubs and Jura in France, whence they find their way to the hands of the Geneva druggists. They are also gathered in Austria, the South of France and Italy. In Hamburg price-currents they are quoted as German and Italian. _ The largest supplies are apparently furnished by Hungaria. Uses—The berries and the essential oil obtained from them are reputed diuretic, yet are not often prescribed in English medicine. HERBA SABINA. Cacumina vel Summitates Sabine; Savin or Savine; F. Sabine; G. Sevenkraut. Botanical Origin—Juniperus Sabina L., a woody evergree? shrub, usually of small size and low-growing, spreading habit, but 2 some localities erect and arborescent. d At occurs in the Southern Alps of Austria (Tirol) and Switzerlan’ (Visp or Viége and Stalden in the Valais, also in Grisons and Vaud), an in the adjacent mountains of France and Piedmont, ascending to elev® tions of 4,000 to 5,000 feet. It is also found in the Pyrenees, Cet Spain, Italy and the Crimea; likewise in the Caucasus, where it reacne 12,000 feet above the sea level. Eastward it extends to the ee range, south of the Caspian, and throughout Southern Siberia, where ? ? According to Messrs. Schimmel & Co. (see p. 306, note 2.) HERBA SABINA. 5 627 ascends in the Balkhasch and Alatau mountains to 8,600 feet. In North America it has been gathered on the banks of the river Saskatch- ewan, at Lake Huron, in Newfoundland, and in Saint Pierre and Miquelon. There are, however, a few very closely allied species which may occasionally have been confounded with savin. History—Savin is mentioned as a veterinary drug by Marcus Porcius Cato, a Roman writer on husbandry who flourished in the second century B.c.; and it was well known to Dioscorides (under the name of Bodév) and Pliny. The plant, which is frequently named in the early English leech-books written before the Norman Conquest,” may probably have been introduced into Britain by the Romans. Charlemagne, A.D. 812, ordered that it should be cultivated on the lmperial farms of Central Europe. Its virtues as a stimulating appli- cation to wounds and ulcers are noticed in the verses of Macer Floridus,’ composed in the 10th century. Description-—The medicinal part of savin is the young and tender green shoots, stripped from the more woody twigs and branches. These are clothed with minute scale-like rhomboid leaves, arranged alternately M opposite pairs. On the younger twigs they are closely adpressed, thick, concave, rounded on the back, in the middle of which is a con- ‘picuous depressed oil gland. As the shoots grow older the leaves swe more pointed and divergent from the stem. Savin evolves, when tubbed or bruised, a strong and not disagreeable odour. The blackish fruit or galbulus resembling a small berry, 34, of an inch in diameter, stows on a short recurved stalk, and is covered with a blue bloom. It is globular, dry, but abounding in essential oil, and contains 1 to 4 little bony nuts. . , lo mycologists, Juniperus Sabina, at least in the cultivated state, Is interesting on account of the parasitic fungus Podisoma fuscum uby, the mycelium of which produces, on the leaves of the pear-trees, the so-called Roestelia cancellata Rebentisch. Chemistry—The odour of savin is due to an essential oil, of which the fresh tops afford 2 to 4 per cent., and the berries about 10 per cent. Xamined in a column 50 millimetres long it was found to deviate the tay of polarized light 27° to the right, the oil used having been distilled by one of us in London from the fresh plant cultivated at Mitcham. .© Same result was obtained from the oil abstracted ten years pre- viously from savin collected wild on the Alps of the Canton de Vaud, Sw ltzerland. We find that, by the prolonged action of the air, if the oil is kept in a vessel not carefully closed, the rotatory power after the lapse of years is greatly reduced. Savin oil, according to Tilden (1877), yields a small amount of an oil boiling at 160°, which answers to the formula C°H"O, The greater part of the oil was found by that chemist to boil above 200° CG. Tilden asserts that no terpene is present in the oil of savin; we have not been able to obtain from it a crystallized ydrochloride. Savin tops contain traces of tannic matter. 2 GaP. bxx. (Bubus medi Lipsie, 1832. 48... . “ Dup- § Cocks d i herbarum, Lipsie, : me pakayna, Lonthadens hap yin Eng- lum si desunt cinnama pont in medica- 6 rome) ait ae mentis iubet Oribasius auctor. houlant, Macer Floridus de viribus 628 | CONIFERA. Uses—Savin is a powerful uterine stimulant, producing in over- doses very serious effects. It is but rarely administered internally, An ointment of savin, which from the chlorophyll it contains is of a fine green colour, is used as a stimulating dressing for blisters. Substitutes—There are several species of juniper which have a con” siderable resemblance to savin; and one of them, commonly grown in gardens and shrubberies, is sometimes mistaken for it. This is J’ uniperus virginiana L., the Red Cedar or Savin of North America. _ In its native country it is a tree, attaining a height of 50 feet or more, but in Britain it is seldom more than a large shrub, of loose spreading growth, very different from the low, compact habit of savin.’ The foliage is of two sorts, consisting either of minute, scale-like, rhomboid leaves like those of savin, more rarely of elongated, sharp, divergent leaves a quarter of an inch in length, resembling those of common Juniper. Both forms often occur on the same branch. The plant is much less rich in essential ail than true savin,’ for which it is sometimes substituted in the United States, ; The foliage of Juniperus phenicea, L., a Mediterranean species, has some resemblance to savin for which it is said to be sometimes sub- stituted? but it is quite destitute of the peculiar odour of the latter. The specific name of the former alludes to its red fruit, from powixtos, purple. * Wehave examined numerous herbarium second only $a drachm. ‘The latter was specimens (wild) of J. virginiana and J. of a distinct and more feeble odour, and 4 Sabina, but except difference of stature different dextrogyre power. In Ane* and habit, can observe scarcely any cha- _ the oil of J/. virginiana is known as Cedar racters for separating them as species. The il,” and used as a taenifuge. It contains fruit stalk in J. virginiana is often pendu- a erystallizable oxygenated portion. a lous as in J. Sabina, Each plant has two _ oil however is afforded by the wood. forms,—arboreous and fruticose. Cedar wood from Florida is stated by * This we ascertained by distilling under = Messrs. Schimmel & Co. (see P- 7 precisely similar conditions 6 lbs. 6 oz. of afford as much as 4 to 5 per cent. of t the fresh shoots of each of the two plants, oil, Juniperus Sabina and J. virginiana: the 3 Bonplandia, x. (1862) 55. first gave 9 drachms of essential oil, the AMYLUM MARANTA. Honocotpledons. CANNACE. AMYLUM MARANTZ. Arrowroot. Botanical Origin—Maranta arundinacea,’ L—An herbaceous branching plant, 4 to 6 feet high, with ovate lanceolate, puberulous or nearly glabrous leaves, and small white flowers, solitary or in lax racemes. It is a-native of the tropical parts of America from Mexico to Brazil, and of the West Indian Islands; and under the slightly dif- ferent form known as M. indica Tussae, it occurs in Bengal, Java and the Philippines. This Asiatic variety is now found in the West Indies and Tropical America, but apparently as an introduced plant.” History—The history of arrowroot is comparatively recent. Passing over some early references of French writers on the West Indies to an ~ Herbe auz fléches, which plant it is impossible to identify with Maranta, We find in Sloane’s catalogue of Jamaica plants (1696), Canna Indica radice alba alexipharmaca. This plant, discovered in Dominica, was sent thence to Barbadoes and subsequently to Jamaica, it being, says Sloane, very much esteemed for its alewipharmack qualities.” It was observed, he adds, that the native Indians used the root of the plant with success against the poison of their arrows, “by only mashing and applying vt to the poison’d wounds” : and further, that it cures the poison of the man- chineel (Hippomane Mancinella L.), of the wasps of Guadaloupe, and even stops “a begun gangreen.” * : ae Patrick Browne (1756) notices the reputed alexipharmic virtues of laranta, which was then cultivated in many gardens in Jamaica, and Pe Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. nts, part 23 (1877). re € accept the opinion of Kérnicke B Ng phie Marantaccarum Prodromus, 3 tn - de la Soe, imp. des Naturalistes de Fr tate XxXv. 1862, i.) that Maranta arun- pa F pei L. and M. indica Tuss. are one 9 esame species. Grisebach maintains Tagen as distinct (Flora of the British West to pum Jslands, 1864, 605), allowing both . © natives of Tropical America; but he b to point out any important character ¥ which they may be distinguished from each other. According to Miquel (Linnea, xviii, 1844. 71) the plant in the herbarium of Linneus labelled M. arundinacea, is M. indica. We have ourselves made arrowroot from the fresh rhizomes of M. arundinacea, in order to compare it with an authentic specimen obtained in Java from M. indica: no difference could be found between them. 3 Sloane, Catal. plant. que in ins. Jamaica sponte proveniunt, vel vulgd coluntur, Lond. 1696. 122; also Hist. of Jamaica, i. (1707) 253. 630 | CANNACEA. says that the root “washed, pounded fine and bleached, makes a fine flour and starch,’ —sometimes used as food when provisions are scarce. Hughes, when writing of Barbadoes in 1750, describes arrowroot as a very useful plant, the juice mixed with water and drunk being regarded as “a preservative against any poison of an hot natwre” ; while from the root the finest starch is made, far excelling that of wheat.? The pro- perties of Maranta arundinacea as a counter-poison are insisted upon at some length by Lunan,’ who concludes his notice of the plant by detailing the process for extracting starch from the rhizome. rowroot came into use in England about the commencement of the present century, the supplies being obtained, as it would appear, from Jamaica. The statements of Sloane, which are confirmed by Browne and Lunan, plainly indicate the origin and meaning of the word arrowro0l, and disprove the notion of the learned ©. F. Ph. von Martius (1867) that the name is derived from that of the Arnac or Aroaquis Indians of South America, who call the finest sort of fecula they obtain from the Mandioe Aru-aru. It is true that Maranta arundinacea = known at the present day in Brazil as Araruta, but the name is certainly a corruption of the English word azrowrool, the plant according to general report having been introduced.® Manufacture—For the production of arrowroot, the rhizomes are dug up after the plant has attained its complete maturity, which m Georgia is at the beginning of winter. The scales which cover them are removed and the rhizomes washed; the latter are then ground in a mill, and the pulp is washed on sieves, or in washing machines con- structed for the purpose, in order to remove from it the starch. bee allowed to settle down in pure water, is then drained and finally drie with a gentle heat. Instead of being crushed in a mill, the rhizomes are sometimes grated to a pulp by a rasping machine. . In all stages of the process for making arrowroot, nice precautions have to be taken to avoid contamination with dust, iron mould, er or anything which can impart colour or taste to the product. The rhizome contains about 68 per cent. of water, and yields about a fifth of its weight of starch. Description—Arrowroot is a brilliant white, insipid, inodorous, powder, more or less aggregated into lumps which seldom exceed a ie m size ; when pressed it emits a slight crackling sound. It exhibits the general properties of starch, consisting entirely of granules which - subspherical, or broadly and irregularly ego-shaped ; when seen in Wa ue __ they show a distinct stratification in the form of fine concentric rings around a small star-like hilum. They have a diameter of 5 to 7 mim. when observed in the air or under benzol, If the water in which they ; * Givil and Natural History of Jamaica, — Martius’ derivation of ‘arrowro0l.’ at z itp ae 113, Amazon it is called ‘arardta ae fo ;: epoural History of Barbados, 1750, 221. corruption of the English name, 4" Iti- 4 aha Jamaicensis, i, (1814) 30, plained by the fact that it was first ae in Eick ng = 1799 there were exported from vated, as I was told, from tubers obtaimed™ i = caake and boxes of ‘ Jndian the East Indies.” f Blu- 5 Since th, —Renny, 1, ist.of Jamaica, 235, ° This was in the German colony 0 he © above was written, the follow. menauin Southern Brazil—Eberhard, Ar 5 on thi i received from Me Seca * ee aaa der Pharm, 134 (1868) 257. AMYLUM MARANTZ. 631 lie be cautiously heated on the object-stage of the microscope, the tumefaction of the granules will be found to begin exactly at 70° C. Heated to 100° C. with 20 parts of distilled water, arrowroot yields a semitransparent jelly of somewhat earthy taste and smell. By hydro- chloric acid of sp. gr. 1:06, arrowroot is but imperfectly dissolved at 40° C, The specific gravity of all varieties of starch is affected by the water which they retain at the ordinary temperature of the air. Arrowroot after prolonged exposure to an atmosphere of average moisture, and then kept at 100° C. till its weight was constant, was found to have lost 133 per cent. of water. On subsequent exposure to the air, it regained its former proportion of water. Weighed in any liquid which is entirely devoid of action on starch, as petroleum or benzol, the sp. gr. of arrowroot was found by one of us — alald but 1565 when the powder had been previously dried at Microscopic Structure of Arrowroot and of Starch in general. —The granules are built up of layers—a structure which may be rendered evident by the gradual action of chloride of calcium, chromic acid, or an ammoniacal solution of cupric oxide. When one of these liquids in a proper state of dilution is made to act upon starch, or when for that purpose a liquid is chosen which does not act upon it energetically, such as diastase, bile, pepsin, or saliva, it is easy to obtain — @ residue, which according to Niigeli, is no longer capable of swelling up in boiling water, nor is immediately turned blue by iodine, except on the addition of sulphuric acid; but which is dissolved by ammoniacal cupric oxide. These are the essential properties of cellulose ; and this residue has been regarded as such by Nageli, while the dissolved portion has been distinguished as Granuwlose (Maschke, 1852). C, Nigeli in his important monograph on starch * has described the action of saliva when digested with starch for a day, at a temperature of 40° to 47° C.; he says that the residue is a skeleton, corresponding m form to the original grain but somewhat smaller, light, and very mobile in water. He concludes that its interstitial spaces must have €n previously filled with granulose. : is experiment, which has been repeated by one of us (F.), does not in our opinion warrant all the inferences that Niigeli has drawn from it : It is true that many separate parts of the grain are dissolved by the Saliva, while others have disappeared down to a mere film, and others again have been attacked in a very irregular manner. But we cannot agree with the statement that anything comparable toa skeleton of the ain has been left. After longer action at a higher temperature, which owever must not exceed 65° C., a more copious dissolution of the starch, either by saliva or by bile, takes place ; but in no case is it complete? Chemist —Tts composition answers to the formula CHO} 43 OFF a iil dried at P00" C.. C'H"O*. Musculus how- ever showed, in 1861, that by the action of dilute acids or of Diastase, 1 Die Stérkekorner, Ziirich, 1858. 4°, also may be found in my paper Ueber Stéirke We 4 Nigeli, ied doen ete., Leipzig, a7 ok a eis der Pharmacie, 196 * Further particulars on this question i CANNACEA, starch is resolved into Dextrin, C°H”O”, and Dextrose, C°H”O*, with which decomposition, the formula, C*H”O”, would be more in accord. Sachsse (1877) on the other hand advocates the formula C*H°O*+ 12 OH? . Cold water is not without action on statch; if the latter be con- tinuously triturated with it, the filtrate, in which no particles can be detected by the microscope, will assume a blue colour on addition of iodine, without the formation of a precipitate. The proportion of starch thus brought into solution is infinitely small, and always at the expense of the integrity of the grains. It is even probable that the solution in this case is due to the minute amount of heat, which must of necessity be developed by the trituration. Certain reagents capable of attacking starch act upon it in very different ways. The action in the cold of concentrated aqueous solutions of easily soluble neutral salts or of chloral hydrate is remarkable. Potassium bromide or iodide, or calcium chloride for instance, cause the grains to swell, and render them soluble in cold water. At a certain _degree of dilution a perfectly clear liquid is formed, which at first con- tains neither dextrin nor sugar; it is coloured blue, but is not precipi- tated by iodine water; and starch can be thrown down from it by alcohol. This precipitate, though entirely devoid of the structural peculiarity of starch, still exhibits some of the leading properties of that substance ; it is coloured in the same manner by iodine, does not dissolve even when fresh in ammoniacal cupric oxide, and after drying is insoluble in water, whether cold or boiling. The progress of the solvent is most easily traced when calcium chloride is used, as this salt acts more slowly - than the others we have mentioned. It leaves scarcely any perceptible residue. This fact in our opinion militates against the notion that starch is composed of a peculiar amylaceous substance, deposited within a skeleton of cellulose. The remarkable action of iodine upon starch was discovered in 1814 by Colin and Gaultier de Claubry. It is extremely different in degree, according to the peculiar kind of starch, the proportion of iodine, and the nature of the substance the grains are impregnated with, before oT after their treatment with iodine. The action is even entirely arrested (no blue colour being produced) by the presence in certain proportion of quinine, tannin, Aqua Picis, and of other bodies. : The combination of iodine with starch does not take place in equh valent proportions, and is moreover easily overcome by heat. The jodine combined with starch amounts at the utmost to 7:5 per cent. The = tt sea is most readily formed in the presence of water, and then produces a deep indigo blue. Almost all other substances capable of penetrating starch grains, weaken the colour of the iodine compoun violet, reddish yellow, yellow, or greenish blue. These different shades, . the production of which has been described by Nigeli with great diffuse- sat are merely the colours which belong to iodine itself in the solid, oa or gaseous form. They must be referred to the fact that the a icles of iodine diffuse themselves in a peculiar but hitherto unex plained manner within the grain or in the swollen and dissolved starch. Commerce of Arrowr : . i oot—The chief kinds of arrowroot found in commerce are known as Bermuda, St. Vincent, and Natal; but that of AMYLUM MARANTZ. 633 Jamaica and other West India Islands, of Brazil, Sierra Leone, and the East Indies, are quoted in price-currents, at least occasionally. Of these the Bermuda enjoys the highest reputation and commands by far the highest price ; but its good quality is shared by the arrowroot of other localities, from which, when equally pure, it can in nowise be dis- tinguished. Greenish,’ however, points out that in Natal arrowroot the layers (or lamin) are more obvious than in other varieties, although it appears that the former is also produced by Maranta. The importations of arrowroot into the United Kingdom during the year 1870 amounted to 21,770 ewt., value £33,063. Of this quantity the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies furnished nearly 17,000 ewt., and the colony of Natal about 3000 ewt. The exports from St. Vincent in 1874 were 2,608,100 tb., those of the Bermudas in 1876 only 45,520 Ib. The shipments from the colony of Natal during the years 1866 to 1876 varied from 1,076 ewt. in 1873 to 4,305 cwt. in.1867. _ Uses—Arrowroot boiled with water or milk is a much-valued food in the sick-room. It is also an agreeable article of diet in the form of pudding or blancmange. Adulteration—Other starches than that of Maranta are occasionally sold under the name of Arrowroot. Their recognition is only possible by the aid of the microscope. Substitutes for Arrowroot. Potato Starech—This substance, known in trade as Farina or . Potato Flour, is made from the tubers of the potato (Solanum tube- roswm L.) by a process analogous to that followed in the preparation of arowroot. 1t has the following characters :—examined under the microscope, the granules are seen to be chiefly of two sorts, the first small and spherical, the second of much larger size, often 100 mkm. in length, having an irregularly circular, oval or egg-shaped outline, finely marked with concentric rings round a minute inconspicuous hilum. When heated in water, the grains swell considerably even at 60° C. Hydrochloric acid, sp. gr. 1:06, dissolves them at 40° quickly and almost completely, the granules being no longer deposited, as in the case of arrowroot similarly treated. The mixture of arrowroot and hydrochloric acid is inodorous, but that of potato starch has a peculiar though not powerful odour. Canna Starch, Tous-les-Mois, Toulema, Tolomane—A species of anna is cultivated in the West India Islands, especially St. Kitts, for the sake of a peculiar starch which, since about the year 1836, has been extracted from its rhizomes by a process similar to that adopted mM making arrowroot. The specific name of the plant is still undeter- - 1 7 earbook of Pharm, (1875) 529. as . *pers relating to H.M. Colonial Pos- rh eg Reports for 1875-76. Presented bi Houses of Parliament, July 1877. and tatist. Abstr. for the several Colonial zm other Possessions of the United King- jy, 14th number, 1878. ‘Tt; is CO. =: ie. oe commonly stated that the name “*es-mois was given in consequence of the plant flowering al/ the year round, But this explanation appears improbable : no such name is mentioned by Rochefort, Aublet, or Descourtilz, who all describe the Balisier or Canna. It seems more likely that the term is the result of an attempt to confer a meaning on an ancient name—perhaps Touloula, which is one of the Carib designations for Canna and Calathea, ~ 634 CANNACEA. mined; it is said to agree with Canna edulis Ker (C. indica Ruiz et Pavon).' The starch, which bears the same name as the plant, is a dull white powder, having a peculiar satiny or lustrous aspect, by reason of the extraordinary magnitude of the starch granules of which it is composed. These granules examined under the microscope are seen to be flattened and of irregular form, as circular, oval, oblong, or oval-truncate. The centre of the numerous concentric rings with which each granule is marked, is usually at one end rather than in the centre of a granule. The hilum is inconspicuous. The granules though far larger than those of the potato, are of the same density as the smaller forms of that starch, and, like them, float perfectly on chloroform, When heated, they begin to burst at 72° C. Dilute hydrochloric acid acts upon them as it does on arrowroot. | Canna starch boiled with 20 times its weight of water affords a jelly less clear and more tenacious than that of arrowroot, yet applicable to exactly the same purposes. The starch is but little known and not much esteemed in Europe ; it was exported in 1876 from St. Kitts to the amount of 51,873 lb, besides 5,300 lb arrowroot starch.” Curcuma Starch, Tikor, Tikhar.—The pendulous, colourless tubers of some species of Curcuma, but especially of C. angustifolia Roxb. and C. leucorrhiza Roxb., have long been utilized in Southern India for the preparation of a sort of arrowroot, known by the Hindustani name of Jikor, or Tikhwr, and sometimes called by Europeans East Indian Arrowroot? The granules of this substance much resemble those of Maranta, but they are neither spherical nor egg-shaped. On the contrary, they are rather to be described as flat dises, 5 to 7 mkm. thick, of elliptic or ovoid outline, sometimes truncate; many attain a length of 60 to 70 mkm. They are always beautifully stratified both on the face and on the edge. The hilum is generally situated at the narrower end. We have observed that when heated in water, the _tumefaction of the grains commences at 72° C. Curcuma starch, which in its general properties agrees with common arrowroot, is rather extensively manufactured in Travancore, Cochin and Canara on the south-western coast of India, but in a very rude manner. Drury‘ states that it is a favourite article of diet among the natives, and that it is exported from Travancore and Madras; we Cap add that it is not known as a special kind in the English market, and that the article we have seen offered.in the London drug sales as East Indian Arrowroot was the starch of Maranta. ‘Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic ing thi in, have been nat PAC. g this arrowroot at Cochin, ha Plants, part 8 (1876). kindly forwarded to us by A, F, Sealy, aot — of the Reports quoted at p. Esq. of that place. 973, 168 fs ag 1 Usef India, ed. 2. 1873. 168. 8 Living roots of the plant used for mak- Useful Plants of India, ec RHIZOMA. ZINGIBERIS. ZINGIBERACEZ. RHIZOMA ZINGIBERIS. Radix Zingiberis ; Ginger ; F. Gingembre ; G. Ingwer. Botanical Origin—Zingiber officinale Roscoe (Amomum Zingiber L.),a reed-like plant, with annual leafy stems, 3 to 4 feet high, and flowers in cone-shaped spikes borne on other stems thrown up from the rhizome. It is a native of Asia, in the warmer countries of which it is universally cultivated, but not known in a wild state. It has been introduced into most tropical countries, and is now found in the West Indies, South America, Tropical Western Africa, and Queensland in Australia. History—Ginger is known in India under the old name of Sringavera, derived possibly from the Greek ZeyyiBep As a spice it was used among the Greeks and Romans, who appear to have received it by way of the Red Sea, inasmuch as they considered it to be a production of Southern Arabia. In the list of imports from the Red Sea into Alexandria, which in the second century of our era were there liable to the Roman fiscal duty (vectigal), Zingiber occurs among other Indian spices.” During the middle ages it is frequently mentioned in similar lists, and evidently constituted an important item in the commercial relations between Europe and the East. Ginger thus appears in the tariff of duties levied at Acre in Palestine about A.D. 1173;3 in that of Barcelona* in 1221; Marseilles® in 1228 - and Paris® in 1296. The Tarif des Péages, or customs tariff, of the Counts of Provence in the middle of the 13th century, provides for the levying of duty at the towns of Aix, Digne, Valensole, Tarascon, Avignon, Orgon, Arles, &c., on various commodities mported from the East. These included spices, as pepper, gunger, cloves, zedoary, galangal, cubebs, saffron, canella, cumin, anise; dye stuffs, such as lac, indigo, Brazil wood, and especially alum from Castilia and Volcano: and eroceries, as racalicia (liquorice), sugar and dates? Spee : In England ginger must have been tolerably well known even prior to the Norman Conquest, for it is frequently named in the Anglo- Saxon leech-books of the 11th century, as well as in the Welsh hysicians of Myddvai” (see Appendix). During the 13th and 14th centuries it was, next to pepper, the commonest of spices, costing on an average nearly 1s. 7d. per lb., or about the price of a sheep. The mode of cultivation is described by _ ete. de Barcelona, Madrid, ii. (1779) 3. Buchanan, Journey from Madras through Ysore, etc. ii, (1807) 469,—Fig. of the pant m Bentley and cnn Medic, ave part 32 (1878). the Ape nt Commerce and Navigation of 3 pacients, ii. (1807) 695. eae ecueil des Historiens des Croisades ; TGs (1843) 176. *pmany, Memorias sobre la Marina, 5 Méry et Guindon, Hist. des Actes... de ia Municipalité de Marseille, i. (1841) 372. : a Revue archéologique, 1x. (1852) 213. 7 Collection de Cartulaires de France, Paris, viii. (1857) pp. lxxiii—xei., Abbaye de St. Victor, Marseilles. : 8 Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices- in England, i. (1866) 629. 636 : ZINGIBERACEA, The merchants of Italy, about the middle of the 14th century, knew three kinds of ginger, called respectively Belledi, Colombino, and Micchino. These terms may be explained thus:—Belledi or Baladi is an Arabic word, which, as applied to ginger, would signify cowntry or wild, i.e. common ginger. Colombino refers to Columbum, Kolam or Quilon, a port in Travancore frequently mentioned in the middle ages. Ginger termed Micchino denotes that the spice had been brought from or by way of Mecca. Ginger preserved in syrup, and sometimes called Green Ginger, was also imported during the middle ages, and regarded as a delicacy of the choicest kind. The plant affording ginger must have been known to Mareo Polo (circa 1280-90), who speaks of observing it both in China and India. John of Montecorvino, who visited India about 1292 (see p. 521), describes ginger as a plant like a flag, the root of which can be dug up and transported. Nicolo Conti also gave some description of the plant and of the collection of the root, as witnessed by him in India.’ The Venetians received ginger by way of Egypt; yet some of the superior kinds were conveyed from India overland by the Black Sea, as stated by Marino Sanudo* about 1306. Ginger was introduced into America by Francisco de Mendoga, who took it from the East Indies to New Spain.t It was shipped for - commercial purposes from the Island of St. Domingo as early at least as 1585; and from Barbados in 1654.5 According to Renny,’ 22,053 ewt. were exported from the West Indies to Spain in 1547. 5 Description—Ginger is known in two forms, namely the rhizome dried with its epidermis, in which case it is called coated; or deprive of epidermis, and then termed scraped or uncoated. The pieces, which are called by the spice-dealers races or hands, rarely exceed 4 inches mm length, and have a somewhat palmate form, being made up of a series of short, laterally compressed, lobe-like shoots or knobs, the summit © each of which is marked by a depression indicating the former attach- ment of the leafy stem. oe: To produce the wncoated ginger, which is that preferred for medicinal use, the fresh rhizome is scraped, washed, and then dried in the sun. Thus prepared, it has a pale buff hue, and a striated, somewhat fibrous surface. It breaks easily, exhibiting a short and farinaceous fracture with numerous bristle-like fibres, When cut with a knife the younger or terminal portion of the rhizome appears pale yellow, 80 and amylaceous, while the older part is flinty, hard and resinous. F Coated ginger, or that which has been dried without the removal 0 the epidermis, is covered with a wrinkled, striated brown integument : which imparts to it a somewhat coarse and crude appearance, which . usually remarkably less developed on the flat parts of the rhizome. Internally, it is usually of a less bright and delicate hue than ging? ae Yule, Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) — traen de nuestras Indias occidentales, Sevilla -—See, however, Heyd, Levantehandel, (1574) 99. Il. (1879) 601 : Colonial oF Calendar of State Papers, ‘pees Series, rie Lond. 1860, p. 4; se¢ #18 arinus Sanutus, Liber secretorum Jide- pp. 414, 434. lium crucis, Hanovie (1611) 22 é ica, Lond. 1807. , Ahead . Re Hist. of Jamaica, * Monardes, Historia de las cosas que se 154, Ee J : _ RHIZOMA ZINGIBERIS. | 637 from which the cortical part has been removed. Much of it indeed is dark, horny and resinous. Ginger has an agreeable aromatic odour with a strong pungent taste. Varieties—Those at present found in the London market are distin- guished as Jamaica, Cochin, Bengal, and African. The first three are scraped gingers; the last-named is a coated ginger, that is to say, it still retains its epidermis. Jamaica Ginger is the sort most esteemed; and next to it the Cochin. But of each kind there are several qualities, presenting considerable variation énter se. ; Seraped or decorticated ginger is often bleached, either by being subjected to the fumes of burning sulphur, or by immersion for a short time in solution of chlorinated lime. Much of that seen in the grocers’ shops looks as if it had been whitewashed, and in fact is slightly ee with calcareous matter,—either sulphate or carbonate of calcium, Microscopic Structure—A transverse section of coated ginger exhibits a brown, horny external layer, about one millimétre broad, separated by a fine line from the whitish mealy interior portion, through the tissue of which numerous vascular bundles and resin-cells are irregularly scattered. The external tissue consists of a loose outer layer, and an inner composed of tabular cells: these are followed by peculiar short prosenchymatous cells, the walls of which are sinuous on transverse section and partially thickened, imparting a horny appear- ance, This delicate felted tissue forms the striated surface of scraped genger, and is the principal seat of the resin and volatile oil, which here large spaces. The large-celled parenchyme which succeeds 1s loaded with starch, and likewise contains numerous masses of resin and drops of oil. The starch granules are irregularly spherical, attaining at the utmost 40 mkm. Certain varieties of ginger, owing to the starch having been rendered gelatinous by scalding, are throughout horny and translucent. The circle of vascular bundles which separates the outer layers and the central portion is narrow, and has the structure of the Corresponding circle or nucleus sheath in turmeric. Chemical Composition—Ginger contains a volatile oil which is the only constituent of the drug that has hitherto been investigated. By distilling 112 th. of Jamaica ginger with water in the usual way, We obtained 44 ounces of this oil, or about 4 per cent. It isa pale yellow liquid of sp. gr. 0878, having the peculiar odour of ginger, but hot its pungent taste. It dissolves but sparingly in alcohol (0°83) ; and deviates the ray of polarized light 21°.6 to the left, when examined in @ column 50 mm. long. We learn from kind information given us (1878) by Messrs. Schimmel & Co. at Leipzig, that they obtain as much as 2'2 per cent. of oil from good ginger. : : e burning taste of ginger is due to a resin which we have not examined, but which well deserves careful analysis. Protocatechuie acid, which is so commonly afforded by resins (see page 243), is also produced by melting the resin of ginger with caustic potash, as shown in 1877 by Stenhouse and Groves. : iit Gisilide (Piaitn: Jeers: April 18, 1874) found both, We have not observed € carbonate to be used. 638. ZINGIBERACEA. Commerce—Great Britain imported of ginger as follows :— 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 52,194 cwt. 34,535 ewt. 33,854 cwt. 32,723 cwt. 32,174 cwt. - In 1876 the imports were 62,164 ewt., valued at £169,252. The drug was received in 1872 thus :— From Egypt - - - - - . - - 4,923 ewt. », Sierra Leone - - = - : é - 616R 3a ;, British India - - : - - - =o. Lge ee ,, British West Indies : - - - - T5048 35 ;, other countries - = - S = - PAs ey Total - - Sxnee - ery aye | The shipments from Jamaica during the years 1866 to 1876 varied from 599,786 1b. in 1872 to 1,728,075 in 1867. In 1876 there were exported 1,603,764 tb., valued at £28,882." _ Uses—Ginger is an agreeable aromatic and stomachie, and as such is often a valuable addition to other medicines. It is much more largely employed as a condiment than as a drug. RHIZOMA CURCUMZ. Radix Curcume ;? Turmeric; F.Curcuma; G. Gelbwurzel, Kurkuma. Botanical Origin—Curcwma longa’ L.—Turmeric is indigenous to Southern Asia, and is there largely cultivated both on the continent and in the islands. History—Dioscorides mentions an Indian plant asa kind of Cyperus (Kvze:pos) resembling ginger, but having when chewed a yellow oe and bitter taste: probably turmeric was intended. Garcia de Orta (1563), as well as Fragoso (1572), describe turmeric as Crocus indicus. A list of drugs sold in the city of Frankfort about the year 1450, names Curcwma along with zedoary and ginger: In its native countries, it has from remote times been highly esteemed both as a condiment and a dye-stuff; in Europe, it has always Lasee less appreciated than the allied spices of the ginger tribe. In an inventory of the effects of a Yorkshire tradesman, dated 20th Sept, 1578, we find enumerated—“ wx. owncis of turmeracke, x d.”* Description—The base of the scrape thickens in the first year into an ovate root-stock ; this afterwards throws out shoots, forming lateral or secondary rhizomes, each emitting roots, which branch into fibres oF are sometimes enlarged as colourless spindle-shaped tubers, rich 1m starch. The lateral rhizomes are doubtless in a condition to develope themselves as independent plants when separated from the paren™ The central rhizomes formerly known as Curcuma rotunda, and the a Abstract (as quoted p. 633, note Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. 2 P ét. Plants, part 9. (1876). *Curcuma from the Persian kurkum, a ‘Fluckiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, Halle, erie applied also to saffron, The origin 1873. 11. ‘ the of the word Turmeric is not known to us; 5Raine, Wills and _ Inventories be Ages merita seems to be acorruption of | Archdeaconry of Richmon : Society), 1853, 277. RHIZOMA CURCUME. — 639 elongated lateral ones as Curcuma longa, were regarded by Linnzeus as the production of distinct species. The radical tubers of some species of Curcwma, as C. angustifolia Roxb, are used for making a sort of arrowroot (p. 637). Sometimes they are dried, and constitute the peculiar kind of turmeric which the Chinese call Yuh-kin.’ The turmeric of commerce consists of the two sorts of rhizome just mentioned, namely, the central or rownd and the lateral or long. The former are ovate, pyriform or subspherical, sometimes pointed at the upper end and crowned with the remains of leaves, while the sides are beset with those of roots and marked with concentric ridges. The diameter is very variable, but is seldom less than ? of an inch, and is frequently much more. They are often cut and usually scalded in order to destroy their vitality and facilitate dryjng. The lateral rhizomes are subcylindrical, attenuated towards either end, generally curved, covered with a rugose skin, and marked more or less plainly with transverse rings. Sometimes one, two or more short knobs or shoots grow out on one side. The rhizomes, whether round or long, are very hard and firm, exhibiting when broken a dull, waxy, resinous surface, of an orange or orange-brown hue, more or less brilliant. They have a peculiar aromatic odour and taste. Several varieties of turmeric distinguished by the names of the countries or districts in which they are produced, are found in the English market: but although they present differences which are sufficiently appreciable to the eye of the experienced dealer, the characters of each sort are scarcely so marked or so constant as to be recognizable by mere verbal description. The principal sorts now in commerce are known as China, Madras, Bengal, Java, and Cochin. Of these the first named is the most esteemed, but it is seldom to be met with in the European market. : Madras Turmeric is a fine sort in large, bold pieces. Sometimes packages of it contain exclusively round rhizomes, while others are made up entirely of the long or lateral. ‘ fe Bengal Turmeric differs from the other varieties chiefly in its eeper tint, and hence is the sort preferred for dyeing purposes. _vava Turmeric presents no very distinctive features ; it is dusted with its own powder, and does not show when broken a very brilliant colour. Judging by the low price at which it is quoted it is — oe. It is the produce of Curcuma longa var. B. minor assk. ' Microscopic Structure—The suberous coat is made up of 8 to 10 rows of tabular cells; the parenchyme of the middle cortical layer of ‘ge roundish polyhedral cells. Towards the centre the transverse . section exhibits a coherent ring of fibro-vascular bundles representing a kind of medullary sheath. “The parenchyme enclosed by this ring iS traversed by scattered bundles of vessels, and in most of its cells contains starch in amorphous, angular, or roundish masses, which are 1,gianbury, Pharm, Journ. iii, (1862) 206; Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports of wh eience Papers, 254, fig. 11.—It is not China for 1872. p. 106. : b Olly devoid of yellow colouring matter. 3From information communicated by A good deal is exported from Takow in Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical Garden, Formosa, but mostly to Chinese ports.— Buitenzorg, Java. 640 ss INGIBERACEA. - so far disorganized that they no longer exhibit the usual appearance in polarized light, but are nevertheless turned blue by iodine. The starch has been reduced to this condition by scalding. rae 2 Resin likewise occurs in separate cells, forming dark yellowish-red particles. The entire tissue is penetrated with yellow colouring matter, and shows numerous drops of essential oil, which in the fresh rhizome is no doubt contained in peculiar cells. Chemical Composition—The drug yielded us (1876) one per cent. of a yellow essential oil, which contains a portion boiling at 250° C., answering to the formula C°H“O; this liquid differs from carvol (p. 306) by being unable to combine with SH* The other constituents of curcuma oil boil at temperatures much above 250°; we found the crude oil and its different portions slightly dextrogyrate. The aqueous extract of the drug tastes bitter, and is precipitated by tannic acid. The colouring matter, Curcumin, C°H”O*, may be obtained to the amount of + per cent. by depriving first the drug of fat and essential oil. The powder, after that treatment with bisulphide of carbon, is gradually exhausted, according to Daube (1871), with warm petro- _ leum (boiling point 80°- 90° C.). On cooling chiefly the last portions _ of petroleum deposit the erystalline curcumin. Its alcoholic solution is _ purified by mixing it cautiously with basic acetate of lead, not allowing the liquid to assume a decidedly acid reaction. The red precipitate thus formed is collected, washed with alcohol, immersed in water, and decomposed with sulphuretted hydrogen. From the dried mixture . on ee of lead and curcumin the latter is lastly removed by boiling eohol. By Ivanow-Gajewsky (1873) the best produce of curcumin is stated to be obtained by washing an ethereal extract of turmeric with we ammonia, dissolving the residue in boiling concentrated ammonia, an passing into the solution carbonic acid, by which the curcumm $i precipitated in flakes. After due reerystallization from aleohol curcumin forms yellow crystals, having an odour of vanilla, and exhibiting a fine blue reflected light. They melt at 165°C, Curcumin is scarcely soluble, even in boiling water, but dissolves readily on addition oe alkali either caustic or carbonate. On acidulating these solutions, @ yellow powder of curcumin is precipitated. Curcumin is not abundantly dissolved by ether, very sparingly by benzol or bisulphide of carbon. It is not volatile; heated with zine dust it yields an oil boiling . 290°; fused with caustic potash, curcumin affords protocatechule pil (page 243), _ Paper tinged with an alcoholic solution of curcumin displays = addition of an alkali a brownish-red coloration, becoming violet = drying. Boracie acid produces an orange tint, turning blue by addition . of an alkaline solution.!. This behaviour of (impure) curcumi be The following is a striking experiment, on addition of a slightly acidulated eee 7 Place some of these changes of colour: of borax and drying assumes @ PU “tilute ~fiace a little crushed turmeric or the If the aper is now sprinkled wit powder on blotting paper, and moisten it a pepe: J transient blue. : mmonia it will acquire 4 : tation ta with chloroform, allowing the =‘ This reaction enables one to recog bat er *0_ evaporate. There will thus be presence of turmeric in powdered rhu formed on the paper a yellow stain, which — or mustard. pointed out by Vogel as early as 1815, and has since that time been utilized as a chemical test. Borax added to an alcoholic solution of curcumin gives rise to a erystallizable substance, which Ivanow-Gajewsky (1870) isolated by heating an alcoholic extract of turmeric with boracic and sulphuric acids. It forms a purple crystalline powder with a metallic green lustre, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol. Its solution is coloured dark blue by an alkali. According to the same chemist there also exists in curcuma an alkaloid in very small quantity. Kachler (1870) found in the aqueous decoction an abundance of bioxalate of potassiwm. Commerce—In the year 1869 there were imported into the United Kingdom 64,280 ewt. of turmeric; in 1870, 44,900 cwt.—a very large proportion being furnished by Bengal and Pegu. The export from Calcutta! in the year 1870-71 was 59,352 ewt. Bombay exported in the year 1871-72, 29,780 ewt., of which the "greater portion was shipped to Sind and the Persian Gulf, and only 910 ewt. to Europe.” Uses—Turmeric is employed as a condiment in the shape of curry powder, and as such is often sold by druggists; but as a medicine it Is obsolete. It is largely consumed in dyeing. Substitute—Cochin Turmeric is the produce of some other species of Curcwma than C. longa. It consists exclusively of a bulb-shaped thizome of large dimensions, cut transversely or longitudinally into slices or segments. The cortical part is dull brown; the inner substance is horny and of a deep orange-brown, or when in thin shavings of a brilliant yellow. Mr. A. Forbes Sealy of Cochin has been good enough to send us (1873) living rhizomes of this Curcwma, which he states is mostly grown at Alwaye, north-east of Cochin, and is never used in the country as turmeric, though its starchy tubers are employed for making arrowroot. The rhizomes sent are thick, short, conical, and of enormous size, some attaining as much as 24 inches in diameter. Internally they are of a bright orange-yellow. The beautiful figures of Roscoe* show several species of Curcuma | and Zingiber provided with yellow tubers or rhizomes, all probably containing curcumin. RHIZOMA GALANG. Radix Galange minoris; Galangal; F. Racine de Galanga; G. Galgant. Botanical Origin—Alpinia officinarwm Hance,” ‘Returns quoted a formed us, Kau-liang ginger. Kau-liang is ® Statement of the Teuide od Sv avvigation the ancient name of a district in the pro- of Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 95. vince of Kwangtung. Society, Botany, xiii . Htonandrous Plants of the order Scita- 5 Journ. of Linnean Society, ony iL mine, Liverpool, 1828, especially Zingiber (1871) 1; also Trimen'’s Journ. of ots i Crssimanar none (gata) 116s Bonkley, sd rain of alanga appears ’ i m the Plants, part _— Ur. aites rabic menue’ ihataniue, oo oe turn Ceylon, who has the plant in ool comes from the Chinese Kau-liang Kiang, has been good enough to send us a fine Signifying, as Dr. F. Porter Smith has in- coloured drawing of it in flower. » a a flag-like plant, RHIZOMA GALANGH. > 641 oe 642 ZINGIBERACE. | with stems about 4 feet high, clothed with narrow lanceolate leaves, and terminating in short and simple racemes of elegant white flowers, shaded and veined with dull red. It grows cultivated in the island of Hainan in the south of China, and, as is supposed, in some of the southern provinces of the Chinese Empire. History—The earliest reference to galangal we have met with occurs in the writings of the Arabian geographer Ibn Khurdédbah’ about A.D. 869-885, who in enumerating the productions of a country called Sila, names galangal together with musk, aloes, camphor, silk, and cassia. Edrisi? three hundred years later, is more explicit, for he men- tions it with many other productions of the far East, as brought from India and China to Aden, then a great emporium of the trade of Asia with Egypt and Europe. The physician Alkindi,’ who lived at Bassora and Bagdad in the second half of the 9th century, and somewhat later Rhazes and Avicenna, notice galangal, the use of which was introduced into Europe‘ through the medical system promulgated by them and other writers of the same'school. As to Great Britain, galingal, as it was ° frequently spelt, also occurs in the Welsh “ Meddygon Myddfai” (see Appendix). _ Many notices exist showing that galangal was imported with pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmegs, cardamoms and zedoary; and that during the middle ages it was used in common with these substances as a culinary spice, which it is still held to be in certain parts of Europe.’ The plant affording the drug was unknown until the year 1870, when a description of it was communicated to the Linnean Society of London by Dr. H. F. Hance, from specimens collected by Mr. E. C. Taintor, neat Hoihow in the north of Hainan. Description—The drug consists of a cylindrical rhizome, having a maximum diameter of about ? of an inch, but for the most part considerably smaller. This rhizome has been cut while fresh into § ort pieces, 14 to 3 inches in length, which are often branched, and are marked transversely at short intervals by narrow raised sinuous rings, indicating the former attachment of leaves or scales. The pieces ate hard, tough and shrivelled, externally of a dark reddish-brown, display- ing when cut transversely an internal substance of rather paler hue (but never white), with a darker central column. The drug exhales when comminuted an agreeable aroma, and has a strongly pungent, spicy taste. Microscopic Structure—The central portion of the rhizome 18 separated from the outer tissue by the nucleus sheath, which appears as a well-defined darker line. Yet the central tissue does not differ mue from that surrounding it, both being composed of uniform parenchyme cells, traversed by scattered vascular bundles. There also occur throug’ out the whole tissue isolated cells loaded with essential oil or Tes¥™ But the larger number of cells abound in large starch granules of a0 unusual club-shaped form. Some cells contain a brown substance, 1 Work quoted in the A i : ah i ppendix—tome vy. _ was already acquainted with it. ; at 5 Hanbury, Historical Notes on the Radia * Géographie, i. (1836) 51 Linnean 3 es . Galange of pharmacy—Journ. of ye Rerum gradibus, Argentorati, 1531. asin, Be sii, (i871) 20 ; Pharm. pena : i Paper’; *Macer Floridus (see p. 627), cap. 70, sins geben ge FRUCTUS CARDAMOML a ae fering from resin in being insoluble in alcohol. The corky layer is remarkable from its cells having undulated walls. Chemical Composition—The odour of galangal is due to an essential oil, which the rhizoma yields to the extent of only 07 per cent., and which we found to be very slightly deviating the plane of polarization to the left. : Brandes! extracted from Galangal, by means of ether, an inodorous, tasteless, crystalline body called Kampferid, which is worthy of further examination. The pungent principle of the drug, which is probably analogous to that of ginger, has not been studied. Commerce—Galangal is shipped from Canton to other ports of China, to India and Europe, but there are no general statistics to give an idea of the total production. From official returns quoted by Hance, the export of the year 1869, which seems to have been exceptionally large, amounted to 370,800 tb. From Kiung-chow, island of Hainan, 2,113 peculs (281,733 tb.) were exported in 1877. Uses—The drug is an aromatic stimulant of the nature of ginger, now nearly obsolete in British medicine. It is still a popular remedy and spice in Livonia, Esthonia and central Russia, and by the Tartars is taken with tea. It is also in some requisition in Russia among brewers, and the manufacturers of vinegar and cordials, and finally as — a cattle medicine. | . Substitute—The rhizoma of Alpina Galanga willd., a plant of Java, constitutes the drug known as Radia Galange majoris or Greater Galangal, packages of which occasionally appear in the London drug sales. It may be at once distinguished from the Chinese drug by its much larger size and the pale buff hue of its internal substance, the latter in strong contrast with the orange-brown outer skin. FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI. f . ‘ Semina Cardamomi minoris; Cardamoms, Malabar Cardamoms ; F. Cardamomes; G. Cardamomen. Botanical Origin—Flettaria’ Cardamomum Maton (Alpina Car- damomum Roxb.), a flag-like perennial plant, 6 to 12 feet high, with large lanceolate leaves on long sheathing stalks, and flowers m lax flexuose horizontal scapes, 6 to 18 inches in length, which are thrown out to the number of 3 or 4, close to the ground. The fruit is ovoid, three-sided, plump and smooth, with a fleshy green pericarp. ee The Cardamom plant grows abundantly, both wild and under culti- - vation, in the moist shady mountain forests of North Canara, Coorg and Wynaad on the Malabar Coast; at an elevation of 2500 to 5000 feet above ‘ alai, Cochin and the sea. It is truly wild in Canara and in the Anam : Travancore forests? The cardamom region has @ mean temperature 0 22 C. (72° F.), and a mean rainfall of 121 inches. ' Archiv der Ph ix. (1839) 52. Laceadive group, west of Malabar, is in- .* From Bletari, pee Maliveiie skint of _ habited a Moplahs, gone (as we - the plant.—Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s informed by Dr. King, Calcutta) in Med, Plants, part 24 (1877). south of India as dealers in cardamoms. * The small “ Cardamom” island in the 644 ZINGIBERACEZ. A well-marked variety, differing chiefly in the elongated form and large size of its fruits, is found wild in the forests of the central and southern provinces of Ceylon. It was formerly regarded as a distinct species under the name of Elettaria major, but careful observation of growing specimens has shown that it possesses no characters to warrant it being considered more than a variety of the typical plant, and it is therefore now called £. Cardamomum var. 8. It is only known to oceur in Ceylon, where the ordinary cardamom of Malabar is not found except as a cultivated plant.* History—Cardamoms, /da, are mentioned in the writings of Susruta, and hence may have been used in India from a remote period. It is not unlikely that in common with ginger and pepper they reached Europe in classical times, although it is not possible from the descriptions that have come down to determine exactly what was the Kapéauopor of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, or the “Auwpoy of the last-named writer. The Amomum, Amomis and Cardamomum of Pliny are also doubtful, the description he gives of the last being unintelligible as applied to anything now known by that name. In the list of Indian spices liable to duty at Alexandria, cirea A.D. 176-180 (see Appendix, A), Amomwm as well as Cardamomum is mentioned. St. Jerome names Amomum together with musk, as per- fumes in use among the voluptuous ecclesiastics of the 4th century.” Cardamoms are named by Edrisi* about A.D. 1154 as a production of Ceylon, and also as an article of trade from China to Aden; and in the same century they are mentioned together with cinnamon and cloves (p. 282) as an import in Palestine by way of Acre, then a trading city of the Levant.* The first writer who definitely and correctly states the country of the cardamom appears to be the Portuguese navigator Barbosa’ (1514), who frequently names it as a production of the Malabar coast. Garcia de Orta® mentions the shipment of the drug to Europe; he also ascer- tained that the larger sort was produced in Ceylon. The Malabar cardamon plant was figured by Rheede under its indigenous name © Elettari.? . : The essential oil of cardamoms was distilled before 1544 by Valerius _ Cordus (see p. 526, note 1). _ Cultivation and Production—Although the cardamom plant grows wild in the forests of Southern India, where it is commonly cae Llachi, its fruits are largely obtained from cultivated plants. The methods of cultivation, which vary in the different districts, may >? thus deseribed:— A, Previous to the commencement of the rains the cultivators ascend the mountain sides, and seek in the shady evergreen forests a spot where some cardamom plants are growing. Here they make small clearings, ™ * Thwaites, Enumeratio Plantarum Ze i i ntury, Z > y- by a pharmacist of Cairo, 13th ce — Fi 318, it nd Abul Mena, is quoted by Leclere, HO teronyme Opera Omnia, ed. Migne, Histoire de la Médecine arabe, 1 (Paris, : Bs 845) 297, in Patrologie cursus com- 1876) 215. i ar 7 — XXi1, : 5 Description of the Coasts of Hast Af fons (1836 73, work quoted in the i skewer i and Malabar, Hakluyt Society, 1966. ™ lets ) 73, 51.—It is questionable whether —_ 64, 147. 154. etc. fe —_ is ergs at p. 51. 8 In the work quoted at p. 547, note » ong and curious article on cardamoms, 7 Hortus M ee a xi. (1692) tab. FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI. ee which the admission of light occasions the plant to developein abundance. The cardamom plants attain 2 to 3 feet in height during the following monsoon, after which the ground is again cleared of weeds, protected — with a fence, and left to itself for a year. About two years after the first clearing the plants begin to flower, and five months later ripen — some fruits, but a full crop is not got till at least a year after. The plants continue productive six or seven years. A garden, 484 square yards in area, four of which may be made in an acre of forest, will give on an average an annual crop of 124 Ibs. of garbled ‘ cardamoms: Ludlow, an Assistant Conservator of Forests, reckons that not more than 28 lbs. can be got from an acre of forest. From what he says, it further appears that the plants which come up on clearings of the Coorg forests are mainly seedlings, which make their appearance in the same quasi-spontaneous manner as certain plants in the clearings of a wood in Europe. He says they commence to bear in about 3} years after their first appearance.” The plan of cultivation above described is that pursued in the forests of Travancore, Coorg and Wynaad. 2. On the lower range of the Pulney Hills, near Dindigul, at an elevation of about 5,000 feet above the sea, the cardamom plant is cultivated in the shade. The natives burn down the underwood, and clear away the small trees of the dense moist forests called sholas, which are damp all the year round. The cardamoms are then sown, and when a few inches high are planted out, either singly or in twos, under the shade of the large trees. They take five years before they bear fruit; “in October,” remarks our informant,* “ I saw the plants in full flower and also in fruit,—the latter not however ripe.” _ 3. In North Canara and Western Mysore the cardamom is cultivated in the betel-nut plantations. The plants, which are raised from seed, are planted between the palms, from which and from plantains they derive a certain amount of shade. They are said to produce fruit in their third year. : : Cardamoms begin to ripen in October, and the gathering continues during dry weather for two or three months. All the fruits on a scape do not become ripe at the same time, yet too generally the whole scape 18 gathered at once and dried—to the manifest detriment of the drug. is is done partly to save the fruit from being eaten by snakes, frogs and squirrels, and partly to avoid the capsules splitting, which they do when quite mature. In some plantations however the cardamoms are gathered in a more reasonable fashion. As they are collected the fruits are carried to the houses, laid out for a few days on mats, then stripped from their scapes, and the drying completed by a gentle fire-heat. In Coorg the fruit is stripped from the scape before drying; and the drying 18 sometimes effected wholly by sun-heat. on ok eh states of Cochin a T opoly of the respective governments. 2 ; requires that all the ee shall be sold to his officials, who for ravancore cardamoms are a The rajah of the latter state ward * Report on the Administration of Coorg Madras. We edna Se ee or the year 1872-73 3. 44. information on ; t . liot, Deeveclaciaay' a: a Evid in the Inspector-General of Forests in India, os Jungles of Mysore, Lond. ii, (1871) 201, 209. Dr. King, Director of the Botanic Garden, Col. Beddome, Conservator of Forests, Caleutta. 646 e ZINGIBERACEA. it to the main depot at Alapalli or,Aleppi, a portjin Travancore, where his commercial agent resides. The rajah is tenacious of his rights, and ‘nserts a clause in the leases he grants to European coffee-planters, of whom a great many have settled in his territory, requiring that carda- moms shall not be grown. The cardamoms at Aleppi are sold by auction, and bought chiefly by Moplah merchants for transport to different parts of India, and also, through third parties, to England. All the lower qualities are consumed in India, and the finer alone shipped to Europe. In the forests belonging to the British Government cardamoms are mostly reckoned among the miscellaneous items of produce ; but m Coorg, the cardamom forests are now let at a rental of £3,000 per annum under a lease which will expire in 1878.’ Dr. Cleghorn, late Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency, observes in a letter to one of us, that the rapid extension of coftee culture along the slopes of the Malabar mountains has tended to lessen the production of cardamoms, and has encroached considerably upon the area of their indigenous growth. A recent writer? has shown from his own experience that the cultivation of the cardomom is a branch of industry worth the attention of Europeans, and has given many valuable details for insuring successful results. Description—The fruit of the Malabar cardamom as found in commerce is an ovoid or oblong, three-sided, three-valved capsule, containing numerous seeds arranged in three cells. It 1s rounded at the base, and often retains a small stalk ; towards the apex it is more Or less contracted, and terminates ina short beak. The longitudinally 4 striated, inodorous, tasteless pericarp is of a pale greyish-yellow, or but, or brown when fully ripe, of a thin papery consistence, splitting length- wise into three valves. From the middle of the inner side of each valve a thin partition projects towards the axis, thereby producing three cells, each of which encloses 5 to 7 dark brown, aromatic seeds, arranged 1m two rows and attached in the central angle. The seeds, which are about two lines long, are irregularly angu ne transversely rugose, and have a depressed hilum and a deeply channelled raphe. Each seed is enclosed in a thin colourless aril. y Cardamoms vary in size, shape, colour and flavour: those which are shortly ovoid or nearly globular, and 445 to y’y of an inch in length, are termed in trade language shorts; while those of a more elongated form, pointed at each end, and 5, to ;% of an inch long, are called sere longs. They are further distinguished by the names of localities, Malabar (or Mangalore), Aleppi, and Madras. The Malabar Car- damoms, which are the most esteemed, are of full colour, and occur of both forms, namely shorts and short-longs; they are brought to Europe vid Bombay. Those terms Aleppi are generally shorts, Joe , beaked and of a peculiar greenish tint; they are imported from V ue and sometimes from Aleppi. The Madras are chiefly of elongated form (short-longs) and of a more pallid hue; they are shipped at Ma Pondicherry. d ardamoms are esteemed in proportion to their lumpness 4 heaviness, and the sound and ouilial condition of the seods they ‘Report quoted at p. 645. note 1. 2 Elliot, op. cif., chap. 12 - FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI, 647. contain. Good samples afford about three-fourths of their weight of seeds." . The fruits of the second form (var. 8) of Elettaria Cardamomum, known in trade as Ceylon Cardamoms, are from 1 to 2 inches in length, and 48 to +4; of an inch in breadth, distinctly three-sided, often arched, and always of a dark greyish-brown. The seeds are larger and more numerous than those of the Malabar plant, and somewhat different in — odour and taste. Microscopic Structure—The testa of the seed consists of three distinct layers, namely an exterior of thick-walled, spirally-striated cells, somewhat longitudinally extended, and exhibiting on transverse section, square, not very large, cavities; then a row of large cells with thin transverse walls ; and finally, an internal layer of deep brown, radially- arranged cells, the walls of which have so thick a deposit that at the most only small cavities remain. The granular, colourless, sac-shaped albumen encloses a horny endo- sperm, in which the embryo is inserted the projecting radicle being directed towards the hilum. The cells of the albumen have the form of elongated polyhedra, almost entirely filled with very small starch granules. Besides them, there occur in most of the cells, somewhat larger masses of albuminoid matter having a rhombohedric form, dis- tinctly observable when thin slices of the seed are examined under almond oil in polarized light. These remarkable crystalloid bodies resemble those occurring in the seeds of cumin (p. 332). ! Chemical Composition—The parenchyme of the albumen and embryo is loaded with fatty oil and essential oil, the former existing in the seed to the extent of about 10 per cent. : clot _The percentage of essential oil is stated by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, to be equal to 5 in the Madras Cardamoms, and to 35 in the Ceylon. We found the latter to be dextrogyrate ; the same gen- tlemen presented us (1876) with a crystallized deposit from the latter oil, which appears to be identical with common camphor. Its aleoholic solution deviates the plane of polarization to the right, apparently to ~~ 75) amount as that of common camphor (see also oil of spike, p. #79). “s _ Dumas and Péligot (1834) state to have obtained from the essential oil of cardamoms be ois crystals of terpin, C°H” + 3 OH’. The ash of cardamoms, in common with that of several other plants of the Same order, is remarkably rich in manganese.” Commerce—There are no statistics to cardamoms in the south of India or even the quantity shipments in the year 1872-73 from Bombay, to which p 1 largely sent from the Madras Presidency, amounted to 1,65 Which 1,055 ewt. were exported to the United Kingdom. Cardamoms, the produce of Ceylon and therefore of the large variety, were exported from that island in 1872 to the extent of 9,273 Ib—the whole quantity being shipped to the United Kingdom. show the production of exported. The port the drug is 0 ewt., of ‘Thus 202 Ib ious ti © Pharm, Journ. iii. (1872) 208. ae 10 scr sr seAb ib. of Baar 3 eneest of ee * hag ete. of Bombay ormati account or l -73. 1. OS. IU. s of Metra. Allen = pc Plough A 4 Ceylon Blue Book for 1872, Colombo, — Court, Lombard Str.) 1873. 543. 648 - ZINGIBERACE. Uses—Cardamoms are an agreeable aromatic, often administered in conjunction with other medicines. As an ingredient in curry powder, they have also some use as a condiment. But the consumption in ‘England is small in comparison with what it is in Russia, Sweden, ‘Norway and parts of Germany, where they are constantly employed as a spice for the flavouring of cakes. In these countries Ceylon carda- moms are also used, but exclusively for the manufacture of liqueurs. In India, cardamoms, besides being used in medicine, are employed as a condiment and for chewing with betel. Other sorts of Cardamom. The fruits of several other plants of the order Zingiberacew have at various times been employed in pharmacy under the common name of Cardamom. We shall here notice only those which have some im- portance in European or Indian commerce.’ Round or Cluster Cardamom—Amomum Cardamomum L., the mother-plant of this drug, is a native of Cambodia, Siam, Sumatra and Java. , During the intercourse with Siam, which was frequent in the early part of the 17th century, this drug, which is there in common Use, occasionally found its way into Europe. Clusius received a specimen — of it in 1605 as the true Amomum of the ancients, and figured it as & great rarity.” As Amomuwm verum it had a place in the pharmacopeias of this period. Parkinson (1640), who figures it as Amomum genuinum, says that “of late days it hath been sent to Venice from the East Indies.” Dale (1693) and Pomet (1694) both regarded it as a rare drug; the latter says it is brought from Holland, and that it is the only thing: that ought to be used when Amomum is ordered. In 1751 it was 8° searce that in making the Theriaca Andromachi some other drug h always to be substituted for it.’ Thus it had completely disappeared, when about the year 1853 commercial relations were re-opened with Siam; and among the com- _modities poured into the market were Rownd Cardamoms. They wet® not appreciated, and the importations becoming unprofitable, soon ceased." They are nevertheless an article of considerable traffic 1 Eastern Asia. _ Round Cardamoms are produced in small compact bunches.’ Each fruit is globular, 35, to .% of an inch in diameter, marked with long! tudinal furrows, and sometimes distinctly three-lobed. The ane is thin, fragile, somewhat hairy, of a buff colour, enclosing @ three-lobe gathered unripe. The seeds, which have a general resemblance to those of the Malabar cardamom, have a strong camphoraceous, aromatic oats following sort. The shipments from Bangkok in 1871 amounted % various sorts of Cardamom, consult Gui- Cordus bourt, Hit des Drog. ii. (1869) 215-227 ; 8 Hill, Hist. of the Mat. Med., ee : 1883) lements of Mat. Med. ii., part (1751) 472 direct from i, (1850) 243-263 ; Hanbury in Pharm. ‘Thus 43 bags, imported 26 ra Xly. (1855) 352. 416; Science Papers, Bangkok, were offered for salem ewes Joti at March, 1857, and bought in at Is. 6d. per * Exoticorum Libri, 377. Yet it already 5 Fig. in Gnibourk 4 Lc, 215. FRUCTUS CARDAMOML 649 4,678 peculs (623,733 Ibs.), and were all to Singapore and China.’ In 1875 we noticed the export from Bangkok of 267 peculs of “true” cardamoms, valued at 45,140 dollars, and 3,267 peculs of “bastard” cardamoms, value 92,865 dollars; the latter no doubt refer to the following kind :?— Xanthioid Cardamom; Wild or Bastard Cardamom of Siam— This is afforded by Amomum axanthioides Wallich, a native of Tenasse- rim and Siam. During the past thirty years the seeds of this plant, deprived of their capsules, have often been imported into the London market, and they are now also common in the bazaars of India.* They closely resemble the seeds of the Malabar cardamom, differing chiefly in flavour and in being rather more finely rugose. Occasionally they are imported still cohering in ovoid, three-lobed masses, as packed in the pericarp. Sometimes they are distinguished as Bastard or Wild, but are more generally termed simply Cardamom Seeds. They are a considerable article of trade.in Siam. The fruits of this species grow in round clusters and are remarkable for having the pericarp thickly beset with weak fleshy spines,’ which gives them some resemblance to the fruits of a Xanthium, and has sug- gested the specific name. _ Bengal Cardamom—This drug, which with the next two has been hitherto confounded under one name,’ is afforded by Amomuwm subula- tum Roxb.,’a native of the Morung mountains, to the 8.8. W. of Darjiling, in about 26°30’ N. lat. The fruit is known by the name of Winged Bengal Cardamom, M orung Elachi or Buro Llachi. They average | about an inch in length, and are of ovoid or slightly obconic form, and obscurely 3-sided; the lower end is rounded and usually devoid of stalk, The upper part of the fruit is provided with 9 narrow jagged Wings or ridges, which become apparent after maceration; and the summit terminates in a truncate bristly nipple——never protracted into along tube. The pericarp is coarsely striated, and of a deep brown. It easily splits into 8 valves, inclosing a 3-lobed mass of seeds, 60 to 80 in number, agglutinated by a viscid saccharine pulp, due to. the aril with which each seed is surrounded. The seeds are of roundish form, rendered angular by mutual pressure, and about } of an inch long; they have a highly aromatic, eamphoraceous taste. Nepal Cardamom—The description of the Bengal cardamom applies in many points to this drug, to which it has a singularly close resemblance. The fruit is of the same size and form, and 1s also crowned in its upper part with thin jagged ridges, and marked in a~ Sunilar manner with longitudinal strie; and lastly, the seeds have the same shape and flavour. But it differs, firstly, in bearing on its summit @ tubular calyx, which is as long or longer than the fruit itself; and, Secondly, in the fruit being often attached to a short stalk. The fruits are borne on an ovoid seape, 3 to 4 inches long, densely crowded with Gong ommercial Report of H.M. Consul- (1855) 418; also Science Papers, 1876, p. eneral in Si 101-103. a 5 Aclence Paes ‘a aes 5 As by Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. oodeen Sheriff, Supplement to Phar- (1850) 1135. ye Macopeei me eg 6 According to Dr. King, in Sir Joseph ong of India, Madras, 1869, 44. Sscke’s ‘Rigo Fe cei thd Royal Gavdené a *See figures in Pharm. Journ. xiv. Kew, 1877. 27. 650 - ZINGIBERACE. overlapping bracts, which are remarkably broad and truncate witha _ sharp central claw,—very distinct from the much narrower ovate bracts of A. aromaticwm, as shown in Roxburgh’s unpublished drawing of that plant. : The plant, which is unquestionably a species of Amomwm, has not yet been identified with any published description. We have to thank Colonel Richard C. Lawrence, British Resident at Katmandu, for send- ing us a fruit-scape in alcohol, some dried leaves, and also the drug itself—the last agreeing perfectly with specimens obtained through other channels. 3 The Nepal cardamom, the first account of which is due to Hamilton! is cultivated on the frontiers of Nepal, near Darjiling. The plant is _ stated by Col. Lawrence to attain 3 to 6 feet in height, and to be grown on well-watered slopes of the hills, under the shelter of trees. The fruit is exported to other parts of India. Java Cardamom—A well-marked fruit, produced by Amomwin maximum Roxb., a plant of Java. The fruits are arranged to the number of 30 to 40 on a short thick scape, and form a globose group, 4 inches in diameter. They are stalked, and of a conical or ovoid form, in the fresh state as much as 14 inches long by 1 inch broad. Each fruit is provided with 9 to 10 prominent wings, 3 of an inch high, running from base to apex, and coarsely toothed except in their pene part. The summit is crowned by a short, withered, calycinal ube. Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical garden of Buitenzorg, in Java, who has kindly supplied us with fine specimens of A. maaimum, as well as with an admirable coloured drawing, states that the plant is cultivated, and that its fruits are sold for the sake of their agreeable edible pulp. We do not know whether the dried fruits or the seeds are ever vee tani 8 iz _ Pereira confounded them with Bengal and Nepal cardamoms. Korarima Cardamom—The Arab Physicians were acquainted with a sort of cardamom called Heil, which was later known in Europe, and 1s mentioned in the most ancient printed pharmacopceias as Cardamo- mum majus, a name occurring also in Valerius Cordus and Mattiolus. Like some other Eastern drugs, it gradually disappeared from European commerce, and its name came to be transferred to Grains of Paradise which to the present day are known in the shops as Semina Carda- momi majoris. ; The true Cardamomum majus is a conical fruit, in size and ae not unlike a small fig reversed, containing roundish angular seeds, OF an agreeable aromatic flavour, much resembling that of the Malabar cardamom, and quite devoid of the burning taste of grains of a Each fruit is perforated, having been strung on a cord to dry; st strings of cardamoms are sometimes used by the Arabs as eest3 +he fruit in question is called in the Galla language Korarimda, og Is also known as Gurdgi spice, and by its Arabic names of Heil am = fount of the Kingdom of Nepal, Edin, 3 Figured in Pereira, Materia Meet ‘ : art i. (1855) 250, and already 11 * As the Tesaurus Aromatariorum, print- feccaueer, nr Dioscorid. lib. i. (1558) ed at Milan in 1496 ; ich it i - Heil or Cotditsamee co nag zt te onllied “ GRANA ‘PARADISE = 651 Habhal-hubashi. According to Beke,? it is conveyed to the market of Béso (10° N. lat.), in Southern Abyssinia, from Tumhé, a region lying in about 9° N. lat. and 35° E. long.; thence it is carried to Massowah, on the Red Sea, and shipped for India and Arabia. Von Heuglin® speaks of it as brought from the Galla country. It is not improbable that it is the same fruit which Speke* saw growing in 1862 at Uganda, in lat. 0°, and which he says is strung like a necklace by the Wagonda - people. Under the name of Heel Habashee, Korarima cardamoms were contributed in 1873 from Shoa to the Vienna exhibition; we have also been presented, in 1877, with an excellent specimen of them, recently imported, by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig. Pereira proposed for the plant the name of Amomwin Korarima, but it has never been botanically described. It would appear from the above statements that it must be indigenous to the whole mountainous region of Eastern Africa, from the Victoria Nyanza lake (Uganda) to the countries of Tumhé, Gurague, and Shoa, south and sout -eastward of Abyssinia. GRANA PARADISI. Semina Cardamomé majoris, Piper Melegueta ; Grains of Paradise, Guinea Grains, Melegueta Pepper ; ¥. Grains de Paradis, Mani- guette ; G. Paradieskérner. Botanical Origin—Amomum Melegueta Roscoe—an herbaceous, reed-like plant, 3 to 5 feet high, producing on a scape rising scarcely an Inch above the ground, a delicate, wax-like, pale purple flower, which 1s succeeded by a smooth, scarlet, ovoid fruit, 3 to 4 inches in length, ‘sing out of sheathing bracts.° : It varies considerably in the dimensions of all its parts, according to more or less favourable circumstances of soil and climate. In Demerara, where the plant grows luxuriously in cultivation, the fruit 1s as large as a fine pear, measuring with its tubular part as much as 5 inches in length by 2 inches in diameter; on the other hand, in some parts of West Africa it scarcely exceeds in size a large filbert. It has a thick fleshy pericarp, enclosing a colourless acid pulp of pleasant taste, in which are imbedded the numerous seeds. ; : A. Melegueta is widely distributed in tropical West Africa, occurring along the coast region from Sierra Leone to Congo. The littoral region, termed, in allusion to its producing grains of paradise, the Grain Coast, Pepper Coast, or Melegueta Coast, lies between Liberia and SS as ; or, more exactly, between Capes Mesurado (Montserrado) anc St. Andrews. The Gold Coast, whence the seeds are now principally exported, is in the Gulf of Guinea, further eastward. _ _ Of the distribution of the plant in the interior we have no exact information. Yet the name Melegueta refers to the ancient empire of ‘So named b in 1775 (Materi 3 Reise nach Abessinien, Jena, 1868, 223. Medica p prt tigice ate at ee sito 4 ——— ve discovery of the source of e i ee ONY A Vile, 1863. . pipeducns in re culinarid et medict, loco the Hie Oe tiey and Trimen’s Medical * Letters on the commerce of Abyssinia, Plants, part 30 (1878). ra er er to the Foreign Office, 1852; - 652 ZINGIBERACEA, Melle (Meli or Melly), formerly extending over the upper Niger region, — about in 4° E. long.,and then inhabited by the Mandingos, now by the Fulbe or Fullan. Messena is their most considerable place: In that region Amomum Melegueta may be indigenous, or the spice, being formerly exported from the coast by way of Melle, took its commercial name in allusion to the latter. | History—There is no evidence that the ancients were acquainted with the seeds called Grains of Paradise; nor can we find any reference to them earlier than an incidental mention under their African name, in the account’ of a curious festival held at Treviso in A.D. 1214: it was a sort of tournament, during which a sham fortress, held by twelve noble ladies and their attendants, was besieged and stormed by assail- ants armed with flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, perfumes, and spices, amongst which last figure—Melegete ! , After this period there are many notices, showing the seeds to have been in general use. Nicolas Myrepsus,? physician at the court of the Emperor John IIT. at Niccea, in the 13th century, prescribed Meveyérat; and his contemporary, Simon of Genoa,? at Rome, names the same drug as Melegete or Melegette. Grana Paradisi are enumerated among spices sold at Lyons* in 1245, and were used about the same time by the Welsh Physicians of Myddvai under the name Grawn Paris® They also occur as Greyn Paradijs in a tariff of duties levied at Dordrecht in Holland ® in 1358. And again among the spices used by John, king of France, when in England, A.p. 1359-60, Grainne de Paradis is re- peatedly mentioned.’ In the earliest times the drug was conveyed by the long land Journey from the Mandingo country through the desert to the Mediterranean port, Monte di Barca (Mundibarca), on the coast of Tripoli. There the spice was shipped by the Italians, and being the produce of an unknown region and held in great esteem, it acquired _ the name of Grains of Paradise’ or also, as already stated at page 650, that of Semina Cardamomi M qoris. That they came from Melli is expressly stated also by Leonhard Fuchs.? Small quantities of the drug still reach Tripoli in the same way. : Towards the middle of the 14th century, there began to be direct commercial intercourse with tropical Western Africa. Margry” relates that ships were sent thither from Dieppe in 1364, and took cargoes of ivory and malaguette from near the mouth of the river Cestos, noW Sestros. A century later the coast was visited by the Portuguese, who termed it Terra de malaguet. The celebrated Columbus also, who traded to the coast of Guinea, called it Costa di Maniguettt. Soon after this period the spice became a monopoly of the kings © Portugal. *Rolandini Patavini Chronica—Pertz Mi ai (see Appendix) 2 Monumenta Germanic historica - pee rg inc matidie oe P xix. (1866) 45-46.—Yet gifala, occurring ®* Sartorius und Lappenberg, Geachiehs r Edrisi, probably means grains of para- der Deutschen Hansa, il, 448. 533, re a 7 Doiiet d’Arcq, 219, 266—see P- De Compositione Medicamentorum ; de note 2, antidotis, cap. xxii, 8G, di Barros, Asia, Venet. 1561. so ® Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510. 19. 42 9 iacendloruma an mis, Venet. . 19. 42. De componendorum miscendoru j . _ * Bibliothek d. lit, Vereins, Stuttgart, xvi. diceamhisas ratione, libr. 1v- lane p. xxiii, 1556. 50. 2 0 Quoted at p. 589, note 4. GRANA PARADISIL — 653 English voyagers visited the Gold Coast in the 16th century, bring- ing thence in exchanging for European goods, gold, ivory, pepper, and Grains of Paradise. The pepper was doubtless that of Piper Clusii 589). e Grains of paradise, often called simply grains, were anciently used as a condiment like pepper. They were also employed with cinnamon and ginger in making the spiced wine called hippocras, in vogue during the 14th and 15th centuries. In the Portuguese and Spanish idioms, the name Melegueta, spelt in various ways, as Melegette, Melligetta, Mallaguetta, Manigete, Mani- guette, was subsequently also applied to other substitutes of pepper, and even to that spice itself. me In the hands of modern botanists, the plant affording grains of paradise has been the subject of a complication of errors which it is needless to discuss. Suffice it to say, that Amomum Granum Paradisi as described by Linnaeus cannot be identified ;—that in 1817, Afzelius, a Swedish botanist, who resided some years at Sierra Leone, published a description of “Amomum Granum Paradisi? Linn.,’? but that the Specimen of it alleged to have been received from him, and now pre- served in the herbarium of Sir J. E. Smith, belongs to another species. Under these circumstances, the name given to the grains of paradise eee by Roscoe, A. Melegueta, has been accepted as quite free from oubt. Description—The seeds are about 35 of an inch in diameter, rather variable in form, being roundish, bluntly angular or somewhat pyramidal. They are hard, with a shining, reddish-brown, shagreen-like surface. The hilum is beak-shaped and of paler colour. The seeds when crushed are feebly aromatic, but have a most pungent and burning taste. Microscopic Structure—In structure, grains of paradise agree in most respects with cardamom seeds. Yet in the former, the cells of the albumen have very thin, delicate walls which are much more elongated. Of the testa, only the innermost layer agrees with the corresponding part of cardamom ; whilst the middle layer has the cell walls so much thickened that only a few cavities, widely distant from one another, remain open. The outer layer of the testa consists of thick-walled cells, the cavities of which appear, on transverse section, radially ex~ tended. The albumen is loaded with starch granules of 2 to 5 mkm. diameter, the whole amount in each cell being agglutinated, so as to form a coherent mass, Chemical Composition—Grains of paradise contain a small pro- portion of essential nos 53 Ib. yielded us only 2% 0z., equivalent to nearly 0:30 per cent.t The oil is faintly yellowish, neutral, of an agreeable odour reminding one of the seeds, and of an aromatic, not acrid taste. It has a sp. or, at 15°5° C., of 0825. It is but sparingly soluble in absolute alcohol or in spirit of wine; but mixes clearly with btaining not only flowers, but large 'Hakluyt, Prine; be a ara: fl L 2.—First Ves te ad tees soe se wali ned fraits containing fertile seeds. to Guinea and i 15 pom ves: . ; : , Remedia eh U vera Deri: ‘This oil was obtained and oe — “Thave repeatedly taleed Amomum Mele. medicine in the beginning of the 17th cen- yueta from commercial Grains of Paradise, tury.—Porta, De Distillatione, Rome, 1608, and have cultivated the plant for some lib. iv. ¢. 4. 654 ORCHIDACE:. bisulphide of carbon; it dissolves iodine without explosion. When saturated with dry hydrochloric gas, no solid compound is formed. — The oil begins to boil at about 236° C., and the chief bulk of it distills at 257°-258°: the residual part is a thick brownish liquid. Examined in a column of 50 mm. long, the crude oil deviates 1°9° to the left. The portion passing over at 257°—258° deviates 1-2°, the residue 2° to the left. The optical behaviour is consequently in favour of the supposition that the oil is homogeneous. This is corroborated by the results of: three elementary analyses which lead to the formula Cen O: In order to ascertain whether the seed contains a fatty oil, 10 grammes, powdered with quartz, were exhausted with boiling ether. This gave upon evaporation 0°583 grm. of a brown viscid residue, almost devoid of odour, but of intense pungency. As it was entirely soluble in glacial acetic acid or in spirit of wine, we may consider it a resin, and not to contain any fatty matter. ; The seeds, dried at 100° C., afforded us 2°15 per cent. of ash, which, owing to the presence of manganese, had a green hue. Commerce—Grains of paradise are chiefly shipped from the settle- ments on the Gold Coast, of which Cape Coast Castle and Accra are the more important. Official returns! show that the exports in 1871 from this district were as follows:—to Great Britain 85,502 Ib., the United States 35,630 Ib., Germany 28,501 lb., France 27,125 lb., Holland 14,250 lb.—total, 191,011 Ib. (1705 ewt.) In 1872 the total shipments amounted to the enormous quantity of 620,191 Ib., valued at £10,303 ; in 1875 only 151,783 lb., valued at’ £912, were exported. Uses—The seeds are used in cattle medicines, occasionally as 4 condiment, but chiefly, we believe, to give a fiery pungency to cordials. ORCHIDACE. SALEP. Radix Salep, Radia Satyrii ; Salep; F. Salep ; G. Salepknollen. Botanical Origin—Most, if not all, species of Orchis found 12 ‘Europe and Northern Asia are provided with tubers which, when duly prepared, are capable of furnishing salep. Of those actually s0 used, the following are the more important, namely—Orchis mascw@ L., Y. Morio L., O. militaris L., O. ustulata L., O. pyramidalis L, 0. coriophora L., and O. longicruris Link. These species which have the tubers entire are natives of the greater part of Central and Southern Europe, Turkey, the Caucasus and Asia Minor? : The following species with palmate or lobed tubers have a geographl eal area no less extensive, namely 0. maculata L., 0. saccifera Brong”. O. conopsea L., and 0, latifolia L. The last-named reaches North- estern India and Tibet; and 0. conopsea occurs in Amurland 10 the extreme east of Asia, * Blue Book for the Colony of the Gold — Orchis as occurring in Asia Minor.—As”” Coast in 1871, sania u ° Tchihatcheff enumerates 36 species of Mimewr es: ok, the SALEP. — ee 655 The salep of the Indian bazaars, known as Sdalib misri, for fine qualities of which the most extravagant prices are paid by wealthy orientals, is derived from certain species of Hulophia, as E. campestris Lindl, #. herbacea Lindl., and probably others." . History—Under the superstitious influence of the so-called doctrine of signatures, salep? has had for ages a reputation in Eastern countries as a stimulant of the generative powers; and many Europeans who have lived in India, although not prepared to admit the extravagant virtues ascribed to it by Hindus and Mahommedans, yet regard it as a valuable nutrient in the sick room. The drug was known to Dioscorides and the Arabians, as well as to the herbalists and physicians of the middle ages, by whom it was mostly prescribed in the fresh state. Gerarde (1636) has given excellent figures of the various orchids whose tubers, says he, “our age wseth.” Geoffroy* having recognized the salep imported from the Levant to be the tubers of an orchis, pointed out in 1740 how it might be prepared from the species indigenous to France. Collection—The tubers are dug up after the plant has flowered, and the shrivelled ones having been thrown aside, those which are plump are washed, strung on threads and scalded. By this process their vitality is destroyed, and the drying is easily effected by exposure to the sun or toa gentle artificial heat. Though white and juicy when fresh, they become by drying hard and horny, and lose their bitterish taste and peculiar odour, Salep is largely collected near Melassa (Milas) and Mughla (or Moola), south-east of Smyrna, and also brought there from Mersina, opposite the north-eastern cape (Andrea) of Cyprus. The drug found in English trade is mostly imported from Smyrna. ‘That sold in Germany ts partly obtained from plants growing wild in the Taunus mountains, Wester- wald, Rhén, the Odenwald, and in Franconia. Salep is also collected in reece, and used in that country and Turkey in the form of decoction, which is sweetened with honey and taken as an early morning drink. The salep of India is produced on the hills of Afghanistan, Beluchistan, Kabul and Bokhara :° the Neilgherry Hills in the south, and even Ceylon are said likewise to afford it. : Description—Levant salep, such as is found in the English market, consists of tubers half an inch to an inch in length, of ovoid or oblong | form, often pointed at the lower end, and rounded at the upper where 's a depressed sear left by the stem; palmate tubers are unfrequent. They are generally shrunken and contorted, covered with a roughly granular skin, pale brown, translucent, very hard and horny, with but little odour and a slicht not unpleasant taste. After maceration in Water for several hours, they regain their original form and volume. ‘The Indian species of Eulophia have Harestones and Goatstones have all been been reviewed oy Lindley pene of given in allusion to the form of the Linn. Soe. orf See ye serfs pairing ge ate del Acad. des Sciences for 1740. 99. 3 Salep is the Arabic for fox, and the drug ° Heldreich, Nutzpflansen Griechenlands, 18 called in that language Khus yatu’s salab, Athen, 1862. 9. Le. fox’s testicle ; hu ?1 kalb, i.e. 6 Powell, Economic Products of the Punjab, dog's testicle, art eae 8 ~~ the Roorkee, i. (1868) 261 ; Stewart, Punjab old English names Dogstones, Foxstones, Plants, Lahore, 1869. 236. 656 : ORCHIDACEA, German salep is more translucent and gummy-looking, and has the aspect of being more trimmed and prepared. _ Microscopic Structure—The fresh tuber exhibits on transverse section a few outer rows of thin-walled cells rich in starch. These are followed by parenchyme of elongated colourless cells likewise containing starch, and isolated bundles of acicular crystals of oxalate of calcium. In this parenchyme, there are numerous larger cells filled with homo- genous mucilage. Small vascular bundles are irregularly scattered throughout the tuber. In Orchis mascula and O. latifolia the starch grains are nearly globular, and about 25 mkm. in diameter. In dried salep the cell-walls are distorted and the starch grains agglomerated. Chemical Composition—The most important constituent of salep is a sort of mucilage, the proportions of which according to Dragendortf (1865) amounts to 48 per cent.; but it is doubtless subject to great variation. Salep yields this mucilage to cold water, forming a solution which is turned blue by iodine, and mixes clearly with neutral acetate of lead like gum arabic. On addition of ammonia, an abundant precip- itate is formed. Mucilage of salep precipitated by alcohol and then dried, is coloured violet or blue, if moistened with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium. The dry mucilage is readily soluble in ammon- iacal solution of oxide of copper; when boiled with nitric acid, oxalic, but not mucic acid is produced. In these two respects, the mucilage of salep agrees with cellulose, rather than with gum arabic. In the large cells in which it is contained, it does not exhibit any stratification, 80 that its formation does not appear due to a metamorphosis of the cell- wall itself. Mucilage of salep contains some nitrogen and inorgamle matter, of which it is with difticulty deprived by repeated precipitation by alcohol, 3 It is to the mucilage just described that salep chiefly owes its power of forming with even 40 parts of water a thick jelly, which becomes still thicker on addition of magnesia or borax. ‘The starch however assists in the formation of this jelly; yet its amount is very small, or even nil in the tuber bearing the flowering stem, whereas the young lateral tuber abounds in it. The starch so deposited is evidently con- sumed in the subsequent period of vegetation, thus explaining the fact that tubers are found, the decoction of which is not rendered blue by todine, Salep contains also sugar and albumin, and when fresh, a trace of volatile oil. Dried at 110° C., it yields 2 per cent. of ash, consisting dont of phosphates and chlorides of potassium and calcium (Dragen- Commerce—The shipments of salep from Smyrna are about 5000 okkas (one okka equal to 283-2 Ib. avdp.=128°5 kilogrammes) annually. Uses—Salep possesses no medicinal powers; but from its property of forming a jelly with a large proportion of water, it has come be regarded as highly nutritious,—a popular notion in which we do no concur. A decoction flavoured with sugar and spice, or wine, 18 4” agreeable drink for invalids, but is not much used in England.’ 1 ; os : ae telco salep is difficult to mix _ spirit of wine, then adding the “ere _ this fa ei many persons fail in preparing enly and boiling the mixture. preg ak = on ; but it may be easily man- portions are powdered salep 1 rst aged by first stirring the salep with a little spirit 14 fluid drachms, water } a pint. Se VAN ee VANILLA. Vanilla;’ F. and G. Vanille. Botanical Origin—Vanilla planifolia Andrews—Indigenous to the hot regions (tierra caliente) of Eastern Mexico, diffused by cultiva- tion through other tropical countries. The plant, which is rather fleshy and has large greenish inodorous flowers,” grows in moist, shady forests, climbing the trees by means of its aérial roots. History—The Spaniards found vanilla in use in Mexico as a condi- ment to chocolate, and by them it was brought to Europe; but it must have long remained very scarce, for Clusius, who received a specimen in 1602 from Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth, described it as Lobus oblongus aromaticus, without being in the least aware of its hative country or uses* In the Thesaurus of Hernandez there is a figure and account of the plant under the name of Araco aromatico.* In the time of Pomet (1694) vanilla was imported by way of Spain, and was much used in France for flavouring chocolate and scenting tobacco. It had a place in the materia medica of the London Pharma- copia of 1721, and was well known to the druggists of the first half of the 18th century, after which it seems to have gradually disappeared from the shops. Of late times it has been imported in great abundance, and is now plentifully used, not only by the chocolate manufacturer, but also by the cook and ‘confectioner. Cultivation—The culture of vanilla is very simple. Shoots about three feet long having been fastened to trees, and scarcely touching the ground, soon strike roots on to the bark, and form plants which com- mcg vee to produce fruit in three years, and remain productive for thirty 0 TO y: : The fertilization of the flower is naturally brought about by insect agency, This was practised as early as 1830 by Neumann in the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, and in 1837 by Morren,° the director of the Botanical Garden of Lidge, since which the production of the pods has n successfully carried on in all tropical countries* without the aid ». ausects. Even in European forcing houses the plant produces tts of full size, which for aroma bear comparison with those of €X1¢0. In vanilla plantations the pods are not allowed to arrive at com- plete maturity. but are watticned when their green colour begins to change. According to the statements of De Vriese’ they are dried by & rather circuitous process, namely by exposing them to heat alternately uncovered, and wrapped in woollen cloths, whereby they are artificially "Diminutive of the Spanish vaina, a pod the King of Spain during the previous teantich fi 5 edie of Nat, Hist, ii. (1830) 1 UW WL. . * +} nn. 0) a ia * * . . - Offizinelle Geta ee ——T. In Réunion it was introduced in 1839 (1862), ? . is by Perrottet, the well-known botanist. « Etotiea (1605) lib. iii. c. 18. 72. See Delteil, ca oN jst la Vanille, Paris, erum Medi: : : : 1874. 54 pages, ates. : Fete Roms 1651, ah pe sapere 7 De Vanielje, Leyden, 1856. 22, with cated & was one of a series of 1200, exe- _ figures. at great cost in Mexico by order of : : s ON eee ‘ORCHIDACEZ. ripened, and acquire their ultimate aroma and dark hue. They are then tied together into small bundles. 3 In Réunion the drying of the pods is performed since 1857 by. dipping them previously in boiling water. Description—The fruit when fresh is of the thickness of the little finger, obscurely triquetrous, opening longitudinally by two unequal valves. It is fleshy, firm, smooth, and plump; when cut transversely it exudes an inodorous slimy juice, abounding in spicule of oxalate of calcium.’ It is one-celled, with a three-sided cavity, from each wall of which projects a two-branched placenta, each branch subdividing into two backward-curling lobes. There are thus in all 12 ridges, which traverse the fruit lengthwise, and bear the seeds. Fine hair-like papille: line as a thick fringe the three angles of the cavity, and secrete the odorous matter, which after drying is diffused through the whole pod. The papilla likewise contain drops of oil, which is freely absorbed by the paper in which a pod is wrapped. That the odorous matter is not resident in the fleshy exterior mass we have ascertained by slicing off this portion of a fresh fruit and drying it separately ; the interior alone proved to be fragrant. The vanilla of commerce occurs in the form of fleshy, flexible, stick-like pods, 3 to 8 inches long, and 52, to 345 of an inch wide, of a compressed cylindrical form, attenuated and hooked at the stalk end. The surface is finely furrowed lengthwise, shining, unctuous, and often beset with an efflorescence of minute colourless crystals. The pod splits lengthwise into two unequal valves, revealing a multitude of minute, shining, hard, black seeds of lenticular form, imbedded in a viscid aromatic juice. The finest vanilla is the Mexican. Bourbon Vanilla, which is the more plentiful, is generally shorter and less intense in colour, and com- mands a lower price. Microscopic Structure—The inner half of the pericarp contains - about 20 vascular bundles, arranged in a diffuse ring. ‘The epiderm's is formed of a row of tabular thick-walled cells, containing @ granular brown substance. The middle layer of the pericarp is composed of large thin-walled cells, the outer of which are axially extended, while - those towards the centre have a cubic or spherical form. All contain _ drops of yellowish fat and brown granular masses, which do not decidedly exhibit the reaction of tannin. The tissue further encloses needles 0 oxalate of calcium and prisms of vanillin. : On the walls of the outer cells of the pericarp? are deposited spira! fibres, which occur still more conspicuously in the aérial roots an ™ the parenchyme of the leaves of other orchids. The placentee are coate __-with delicate, thin-walled cells. Chemical Composition—Vanilla owes the fragrance for which i is remarkable to Vanillin, which is found in a crystalline state 1D * Interior or on the surface of the fruit, or dissolved in the viscid oY 1 This . . . . ._, rilis Juice like that of the squill has an Pag effect on the skin, a fact of which 6 cultivators in Mauritius are well aware. grown in Europe is devoid of such cells, We can fully corroborate this m the statement (first. made by Berg) ae examination aes By pening igat in 1871 at Hi e ouse, : jp : have even failed in finding those os. : any vanilla of recent importation oe ‘ F VANE ep liquid surrounding the seeds. It was formerly regarded as cinnamic or benzoic acid, and then as cumarin, until Gobley (1858) demonstrated its peculiar nature. : The admirable researches of Tiemann and Haarmann performed in Hofmann’s laboratory at Berlin (1874-1876) have shown that vanillin OCH? is constituted according to the formula C*H® os . It is the alde- CH hyde of methyl-protocatechuic acid, and like other aldehydes yields a crystallized compound with the bisulphites of alkalis. This is obtained by shaking an ethereal extract (e) of vanilla, with a saturated solution of bisulphite of sodium. The vanillin compound remaining in aqueous Solution is mixed with sulphuric acid and ether; the latter on evapora- tion affords crystals of vanillin. They melt at 81°, and may be sub- limed by cautiously heating them. Vanillin is but sparingly soluble in cold water, and requires about 11 parts of it at 100° C. for solution; it strikes a fine dark violet with perchloride of iron. : The said chemists have further demonstrated that vanillin may be formed artificially. In the sapwood of pines there occurs a substance called Coniferin, CH2O8 4+ 2 H2O, first observed in 1861 by Hartig. By means of emulsin coniferin taking up HO, can be resolved into Sugar and another crystallizable substance:—C“H”O8 + H?O = C*H™0° + C°H"O*. The second substance thus derived may be collected by means of ether, which dissolves neither coniferin nor sugar. By oxidiz- lng it, or coniferin itself, by bichromate of potassium and sulphuric acid, Vanillin is obtained. The latter has been for sometime manu- factured in that way by Tiemann, but now eugenol (see p. 285) is used for that purpose. Another source for vanillin is benzoin (p. 409). _ The amount of vanillin was stated by Haarmann and Tiemann to be 1-69 per cent. in Mexican vanillin, from 1:9 to 2°48 in the Bourbon — arty, and 2°75 in that from Java. The so-called Vanillon affords only 0-4 to 0-7 per cent. of vanillin. g From the Save niente ethereal solution (e), after it has been deprived of vanillin, vanillate of sodium may be removed by a dilute Solution of carbonate of sodium. On acidulating the aqueous solution OCH? crystals of vanillic acid, OH? OH are precipitated. If the ether of COOH Ogee the solution (e), after it has been treated with carbonate of sodium, 18 allowed to evaporate, a mixture of fatty substances and @ resin are obtained, The latter has a peculiar odour, somewhat suggestive of castoreum; vanillic acid is almost inodorous. ; 8 Leutner (1872) also found in vanilla fatty and waxy matter. ? resin 40, oum and sugar 16°5 per cent.; and obtained by incineration o} the drug 46 per cent. of ash. . Production and Commerce—The chief seats of vanilla-production it Mexico are the slopes of the Cordilleras, north-west of Vera Cs the centre of the culture being Jicaltepec, in the vicinity of Nautla. The finest specimens were contributed in 1878 to the Paris Exhibition * Culture d aa —s W. von Miiller, Reisen in. . . Merico, ii, du vanillier au Mexique, in the (Leipzig, 1864) 284-290. *rue Coloniale, ii, (1849) 383-390; also J. 660 TRIDACE, . from Agapito, Fonticilla, Misantla, Papantla, also from Teziutlan, province of Puebla, There are likewise “ Baynillales,” plantations of — vanilla, on the western declivity of the Cordilleras in the State of Oaxaca, and in lesser quantity in those of Tabasco, Chiapas, and Yucatan. The eastern parts of Mexico exported in 1864, by way of Vera Cruz and Tampico, about 20,000 kilo. of vanilla, chiefly to Bordeaux. Since then the production seems to have much declined, the importation into France having been only 6,896 kilo. in 1871, and 1,938 in 1872? The cultivation of vanilla in the small French colony of Réunion or ~ Bourbon (40 miles long by 27 miles broad), introduced by Marchant in 1817 from Mauritius, has of late been very successful, notwithstanding _ many difficulties occasioned by the severe cyclones which sweep peti- _ odically over the island, and by microscopic fungi which greatly injured the plant. In 1849 the export of vanilla from Réunion was 3 kilo- grammes, in 1877 it reached 30,973 kilogrammes. The neighbouring island of Mauritius also produces vanilla, of which it shipped in 1872 7,139 Ibs. in 1877 the quantity was 20,481 lbs. There is likewise a _ very extensive cultivation of vanilla in Java. Vanilla comes into the market chiefly by way of France, which country, according to the official statistics, imported in 1871, 29,914 kilo. (65,981 Ibs.); in 1872, 26,587 (58,648 lbs.); in 1874 that quantity amounted to 34,906 kilo. _ Uses—Vanilla has long ceased to be used in medicine, at least in this country, but is often sold by druggists for flavouring chocolate, ices, creams, and confectionery. TRIDACE. RHIZOMA IRIDIS. Radia Iridis Florentine; Orris Root; F. Racine &'Iris; G. Veilchenwurzel. poncel Origin—This drug is derived from three species of 17s; namely :— 1. Iris germanica L., a perennial plant with beautiful large deep blue flowers, common about Florence and Lucca, ascending to t ‘ region of the chestnut. It is also found dispersed throughout Centra. -and Southern Europe, and in Northern India and Morocco; and 1s 0% of the commonest plants of the gardens round London, where it 38 known as the Blue Flag. ; 1. I. pallida Lam., a plant differing from the preceding by sas _ of a delicate pale blue, growing wild in stony places in Istria, ©) abundant about Florence and Lucca in the region of the olive, but 1s . doubtful native. : 3. I. Jlorentina L., closely allied to I. pallida, yet bearing ap white flowers, is indigenous to the coast region of Macedonia am” south-western shores of the Black Sea, Hersek, in the Gulf of eo and about Adalia in Asia Minor. It also occurs in the neighbourhoy” 1 is France, sand aoa par ? Administration des Dowane ae f ae c Se a be * RHIZOMA IRIDIS. ==. 66 of Florence and Lucca, but in our opinion only as a naturalized lant.’ . ‘ These three species, but especially J. germanica and I. pallida, are cultivated for the production of orris root in the neighbourhood of — Florence. They are planted on the edges of terraces and on waste, stony places contiguous to cultivated ground. J. florentina is seldom ote beyond the precincts of villas, and is far less common than the other two. History—In ancient Greece and Rome, orris root was largely used in perfumery; and Macedonia, Elis, and Corinth were famous for their unguents of iris? Theophrastus and Dioscorides were well acquainted with orris root; the latter, as well as Pliny, remarks that the best comes from Illyricum, the next from Macedonia, and a sort still inferior from Libya; and that the root is used as a perfume and medicine. Visiani* considers that Iris germanica is the Illyrian iris of the ancients, which is highly probable, seeing that throughout Dalmatia (the ancient Iilyri- cum) that species is plentiful, and J. florentina and J, pallida do not occur. At what period the two latter were introduced into N orthern Italy we have no direct evidence, but it was probably in the early middle ages. The ancient arms of Florence, a white lily or iris on a red shield,‘ seem to indicate that that city was famed for the growth of these plants. Petrus de Crescentiis’ of Bologna, who flourished in the 13th century, mentions the cultivation of the white as well as of the purple iris, and states at what season the root should be collected for medicinal use. : But the true Illyrian drug was held to be the best; and Valerius Cordus® laments that it was being displaced by the Florentine, though it might easily be obtained through the Venetians. be _ Orris root mixed with anise was used in England as a perfume for linen as early as 1480 (p. 311), under which date it is mentioned in the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV. : eee ee : _ All the species of iris we have named were 1n cultivation in Englan in the time of Gerarde,—that is, the latter end of the 16th century. The starch of the rhizome was formerly reckoned medicinal, and direc- tions for its preparation are to be found in the Traicté de la Chymie of Le Febvre, i. (1660) 310. | Production—The above-mentioned species of iris are oat to the uscan peasantry by the one name of Giaggiolo. The r or spe collected indiscriminately, the chief quantity being ea. Phe y the two more plentiful species, I. germanvea and J. pone “ are dug up in August, are then peeled, trimmed, and out in 1 . in . From observations made at Florence in flower-stem short rf es bee andl the spring of 1872, I am led to regard the more tender plant in The ga pices h i istinct. blossoms a little la ; fa regllling cmpartve iarcters ae Ra Fut ate dar Pol 4ps worth recordi — ner. ie g . et bison nica — fidwereheins scarcely 14 des "Llassischen are I 116. 76. 8: 3 imesas tall asleaves - flowersmore crowded 3 Flora Dalma ica, 1. 4 ae 4 Dante, Divina commedia, cant. Xv1. iteeve ec ying Cape ee _ 5 De omnibus agriculture partibus, Basil. L. pallida —bracts cues A ER fower-stem twice as hide rs eevee? + “s Diapensatorium, Norismb. 1529. 288. I. florentina — bracts green and fleshy; I, germanica; oe Gee 662 oe TRIDACEA:. - sunshine to dry, the larger bits cut off being reserved for replanting. At the establishment of Count Strozzi, founded in 1806 at Pontasieve _ near Florence, which lies in the midst of the orris district, the rhizomes, collected from the peasants by itinerant dealers, are separated into different qualities, as selected (scelti) and sorts (in sorte), and are ulti- mately offered in trade either entire, or in small bits (frantwmi),. parings (raspature), powder (polvere di giaggiolo o d wireos), or manufactured into orris peas. The growing of orris is only a small branch of industry, the crops being a sort of side-product, but it is nevertheless shared between the _ tenant and landowner as is usual on the Tuscan system of husbandry.’ In the mountainous neighbourhood of Verona, the rhizomes of Giglio celeste or Giglio selvatico, 2.¢c., Iris germanica, are collected and chiefly brought to the small places of Tregnano and Illasi, north-east of _ Verona. The peasants distinguish the selected long roots (radice dritta), the knotty roots (radice groppo) which are used for the issue-peas, and the fragments (scarto) employed in perfumery. me orris root is also exported from Botzen in southern Tyrol. _ Description.—The rootstock is fleshy, jointed and branching, creep- ing horizontally near the surface of the ground. It is formed in old plants of the annual joints of five or six successive years, the oldest of which are evidently in a state of decay. These joints are mostly dichotomous, subcylindrical, a little compressed vertically, gradually becoming obconical, and obtaining a maximum. size when about three years old. They are 3 to 4 inches long and sometimes more than 2 inches thick. Those only of the current year emit leaves from their extremities. The rhizome is externally yellowish-brown, internally white and juicy, with an earthy smell and acrid taste. By drying, it gradually acquires its pleasant violet odour, but it is said not to attain its maximum of fragrance until it has been kept for two years. ; We have carefully compared with each other the fresh rhizomes of the three species under notice, but are not able to point out any definite character for distinguishing them apart. ___Dried orris root as found in the shops occurs in pieces of 2 to : inches long, and often as much as 1} inches wide. A full-sized piece 1s Seen to consist of an elongated, irregularly subconical portion emitting at its broader end one or two (rarely three) branches which, having been cut short in the process of trimming, have the form of short, br cones, attached by their apices to the parent rootstock. The rootstock is flattened, somewhat arched, often contorted, shrunken and furrowe®- The lower side is marked with small circular scars, indicating the point of insertion of rootlets. The brown outer bark has been usually entirely -temoved by peeling and paring; and the dried rhizome is of & cone opaque white, ponderous, firm and compact. It has an agreeable ZR delicate odour of violets, and a bitterish, rather aromatic taste, W! subsequent acridity. f A sort of orris root which has been dried without the removal 0 the outer peel, is found under the name of Jrisa in the Indian corr and now and then in the London market, It is, we suppose, 1 ae _ : tion ese were he iii. (1872) 229.—We have also to thank him for informa OROOUSE a roduce of Iivis germanica L. (I. nepalensis Wall.), which, according to ooker, is cultivated in Kashmir. Orris root of rather low quality is now often imported from Morocco; it is obtained, we believe, exclusively. from I. germanica. Microscopic Structure—On transverse section, the white bark about 2 mm. broad, is seen to be separated by a fine brown line from the faintly yellowish woody tissue. The latter is traversed by numerous vascular bundles, in diffuse and irregular rings, and exhibits here and there small shining crystals of oxalate of calcium. It is made up uniformly of large thick-walled spherical porous cells, loaded with starch granules, which are oval, rather large and very numerous ; prisms of calcium oxalate are also visible. The latter were noticed already by one of the earliest microscopic observers, Anton van Leeu- wenhoek, about the year 1716, The spiral vessels are small and run in very various directions. The foregoing description is applicable to— any one of the three species we have named. Chemical Composition—When orris root is distilled with water, a crystalline substance, called Orris Camphor, is found floating on the aqueous distillate. This substance, which we first obtained from the laboratory of Messrs. Herrings & Co. of London, is yielded, as we learn from Mr. Umney, to the extent of 0°12 per cent.—that is to say, 3 cwt. 3 qrs. 23 tb. of rhizome afforded of it 8} ounces. Messrs. Schimmel & Co. of Leipzig also presented us with the same substance, of which they obtain usually 0°60 to 0°80 per cent. Orris camphor has the exquisite and persistent fragrance of the drug; we have proved ? that this pre- sumed stearoptene or camphor of orris root consists of myristic satee C“H™O? (see page 508),impregnated with the minute quantity of essentia eS onthe in the drug. The oil itself worn? appear not to preexist in the living root, but to be formed on drying it. ; ae By exhausting orris root with spirit of wine, a soft brownish pee: obtained, together with a little tannic matter. The resin has a slightly acrid taste; the tannin strikes a green colour with persalts of iron. Commerce—Orris root is shipped from Leghorn, Trieste and " Mogador,—from the last-named art to the extent in. eg e 834 ewt.$ There are no data to show the total imports ee rea iba France imported in the year ‘1870 about 50 tons of orris Toot. o . . es d _ Uses—Frequently employed as an ingredient in tooth powders, an in a rance for mite sane but the chief application 18 as @ pertume, ; CROCUS. Croci stigmata ; Saffron’; F. and G. Saff i ; i fleshy Botanical Orisin—Crocus sativus L., a small plant with a fies bulb-like corm sid ry leaves, much resembling the common Spring ; j ts, 1876. 1416. Bretschneider, Chinese Botanical Works, sativus L. is unknown in a wild Foochow, 1870. 15. és state, and that it hardly ever produces seed 6 Le Calendrier de Cordoue de Panne even though artificially fertilized ;andhas 961, Leyde, 1873. 33. 109. Safran = ed from these facts that it is probably a 7 Conrad et Waldmann, J'raité du mi" ybrid.— Bulletin de la Soc. bot. de. France, du Gdtinais, Paris, 1846. (23 page?’ xx. (1853) 19] : a es uthority quoted). me a panicles, ch. iv. 14. we De Mas Latric, Hist de Vite de Chypr (1857) 52, ” Indische Alterthumskunde, iii, iii. 498, 9 Bourquelot, Foires de la Cham; “Istachri, Buch der Liinder, ib : e J npr tzt § Mém. de Acad. des imscrip von Mord , 87. 93. 124, 136 ; Faris : outs . (1865) 286. Géographie, trad, par Jaubert, 168, _ — rgmtinceis ~_ crocus 2 es ae Aquila in the Abruzzi was also famous, and used to be distinguished in price-lists till the beginning of the present century; the culture of saffron is still going on there to a small extent.’ The growing of saffron in Sicily, which was noticed even by Columella, is carried on to the present day, but the quantity produced is insufficient even for home consumption.? In Germany and Switzerland, where a more rigorous climate must have increased the difficulties of culti- vation, the production of saffron was an object of industry in many localities. _ The saffron crocus is said to have been introduced into England during the reign of Edward IIL. (A.p. 1827-1377). Two centuries later English saffron was even exported to the Continent, for in a priced list of the spices sold by the apothecaries of the north of France, A.D. 1565-70, mention is made of three sorts of saffron, of which “Safren d Engleterre” is the most valuable.’ It was evidently produced in considerable quan- tities, for in 1682 we find in the tariff of the “Apotheke” of Celle, Hanover, crocus austriacus optimus, and Crocus conumunis anglicus.’ In the beginning of the last century (1723-28), the cultivation of saffron was carried on in what is described by a contemporary writer 7 as—all that large tract of ground that lies between Saffron Walden and Cambridge, in a circle of about 10 miles diameter.” The same writer remarks that saffron was formerly grown in several other counties of England. The cultivation of the crocus about Saffron Walden, which - was in full activity when Norden § wrote in 1594, had ceased in 1768, and about Cambridge at nearly the same time.’ Yet the culture must have lingered in a few localities, for in the early part of the present century a little English saffron was still brought every year from Cambridgeshire to London, and sold as a choice drug to those who were Wuling to pay a high price for it. ca ee hacked in ancient times to a far greater extent than at the present day. It entered into all sorts of medicines, both internal and external; and it was in common use as a colouring and flavouring ingredient of various dishes for the table, The drug, from its inevitable costliness, has been liable to sophistication from the earliest times. Both Dioscorides and Pliny refer to the frauds practised on it, the latter remarkinge—“adulteratur nihil weque.” aa During the middle ages the severest enactments were not only m if but were actually carried into effect, against those who were guilty 7 Sophisticating saffron, or even of possessing the article in an saeatioee state. Thus at Pisa, in A.D. 1305, the fundacarit, or keepers of the public warehouses, were required by oath and heavy penalties ae ty ounce the owners of any falsified saffron consigned to their custody. , Groves, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1875) 215. 6 Pharm. Journ. vi, (1876) 1023. _* Inzenga, in Annali a? dacs Sici- 7 Douglass, Phil. a ap ginneee liana, i, (1851) 51. 8 Description of Lssex, Vamden , Tragus, De Stirpium, ete. 1552, p.763; 1840. 8. : Qehs, Geschichte der Stadt unud Lanidochaft | Movant, op. cit; Tysons, Wounn Tr asel, ili. (1819) 189 tannia, vol. il. pt. 1. 5. 2 i ; : y ii that at Fulbourn, a village near (1768) San” eS ry Pesca io there had been no tithe of saff- ® The oth “ » von since 1774. ages : : and “Safren Noort sia - anoomielats 10 Bonaini, Statuti inediti_ della na Pas de Calais, quoted by Dorvault, Revue Pisa dal wii. al xiv. secolo, iii. (1857) 101. __ Pharmaceutique de 1858. p. 58. ag IRIDACE. The Pepperers of London about the same period were also held respon- _ sible to check dishonest tampering with saffron.! In France, an edict of Henry IL. of 18th March, 1550, recites the advantages derived from the cultivation of saffron in many parts of the kingdom, and enacts the confiscation and burning of the drug when falsified, and corporal punishment of offenders.” The authorities in Germany were far more severe. A Safranschaw _ (Saffron inspection) was established at Nuremberg in 1441, in which year 13 lb. of saffron was publicly burnt at the Schénen Brunnen in that city. In 1444, Jobst Findeker was burnt together with his adul- _ terated saffron! And in 1456, Hans Kolbele, Lienhart Frey, and a woman, implicated in falsifying saffron, were buried alive. The Safranschaw was still in vigour as late as 1591: but new regulations for the inspection of saffron were passed in 1613.3 There was also in the same city a Gewiirzschau, or Spice-inspection, from 1441 to 1797. Similar inspections were established in most German towns during the middle ages. __ _Description—The flower of the saffron crocus has a style 3 to 4 inches long, which in its lower portion is colourless, and included within _ the tube of the perianth. In its upper part it becomes yellow, and divides into three tubular, filiform, orange-red stigmas, each about an inch in length. The stigmas expand towards their ends, and the tube of which they consist is toothed at the edge and slit on its inner side. ‘ae ‘ee fom is the only part officinal, and alone is rich in colouring matter. Commercial saffron (Hay Saffron of the druggists) is a loose mass of thread-like stigmas, which when unbroken are united in threes at the upper extremity of the yellow style. It is unctuous to the touch, tough and flexible; of a deep orange-red, peculiar aromatic smell, and bitter and rather pungent taste. It is hygroscopic and not easily pulverized ; ___ it loses by drying at 100° C. about 12 per cent. of moisture, which It quickly reabsorbs.* _ The colouring power of saffron is very remarkable: we have found that a single grain rubbed to fine powder with a little sugar will impart a distinct tint of yellow to 700,000 grains (10 gallons) of water. _ Microscopic Structure—The tissue of the stigma consists of vely thin, sinuous, closety-felted, thread-shaped cells, and small spiral vessels. The yellow colouring matter penetrates the whole, and is partly de- posited in granules. The microscope likewise exhibits oil-drops, 4? small lumps, probably of a solid fat, Large isolated pollen grains se __ also present. Chemical Composition—The splendid colouring matter of saffron has long been known as Polychroit; but in 1851 Quadrat, who institu Some fresh researches on the drug, gave it the name of Orocin, which was 1 Riley, Memorials of London and L : ‘ching in tolo ihe é ondon 4 Bight lots of saffron weighiDg, red . hag 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries, . 61 Ib., dried at various times during rs 2 De la Mar Trai ace! course of nine years, lost 7 Ib. et : iii, GAY 498,” soe de la Police, Paris, 11°7 per cent.—(Laboratory » BF. Roth, Geschichie ii schen Handele, 1800-1802 iy. 2317" = Lombard — Messrs, Allen & Hanburys, Plough Comth = CROCURI Cr er ae also adopted in 1858 by Rochleder. Weiss in 1867! has shown that it is a glucoside, for which he retains the name of Polychroit, while the - new colourimg matter which results from its decomposition he terms Crocin. It agrees with the Crocetin of Rochleder. Polychroit was prepared by Weiss in the following manner: saffron was treated with ether, by which fat, wax, and essential oil were removed ; and it was then exhausted with water. From the aqueous solution, gummy matters and some inorganic salts were precipitated by strong alcohol. After the separation of these substances, polychroit was precipitated by addition of ether. Thus obtained, it is an orange-red, viscid, deliquescent substance, which, dried over sulphuric acid, becomes brittle and of a fine ruby colour. It has a sweetish taste, but is devoid of odour, readily soluble in spirit of wine or water, and sparingly in absolute alcohol. By dilute acids, it is decomposed into Crocin, sugar, and an aromatic volatile oil having the smell of saffron. Weiss gives the following formula for this decomposition :— C*H®o ae HO = 2 (C*H*0") 3 C’H“O : CPH“O*. polychroit crocin essential oil sugar Crocin is a red powder, insoluble in ether, easily soluble in alcohol, and precipitable from this solution on addition of ether. It is only slightly soluble in water, but freely in an alkaline solution, from whic an acid precipitates it in purple-red flocks. Strong sulphuric and nitric acids oceasion the same colours as with polychroit; the former producing deep blue, changing to violet and brown, and the latter green, yellow, and finally brown. It is remarkable that hydrocarbons of the benzol class do not dissolve the colouring matter of saffron. — ; the oil obtained by decomposing crocin is heavier than water ; it boils at about 209° C., and is easily altered,—even by water. It is probably identical with the volatile oil obtainable to the extent of one per cent. from the drug itself, and to which its odour is due. Saffron contains sugar (glucose ?), besides that obtained by the decomposition of polychroit. The drug leaves after incineration 5 to 6 per cent. of ash. ii Production and Commerce—lIn France the cultivation 1s carne on by small peasant proprietors; the flowers are collected at the a ed September or in the beginning of October. The stigmas are quick 4 taken out, and immediately dried on sieves over a gentle fire, pega they are exposed for only half an hour. According to Dumesnil ina to tie flowers are required for yielding ee ear (17} 02.) 0 Sh saffron, which by drying is reduced to 100 grammes. Notwithstanding the high price of saffron, its cultivation tis or means always profitable, from the many difficulties by whic ot attended. Besides occasional injury from weather, the bulbs hinges damaged by parasitic fungi as stated by Duhamel in 1728 and again by Montagne in 18484 € most considerable quantity namely in Lower Arragon, in Nove of saffron is now produced in Spain, lda near Alicante, in the province ‘- Tgeers and Husemann, Jahresbericht 3 Mém. del Acad. des Sciences, 1728. p. * Bulletin de la Société + resol Sas 4 Etude micrographique de la maladie du matation, Avril, 1869. ee Safran, connue sous le nom de tacon. 668 eae IRIDACE, _ Albacete (Northern Murcia), in La Mancha, near Huelva, and also near Palma in the island of Mallorca. It is brought into commerce as Alicante and Valencia Saffron. The quantity of saffron exported from Spain in 1864 was valued at £190,062; in 1865, £135,316 ; in 1866, £47,083. The drug was chiefly exported to France French saffron, which enjoys a better reputation for purity than the Spanish, is cultivated in the arrondissement of Pithiviers-en-Gatinais, in the department of the Loiret, which district annually furnishes a ‘quantity valued at 1,500,000 (£60,000) to 1,800,000 francs? The exports of France in 1875 were 97,021 kilogrammes, 84,337 of which being imported from Spain. In Austria, Maissau, north-east of Krems on the Danube, still produces excellent saffron, though only to a very small extent; the district was formerly celebrated for the drug. Saffron is produced in considerable quantity in Ghayn, an elevated mountain region separating _ Western Afghanistan from Persia. A very little of inferior quality is collected at Pampur in Kashmir, under heavy imposts of the Maharaja.‘ Saffron is also cultivated in some districts of China. Finally, the cultivation has been introduced into the United States, and a little saffron is collected by the German inhabitants of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania.’ But in almost all countries the cultivation of aoa is on the decline, and in very many districts has altogether ceased. The imports of saffron into the United Kingdom amounted in 1870 _ to 43,950 Ib, valued at £95,690. The article is largely exported to India, but there are no general statistics to show the amount. Bombay imported in the year 1872-73, 21,994 lb., value £35,115.° It is a curious fact that now Spanish saffron finds regularly its way to India. _Uses—Saffron is of no value for any medicinal effects, and retaims a — in the pharmacopceia solely on the ground of its utility as colouring agent. A peculiar preference for it’as a condiment exists in various countries, but especially in Austria, Germany and some districts of Switzerland. This predilection prevails even in England—at least in Cornwall, where the use of saffron for colouring cakes 18 still common. Saffron is largely used by the natives of India in religious rites, in medicine and for the colouring and flavouring of food. _ Asa dye-stuff saffron is no longer employed, at least in this country, its use having been superseded by less costly substances. _ Adulteration—Saffron is often adulterated, but the frauds prac- tised on it are not difficult of detection. Sometimes the falsification _ consists in the addition of florets of Calendula dyed with logwood, or of safflower, or the stamens of the saffron crocus, any of which may detected if a small pinch of the drug be dropped on the surface of warm brgead = hen the peculiar form of the saffron stigma will at once become — evident, _| Statistical Tables relating to’ Foreign Punjab Products, i. (1868) 449.—P hart Countries (Blue Book) 1870. 286, 289 Journ. vi. (1875) 279. san yA . h . 5 Proc, a de dnt Pharm. A380 ew, “rom the Indus to the Tigris, 1866. 254. Lond. 1874, 304. : 6 Annual Statement of the T rade and * Hiigel, Kaschmir, ii. (1840) 274, Powell, Navigation of the Presidency of for 1872-73. pt. ii. 30. SEMEN ARECA. 669 Another adulteration of late much practised, and not always easy to detect by the eye, consists in coating genuine saffron with carbonate of lime, previously tinged orange-red. If a few shreds of such saffron be placed on the surface of water in a wineglass and gently stirred, the water will immediately become turbid, and the carbonate of lime will detach itself as a white powder and subside. Saffron thus adulterated will freely effervesce when dilute hydrochloric acid is dropped upon it. We have examined Alicante Saffron, the weight of which had been increased more than 20 per cent. by this fraudulent admixture. The earthy matter employed in sophisticating saffron is said to be some- times emery powder, rendered adherent by honey. We have found as So halebee with carbonate of lime to leave from 12 to 28 per cent. of ash. PALM i. SEMEN AREC&. Nuces Arece vel Betel; Areca Nuts, Betel Nuts; F. Semence ow Noiz @Arec; G. Arekanisse, Betelniisse. Botanical Origin—Aveca Catechu L., a most elegant palm,’ with a straight smooth trunk, 40 to 50 feet high and about 20 inches in cireum- ference, The inflorescence is arranged on & branching spadix, with the male flowers on its upper portion and the female near its base. The tree is cultivated in the Malayan Archipelago, the warmer parts of the Indian Peninsula, Ceylon, Indo-China and the Phillippines. It is pro- — bably indigenous to the first-named region. History—The Areca palm is mentioned in the Sanskrit writings as Guvdca. It is called in Chinese Pin-lang, a name apparently derived from Pinang, a designation for the tree in the Malay Islands, whence the Chinese anciently derived their supply of the seeds. The oldest Chinese work to mention the pin-lang is the San-fu-huang-tu, a description of Chang-an, the capital of the Emperor Wu-ti, B.C. 140-86. It is there stated that after the conquest of Yunnan, B.c. 111, some a markable trees and plants of the south were taken to the capital, _~ among them more than 100 pin-lang, which were planted in the pages gardens. Bretschneider; to whose researches we are indebted for this information, cites several other Chinese works, from the first century downwards, showing that areca nuts were prought from the then eet subdued provinces of Southern China, the Malayan Archipelago and India. The custom of presenting areca nut to a guest 1s alluded to in a , work of the 4th century. nee Ibn Batuta, were well acquainted _ The Arabian writers, as for insta } ; With the areca nut, which they called Féfal, and with the Indian custom of masticating it with lime. Areca nut,though held in great es catory, and supposed to strengthen the gums, "Science Papers, 368. 30n the study of Chinese botanical works, Bentley and Trimen, Medic. Plants, Foochow, 1870. 27, Part 21 (1877). timation among Asiatics as a masti- sweeten the breath and er

and A. von Kremer’ It is now but little collected. Vaughan states, as well as Von Wrede, that the tree 1s found in Hadramaut and on the east coast of Africa. The latter state- ment is also made in letters (1877, 1878), with which we were favoured by Captain Hunter of Aden and Hildebrandt of Berlin (see pages 140 and 141), by the latter of whom we were presented with a photographic sketch of the tree growing in the Somali country, at elevations of from 2500 to 5500 feet, and called there Moli. It is Dracena schizantha Baker, a tree attaining 8 metres in height. The resin has an acidulous taste, and i i ~ not exported, but occasionally is, according to Hildebrandt, not exp Or ad ti aca eaten by the Somalis. The tree from which drago in Socotra is, according to Capt. Hunter, Dracena Onrbet Kotschy. The Drop Dragon’s Blood, of which small parcels imported from mbay or Zanzibar occasionally appear in the London market, ry however this drug. It is in small tears and fragments, seldom exceed- ing an inch in length, has a clean glassy fracture, and in thin pieces 1s transparent and of a splendid ruby colour. From Sumatran dragon's blood it may be distin grained by fe containing the little caren Scales constantly present in that drug, and by not evolving —_ on the point of a knife the irritating fumes of benzoic acid. etic D ; __'This substance is afforde: ragon's Blood of the Canary Islands—This s a Yucca, of which by Dracena Dr oH 8 blin aco L., a liliaceous tree” resem g . the famous specimen at Orotava in Teneriffe has often been described 9 n account of its gigantic dimensions and venerable age. mu Z ; 8 Hi ‘cal observations on the struc- oyage of Nearchus and Periplus of the Histologi ; Eryth S he tem, accompanied by excellent fort, 1809, 90° translated by Vincent, Ox- pes ree as memoit $9 Rae : Sontheimer’s ed. i. 104, 426. ii 117. wenhoft (Bijdrage tot de ieee , Abie I? Asia, nec, deca. Venct, 1561, p. 10.a. _ Dracd pp. 60. tabb. 5) om ae Nadaeck ti in Arabia, Lond. 1838. ii. 449. Kon. Acad. v. Wetensch., afd. uurk. hs hc ii . 1863. + Aegupten, ‘Taig. ae — *y Tt was destroyed in 1867 by a hurri- J Hildebrandt’s East African Plants, cane, : rn. of Bot. xv, (1877) 71. 676 | — AROIDEA, On the exploration of Madeira and Porto Santo in the 15th century, _ dragon’s blood -was one of the valued productions collected by the voyagers, and is named as such by Alvise da ca da Mosto in 1454’ It is also mentioned by the German physician Hieronymus Miinzer, who visited Lisbon about 1494.7 The tree yields the resin after incisions are made in its stem; but so far as we know the exudation has never formed a regular and ordinary article of commerce with Europe. It has been found in the sepulchral eaves of the aboriginal inhabitants. The name Dragon’s Blood has also been applied to an exudation obtained from the West Indian Pterocarpus Draco L., and to that of Croton Draco Schlecht.; but the latter appears to be of the nature of kino, and neither substance is met with in European commerce, AROIDE:. RHIZOMA CALAMI AROMATICI. Radix Culami aromatici, Radix Acori; Sweet Flag Root; ¥. Acove odorant ow vrai, Roseaw aromatique; G. Kalmus. Botanical Origin—Acorus Culamus L., an aromatic, flag-like plant, growing on the margins of streams, swamps, and lakes, from the coasts of the Black Sea, through Southern Siberia, Central Asia, and India, as far as Amurland, Northern China, and J. apan; indigenous also to North _ America. It is now established as a wild plant in the greater part of Europe, reaching from Sicily as far north as Scotland, Scandinavia, and Northern Russia; and is cultivated to a small extent in Burma an Ceylon. _ Regarding the introduction of Acorus Calamus into Western Europe, it is believed in Poland to have been introduced there in the 13th century by the Tartars, yet it seems not to have attracted then any attention. The well-informed botanist, Bock (Tragus), mentioning the use of the preserved rhizome by wealthy persons, states * that he never seen the plant growing in Germany. Clusius* relates thee - first received a living plant in 1574, sent from the lake Apollonia D Gs Brussa in Asia Minor. Camerarius* writing in 1588, speaks of it Introduced some years previously, and then plentiful in Germany, which seems to show a rapid propagation. Gerarde at the close of the century looked upon Acorus as an Eastern plant, which he says = grown in many English gardens, and might hence be fitly called we Sweet Garden Flag.” Berlu,’ in 1724, observes of the root yet “it is brought in quantities from Germany:” hence we may intel “a oe ak then collected in England, as we know it was at a later riod.’ B Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navigationi et ‘Rariorum Stirpium Historia, Antv. Viaggi, Venet. i. 97, 1576. 520. a ; Kunstmann, Abhandlungen der Baieri- 5 Hortus medicus et philosophicus, Fran schen Akademie der Wissenschaften, vii. 1588. 5. 1B iss 342. et seq. : ° Treasury of Drugs, ed. ii. 1724. y oe 1550. “alii,” Speiskammer, Strassburg, 7 See also Lrimen in Journ. of Botany, (1871) 163. RHIZOMA CALAMI AROMATICI. eS History—Sweet Flag root has been from the earliest times a favourite medicine of the natives of India, in which country it is sold in every bazaar. Ainslie’ asserts that it is reckoned so valuable in the bowel complaints of children that there is a penalty incurred by any druggist who will not open his door in the middle of the night to sell it, if demanded! The descriptions of Acoron, a plant of Colchis, Galatia, Pontus, and Crete, given by Dioscorides and Pliny, certainly refer to this drug. We think that the KdAamos apwuarecds of Dioscorides, which he states to grow in India, is the same, though Royle regards it as an Andropogon. The KaAauos of Theophrastus and the Calamus of the English Bible * are considered by some authors to refer to the Sweet Flag. Celsus in the first century mentioned Calamus Alexandrinus, the drug being probably then brought from India by way of the Red Sea. We know by the testimony of Amatus Lusitanus® that in the 16th century it used to be so imported into Venice. Rheede,* moreover, described and figured Acorus Calamus as an Indian plant under the”; name Vacha, which it still bears on the Malabar Coast. But in the pharmaceutical tariff of the German town of Halberstadt of the year 1697, “ Calamus aromaticus verus, Indianischer Calmus,’ and “Cala- mus aromaticus nostras,’ common Calmus, are quoted at exactly the same price” and Murray® states expressly that im his time (1790) Asiatic calamus was still met with in the pharmacies of Continental , Europe, but that it had mostly been replaced by the home-grown drug. At the present time the Calamus aromaticus of commerce 1s European ; in all essential characters it agrees with that of India, a package of which is now and then offered in the London drug sales. Collection—The London market is supplied from Germany, whither the drug is brought, we believe, from Southern Russia. It is no longer collected in England,—at least in quantity, though it used to be gathered soine years ago in Norfolk. Description—The rootstock of sweet flag occurs ™ cane gees tortuous, subcylindrical or flattened pieces, a few inches long, = as } to 1 inch in greatest diameter. Each piece is obscurely i e a: the upper surface with the scars, often hairy, of leaves, and on t aa neg with a zigzag line of little, elevated, dot-like ae ng ead sae 0 oe ‘ The rootstock is usually rough and shrunken, varying in co 2 — dark brown to orange-brown, breaking easily with a Te cor Ky oa ture, and exhibiting a pale brown spongy interior. The odou aromatic and agreeable ; the taste, bitterish and pungent. ak The fresh rootstock is brownish-red or greenish, white or * 1 within, and of a spongy texture. Its transverse section —" ares sf ; uniform ; a fine line (medullary sheath) separates the outer ene the lighter central part, the diameter of which is twice or three the width of the former. i i é up of Microscopic Structure—The outermost layer 18 ™ ade up i labar. xi. (1692) tab. 48. 49. in Mat. Med. of Hindoostan, Madras, 1813. in abe Pog ce leah lecovel page 685), Exod xxx. 23; Cant. iv. 14; Ezek. 78. : Ss ear tide é i um, v. 40. “xvii. 19.—See also page 715, footnote 2. 6 Apparatus Medicaminum, A In Diose. de Mat. Med, Enarrationes, Tgent. 1554. 33. Mg — AROIDEA, extended epiblema-cells or of a brown corky tissue, the latter oceurring in the parts free from leaf-scars. The prevailing tissue, both of the outer and the central part, consists of uniform nearly globular cells, traversed by numerous vascular bundles, especially at the boundary line (medullary sheath). Besides them, the rootstock like that of many fresh-water plants, exhibits a large number of intercellular holes, These air-holes, or more correctly water-holes, are somewhat longitudinally extended, so as to form a kind of net-work, imparting a spongy con- sistence’ to the fresh rootstock. At certain places, where the series of cells cross one another, especially in the outer part, there are single cells filled with essential oil,? which may be made very conspicuous by adding to sections dilute potash or perchloride of iron. The other cells are loaded with small starch granules; a little mucilage and tannic matter is met with in the exterior coat. Chemical Composition—The dried rhizome yielded us 1% per cent. of a yellowish neutral essential oil of agreeable odour, which ina column of 50 mm. long, deviates 138° to the right. By working ona seu scale, Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, obtain 2°4 to 26 per cen According to Kurbatow (1873), this oil contains a hydrocarbon, C"H", boiling at 159° C., and forming a crystalline compound with HCl, and another hydrocarbon boiling at 255-258° C., affording no crystal- lizable hydrochloric compound. By submitting the oil to fractional distillation, we noticed, above 250°, a blue portion, which may be de- colorized by sodium. The crude oil acquires a dark brownish colour on addition of perchloride of iron, but is not at all soluble in concen- trated potash solution. The bitter principle Acorin was extracted by Faust in 1867, as 4 semifluid, brownish glucoside, containing nitrogen, soluble both in ether and in alcohol, but neither in benzol nor in water. In order to obtam this substance, we precipitated the decoction of 10 Ib. of the drug by . means of tannic acid, and followed the method commonly practised in the preparation of bitter principles. By finally exhausting the residue with chloroform, we succeeded in obtaining a very bitter, perfectly crystalline body, but in so minute a quantity, that we were unable to investigate its nature, Uses—Sweet Flag is an aromatic stimulant and tonic, now rarely used in regular medicine, It is sold by the herbalist for flavouring beer, and for masticating to clear the voice. It is said to be also us by snuff manufacturers, Adulteration—The rhizome of the Yellow F lag, Iris P. seudacors L., is occasionally mixed with that of the Sweet Flag, from which it may be distinguished by its want of aroma, astringent taste, dar colour, and dissimilar structure, 1 This was possibly all 76 e the y alluded to by Alber- —_Jessen’s ed. 1867. 376, We suppos (noe (A.D. 1193-1280), who says :— drug under notice was intended. ve et Ethie § aromaticus)—nascitur in India *Hence the practice of peeling éx pete tiene, Brett et rien interius rhizome which prevails in hee a “‘pellem subtilem, sicut the Continent ought to be abandonet. tele sunt aranearum.”—De YV. egetabilibus, A tire iain te Moi cere ee LILIACH. ALOE. Alves; F. Aloés ou Suc d Alods ; G. Aloé. Botanical Origin—Several species of Aloé? furnish a bitter jui bie when inspissated forms this drug. These plants are sulaven th me lead — In Southern and Eastern Africa, whence a few + ese Aca a into Northern Africa, Spain,? and the oie areca are succulent plants of liliaceous habit with persistent a el i = usually prickly at the margin, and erect spikes of yellow height ate Many are stemless ; others produce stems some feet in Winans ts vote woody and branching. In the remote districts of Transbei é- an and Damara Land in Western South Africa, and in the ee eae and Northern Natal to the eastern, aloes have been esas which attain 30 to 60 feet in height, with stems as much as soe in circumference” The following species may be named with oe a of certainty as yielding the drug.’ of ven —— Lam. (A. vera Miller), native of the southern shores iadcaie : tes and Indian Ocean, Socotra, and Zanzibar (7). It is the | dessins < Socotrine and Moka Aloes. A. officinalis Forsk. and ales ta C. are considered to be varieties of this plant. A. abys- Riise may probably contribute to the aloes shipped from the Mit, oo Lam. (A. perfoliata, var. m. vere Linn, A. barbadensis ie i oh India and of Eastern and Northern Africa, now found inteod e shores of Southern Spain, Sicily, Greece, and the Canaries ; uced in the beginning of the 16th century (or earlier) into the We : Vest Indies. It affords Barbados and Curagao Aloes. A. indica of India, common in Indian vulgaris Law. A. litoralis morin, is unknown to us. ding, stunted by a poor Both A. indica and As MG loé i evox ., and hybrids obtained by crossing it with A. africana z eRe A, sprcata Thunberg, A. perfoliata Linn. (quoad Roxb.) and A gueformis are reputed to yield the best Cape. inca a Mill. and its varieties, and A. plicatn a act which Pappe° says is thought to be less powerful. . arborescens Mill, A. Commelini Willd. and A. purpurascens rina, and A. vulgaris will be found in the - work Monographia generis Aloés et Mesem- bryanthemi, auctore Jos. Principe de Salm- d-Dyck, Bonnae, 1836-1863. 1 From the Syriac Atwai. | A, Cilia borescens, A, purpurascens, and ing in Vale may be seen luxuriantly grow- * Dyer eee Granada, Gibraltar. Reifferschei 1874, with ardeners’ Chronicle, May 2, fol. ‘Good fi Sete 5 Flore Capensis Mec gures of Aloé africana, A. arbor- 2; 1857. 41. escens, 4 ' ? . Jerox, A, purpurascens, A. socot- lice Prodromus, ed, fe LILIACEA. Haworth are stated to produce a portion of the Cape Aloes of com- merce.’ Various species of Agave, especially A. americana L, are largely grown, since the first half of the 16th century, in the south of Europe, and popularly called Aloé, All of them are plants of Mexico, while the true aloes are natives of the old world. Botanically the genus Agave differs from Aloé, in that the former has the ovary inferior, while in the latter it is superior. From a chemical point of view tHere is also no analogy at all between Aloé and Agave. History—Alves was known to the Greeks as a production of the island of Socotra as early as the 4th century B.c., if we might credita remarkable legend thus given in the writings of the Arabian geographer Edrisi.2 When Alexander had conquered the king of the Persians and his fleets had vanquished the islands of India, and he had killed Pour, king of the Indies, his master Aristotle reeommended him to seek the island that produces Aloes. So when he had finished his conquests in India, he returned by way of the Indian Sea into that of Oman, conquered the isles therein, and arrived at last at Socotra, of which he admired the fertility and the climate. And from the advice which Aristotle gave him he determined to remove the original inhabitants and to put Greeks in their place, enjoining the latter to preserve care- fully the plant yielding aloes, on account of its utility, and because that without it certain sovereign remedies could not be compounded. He thought also that the trade in and use of this noble drug would bea great advantage for all people. So he took away the original people of the island of Socotra, and established in their stead a colony of Ionians, who remained under his protection and that of his successor, and acquired great riches, until the period when the religion of the Messiah appeared, which religion they embraced. They then became Christians, and so their descendants have remained up to the present time (circa A.D. 1154), _ This curious account, which Yule* says is doubtless a fable, but invented to account for facts, is alluded to by the Mahomedan travellers of the 9th century* and in the 10th by Masudi,® who says that in his time aloes was produced only in the island of Socotra, where its manufacture had been improved by Greeks sent thither by Alexander the Great. Aloes is not mentioned by Theophrastus, but appears to have been well known to Celsus, Dioscorides, Pliny and the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, as well as to the later Greek® and the Arabian physicians. From the notices of it in the Anglo-Saxon leech-boo and a reference to it as one of the drugs recommended to dt : Great by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, we may infer that its use Was no unknown in Britain as early as the 10th century.’ ‘In the above revision of the medicinal 3M ii i * i arco Polo, ii. 343. gst Aloé we have made free use of 4 Anciennes Relations des Indes et « an tio servations on the same subject Chine de deux Voyageurs Mahometan » : We “sh in the Dictionnaire de Botanijue. y allérent dans le neuvieme siecle, ie e also had the advantage of con- _de l’Arabe, Paris, 1718. 113. or in . on Saunders, Esq., F.R.S., 5 Tome iii. 36.—See Appendix. shinaon’s in pss: Pee nae with these plants 6 Alexander Trallianus, in Puse 4 578, oninieg impart great weight to his edition (quoted in the Avpenti 2 ; reg Beare ‘ 8 ks of “AAéns yw ati TiOos— | Geographic @ Havisi, i, (1836) 47. PY'See p. 439. note 1. ALOE, : Lee 681 At this period and for long afterwards the drug was imported into — Europe by way of the Red Sea and Alexandria, After the discovery of aroute to India by the Cape of Good Hope the old line of commerce probably began to change. Pires, an apothecary at Cochin, in a letter on Eastern drugs’ ad- dressed to Manuel, king of Portugal, in 1516, reports that aloes grows in the island of Cacotora, Aden, Cambaya, Valencia of Arragon, and in other parts,—the most esteemed being that of Qacotora, and next it — that of Spain; while the drug of Aden and Cambaya is so bad as to be worthless. In the early part of the 17th century there was a direct trade in aloes between England and Socotra; and in the records of the East India Company there are many notices of the drug being bought of the | “King of Socotra.” Frequently the king’s whole stock of aloes is mentioned as having been purchased.2 Wellstead, who travelled in Socotra in 1833,3 says that in old times the aloé was far more largely grown there than at present, and that the walls which enclosed the plantations may still be seen. He adds that the produce was a monopoly of the Sultan of the island. At the present day the few productions of Socotra that are exported are carried by the Arab coasting vessels, coming annually from the Persian Gulf to Zanzibar, at’ which place they are transhipped for Indian and other ports. Dr. Kirk, who has resided at Zanzibar from 1866 to 1873, informs us that aloes from Socotra arrives in a very soft state packed in goatskins. From these it is transferred to wooden boxes, in which it concretes, and is shipped to Europe and America. To avoid loss the skins have to be washed; and the aloetic liquor evaporated, Ligon,* who visited the island of Barbados in 1647~50, that is about twenty years after the arrival of the first settlers, speaks of the aloé as if it were indigenous, mentioning also the useful plants which had been ‘introduced. At that period the settlers knew how to prepare the juice for oe use, but had not begun to a it. Barbados aloes was in the drug warehouses of London in 1698. } , The cA iacears of aloes in the Cape Colony of South Africa sy observed by Thunberg in 1773 on the farm of a boer named Aon e Wett, who was the first to prepare the drug in that country bie a : loes is enumerated in the stock of a rence Chea in 1780, its cost eing set down as £10 per ewt. (1s. 94d. per Ib.). i new and Riitisor sort Ce manufactured 0 the cyano los appeared in English commerce in 1870. It will be descri urther on. 5 Pee a. Lignum Alocs—It is important to bear in mind that the wor Aloes i Lign lots, in Pees PN Aloés, is used in the array Bee in many ancient writings to designate a substance totally “ey pe 7 " es the modern -Aloes, namely the resinous wood of Aquilaria Aga _ oxburgh, a large tree’ of the order Thymeleacew, growing in the - : 4 i Barbadoes, Lond. 1673. 98. Cater 5 Hee A eroncologic (1693) 361. Jal 3, Coloni pa {h0NS) SO). © Series, gre e Pgs he he C net 6 Thunberg, aa in Asia, Hurope and : 1513-1 6 Africa, ti. 49, 30. : ; 3 paths ee Pa Bittenk Bo % Ne in Royle, Jllustr. of the Himalayan (1835) 129-399, Gee " ""~ Bot. etc. (1839) tab. 36. See also Diclion- naire de Botanique. ae LILIACEA. Malayan Peninsula. Its wood constituted a drug! which was, down to the beginning of the present century, generally valued for use as incense, but now esteemed only in the East. Structure of the Leaf—The stout fleshy leaves of an aloé have a strong cuticle and thick-walled epidermis. Their interior substance is formed of very loose, large-celled, colourless pulp, traversed by vascular bundles, which, on transverse section, are seen to be accom- panied by a group of large thin-walled cells’ containing the bitter juice which constitutes the drug under notice. These cells, on a longitudinal section, are seen to be considerably elongated, adjoining a single row of smaller, prismatic, truncated cells, by which the former are separated from the cortical layer. ‘The prismatic cells contain a yellow juice, : apparently different from that which yields aloes. The cortical tissue atrough. The troughs are so distributed as to be easily access! is filled with granules of chlorophyll, and exhibits between the cells groups of needles of calcium oxalate. Similar crystals are also found ‘sparingly in the pulp. _ The transparent pulp-tissue‘ is rich in mucilage, which after dilution - with water is precipitated by neutral acetate of lead, but is not coagu- lated by boiling. The amount of bitter principles in the leaf probably varies with the _ age of the latter and with the season of the year. Haaxman mentions that, in Curagao, the maximum is found when the leaves are changing _ from green to brown. _ Cultivation and Manufacture—In Barbados,’ where Aloé vulgaris Is systematically cultivated for the production of the drug, the plants are set 6 inches apart, in rows which are 1 to 1} foot asunder, the ground having been carefully prepared and manured. They are kept free from grass and weeds, but yams or pulse are frequently grown _ between them, The plants are always dwarf, never in the least degree arborescent ; almost all of those above a year old bear flowers, which being bright yellow, have a beautiful effect. The leaves are 1-2 feet long ; they are cut annually, but this does not destroy the plant, which, under good cultivation, lasts for several years. ‘ The cutting takes place in March and April, and is performed in the heat of the day. The leaves are cut off close to the plant, and placed very quickly, tue cut end downwards, in a V-shaped wooden trough, about 4 feet long and 12 to 18 inches deep. This is set on a sharp incline, so that the juice which trickles from the leaves very rapidly flows down its sides, and finally escapes by a hole at its lower end into _ & vessel placed beneath. No pressure of any sort is applied to the leaves. It takes about a quarter of an hour to cut leaves enous me e the cutters. Their number is generally five ; and by the time the fift a eanbury, Science P apers, 1876, 263; less, and is actually used as food in times of oa Mickiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, scarcity in some parts of India.—Stewart, ®, 1873. 37. (Archiv der Pharm. cci. Punjab Plants, 1869, 232. a full historical information see 6¥or the particulars we here give re- re Levantehandel, li. (1879), 559, specting Barbados aloes, we have cordi ck ba 1€ cells lettered ¢ in Berg’s figure ©, to thank Sir R. Bowcher Clarke, Chiel e >The. ne his ‘‘ Offizinelle Gewitichse,” Justice of Barbados, and also a 0 ‘This o sd, in Berg’s figure, General Munro, stationed (1874) a6 04 central pulpy tissue is quite taste- bados in command of troops. ALOR, eee ee ee oe is filled, the cutters return to the first and throw out the leaves, which they regard as exhausted. The leaves are neither infused nor boiled, nor is any use afterwards made of them except for manure. When the vessels receiving the juice become filled, the latter is removed to a cask and reserved for evaporation. This may be done at once, or it may be delayed for weeks or even months, the juice, it is said, not fermenting or spoiling. The evaporation is generally con- ducted in a copper vessel ; at the bottom of this is a large ladle, into which the impurities sink, and are from time to time removed as the boiling goes on. As soon as the inspissation has reached the proper point, which is determined solely by the experienced eye of the work- man, the thickened juice is poured into large gourds or into boxes, and allowed to harden, : The drug is not always readily saleable in the island, but is usually bought up by speculators who keep it till there is a demand for it in England. The cultivators are small proprietors, but little capable as to mind or means of making experiments to improve the manufacture of the drug. It is said, however, that occasionally a little aloes of very superior kind is made for some special purpose by exposing the juice in a shallow vessel to solar heat till completely dry. But such a drug is stated to cost too much time and trouble to be profitable." The manufacture of aloes in the Dutch West Indian island of Curacao is conducted in the same manner. ; The manufacture of aloes in the Cape Colony has been thus described tous in a letter® from Mr. Peter MacOwan of Gill College, Somerset East :—The operator scratches a shallow dish-shaped hollow in the dry sround, spreads therein a goatskin, and then proceeds to arrange around the margin a radial series of alo’ leaves, the cut ends projecting ‘nwards. Upon this, a second series is piled, and then a third—care being taken that the ends of each series overhang sufliciently, to drop — clear into the central hollow. When these preparations have been made, he operator either « loafs about” after wild honey, or, more likely, * down to sleep. The skin being nearly filled, four skewers run In an out at the edge square-fashion, give the means of lifting this comer Saucer from the ground, and emptying its contents into a cast-iron fon he liquid is then boiled, an operation conducted with the —— carelessness. Fresh juice is added to that which has nearly acquire the finished consistence ; the fire is slackened or urged just as it 2! oe and the boiling is often interrupted for many hours, if neglect +f ree Convenient than attention. In fact, the process is thoroughly bar a ee Conducted without industry or reflection; it is mostly carried th y Bastaards and Hottentots, but not by Kaffirs. “The only iti 4 wena Seen used,” says Mr. MacOwan, “is the very large one wit aa hai tri-chotomous inflorescence,—A. ferow, I believe.” seg eg neat ine “ Aloé ferow?” as the species he saw used near Port Eliza m 8. : ‘ From another correspondent, we learn that the making of aloes in * Some extremely fine Barbados aloes in 8 Under date May 7, 1871, addressed to the Lond ; : myself.—D. H. . Abd Steeler nttlae’ ar a Shecie tg A Visit to ogo oigags and South Africa, * Oudemans, Handleiding tot de Pharma- _1844. 157, also 121. Cognosie, 1865, 316. . or ee - LILIACE. the Cape Colony is not carried on by preference, but is resorted to when more profitable work is scarce. The drug is sold by the farmers to the merchants of the towns on the coast, some of whom have exerted them- selves to obtain a better commodity, and have even imported living aloe-plants from Barbados. Nothing is known of the manufacture of the so-called Socotrine or Zanzibar Aloes, or even with certainty in what precise localities it is carried on. General Description—The differences in the several kinds of commercial aloes are due to various causes, such as the species of Aloé employed and the method of extracting the juice. The drug varies ex- _ ceedingly: some is perfectly transparent and amorphous, with a glassy conchoidal fracture ; some is opaque and dark with a dull waxy fracture, or opaque and pallid; or it may be of a light orange-brown and highly crystalline. It varies in consistence in every degree, from dry and brittle to pasty, and even entirely fluid and syrup-like. These diverse conditions are partially explained by an examination of the very fluid aloes that has been imported of recent years from Bombay. If some of this aloes is allowed to repose, it gradually sepa- rates into two portions—the upper a transparent, black liquid —the lower, an orange-brown crystalline sediment. If the whole be allowed to evaporate spontaneously, we get aloes of two sorts in the same mass; the one from the upper portion being dark, transparent and amorphous, the other rather opaque and highly crystalline. Should the two layers become mixed, an intermediate form of the drug results. The Hepatic Aloes of the old writers! was doubtless this rather opaque form of Socotrine Aloes ; but the term has come to be used some- what vaguely for any sort of liver-coloured aloes, and appears to us unworthy to be retained. Much of the opaque, so-called Hepatic Aloes does not however owe its opacity to crystals, but to a feculent matter the nature of which is doubtful. The odour of aloes is a character which is much depended on by dealers for distinguishing the different varieties, but it can only be appreciated by experience, and certainly cannot be described.’ Varieties—The principal varieties of aloes found in English com- merce are the following :— I. Socotrine Aloes—also called Bombay, East Indian, or Zanzibar Aloes, and when opaque and liver-coloured, Hepatic Aloes. It 18 1- ported in kegs and tin-lined boxes from Bombay, whither it has been carried by the Arab traders from the African coast, the Red Sea ports, or by way of Zanzibar, from Socotra. When of fine quality, it is of @ dark reddish-brown, of a peculiar, rather agreeable odour, comparable ve myrrh or saffron. In thin fragments, it is seen to be of an orange-brow? ; its powder is of a tawny reddish-brown. When moistened with spirit of wine, and examined ‘in a thin stratum under the microscop®, 8 " As Macer Floridus in the 10th century, Natalisinvariably associated withthe trans” ue ld parent Cape Aloes, simply from the OT Lar Aloés species geminz, que subrubet estque that the two drugs have a re nce re ies pts cam frangitur, hae epatite Again, the aloes of Curagao 18 4 erienced Utilior piceo que fracta Sekine vhioea ghee cognized by its odour, which 6 a erent : druggist pronounces to be quite : “Thus the pale, liver-coloured aloes of fray that of the aloes produced in Barbados: e “ALOE, i x : : 685 — Socotrine Aloes is seen to contain an abundance of crystals. As im- ported, it is usually soft, at least in the interior of the mass, but it speedily dries and hardens by keeping.’ It is occasionally imported in acompletely fluid state (Liquid Socotrine Aloes, Aloé Juice), and is not unfrequently somewhat sour and deteriorated. Some fine aloes from Zanzibar, of which a very small quantity was offered for sale in 1867, was contained in a skin, and composed of two layers, the one amorphous, the other a granular translucent substance of light colour, which when softened and examined with a lens, was seen to be a mass of crystals, A very bad, dark, fcetid sort of aloes is brought to Aden from the interior. It seems to be the Moka Aloes of some writers. The quantity of aloes imported into Bombay in the year 1871-72 was 892 ewt., of which 736 cwt. are reported as shipped from the Red Sea ports and Aden.2 2. Barbados Aloes—Characteristie samples show it as a hard dry Substance of a deep chocolate-brown, with a clean, dull, waxy fracture. In smal] fragments it is seen to be translucent and of an orange-brown | hue. When breathed upon, it exhales an odour analogous to, but easily distinguishable from, that of Socotrine aloes. It is imported in boxes and gourds, The gourds, into which the aloes has been poured in a melted state through a square hole, over which a bit of calico is after- wards nailed, contain from 10 to 40 1b, or more. Of late “pect B arbados aloes having a smooth and glassy fracture has been imported ; it is known to the London drug-brokers as “Capey Barbados.” By keeping, it passes into the usual variety having a dull fracture. he export of aloes from Barbados in 1871, as shown by the Blue Book for that colony, was 1046 ewt., of which 954 ewt. were shipped to the United Kingdom, Curacao Aloes—manufactured in the Dutch West Indian islands : of Curacao, Bonaire, and Aruba, is imported into this country by a of Holland, packed in boxes of 15 to 28 Ib. each, In appearance 1 resembles Barbados aloes, but has a distinctive odour. 4. Cape Aloes—The special features of this sort of aloes are its brilliant iechould gee and peculiar odour. Small a by transmitted light are highly transparent and of an amber aes the powder is of pus tawny yellow. When the drug is moistene - examined under the microscope, no erystals can be detected, even atter the lapse of some days. Cape aloes has the odour of other kinds of i . Iw distinoui i veral oes, with a certain sourish smell which easily distinguishes it. Sever qualities are recognized, chiefly by the greater or lesser brilliancy of tacture, and by the tint of the powder. From the Blue Book for the Colony of the Cape of eo ce Published at Cape Town in 1873, it appears that the export “a aye 1872 was 484,532 Ib. (4326 ewt.); and that the average market value during bie vont was 8 4d. the lowest price, 1}d., being at Riversdale and 1The avera . es 2 Statement of the Trade and Navigation wang of 560'Ib., a Bo Re saitig speaker hes of the Presidency of Bombay for 1871-72, sore *bout 14 per cent.—Laboratory statis. pt. ii. 19. 72 communicated by Messrs. Allen and urys, London. 686. | LILIACEZ. Mossel Bay, and the highest, 11d., at Swellendam. The drug is shipped from Cape Town, Mossel Bay and Algoa Bay. 5. Natal Aloes—Aloes is also imported from Natal, and since 1870 - in considerable quantity. Most of it is of an hepatic kind and com- pletely unlike the ordinary Cape aloes, inasmuch as it is of a greyish- brown and very opaque. Moreover it contains a crystalline principle which has been found in no other sort of aloes. The drug is manufactured in the upper districts of Natal, between Pietermaritzburg and the Quathlamba mountains, especially in the _ Umvoti and Mooi River Counties, at an elevation of 2000 to 4000 feet _ above the sea. The plant used is a large aloé which has not yet been botanically identified. The people who make the drug are British and Dutch settlers, employing Kaftir labourers. The process is not very ‘different from that followed in making Cape aloes, but is conducted with more intelligence. The leaves are cut obliquely into slices, and allowed __ to exude their juice in the hot sunshine. The Juice is then boiled down _ In Iron pots, some care being taken to prevent burning, by stirring the _ liquid as it becomes thick. The drug while still hot, is poured into wooden cases, in which it is shipped to Europe.’ The exports from the colony have been as follows :—2 1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 none 38 cwt. 646 cwt. 372 cwt. 501 ewt. Chemical Composition—All kinds of aloes have an odour of the same character and a bitter disagreeable taste. The odour which is often not unpleasant, especially in Socotrine aloes, is due to a volatile oil, which the drug contains only in minute proportion. T. and H. Smith of Edinburgh, who contributed a specimen of it to the Vienna Exhibition of 1873, inform us that they obtained it by subjecting to distillation with water 400 lb. of aloes, which quantity they estimate to have yielded about an ounce. The oil is stated in a letter we have received from them, to be a mobile pale yellow liquid, of sp. gr. 0°863, with a boiling point of 266-271° ©. Pure aloes dissolves easily in spirit of wine with the exception of a few floceuli ; it is insoluble in chloroform and bisulphide of carbon, as well as in the so-called petroleum ether, the most volatile portion of American petroleum. The sp. gr. of fine transparent fragments of aloes, dried at 100° C,, and weighed in the last-named fluid at 16°C, was . found by one of us (F.) to be 1364; showing that aloes is much more ponderous than most of the resins, which seldom have a higher sp. 8" than 1:00 to 1:10, In water aloes dissolves completely only when heated. On cooling, the aqueous solution, whether concentrated or dilute, becomes turbid by the separation of resinous drops, which unite Into a brown mass,—the so-called Resin of Aloes® The clear solution, after separation of this substance, has a slightly acid reaction; 1 18 coloured dark brown by alkalis, black by ferric chloride, and is precip tated y ellowish-grey by neutral lead acetate. Cold water dissolves abou "We have to thank J.W.Ak i. Ee é ; -W. Akerman, Esq., made by the pharmacopeia proc’ foetaaeaanriabure for the foregoin oe pean Sobotrinealoes pesos St ae the manufacture of this 14 per cent. of water, was fount a os i in wh * Blue Books for the Col record of five experiments, In W ony of Natal fo d, to be 62°7 per cent. Se te 1870, 1871, 1872. of Sor tein Pt ee apis dries: afforded average yield of aqueous extract —_ on an average 80 per cent. ROW a half its weight of aloes, forming an acid liquid which exhibits similar reactions. The solution of aloes in potash or ammonia is precipitated by acids, but not by water. The most interesting constituents of aloes are the substances known as Aloin. This name was originally applied to an aloin which, as it appears to be found exclusively in Barbados aloes, is now termed Bar- baloin, in order to distinguish it from allied substances occurring in Natal and Socotrine aloes. Barbaloin was discovered by T. and H. Smith of Edinburgh in 1851,’ and was described (1851) by Stenhouse.. From good qualities of the drug it can be obtained, according to Tilden,’ as a crystalline mass, to the extent of 20 to 25 per cent., but in others it appears to occur partly amorphous or in a chemically altered state. Barbaloin is a neutral sub-- stance, crystallizing in tufts of small yellow prisms. These crystals represent hydrated aloin, and part with one molecule of water (= 2°69 per cent.) by desiccation in vucuo, or by the prolonged heat of a water- bath. Barbaloin, C**H*O™ + H?O, dissolves sparingly in water or alcohol but very freely if either liquid be even slightly warmed ; it 1s insoluble in-ether, The solutions alter quickly if made a little alkaline, but if neutral or slightly acid, are by no means very prone to decomposition. By oxidation with nitric acid, barbaloin yields, as Tilden (1872) has shown, about a third of its weight of chrysammic acid, besides aloétic, oxalic, and picric acids, It easily combines with bromine to form yellow needles of Bromaloin, C“H®Br'O"; Chloraloin, CH" ClO" + 6H°O, ery- stallizing in prisms, has likewise been obtained. 5 3 ; In examining Natal aloes in 1871, we observed it to contain a distinct crystalline body, much less soluble than the ordinary aloin of Barbados aloes. We have accordingly named it Nataloin. = Nataloin exists naturally in Natal aloes, from which it can be easi y Prepared in the erude state, if the drug is triturated with an gic weight of alcohol at a temperature not exceeding 48° C. pont dissolve the amorphous portion, from which the cry stals shou i “i Separated by a filter, and washed with a small quantity of cold tae ‘ From 16 to 25 per cent. of crude nataloin in pale yellow erystals wes h ‘i thus extracted. When purified by crystallization from methylic a neg or spirit of wine, it forms thin, brittle, rectangular scales, often a er “more of their angles truncated. The formula assigned to na vat ‘ rot which is supported by the composition of the acetyl derivative € has succeeded in obtaining, is C*H*O”. : 4 . At 15°5° C., 60 parts of ate ol, 35 of methylic alcohol,* 50 of wee ether, 1236 of ether, and 230 of absolute alcohol, dissolve er cat One part of nataloin. It is scarcely more soluble in warm ig . ss spirit of wine, so that to obtain crystals it is best to allow the solu es evaporate spontaneously. Water hot or cold Te : oe Sparingly. Nataloin gives off no water when exposed over x arg or to a temperature of 100° C. By the action of nitric acid, 1 ic acid. It appears not both oxalie and picric acids, but no chrysamm be got by this ‘Most beautiful specimens have been pre- 3 The best crystals can be got bY ao to each of us by these gentlemen. solvent. 8 harm, Journ. April 28, 1872. 845,— ee also Nov. 5, 1870. 375. 688 — | LILIACEZ. to combine with chlorine or bromine, and we have failed in obtaining from it any such body as bromaloin. i Liquid Socotrine aloes, imported into London about 1852, was noticed by Pereira to abound in minute crystals, which he termed the _Aloin of Socotrine Aloes, and regarded as probably identical with that of Barbados aloes. Some fine dry aloes from Zanzibar of very pale hue, in our possession, is in reality a perfectly crystalline mass. Histed was the first to assert that the crystalline matter of Socotrine or Zanzibar aloes is a peculiar substance, according neither with bar- baloin nor with nataloin. This observation was fully corroborated by our own experiments,' made chiefly on the Zanzibar aloes just described, and we shall call the substance thus discovered Socaloin. In this drug, _ the erystals are prisms of comparatively large size, such as we have never observed in Natal aloes. They cannot be so easily isolated as nataloin, since they are nearly as soluble as the amorphous matter sur- rounding them. Histed recommends treating the powdered crude drug with a little alcohol, sp. gr. 0-960, and strongly pressing the pasty mass _ between several thicknesses of calico; then dissolving the yellow crystalline cake in warm weak alcohol, and collecting the crystals which are formed by cooling and repose. } Socaloin forms tufted acicular prisms, which by solution in methylic alcohol may be got 2 to 3 millimetres long. It is much more soluble than nataloin. At ordinary temperatures, 30 parts of alcohol, 9 of acetic ether, 380 of ether, 90 of water are capable of dissolving respectively one part of socaloin; while in methylic alcohol, it is most abundantly soluble. Socaloin is a hydrate, losing when dried over oil of vitriol 11 to 12 per cent. of water, but slowly regaining it if afterwards exposed to the air. Its elementary composition according to the analysis made by one of us (F.) is C*#H0%+45 HO, We have not succeded in obtaining any well-defined bromine compound of socaloin. : ___ The three aloins, Barbaloin, Nataloin, and Socaloin, are easily dis- tinguished by the following beautiful reaction first noticed by Histed : _ —a drop of nitric acid on a porcelain slab gives with a few particles of barbaloin or nataloin, a vivid crimson,? but produces little effect with socaloin. To distinguish barbaloin from nataloin, test each by adding @ minute quantity to a drop or two of oil of vitriol, then allowing the vapour from a rod touched with nitric acid to pass over the surface. Barbaloin (and socaloin) will undergo no change, but nataloin w! assume a fine blue? é é The researches of E, von Sommaruga and Egger in Vienna (1874) have been directed in particular to the aloin of Socotrine aloes. The _Inelting point of this aloin was found to be between 118° and 120° C, that of barbaloin being much higher. The authors conclude that the three form an homologous series, that their composition may probably _ be represented thus :— Barbaloin C17H*07 Nataloin (16 F807 Socaloin (1151607 ay) Pa Flickiger, Crystalline Principles in but permanent with nataloin unless heat - 50°%) —Pharm, Journ, September 2, 1871. * Rapidly fading in the case of barbaloin, be applied. 3 These reactions may be even with the crude drugs. sometimes got “ALOE, ie ae They derive in all probability from anthracene, O“H™. The portion of aloes insoluble in cold water was formerly distin- ie as Resin of Aloes, from the soluble portion which was called itter of aloes or Aloétin. From the labours of Kossmann (1863), these portions appear to have nearly the same composition. The soluble portions treated with dilute sulphuric acid, is said to yield Aloéresic and Aloéretic Acids, both crystallizable, besides the indifferent sub- stance Aloéretin. These observations have not to our knowledge been confirmed, It has been shown by Tilden and Rammell! that the Resin of Aloes may by prolonged treatment with boiling water be separated into two bodies, which they distinguish as Soluble Resin A. and In- soluble Resin B. With the first it is possible to form a brominated compound, which though non-crystalline is apparently of definite com- position. In the view of these chemists the Resin A. is a kind of anhy- dride of barbaloin—Barbaloin, 2(C*4H?°O") less H?O=Aloe Resin A., C"H"0", The resin boiled with nitric acid yields a large amount of chrysammic acid, together with picric and oxalic acids, and carbonic anhydride. Insoluble Resin B. was found to have nearly the same Composition as Resin A. oes treated with various reagents affords a number of remarkable products. Thus, according to Rochleder and Czumpelick (1861) it yields, when boiled with soda-lye, colourless crystals an inch long, Which appear to consist of a salt of Paraewmaric Acid, together Hat small quantities of fragrant essential oils and volatile fatty acids, : _ When boiled with dilute sulphuric acid, aloes yields paracumaric acid, from which by fusion with caustic potash, as also directly from aloes, Hlasiwetz (1865) obtained Para-oxybenzoic Acid (p. 408). Weselsky (1872-73) has shown that accompanying the last two it nies there is a peculiar, crystallizable acid, C’H"O*, which he has named Alorcinic Acid. : = By distillation with quick-lime, E. Robiquet (1846) obtained Sorta: 4 yellowish oil, which Rembold (1866) proved to be a mixture of dime- 3\2 thylated phenol (Xylenol) C°H? | Me ), with acetone and hydro- carbons, Til d h s Nitric acid forms with Barbadoes aloes, but still better, as Tilden ha shown, with barbaloin, Aloétic Acid, C*H*(N 0*/'0", psn ate ne: F t(NO''08 and finally Picric Acid, together with Oxalic oe cae 8 oh of these acids are distinguished by the ane o “a't8, Which might be utilized in dyeing. i hlorine, eed into an nn solution of aloes, forms a variety of ‘ubstitution-products, and finally Chloranil, C°CVO". oakiv and Jen somewhat strongly heated, aloes swells up aie é fos: from after ignition. leaves a light, slow-burning charcoal, ico dried at nganic constituents. Ordinary Cape aloes, for example, 00° C., leaves only 1 per cent. of ash. Giieed Kincdom in the Commerc mks im orted into the Umite mg! . Year 1870, 664 Sere Nise, Of this quantity, South Africa shipped 2 Pharm. Journ. es 2), 1872. 235. x 690 LILIACE. 4811 cwt.; and Barbados 970 ewt. The remainder was probably furnished by Kastern Africa. The commercial value of the varieties of aloes is very different. In 1874, Barbados Aloes was quoted in price-currents at £3 5s. to £9 10s. per cwt.; Socotrine at £5 to £13; while Cape Aloes was offered at £1 10s. to £2. In England, the first two alone are allowed for pharmaceutical preparations. Even the Veterinary Pharmacopeia' names only Aloé Barbadensis. Cape Aloes is esteemed on the Continent, and chiefly consumed there. Use—Aloes is a valuable purgative in very common use, it is generally given combined with other drugs. Adulteration—The physical characters of aloes, such as colour of - the geben odour, consistence and freedom from obvious impurity, coupled with its solubility in weak alcohol, usually suffice for determin- ing its goodness. BULBUS SCILL-A. Radix Scille ; Squill ; F. Bulbe ow squames de Scille, Ognon marin ; G. Meerzwiebel. Botanical Origin—Urginea maritima Baker? (Scilla maritima L, Urginea Scilla Steinheil). It is found generally in the regions bordering the Mediterranean, as in Southern France, Italy, Dalmatia, Greece, Asia Minor, Syria, North Africa and the Mediterranean islands. In Sicily, where it grows most abundantly, Urginea ascends to elevations of 3000 feet. It is also very common throughout the South of Spain, where it is by no means confined to the coast; it occurs also in Portugal. In ae Riviera of Genoa the peasants like to see it growing under the fig — rees. i Two varieties of squill, termed respectively white and red, are distin- guished by druggists. In the first, the bulb-scales are colourless ; in the second they are of a roseate hue. No other difference in the plants can be pointed out, nor have the two varieties distinct areas of growth. History—Squill is one of the most ancient of medicines. Epimenides, a Greek who lived in the 30th Olympiad, is said to have made much use of it, from which circumstance it came to be called Hpimenidea.’ It is also mentioned by Theophrastus, and was probably well known to all the ancient Greek physicians. Pliny was not only acquainted with it, but had noticed its two varieties, Dioscorides describes the method of making vinegar of squills; and a similar preparation, as well as com- _ pounds of squill with honey, were administered by the Arabian physi- cians, and still remain in use. The medical school of Salerno preferre the red variety of the drug, which on the whole is not frequently met with in medizeval literature. Description—The bulb of squill is pear-shaped, and of the size of a 1 By R. V. Tuson, London, 1869, allusion to the Algerian tribe Ben Urgis 221.—The Soc., Bot., xiii. (1872) near Bona, where Steinheil (1834) © : see ages Urginea has flat, discoid amined this plant. : seeds, € in Scilla proper they are tri- 3 Haller, Bibliotheca botanica, i. 12. BULBUS SCLLLR i (ti‘CS*«SL nan’s fist or larger, often weighing more than four pounds. It has the usual structure of a tunicated bulb; its outer scales are reddish-brown, - dry, scarious, and marked with parallel veins. The inner are fleshy and iuiey, colourless or of a pale rose tint, thick towards the middle, very. : in and delicate at the edges, smooth and shining on the surface. The esh bulb has a mucilaginous, bitter, aerid taste, but not much odour. For medicinal use, squill is mostly imported ready dried. The bulbs - gh in the month of August, at which period they are leafless, ae from their dry outer scales, cut transversely into thin slices, and re a inthe sun, Thus prepared, the drug appears in the form of narrow, a ish or four-sided curved strips, 1 to 2 inches long, and 3 to $ of an we wide, flexible, translucent, of a pale dull yellowish colour, or when at from the red variety, of a decided roseate hue. When thoroughly oe , they become brittle and pulverizable, but readily absorb water to Supa of about 11 per cent. Powdered squill by the absorption of water from the air, readily cakes together into a hard mass. Microscopic Structure—The officinal portion of the plant being amply modified leaves, has the histological characters proper to many ose organs, The tissue is made up of polyhedral cells, covered on with stomata. It is ve sides of the scales by an epidermis provided of le ersed by numerous vascular bundles, and also exhibits smaller bundles of laiciferous vessels, If thin slices of squill be moistened with dilute most of the parenchymatous cells are seen to be loaded with Sata eee, which contracts into a jelly on the addition of alcohol. In the a og of this jelly, crystalline particles are met with consisting of ‘th ate of calcium. This salt is largely deposited im cells, forming either bundles of needle-shaped crystals, or large solitary square prismns, uently a millimetre Iong. In either case they are enveloped by the _ Tnucilaginous matter already mentioned. Oxalate of calcium as occurring in other plants has been shown in many instances to originate in the midst of mucilaginous matter. The fact is remarkably evident in Scilla, ‘specially when examined in polarized light. te shaking thin slices of the bulb Sith water, the crystals are a ee ited in sufficient quantity to become visible to the naked eye, cP er weight is actually very small. Direct estimation of the oxalic 7 (80 titration with chameleon solution) gave us ony 3:07 per 2 o! , 2043H2O from white squill dried at 100°C. which moreover yl 5 only 2 to 5 per cent. of ash. It is these extremely sharp brittle crystals Occasion the itching and redness, and sometimes even veers Walch result from rubbing a slice of fresh squill on the sp at effects, which have long been known, were attributed to @ volatile acri Principle, until their tr ized by Schroft:’ pie, until their true cause was recognized oe hans tinge he muci sy : ilage also contains albuminous ma colour it m +48 Soi ular bundles are assu ine. e vase si es on addition of iod walls, containing ACO) i Seas d mpanied by some rows of longitudinally extent Be oclouring lls, others being dihie number of starch granules. In t eae 1s contained in many of the parenchymal . Sn of Hee sa y devoid of it. It turns blackish-greea * We ha : hen rubbed on the skin both t ve found that the slimy juice of secasions W en , he he leaves of A gapanthus lcliaies THerit., itching and redness, lasting for sév0 which j y — very rich in spicular crystals, also hours. 692 ' LILIACEA. Chemical Composition—The most abundant among the consti- tuents of squill are mucilaginous and saccharine matters, Mucilage may be precipitated by means of neutral and basic acetate of lead, yet there remains in solution another substance of the same class, called Sinistrin. It was discovered in 1879 by Schmiedeberg, who obtained it by mixing the powder of squill, either red or white, with a solution of basic acetate of lead in slight excess. ‘The gummy matters thus forming insoluble lead compounds ‘being removed, the liquid is deprived of the lead and mixed with slaked lime. An insoluble compound of sinistrin and cal- cium separates and yields the former on decomposing the well washed - precipitate with carbonic acid. The small amount of calcium remaining in the filtrate is to be removed by adding cautiously to the warm solu- tion the small quantity just required of oxalic acid. Lastly, sinistrin is thrown down by alcohol. It is a white amorphous powder, on exposure to air soon forming transparent brittle lumps. The composition of sinis- trin is that of dextrin = C'H"O', both these substances being very closely allied, yet the aqueous solution of sinistrin deviates the plane of polariza- tion to the left. The rotatory power appears not to be much influenced by the concentration or the temperature of the solution of sinistrin. __ Analkaline solution of tartrate of copper is not acted upon bysinistrin. It is transformed into sugar by boiling it for half an hour with water containing | per cent. of sulphuricacid, The sugar thus produced is stated by Schmiedeberg to consist of levulose! and another sugar, which in all probability, when perfectly pure, must prove devoid of rotatory power. The name sinistrin? has also been applied to a mucilaginous matter extracted from barley (see Hordeum decorticatum); it remains to be proved that the latter is identical with the sinistrin of squill. We have obtained a considerable amount of an uncrystallizable levogyre sugar by exhausting squill with dilute alcohol Alcohol added to an aqueous infusion of squill causes the separation of the mucilage, together with albuminoid matter. If the alcohol is evaporated and a _ Solution of tannic acid is added, the latter will combine with the bitter prvnciple of squill, which has not yet been isolated, although several chemists have devoted to it their investigations, and applied to it the names of Scillitin or Skulein. Schroff, to whom we are indebted for a valuable monograph on Squill,* infers from his physiological experiments the presence of a non-volatile acrid principle (Skulein 2), together with scillitin, which latter he supposes to be a glucoside. Merck of Darmstadt has isolated Scillipicrin, soluble in water; Seillitowin, likewise a bitter principle, insoluble in water, but readily dissolving in alcohol; and Scillin, a crystalline substance, abundantly soluble in boiling ether. The physiological action of these substances and of Scillain has been examined (1878) by Moeller, and by Jarmersted (1879); that of scillitoxin and scillain was found to be analogous to that of Digitalis, ‘ * This is the name applied to the Ievo- manufacture alcohol by fermenting and gyrate unc stallizable glucose produced, distilling squill bulbs, -Heldreich, Nute- be death crystallizable dextro-glucose, _pflanzen Griechenlands, 1862. 7. BA reo ge J cane sugar by means of 4 Reprinted from the Zeitschrift der Ge- os I S49 sellschaft der Aerzte zu Wien, No. 42 eee aliens ATS Proposed, by Marquart, — Abstracted also in Canstatt’s Jahresberic for inulin. 3 In Greece they have even attempted to nt age atin eo RHIZOMA VERATRI ALBL 698 _ Commerce—Dried squill, usually packed in casks, is imported into England from Malta. Use—Commonly employed as a diuretic and expectorant. Substitutes—There are several plants of which the bulbs are used in the place of the officinal squill, but which, owing to the abundance and low price of the latter, never appear in the European market. 1. Urginea altissima Baker (Ornithogalwm altissimum L.),a South African species, very closely related to the common squill, and having, as it would appear, exactly the same properties.’ 2. U. indica Kth. (Scilla indica Roxb.), a widely diffused plant, occurring in Northern India, the Coromandel Coast, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Senegambia. It is known by the same Arabic and Persian names as U. maritima, and its bulb is used for similar purposes. But according to Moodeen Sheriff? it is a poor substitute for the latter, having little or no action when it is old and large. 3. Scilla indica Baker® (non Roxb), (Ledebouria hyacinthina Roth), native of India and Abyssinia, has a bulb which is often confused in the Indian bazaars with the preceding, but is easily distinguishable when entire by being scaly not tunicated); it is said to be a better representative of the European squill! 4. Drimia ciliaris Jacq., a plant of the Cape of Good Hope, of the order Liliacew. Its bulb much resembles the officinal squill, but has a Juice so irritating if it comes in contact with the skin, that the plant is called by the colonists Jeukbol, ie. Itch-bulb. It is used medicinally as an emetic, expectorant, and diuretic.’ 3 here towicarium Herbert (C. toxwarvum Ne peng cores ee a noble foliage, d wild in low humid spots n the sea-coast of Cey- wia of India considers 5. Crinum asiaticum Roxb), a large plant, with handsome white cultivated in Indian gardens, and also foun M various parts of India and the Moluccas, and o lon. The bulb has been admitted to the Pharmacop (1868), chiefly on the recommendation of O'Shaughnessy, who cons it a valuable emetic. We have not been able to examine & tial and cannot learn that the drug has been the subject of any chemica investigation. MELANTHACE. RHIZOMA VERATRI ALBI. Radix Veratri, Radia Hellebori albi ; White Hellebore ; x oe @Ellébore blanc; G. Weisse Nieswurzel, Germer. . in moist Botanical Origin— Veratrum albwm L.—This plant occurs 7 grassy places in the mountain regions of Middle and Southern Europe, 2 ; : Botanicum, iii. - * Pappe, Flore Medice Capensis Prodro- 8 Spe “s. 2 Bays eas ge Ph ia of a oe the Pharm. of India, 250. > e 0 Maco ped : * India, Meike, 1869, 250. seed 5 Pappe, op. cit. 42. 694 -MELANTHACES, — as Auvergne, the Pyrenees, Spain, Switzerland, and Austria. In Norway it reaches, according to Schiibeler (/. c. p. 556), the latitude of 71°. It also grows throughout European and Asiatic Russia as far as 61° N. lat., in Amurland, the island of Saghalin, Northern China, and Japan. History—The confusion that existed among the ancients between Melampodium, Helleborus, and Veratrum, makes the identification of the plant under notice extremely unsatisfactory.’ It was perfectly described or figured by Brunfels, Tragus, and other botanists of the 16th century, and likewise well known to Gerarde (circa AD. 1600). Under the names of Elleborus (or Helleborus albus and Veratrum, it has had a place in all the London Pharmacopceias. In the British Pharmacopceia (1867) it has been replaced by the nearly allied American species, Veratrum viride Aiton. Description—White Hellebore has a cylindrical, fleshy, perennial rootstock, 2 to 3 inches in length, and 3 to 1 inch in diameter, beset with long stout roots. When fresh it has an alliaceous smell. In the dried state, as it occurs in commerce, it is cylindrical or subconical, of a dull earthy black, very rough in its lower half with the pits and scars of old roots; more or less beset above with the remains of recent roots. The top is crowned with the bases of the leaves, the outer of which are coarsely fibrous. The plant has generally been cut off close to the summit of the rhizome, which latter is seldom quite entire, being often broken at its lower end, or cut transversely to facilitate drying. Inter- nally it is nearly colourless; a transverse section shows a broad white ring surrounding a spongy pale buff central portion. The drug has a sweetish, bitterish acrid taste, leaving on the tongue a sensation of numbness and tingling. In the state of powder, it occa sions violent sneezing. Microscopic Structure—When cut transversely, the rhizome shows at a distance of 2-4 mm. from the thin dark outer bark, a fine brown zigzag line (medullary sheath) surrounding the central part, _ which exhibits a pith not well defined. The zone between the outer bark and the medullary sheath is pure white, with the exception of some isolated cells containing resin or colouring matter, and those places where the rootlets pass from the interior, The latter is sprinkled as it were, with short, thin somewhat lighter bundles of vessels which run irregularly out in all directions. The parenchyme of the centre rhizome is filled with starch, and contains numerous needles of calcium oxalate. The rootlets, which the collectors usually remove, are living and juicy only in the upper half of the rhizome, the lower part of which 1 rather woody and porous. _ Chemical Composition—In 1819 Pelletier and Caventou detected in the rhizome of Veratrum a substance which they regarded as identi- cal with veratrine, the existence of which had just been discovered by Meissner in cebadilla seeds, But according to the observations of Maise (1870) and Dragendorff? the veratrine of cebadilla cannot be found either in Veratrum albwm or V. viride. _ Simon (1837) found in the root the alkaloid Jervine, Tobien (1877) ? Those who wish to study egueation, 2 Beitr. sur gerichtl. Chemie, St Petersb-» can consult Murray’s A: ‘at nee num. vol. v. (1790) 142.146. us Medicami 1872. 95. RHIZOMA VERATRI VIRIDIS. 695 the Veratroidine, discovered b : ; , disc y Bullock (1876) in Vi i aie assigns to jervine the formula CHINO that “of rier er ia cu yet settled. The latter is to some extent soluble in water. : eel spetetiec is oe this drug Veratramarin, an amor- 1S, nt, bitter principle. It occurs in minute uantit rae of Beran inte sugar and other products. WV etatramatie pba lad spirit of wine, not in ether or in chloroform. The same oe t has also isolated, to the extent of } per mille, Jervic Acid in th shee of considerable size, of the composition C“H"0O"+2 H’0. ee pe requires 100 parts of water for solution at the ordinary tem- pe Re fnd 5, a less of boiling alcohol. - It is decidedly acid, and is e n » . . ; monovalent ee crystallizable salts, containing 4 atoms of the y exhausting the entire rhizome (roots included) with . ether and Sey crons alcohol, we obtained 25°8 per cent. of soft resin, which es further examination. Pectic matter to the amount of 10 per — ane pointed out by Wiegand in 1841. aga ee to Schroff (1860), in the rootlets the active principle a hed ee the woody central portion being inert. He at the rhizome acts less strongly than th i a somewhat different manner. po foob Boing esa ae ee eres. the drug is imported from Germany 4 e-currents distinguish Swiss and Austrian, and gene Tug as “without fibre.” |. Veretram is an emetic and drastic purgative, rarely used i age It As occasionally employed in the form of ointment in ies. Its principal consumption is in veterinary medicine. sai clan ae rhizome of the Austrian Veratrum nigrum L. is id to be sometimes collected instead of White Hellebore ; it is of much t. That of the Mexican — ome size, and, according to Schroff, less potent. eonias frigida Lindley (Veratrum frigidum Schl.) appears to exactly resemble that of Veratrum album. in bales. The rally name the RHIZOMA VERATRI VIRIDIS. American White Hellebore? Indian Poke. ride Aiton, a plant in every respect one of the numerous forms. latter (V. Lobelianum mountain meadows of the Alps, de that we are unable to point h the two can be separated.’ jally about the claw, thick- a ee enical Origin—Veratrwm viride 4 rete y resembling V. album, of which it 3s Be the green-coloured variety of the eh .), @ plant not uncommon in the es so near to the American V. vit out any important character by whic 1 Por j : ‘ good . ee Dr. Weppen. oh ‘or ose en crete with a white mealiness. ebore is som quod Hag. xxvii. (1808) tab. 1096.—Regel jeties of Veratrum * The name Green Hellebore is sometimes peor to this drug, but it properly belongs His described Jour ion of th to Helleborus viridis L., which is medicinal album Te» occurring in the region 0° fie Some parts of Europe. Lower Ussuri and Amurland, one of which, v sat in contrasting Veratrumviridewith — Var. Y- he has identified with the Ameri- ths um observes that the flowers of the can V. viride. —Tentamen Flore Ussuriensis, the felale ‘more inclinedtoayellowgreen,” St Petersb. 1761. 153. petals broader and more erect, with the aaa MELANTHACEM. The American Veratrwm is common in swamps and low grounds from Canada to Georgia. History—The aborigines of North America were acquainted with the active properties of this plant before their intercourse with Euro- peans, using it according to Josselyn,’ who visited the country in 1638- 1671, as a vomit in a sort of ordeal. He calls it White Hellebore, and states that it is employed by the colonists as a purgative, antiscorbutic and insecticide. Kalm (1749) states” that the early settlers used a decoction of the roots to render their seed-maize poisonous to birds, which were made _ “delirious” by eating the grain, but not killed; and this custom was still practised in New England in 1835 (Osgood). The effects of the drug have been repeatedly tried in the United States during the present century ; and about 1862, in consequence of the strong recommendations of Drs. Osgood, Norwood, Cutter, and _ others, it began to be prescribed in this country. Description—In form, internal structure, odour and taste, the rhizome and roots accord with those of Veratrum album ; yet owing to the method of drying and preparing for the market, the American vera- trum is immediately distinguishable from the White Hellebore of Euro- pean commerce. We have met with it in three forms :— 1. The rhizome with roots attached, usually cut lengthwise into quarters, sometimes transversely also, densely beset with the pale brown ies a towards their extremities are clothed with slender fibrous rootlets, _ .2. Rhizome and roots compressed into solid rectangular cakes, an - inch in thickness. : 3. The rhizome per se, sliced transversely and dried. It forms whitish, buff, or brownish discs, } to 1 inch or more in diameter, much shrunken and curled by drying. This is the form in which the drug is required by the United States Pharmacopceia. _ Chemical Composition—No chemical difference between Veratrwit viride and V. album has yet been ascertained. The presence of vera- trine, suspected by previous chemists, was asserted by Worthington’ in 1839, J. G. Richardson of Philadelphia in 1857, and S. R. Percy in 1864. Seattergood* obtained from the American drug 0:4 per cent. of this alkaloid, which however, in consequence of some observations of Dra- gendorff (p. 694), we must hold to be not identical with that of cebadilla. As stated in a previous page jervine and veratroidine are present as 1n the White Hellebore of Europe. Robbins*'further isolated Veratridiné, a crystallized alkaloid possessed of a similar physiological action to that of veratrine, though in a less degree. Veratridine is readily soluble in ether; its solution in concentrated sulphuric acid is at first y ello ie changing quickly to a pink-red, and, after several hours’ standing, assumes a clear indigo-blue colour, much the same as that displayed by veratrine if mixed with sugar (Weppen’s test, 1874). The resin of the 1 New Englands Rarities discovered, Lond 3 iy. (1839) 89: recy . Am. Journ. of Pharm. iv. (1839) nae Bs j also Account of two Voyages to + Proc. of ihe ‘Assoc. 1862, 226. nF Tenn Lond., 1674, 60. 76. ® [bid, 1877. 439. 523. - Travels in North America, vol. ii. (1771) SEMEN SABADILLAL 697 drug may be prepared by exhausting it with alcohol and precipitating with boiling acidulated water, repeating the process in order to entirely eliminate the alkaloids. It is a dark brown mass, yielding about a fourth of its weight to ether. Scattergood obtained it to the extent of 43 per cent. By exhausting the drug successively with ether, absolute alcohol and spirit of wine, we extracted from it not less than 31 per cent. of a soft resinoid mass. Worthington pointed out the presence of gallie acid and of sugar. Uses—Veratrwm viride has of late been much recommended as a cardiac, arteral and nervous sedative. It is stated to lower the pulse, the respiration and heat of the body, not to be narcotic, and rarely to occasion purging;' but to what principle these effects are due has not yet been ascertained. By some observers, as Bigelow,’ Fée? Schroff, and Oulmont,® it is alleged to have the same medicinal powers as the European Veratrum album. . SEMEN SABADILL&. Fructus Sabadille; Cebadilla, Cevadilla; F. Cévadille; G. Sabadillsa- men, Ldusesamen. Botanical Origin—Asagrea officinalis Lindley ( Veratrum offi- cinale Schlecht, Sabadilla oficinapain a ene a ae . Gray).—A bulbous plant, growing in Mexico, In § t ge eee of the eicanas range of the Cofre ie ee Orizaba, near Teosolo, Huatusco and Zacuapan, down ee nar Cone also in Guatemala. Cebadilla is (or yi) cultivated near Vera Cruz, Alvarado and Tlacatalpan in the Gulf of Mexico. Another form of ‘Anan: first noticed by Berg," a oat ett particularly by Ernst of Caracas, who thinks it may +. 4000 feet above Species, is found in plenty on grassy slopes, 3,500 to 4 Sick inthe the sea-level, in the neighbourhood of Caracas, and ire i chiefly in hilly regions bordering the valley of the Tuy It calles qo having broader and more carinate leaves.® Of late years “ aed hoe: large quantities of seed, which, freed from their capsules, : shipped from La Guaira to Hamburg. History—Cebadilla was first described in 1517, states that it is used by the Indians of New Spain as 4 7 by Monardes, who caustic and Cutter, Lancet, Jan. 4, Aug. 16, 1862; E d the West Indian harm, Journ, iv. (1863) 134, ; r “She aeey Metical Dae ee cebadilla seeds of meee et rit in ® Cours @ Hist. Nat. Pharm. i. (1828) 319. unknown to NA’ WO oo ay and the British 4 Medizinische Jahrbiicher, xix. (Vienna, vain *. not mentioned as West 1863) 129-148, : Museum. Tt vepach (Flor. of Brit. W. I. * Buchner’s Repertorium fir Pharmacie, Indian ee » Cat. Plant. Cubensium, | xviii, (1868) 50; also Wiggers and Huse- /slands, 007 iy Descourtilz (Flor. mann’s Jahresbericht, xviii. 1868. 505. 1866). ‘Iles, iii. 1827. t. 1859) who had 1 Schmidt, Offic. Gewiichse, 3; coe nee St. Domingo, shows it (1858) tab. ix. e. “ Sabadilla officirarum.” the plan Veratrum album L., and there- 7 Ernst, communication to the Linnean to resemble ait nt from Asagred. Society of London, 15 Dec., 1870. < ccnhecc ies eo * Veratrum Sabadilla Retzius is stated 698 | MELANTHACEA, corrosive application to wounds; but it does not seem to have been brought into European commerce, for neither Parkinson who described it in 1640 as the Indian Causticke Barley, nor Ray (1693) did more than copy from Monardes. It was regarded in Germany a rare drug even in 1726, but in the latter half of the last century it begun to be recommended in France and Germany for the destruction of pediculi. A famous composition for this purpose was the Poudre des Capucins, consisting of a mixture of stavesacre, tobacco, and cebadilla, which was applied either dry or made into an ointment with lard.’ Cebadilla was also administered combined into a pill with gamboge and valerian,’ for the destruction of intestinal worms, but its virulent action made it hazardous. Upon the introduction of veratrine into medicine about 1824 ceba- dilla attracted some notice, and was occasionally prescribed in the form of tincture and extract; but it subsequently fell into disuse, and is now only employed for the manufacture of veratrine. Description—Each fruit consists of three oblong pointed follicles, about 4 an inch in length, surrounded below by the remains of the 6-partite calyx, and attached to a short pedicel. The follicles are united at the base, spread somewhat towards the apex, and open by their ventral suture. They are of a light brown colour and papery substance. Each usually contains two pointed narrow black seeds, 7’ of an inch in length, which are shining, rugose, and angular or con- cave by mutual pressure. The compact testa encloses an oily albumen, at the base of which, opposite to the beaked apex, lies the small embryo, The seed is inodorous and has a bitter acrid taste; when powdered, it produces violent sneezing. Microscopic Structure—A transverse section shows the horny concentrically radiated albumen, closely attached to the testa. The latter consists of an outer layer of cuboid cells, and three rows of smaller, thin-walled, tangentially-extended cells, all of which have brown walls. The tissue of the albumen is made up of large porous cells, containing drops of oil, granules of albuminoid matter, and mucilage. Traces of tannic acid occur only in the outer layers of the seed. Chemical Composition—Meissner, an apothecary of Halle, Prussia, in 1819 discovered in cebadilla a basic substance, which he termed Sabadilline; in publishing, in 1821, the description of it the word “ alkaloid” was introduced by Meissner at that. occasion. The name Veratrine® was applied likewise in 1819 by Pelletier and Caven- tou to a similar preparation. For many years this substance was known only as an amorphus powder, in which state it frequently con- tained a considerable proportion of resin; but in 1855 it was obtained _by G. Merck in large rhombic prisms. Cebadilla yields only about 3 per mille of veratrine. The alkaloid is easily soluble in spirit of wine, ether or chloroform; these solutions, as well as the watery solutions of a are devoid of rotatory power. Veratrine, like the drug from _ Which it is derived, occasions, if inhaled, prolonged sternutation. ' Murray, Apparatus Medicami 2 Pevri » Hist. Nat. Meéd. ii. Cm) 171; Mérat and De Lens, Dict. Mat asosy ano.” eo vi, (1834) 862. 3 So called from Schlechtendal’s name for the plant, Veratrum officinale. . ~CORMUS COLCHICI. ~ 608 ___ Again, in 1834, Conerbe described an alkaloid from cebadilla under the name of Sabadilline, and Weigelin (1871) another called Sabatrine. From the investigations of Wright and Luff (1878) it appears that the above-mentioned statements must be resumed thus :—There are in eebadilla three alkaloids, namely Veratrine, C"H*®NO", Cevadine, eli and Cevadilline, C#*H*NO%, the second only being crystal- zable. Veratrin may be decomposed by means of caustic lye into a oe alkaloid, verine, and dimethyl-protocateehuie acid, C°H® | oar! By the same treatment, cevadine yields an acid which appears to be identical with tiglinic acid (page 566), and an alkaloid called cevine. | Cebadilla yielded to Pelletier and Caventou a volatile fatty acid, Sabadillic or Cevadic Acid, the needle-shaped crystals of which fuse at 20°C. Lastly, E. Merck (1839) found a second peculiar acid termed Veratric Acid, affording quadrangular prisms, which can be sublimed without decomposition. It is yielded by cebadilla to the extent of but + per mille, It has been shown in 1876 by Korner to be identical with dimethyl-protocatechuic acid just mentioned (see also our article Lubera Aconiti, p:.9). Commerce—The quantity of cebadilla (seeds only) shipped in 1876 from La Guaira, the port of Caracas, was 35,033 kilos., of which 25,966 went to Germany. No other sort is now imported. . Uses—Cebadilla is at present, we believe, only used as the source = of veratrine. In Mexico, the bulb of the plant is employed as an anthelminthic, under the name of Cedodleja, but it is said to be very gerous in its action. CORMUS COLCHICI. Tuber vel Bulbus vel Radice Colehici ; Meadow Saffron Root ; F. — de Oolchique ; G. Zeitlosenknollen. Botanical Origin—Colchicwm autumnale L.—This plant grows in meadows and pastures over the greater part of Northern hie To we and Southern Europe, and is plentiful in many localities 2 Sate feet and Ireland. In the Swiss Alps, it ascends to an elevation 0 above the sea level. he poisonous properties History—Dioscorides drew attention to the poise i Ck in Odyux which he stated to be a plant growing in Messonia a Olchis, he This character for deleterious qualities seems aol Phas ene use of colchicum both in classical and medieval ea h it is recom- (1552) warns his readers against its use in gout, wap in a physician mended in the writings of the Arabians. Jacques a ie fae Eliza- of Paris, author of Dewa Livres des Venins, oe ie rare poison beth of England, and printed at Antwerp in 1568, 0 raat ” Dodoens est ennemy de la nature de !homme en tout et par not true for Colchicum autum- which seems be so for some other species. * His description is exact, except that he nale, but may declares the corm to have a sweet taste, 700 _ MELANTHACEA. calls it perniciosum Colchicum ; and Lyte in his translation of this author (1578) says—“ Medow or Wilde Saffron is corrupt and venemous, — therefore not used in medicine.” Gerarde declares the roots of “ Mede Saffron” to be “ very hurtfull to the stomacke.” Wedel published in 1718, at Jena, an essay De Colchico veneno et alexipharmaco, in which, to show the great disfavour in which this plant had been held, he remarks,—“hactenus . . . velut infame habitum et damnatum fuit colchicum, indignum habitum inter herbas medicas vel officinales . . .” He further states that, in the 17th century, the corms were worn by the peasants in some parts of Ger- many as a charm against the plague. In the face of these severe denunciations, it is strange to find that in the London Pharmacopoeia of 1618 (the second edition), “ Radia Colchici,’ as well as Hermodactylus, is enumerated among the simple drugs; and again in the editions of 1627, 1632 and 1639. It is omitted in that of 1650, and does not reappear in subsequent editions until 1788, when owing to the investigations of Stérck (1763), Kratochwill (1764), De Berge (1765) Ehrmann (1772), and others, the possibility of employing it usefully in medicine had been made evident. Development of the Corm'— who wrote about the close of the century, —— that the sarsaparilla of Peru is imported into England in abun- ance. : Collection of the Root—Mr. Richard Spruce, the enterprising botanical explorer of the Amazon valley, has communicated to us the : alone particulars on this subject, which we give in his own graphic words :— : “When I was at Santarem on the Amazon in 1849-50, where consi- derable quantities of sarsaparilla are brought in from the upper regions of the river Tapajéz, and again when on the Upper Rio Negro and Uaupés in 1851-53, I often interrogated the traders about their criteria of the good kinds of sarsaparilla. Some of them had bought their stock of Indians of the forest, and had themselves no certain test of its genuineness or of its excellence, beyond the size of the roots, the thickest fetching the best price at Paré. Those who had gathered sarsaparilla for themselves were guided by the following characters :— 1. Many stems from a root. 2. Prickles closely set. 3. Leaves thin— The first character was (to them) alone essential, for in the species of Smilax that have solitary stems, or not more than two or three, the roots are so few as not to be worth grubbing up ; whereas the multicaul species have numerous long roots,—three at least to each stem,— extending horizontally on all sides. “Tn 1851, when I was at the falls of the Rio Negro, which are crossed by the equator, nine men started from the village of St. Gabriel to gather Salsa, as they called it, at the head of the river Cauaburis. During their absence I made the acquaintance of an old Indian, who told me that four years ago he had brought stools of Salsa from the Cauaburfs and had planted them in a tabecdl,—a clump of bamboos, _ indicating the site of an ancient Indian village—on the other side of the falls, whither he invited me to go and witness the gathering of his first crop of roots. On the 23rd March, I visited the tabocdl, and found some half-dozen plants of a Smilax with very prickly stems, but ? De Pudendagra lue Hispanica, libri 2 Basi nda ispanica, libri Basilez, 1559, fol. duo, first published at Toulouse in 1553, and 3 Flickiger, Documente (quoted at p. 404, prey times reprinted. We have consulted note 7) 24, pron pecs edition of 1564, with which 4See Appendix. 36. ardano’s work is printed. The latter is * Herball, enlarged by Johnson, 16. said to have first appeared in 1559. 859. metal > Mme fe ‘ RADIX SARSAPARILLA. 707 no flowers or fruit. At my request the Indian operated on the finest lant first. It had five stems from the crown, and numerous roots about 9 feet long, radiating horizontally on all sides. The thin covering of earth was first scraped away from the roots by hand, aided by a pointed stick; and had the salsa been the only plant occupying the ground, the task would have been easy. But the roots of the salsa were often difficult to trace among those of bamboo and other plants, which had to be cut through with a knive whenever they came in the way. The roots being at length all laid bare—(in this case it was the work of half a day, but with large plants it sometimes takes up a whole day or even more)—they were cut off near the crown, a few slender ones being allowed to remain, to aid the plant in renewing its growth. The stems also were shortened down to near the ground, and a little earth and dead leaves heaped over the crown, which would soon shoot out new stems “The yield of this plant, of four years’ growth, was 16 Ib.—half a Portuguese arroba—of roots ; but a well-grown plant will afford at the first cutting from one to two arrobas. In a couple of years, a plant may be cut again, but the yield will be much smaller and the roots more slender and less starchy.” General Description—The medicinal species of Smilax have a thick, short, knotty rhizome, called by the druggists chwmp, from which grow in a horizontal direction long fleshy roots, from about the thickness of a quill to that of the little finger. These roots are mostly simple, forked only towards their extremities, beset with thread-like branching rootlets of nearly uniform size, which however are not emitted to any great extent from the more slender part of the root near the stock. When fresh the root is plump,’ but as found in commerce In the dried state it is more or less furrowed longitudinally, at least a the vicinity of the rhizome. When examined with a good lens ae roots and rootlets may be seen in some specimens to be clothed wit short vely irs. ; pee shegay: hair y or less abundance of starch in the € presence or absence in greate undance of starch bark of the root is regarded as an important criterion in estimating the i e non-amylaceous or non- good quality of sarsaparilla. In England th mealy roots ae Bistocree. they alone being suitable for the meiaqiee of the dark fluid-extract that is valued by the public. On ke gh tinent, and especially in Italy, sarsaparilla, which when cut exhibi thick bark, pure white within, is the esteemed kind. i eae The more or less plentiful occurrence of _ starch in t 6 Too eS Smilaa is a character which has no botanical significance, and appears, indeed, to vary in the same species. If one examines Jamaica ni Saparilla by shaving off a little of the bark, one finds a large majori 7 of roots to be non-amylaceous in their entire length ; but ot . =e Picked out which, thongh non-amylaceous for some — lagi thizome, acquire a starchy bark, which is white internally itt Middle and lower portions ;—and there are still others ye a slightly starchy even as they start from the parent rhizome, becoming 1 We have been ki : : » and have found that it agrees in n kindl, mitted toexa- Kew; an : mine the fresh risen A al : eae ait a appearance and in structure with Jamaica _ Smilax officinalis in the Royal Gardens, _sarsaparilla. na SMILACEA:. still more as they advance. In Guatemala sarsaparilla, which is con- — sidered a very mealy sort, it is easy to perceive that the bark is hardly amylaceous in the vicinity of the rhizome, but that it acquires an enormous deposit of fecula as it proceeds in its growth. Sarsaparilla varies greatly in the abundance of rootlets, technically called beard, with which the roots are clothed. This character depends partly on natural circumstances, and partly on the practice of the collectors who remove or retain the rootlets at will. Dr. Rhys of Belize has stated that the proportion of rootlets depends much on the nature of the soil, their development being most favoured by moist situations, Dry sarsaparilla has not much smell, yet when large quantities are boiled, or when a decoction is evaporated, a peculiar and very per- ceptible odour is emitted. The taste of the root is earthy, and not well marked, and even a decoction has no very distinctive flavour. Microscopic Structure ’—On a tranverse section of the root, its - fibro-vascular bundles are seen to be restricted to the central part, _ being all enclosed by a brown ring. Within this ring the bundles are densely packed so as to form a ligneous zone. The very centre of the section consists of white medullary tissue, through which sometimes 4 certain number of fibro-vascular bundles are scattered. A similar medullary parenchyme is met with between the brown ring or nucleus sheath or the epidermis. Ona longitudinal section the latter exhibits several rows of elongated cells, having their outer brown walls thickened by secondary deposits. The brown nucleus sheath, on the other hand, consists of only one row of prismatic cells, their inner and lateral walls alone having secondary deposits. The vascular eng contain large scalariform vessels and lignified prosenchymatous cells. The parenchymatous cells, if not devoid of solid contents, are loaded with large compound starch granules; some cells also exhibit bundles _ of acicular crystals of calcium oxalate. In non-mealy sarsaparilla the vessels and ligneous cells sometimes contain a yellow resin, The various sorts of sarsaparilla differ, not only in being mealy ot non-mealy, but also as regards the thickness of the ligneous zone, which in some of them is many times thinner than the diameter of the central medullary tissue. In other kinds this diameter is very muc smaller. Yet the nucleus sheath affords still better means for distinguishing the sorts of this drug, if we examine its single ce im a transverse section. The outline of such a cell may be of a Square or somewhat rounded shape; or it may be more or less extended. In’ this case it may be extended in the direction of a radius, oF ns the direction of a tangent, Th i vary 10 tema g e secondary deposits may vary Sorts of Sarsaparilla—tIn the present state of our knowledge 1° botanical classification of the different kinds of sarsaparilla being possible, we shall resort to the arrangement adopted by Pereira and 1 For more particulars consult Vandercol istoi. s om me, Histoire bot. et thérapeut. des Salseparee Paris, 1870, 127 pp., 3 plates ; and Otten, in Dragendorfi’s Doarcehecield. 1876. 74. RADIX SARSAPARILLE, =——«~OQ. place them in two groups,—the mealy, or those of which starch isa prevalent constituent, and the non-mealy, or those in which starch exists to a comparatively small extent. (A.) Mealy Sarsaparillas. 1. Honduras Sarsaparilla—This drug is exported from Belize. It is made up in hanks or rolls about 30 inches long and 2} to 4 inches © or more in diameter, closely wound round with a long root so as to form a neat bundle. The hanks are united into bales by large pieces of hide, placed at top and bottom, and held together with thongs of the same, further strengthened with iron hoops. The roots are deeply furrowed, or sometimes plump and smooth, more or less provided with beard or rootlets, In a very large propor- tion of their length they exhibit when cut a thick bark loaded with starch ; yet in those parts which are near the rhizome the bark is brown, resinous, and non-amylaceous. They are of a pale brown, sometimes verging into orange. But the drug is subject to great variation, so that it is impossible to lay down absolutely distinctive characters, ? The annual imports into the United Kingdom of sarsaparilla from British Honduras during the five years ending with 1870 averaged about 52,000 Ib. © ; 2. Guatemala Sarsaparilla—This sort of sarsaparilla, which first appeared in commerce about 1852, resembles the Honduras kind in many of its characters, and is packed in a similar manner. belie has a more decided orange hue; the roots as they start from the r ae are lean, shrunken, and but little starchy, but they become sonic “dl stouter (,%; inch diam.), and acquire a thick bark, which is rae very white and mealy. There is a tendency m the - ed a sarsaparilla to crack and split off, so * bare spaces showing central woody column are not unfrequent. : : Abidrding to Bentley? who examined specimens of pot this drug is derived from Smilax papyracea; we are not prep — in this opinion. a 3. Brazilian, Para or Lisbon Sarsaparuta— 3 held in high esteem Brazilian sarsaparilla is not piped wk’ ae. England, and is rarely seen in the London market.? It is pac very distinctive manner, the roots being tightly compressed into a cylin- i in diameter, drical bundle, 3 feet or more in length and about 6 inches in é firmly held together by the flexible stem of a bignoniaceous Plan’ rs Wound round them, the ends being neatly shaved oft Though formerly (B.) Non-mealy ‘Sarsaparillas. ee _ *& Jamaica Sarsaparilla—To the English ee rales < important variety ; it is that which appears to ap 2 eee tite to possess some medicinal activity, and it is the only 963 sepagomenens British, Pharmacopeia. Although constantly calle ; rb “ ribet villa, it is well known that it only bears the name 0 | 2 We noticed 66 rolls of it from Para, 2 : 1 a ; * a a Journ, xii, (1853) 470, with offered for sale 15 Dec. 1853.—D. H. 710 SMILACEA, having been formerly shipped from Central America by way of that island." At the commencement of the last century, Jamaica was an emporium for sarsaparilla, great quantities of which, according to Sloane? were brought thither from Honduras, New Spain and Peru. _ Its actual place of growth, according to De Warszewicz (1851), is the mountain range known as the Cordillera of Chiriqui, in that part of the isthmus of Panama adjoining the republic of Costa Rica: here the plant grows at an elevation of 4000 to 8000 feet above the level of the sea. The root is brought by the natives to Boca del Toro on the Atlantic coast for shipment. The drug consists of roots, 6 feet or more in length, bent repeatedly so as to form bundles of 18 inches long, and 4 in diameter, which are secured by being twined round (but less trimly and closely than the Honduras sort) with a long root of the same drug. The rhizome is entirely absent, but the fibre or beard is preserved, and is. reckoned a valuable portion of the drug. The roots are deeply furrowed, shrunken, and generally more slender than in the Honduras kind ; the bark when shaved off with a penknife is seen to be brown, hard and non-mealy throughout. Yet it is by no means uncommon to find roots which have a smooth bark rich in starch. In colour, Jamaica sarsaparilla varies from a pale earthy brown to a deeper more ferruginous hue, the latter tint being the most esteemed. The sarsaparilla referred to at p.704as grown in the island of Jamaica, _ is a well prepared drug, yet so pale in colour and so amylaceous, that it finds but little favour in the English market. There were exported of it from Jamaica in 1870, 1747 lb. 3 in 1871, 1290 Ib. 5. Mexican Sarsaparilla—tThe roots of this variety are not made into bundles, but are packed in straight lengths of about 3 feet into bales, the chump and portion of an angular (but not square) thorny stem being frequently retained. The roots are of a pale, dull brown, lean, shrivelled, and with but few fibres. When thick and large, they have a somewhat starchy bark, but when thin and near the rhizome, they are non- amylaceous. 6. Guayaquil Sarsaparilla—An esteemed kind of sarsaparilla has long been exported from Guayaquil (p. 705). Mr. Spruce has informed us that it is obtained in most of the valleys that debouch into the plain _ on the western side of the Equatorial Andes, but chiefly in the valley of Alausi, where, in 1859, he saw plants of it at the junction of the small river Puma-cocha with the Yaguachi. The plant appears to be very productive, an instance being on record of as much as 75 Ib. of fresh roots having been obtained from a single stock.‘ Guayaquil sarsaparilla differs considerably from the sorts previously noticed. It is rudely packed in large bales, and is not generally made Into separate hanks. The rhizome (chump) and a portion of the stem ‘The connexion between Jamaica and quitia was ceded to the government of Central America dates back from the time N. icaragua, of Charles IT., during whose reign (1661- °? Nat. Hist. of Jamaica, i. (1707), intro- 85), the king of the Mosquito Territory, a duction, p. Ixxxvi, ct never conquered by the Spaniards, 3 Blue Dicks alae of Jamaica for 1870 pee to ol Adee of Jamaica for —_and_ 1871. rotection, which was accorded. Th 4 Journ. inn. Soe. .» iy. (1869) protectorate lasted until 1860, when ad 185. bool ctmrae ag as RADIX SARSAPARILLA, =———~«Sdz‘S‘CS are often present, the latter being vownd and not prickly. The root is dark, large and coarse-looking, with a good deal of fibre. The bark is furrowed, rather thick, and not mealy in the slenderer portions of the ~ root which is near the rootstock; but as the root becomes stout, so its bark becomes smoother, thicker and amylaceous, exhibiting when cut a fawn-coloured or pale yellow interior. : The quantity exported from Guayaquil in 1871 was 1017 quintals, value £3814." removed from the washings, but with much pee with a little arillin forms brilliant scales, or can : : viling alcohol 0-965 sp. gr. Parillin is almost nee Bs ray bait ut dissolves in 20 parts of boiling water, On coo 1s roduced tion affords no crystals; an abundance of them are vote aleohol, - lin is also so)nt jy in boiling ats i olu which it partly separates in erystals on ea Lone Hence — alcohol or water, parillin is less soluble than 1n aaah and parillin, on aqueous solutions are precipitated by absolute ‘addition of cold lutions on additic saad solution which affords No crystals, ewhat acrid taste, and 2 Yearbook of Pharm. 1878. 136. Ador—Consular Reports, presented to Parliament, Tuly, 1872 fo 712 - SMILACEA:. it is insoluble even in boiling water, but crystallizes in white scales from alcohol. The composition of parillin and parigenin is not settled ; the former belongs to the class of saponin. Yet parillin differs from saponin as contained in Saponaria or Quillaja by not being sternutatory ; its solutions froth when shaken. The presence in sarsaparilla of starch, resin, and calcium oxalate, as revealed by the microscope, has been already pointed out. Pereira” examined the essential ol, which is heavier than water and has the odour and taste of the drug; 140 lb. of Jamaica sarsaparilla afforded of it only a few drops. _ The nature of the dark extractive matter which water removes from the root in abundance, and the proportion of which is considered by druggists a criterion of goodness, has not been studied. Commerce—The importation of sarsaparilla into the United King- dom in 1870 (later than which year we have no returns) amounted to 345,907 lb., valued at £26,564. Uses—Sarsaparilla is regarded by many as a valuable alterative and tonic, but by others as possessing little if any remedial powers. It is still much employed, though by no means so extensively as a few years ago. The preparations most in use are those obtained by a pro- longed boiling of the root in water. TUBER CHIN&A, Radia Chine ; China Root ; F. Squine ; G. Chinawwrzel. Botanical Origin—Smilaw China L., a woody, thorny, climbing shrub, is commonly said to afford this drug. The plant is a native - of Japan, the Loochoo islands, Formosa, China, Cochinchina, also of Eastern India, as Kasia, Assam, Sikkim, N epal. The chief authority _ for attributing the China root to this plant is Kiimpfer, who saw the latter in Japan and figured it. ; S. glabra Roxb. and S. lancewfolia Roxb., natives of India and Southern China, have tubers which, according to Roxburgh, cannot be distinguished from the China root of medicine, though the plants are perfectly distinct in appearance from S. China. Dr. Hance,‘ of Whampoa, received a living specimen of China root, which proved to _ be that of S. glabra, The three above-named species all grow in the — island of Hongkong. History—The use of this drug as a remedy for syphilis was made known to the Portuguese at Goa by Chinese traders about A.D. 1535. _ Garcia de Orta, who makes this statement, further narrates that so 1 See Christophson, in Dragendortf’s Jah- _ fisured b Seemann in his Botany of the resbericht, 1874, 155. Herald, 1852-57, tabb, 99-100. 8. Chint tug re of Mat. Med. i. (1850) 1168, is well represented in the Kew Herbarium, i ate ae p. 783 in the first work where we have examined specimens from protec m the Appendix ; another fig.willbe Nagasaki, Hakodadi, and Yokohama ; from cuaiek oo von Esenbeck’s Plantw Loochoo, Corea, Formosa, Ningpo; am 4 Trin 3 sseldorf, 1828, Indian ones from Khasia, Assam, and rimen’s Journ. of Bot. i, (1872) 102. Nepal. —S. glabra and 8, lanceefolia have been ‘TUBER CHINA 2 gig great was the reputation of the new drug, that the small quantities first brought to Malacca were sold at the rate of 10 crowns per ganta, a weight of 24 ounces, Possibly the drug found its way to Europe even before that year, for we find a careful description of it in the posthumous works’ of Valerius Cordus and Walther Ryff* states in 1548 that the root was brought a few years ago to Venice. The reported good effects of China root on the Emperor Charles V. who was suffering from gout, acquired for the drug a great celebrity in Europe, and several works * were written in praise of its virtues. But though its powers were soon found to have been greatly over-rated, it still retained some reputation as a sudorific and alterative, and was much used at the end of the 17th century in the same way as sarsaparilla. It still retains a place in some modern pharma- Copoeias. Description—The plant produces stout fibrous roots, here and there thickened into large tubers, which when dried become the drug : China root. These tubers, as found in the market, are of irregularly cylindrical form, usually a little flattened, sometimes producing short knobby branches. They are from about 4 to 6 or more inches in length, and 1 to 2 inches in thickness, covered with a ae rather shining bark, which in some specimens is smooth an ne Para z more or less wrinkled. They have no distinct traces of rad a leaves, which however are peesaptiile on those of some allied gone Some still retain portions of the cord-like woody a ee ‘tees ey grew ; the bases of a few roots can also be observed. mostly show marks of having been trimmed with a knife. is heidi hina root is inodorous and almost insipid. A ae a fawn exhibits the interior as a dense granular substance of 4 colour. ‘ake Microscopic Structure—The outermost cortical ai aas of brown, thick-walled cells, tangentially ua alate, aia reddish humerous tufts of needle-shaped erystals of calcium od d by the inner rown masses of resin. The bark is at once succeed? f ute. thin- Parenchyme which contrasts strongly with it, consisting tarch, but here walled, porous cells which are completely gorged sleet The starch tals. and there contain colouring matter nee ages aul and angular granules are la u 50 mkm.), Cen oe from mutual pea des Like eae Pe eolchicum, pad oe ae ilum : very frequently they have burst and run pened les Consequence of the tubers having been § ten een meaner Scattered through the parenchyme, con ramet eeaytie, i or reticulated vessels, a string of delicate thin- Detiaear pores. “egant wood-cells with distinct incrusting . Fe ieciais any Chemical Composition—The drug ef eA Deke We Substance to which ‘its supposed medicinal virtu : Mpistola rationem, modumque pro” work’ by Conrad — _ 212 of the eer wis Chae ie ' 1 tect 0 Nag Bericht der ae der Wurtzel — muper coerce oe China, Wiirzburg, 1548. 4° sue est, Venet, *The earliest of which is by Andreas 714 GRAMINE. have endeavoured to obtain from it Parillin, the crystalline principle of sarsaparilla, but without success. _ Commerce—China root is imported into Europe from the South of China—usually from Canton. The quantity shipped from that port in 1872, was only 384 peculs (51,200 lb.) ; while the same year there was shipped from Hankow, the great trading city of the Yangtsze, no less than 10,258 peculs (1,367,733 lb.), all to Chinese ports. For the year 1874, these figures were: Hankow 9393 peculs, valued at 53,194 taels (one tael about 5s. 10d.), Kewkiang 3627 peculs, Ningpo 2905 peculs/ and for 1877 Hankow 12,075 peculs, Kewkiang 3942 peculs. Uses—Notwithstanding the high opinion formerly entertained of _ the virtues of China root, it has in England fallen into complete disuse. In China and India it is still held in great esteem for the relief of rheumatic and syphilitic complaints, and as an aphrodisiac and demul- cent. Polak asserts that the tubers of Smilax are consumed as food by Turcomans and Mongols.” Substitutes—Several American species of Smilaa furnish a nearly allied drug, which at various times has been brought into commerce as Radix Chine occidentalis. It was already known to the authors of the 16th century; we met with it in 1872, and before, in the London market, as an importation from Puntas Arenas, the port of Costa Rica on the Pacific coast. - Of the exact species it is difficult to speak with certainty: but S. Pseudo-China L. and 8. tamnoides L. growing in the United States from New Jersey southwards; S. Balbisiana Knuth., a plant common in all the West Indian Islands ; and S. Japicanga Griseb., S. syringoides _ Griseb. and S. Brasiliensis Spreng., are reputed to afford large tuberous rhizomes which in their several localities replace the China root of Asia, and are employed in a similar manner? GRAMINEZ. SACCHARUM. Sugar, Cane Sugar, Sucrose; F. Sucre, Sucre de canne; G. Zucker, Rohrzucker. Botanical Origin—Succharwm officinarwm L., the Sugar Cane. _ The jointed stem is from 6 to 12 feet high, solid, hard, dense, internally Juicy, and hollow only in the flowering tops. Several varieties are cul- tivated, as the Cowntry Cane, the original form of the species ; the Rib- bon Cane, with purple or yellow stripes along the stem; the Bourbon or Tahiti Cane, a more elongated, stronger, more hairy and very pt0- ' Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports in ° : second Fuh-ling or Pe-fuh-ling.—See Han- China for 1872, pp. 34, 154, and the same (baled f é bury, Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 421; and for 1874, 2 See p. 324, note 2.—We quote this state- ment with reserve, knowing that both ese and Europeanssometimes confound China root with the singular fungoid pro- duction termed Pachyma Cocos. The first is called in Chinese Tu-fuh-ling,—the Science Papers, 202. 267.—F. Porter Smith, Mat. Med. and Nat, Hist. of China, 1871. 198; Dragendorff, Volksmedicin U'urkestans in Buchner’s Repertorium, xxii. (1873) 139. 8 De Candolle’s monograph, quoted at Pp. 705, note 4, may be consulted on the above species. SACOHARUM: 720. is ductive variety. Saccharwm violacewm Tussae, the Batavian Cane, is _also considered to be a variety; but the large S. chinense Roxb. intro- duced from Canton in 1796 into the Botanic Gardens of Caleutta,may be a distinct species; it has a long, slender, erect panicle, while that of S. offici- narwm is hairy and spreading, with the ramifications alternate and more compound, not to mention other differences in the leaves and flowers. The sugar cane is cultivated from cuttings, the small seeds very seldom ripening. It succeeds in almost all tropical and subtropical countries, reaching in South America and Mexico an elevation above the sea of 5000-6000 feet. It is cultivated in most parts of India and China up to 30-31° N. lat., the mountainous regions excepted. From the elaborate investigations of Ritter,’ it appears that Saccha- rum officinarwm was originally a native of Bengal, and of the Indo- Chinese countries, as well as of Borneo, Java, Bali, Celebes, and other islands of the Malay Archipelago. But there is no evidence that it is now found anywhere in a wild state. _ History?—The sugar cane was doubtless’ known in India from time immemorial, and grown for food as it still is at the present day, chiefly in those regions which are unsuited for the manufacture of sugar. _ Herodotus, Theophrastus, Seneca, Strabo, and other early writers had some knowledge of raw sugar, which they speak of as the Honey of Canes or Honey made by human hands, not that of bees; but it was not until the commencement of the Christian era, that the ancients — manifested an undoubted acquaintance with sugar, under the name Saccharon. : ; tag th creted honey called Thus Dioscorides‘ about A.D. 77 mentions the ne : India and Arabia Xdcyapov found upon canes (ért rev Kadduov) Y F elix, and which i substance and brittleness resemble salt. rere evidently knew the same thing under the name some ep te a ana author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, A.D. 54-68, 8 ; Bary in the honey from canes, called cd«yapt, is ie phan Gulf of Cambay, to the ports of the Red Sea, wes Aromatum, that is to iy to the coast opposite Aden. Ligon that period sugar was produced in Western India, or thither from the Gan es, is a point still doubtful. ; Bengal is pactetly the senntey of the earliest Nae ous hence its names in all the languages of Abeer pierre 2 substance nations are derived from the Sanskrit Sharkara, set this word in the shape of small grains or stones. It is strange tha contains no allusion to the taste of the substance. aiden the Candy, as sugar in large erystals is called, is ¢ “ eerie Arabic Kand or Kandat, a name of the same aigatt ee — Sanskrit name of Central Bengal is Gwra, whence 18 = coi ula, meaning raw sugar, a term for sugar universally emp phets Isaiah (ch. oe nee Sic gr mie idcsiet dh a hak Ge the aubjent of Some have supposed © H , an aroma oar information about the medicinal poten eon a ; mone opinion, there 3 he Seolastion which the English 18 more a to conclude tha franslators of the Bible have rendered Sweet One as 64: “ane, and which is alluded to by the pro- . i.e. sends von Asien, ix. West-Asien, Poh THD, . pp. 230-291. 1: * The Teatnen investigations of Heyd, 4 orig set : Levantehandel, ii. (1879) 665-667, afford — much discussidh: 716° GRAMINEZ. the Malayan Archipelago, where on the other hand they have their own names for the sugar cane, although not for sugar. This fact again speaks in favour of Ritter’s opinion, that the preparation of sugar in a dry crystalline state is due to the inhabitants of Bengal. Sugar under the name of Shi-mi, ie. Stone-honey, is frequently mentioned in the ancient Chinese annals among the productions of India and Persia; and it is recorded that the Emperor Tai-tsung, A.D. 627-650, sent an envoy to the kingdom of Magadha in India, the modern Bahar, to learn the method of manufacturing sugar.| The Chinese, in fact, acknowledge that the Indians between A.D. 766 and 780 were their first teachers in the art of refining sugar, for which they had no particular ancient written character. An Arabian writer, Abu Zayd al Hasan,? informs us that about A.D. 850 the sugar cane was growing on the north-eastern shore of the Persian Gulf; and in the following century, the traveller Ali Istakhri* found sugar abundantly produced in the Persian province of Kuzistan, the ancient Susiana. About the same time (A.D. 950), Moses of Chorene, an Armenian, also stated that the manufacture of sugar was flourishing near the celebrated school of medicine at Jondisabur in the same province, and remains of this industry in the shape of millstones, &c., still exist near Ahwas. Persian physicians of the 10th and 11th centuries, as Rhazes, Haly Abbas, and Avicenna, introduced sugar into medicine. The Arabs eul- tivated the sugar cane in many of their Mediterranean settlements, as Cyprus, Sicily, Italy, Northern Africa, and Spain. The Calendar of Cordova‘ shows that as early as A.D. 961 the cultivation was well understood in Spain, which is now the only country in Europe where sugar mills still exist.’ William II, King of Sicily, presented in A.D. 1176 to the convent of Monreale mills for grinding cane, the culture of which still lingers at Avola near Syracuse, though only for the sake of making rum. In 1767, the sugar plantations and sugar houses at this spot were described by a traveller ® as “ worth seeing.” During the middle ages England, in common with the rest of Northern Europe, was supplied with sugar from the Mediterranean countries, especially Egypt and Cyprus. It was imported from Alex- andria as early as the end of the 10th century by the Venetians, with whom it long remained an important article of trade. Thus we fin that in A.D. 1319, a merchant in Venice, Tommaso Loredano, shipped to London 100,000 Ib. of sugar, the proceeds of which were to be returned in wool, which at that period constituted the great wealth of England. ‘Sugar was then very dear: thus from 1259 to 1350, the average price in England was about 1s. per Ib., and from 1351 to 1400, 1s. 7d.° In France during the same period it must have been largely obtainable, though doubtless expensive. King John IL. ordered in 1353 that the apothecaries of Paris should not use honey in making those confections oP eemoanenl Chinese Botanical Works, 5 There are several in the neighbourhood 2 mite ; of Malaga. : a 3 fc. 286. 6 Riedesel, Travels through Sicily, Lone. Sante 57 of the book quoted in the Ap- —_1773. 67. ps ¥ P 7 Marin, Commercio de’ Veneziani, V. ov): ae Le Marrs de Cordoue de Vannée ® Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices » par R. Dozy, Leyde, 1873. 25. 41. 91. in England, i. (1866) 633. 641. 4 oon, : SACCHARUM. | ar which ought to be prepared with the good white sugar called cajetin,! aname alluding to the peculiar shape of the loaf which was not un- common at that time. The importance of the sugar manufacture in the East was witnessed in the latter half of the 13th century by Marco Polo;* and in 1510 by Barbosa and other European travellers; and the trading nations of Europe rapidly spread the cultivation of the cane over all the countries, of which the climate was suitable. Thus its introduction into Madeira goes back as far as A.D. 1420; it reached St. Domingo in 1494,‘ the Canary Islands in 1503, Brazil in the beginning of the 16th century, Mexico about 1520, Guiana about 1600, Guadaloupe in 1644, Martinique in 1650,” Mauritius towards 1750, Natal’ and New South Wales, about 1852, while from a very early period the sugar cane had been propa- ose from the Indian Archipelago over all the islands of the Pacific cean. The ancient cultivation in Egypt, probably never quite extinct, has been revived on an extensive scale by the Khedive Ismail Pasha. There were 13 sugar factories, making raw sugar, belonging to the Egyptian Government at work in 1872, and about 100,000 aeres of land devoted to sugar cane. The export of sugar from Egypt in 1872 reached 2 millions of kantwrs, or about 89,200 tons." : The imperfection of organic chemistry previous to the middle of the — 18th century, permitted no exact investigations into the chemical nature of sugar, Marggraf of Berlin’ proved in 1747 that sugar rea im many vegetables, and succeeded in obtaining it ia a pure crystallize state from the juice of beet-root, The enormous practical importance of this discovery did not escape him, and he caused serious attem lie be made for rendering it available, which were so far successfu : * the first. manufactory of beet-sugar was established in 1796 by Achar at Kunern in Silesia. oe th : _ This new branch of industry ” was greatly promoted by 2 hibitive measures, whereby Napoleon excluded colonial sugar Pes almost the whole Continent ; and it is now carried forward & sm a seale that, 640,000 to 680,000 tons of beet-root sugar are annua y Pi eed in Europe, the entire production of cane sugar being es : at 1,260,000 to 1,413,000 tons.” oe rs a 4k Among the British colonies, Mauritius,” British Guiana,” Trinidad, 1 Ordonnane : ; ii, (1729) 5 “teed des rois de France, Cairo for 1872, presented i Ha fe . *Several other varietiesof sugar occurring . in the medizyal literature are explained in the Documente (quoted at page 404, foot- in de tirer un vérita nie at croissent dans nos contrées, par traduit du latin—Hist. de note 7) p. 32, Mr. Marggraf, eee Syom *Yule, B a 7 PAcadémie royale des sciences ¢ 79. 171 ara of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) reas, année 1747 (Berlin 1749) 79-90 ilk r, which was ‘Letters of Christ. Columbus (Hakluyt 10 And also that of milk sugar, Society) 1870. 81-84. ; De Candolle, Géogr. botanique, 836. The value of the sugar exported from Natal in 1871 reached the astonishing amount of £180,496 and £135,201 in 1876. et owing to the gold discoveries, the Ete ation of the cane in Australia was ttle thought of until about 1866 or 1867, When small lots of sugar were made. then much used on the Continent to adulte- ugar. ; (OF Produ’ orkeli Review, March 28, — 18,255,249 quintals (one quintal = 108 ap.) in 1876. " 1H 080 hhds (one hogshead = 1,792 in 1876. , 14,968,384 Jb. in 1876. ‘T1g : GRAMINEZ. Barbados,’ and Jamaica,’ produce at present the largest quantity of sugar. Perc decdion Ni o crystals are found in the parenchyme of the cane, the sugar existing as an aqueous solution, chiefly within the cells of the centre ofthestem. The transverse section of the cane exhibits numerous fibro-vascular bundles, scattered through the tissue, as in other monoco- tyledonous stems; yet these bundles are most abundant towards the exterior, where they form a dense ring covered with a thin epidermis, which is very hard by reason of the silica which is deposited in it? In the centre of the stem the vascular bundles are few in number; the parenchyme is far more abundant, and contains in its thin-walled cells an almost clear solution of sugar, with a few small starch granules and a little soluble albuminons matter. This last is met with in larger quantity in the cambial portion of the vascular bundles. Pectic prin- _ ciples are combined with the walls of the medullary cells, which how- ever do not swell much in water (Wiesner). From these glances at the microscopical structure of the cane, the process to be followed for obtaining the largest possible quantity of sugar becomes evident. This would consist in simply macerating thin slices of the cane in water, which would at once penetrate the paren- thyme loaded with sugar, without much attacking the fibro-vascular bundles containing more of albuminous than of saccharine matter. By this method, the epidermal layer of the cane would not become saturated with sugar, nor would it impede its extraction,—results which necessarily follow when the cane is crushed and pressed,* The process hitherto generally practised in the colonies,—that of _ eXtracting the juice of the cane by crushing and pressing,—has been elaborately described and criticised by Dr. Icery of Mauritius. In that island, the cane, six varieties of which are cultivated, is when mature _ composed of Cellulose, 8 to 12 per cent. ; Sugar, 18 to 21; Water, includ- ing albuminous matter and salts, 67 to 73. Of the entire quantity of _ Juice in the cane, from 70 to 84 per cent. is extracted for evaporation, and yields in a crystalline state about three-fifths of the sugar which the cane originally contained. This juice, called in French vesou, has on an average the following composition :-— Albuminous matters ee ae a ot OS Granular matter (starch 2) ... ay oe eels, Mucilage containing nitrogen ... ee O22 Salts, mostly of organic acids’ os ae 6 O29 Sugar se 3 = = oe = t Book we : ter bli appendix 157, = Gigdapeen 1973, 46 os rmacopecia of India, 1868. 465. Mote of Chem. Soc. ii. (1845) 122. OLEUM ANDROPOGONIS. 727 been decomposed by sodium, and the oil again rectified, a second analysis was made which proved it isomeric with oil of turpentine, _ A genuine grass oil from Khandesh, derived as we suppose from the same species, which was examined by one of us (F.), yielded nothing crystalline when saturated with dry hydrochloric acid; but when the liquid was afterwards treated with fuming nitric acid, crystals of the compound, CH", HCI, sublimed into the upper part of the vessel. We have observed that the oils both of lemon grass and citronella yield solid compounds, if shaken with a saturated solution of bisulphite of sodium. Citronella oil was found by Gladstone (1872) to be composed chiefly : of an oxidized oil, which he called Citronellol, and which he separated by fractional distillation into two portions, the one boiling at 202-205° C., the other 199-202° C. The composition of each portion is indicated by the formula CO" H“O. af Wright’s researches (1874) tend rather to show the prevailing part of citronella oil to consist of the liquid C"H™O, boiling near 210°, which he calls Citronellol. It unites with bromine, and the resulting compound, upon heating, breaks up according to the following equation :— C"H™OBr = OU... Bt. 4-0 i, j Cymene. Commerce—The growing trade in grass oil is exemplified in a striking manner by the pollawing statistics. The export of Citronella Oil from Ceylon in 1864 was 622,000 ounces, valued at £8230. In the Ceylon Blue Book, the exports for 1872 are returned thus :— . ‘ : . 1,163,074 ounces ‘ : 2 peur nie wv bol Bo OP g - Gist 1,606,267 Canoes. United States of North America . . 426,470 4, to the United Kingdom was . . 1] Tn 1875 the oil shipped from Ceylon P rigilehs coniteied ot SBT valued at 42,871 rupees, that sent to othe Tupees, to British possessions 660 rupees (one rupee oo to piintctsd: Oil of Lemon Grass, which is a more costly article and less on pa produced, was exported from Ceylon during the same year to of 13,515 ounces, more than half of para eg! te Oe : es for Ginited States, ‘There are no analogous Silo ie largely manufactured. Singapore, where, as stated at p. 726, they a i : By the official Report on the Baternal Sesestbi thee d Beals ‘Oil In 1867, we find that during the year ending 31 March, the amount of lie. Ginger-grass or Rusa Oil] was exported thence ve ¢ rts of the 4,643 Ib. “This oil is shipped to England and to the po ea, Uses—Grass oils are much esteemed in India as an — 5 a cation in rheumatism. Risa oil is said to stimulate the grow! eveia hair. Internally, grass oil is sometimes administered as a er a wep ton colic; and an infusion of the leaves of lemon grass 18 pte ase oued Phoretic and stimulant. In Europe and America the 2 ost exclusively by the soapmakers and perfumers. i i ia for ‘Tn addition to which, there were “842 species of ieee easly te eattle dozens and 33 packages > of the same oil _ thatching. oT aE becuse ppada Epes shipped to the United States. One ounce whose flesh and m: equal to 31:1 grammes. its strong aroma, * The foliage of the large odoriferous 728 ~. GRAMINEA But the most remarkable use made of any grass oil is that for adul- . terating Attar of Rose in European Turkey. The oil thus employed is that of Andropogon Schenanthus L. (see p. 725) ; and it is a curious fact _ that its Hindustani name is closely similar in sound to the word ose. Thus under the designation Rusa, Rowsah, Rosa, Rosé, Roshé} it is exported in large quantities from Bombay to the ports of Arabia, pro- bably chiefly to Jidda, whence it is carried to Turkey by the Mahom- Medan pilgrims. In Arabia and Turkey, it appears under the name Idris yaghi, while in the attar-producing districts of the Balkan it is known, at least to Europeans, as Geraniwm Oil or Palmarosa Oil. Before being mixed with attar, the oil is subjected to a certain preparation, which is accomplished by shaking it with water acidulated with lemon juice, and then exposing it to the sun and air. By this process, described by Baur,? the oil loses a penetrating after-smell, and acquires a pale straw colour. The optical and chemical differences between - grass oil thus refined and attar of rose are slight and do not indicate a small admixture of the former. If grass oil is added largely to attar, it will prevent its congealing. Adulteration—The grass oil prepared by the natives of India is not unfrequently contaminated with fatty oil. Other Products of the genus Andropogon. Herba Scheenanthi vel Squinanthi, Juncus odoratus, Fanum Camelorum. The drug bearing these names has had a place in pharmacy from the days of Dioscorides down to the middle of the last century, and is still met with in the East. The plant which affords it, formerly confounded _with other species, is now known to be Andropogon laniger Desf, a grass of wide distribution, rowing in hot dry regions in Northern Africa (Algeria), Arabia, and North-western India, reaching Thibet, where it is found up to an elevation of 11,000 feet. Mr. Tolbort has sent us Specimens under the name of Khdvé, gathered by himself in 1869 between Multan and Kot Sultan, and quite agreeing with the drug of pharmacy. The grass has an aromatic pungent taste, which is retained in very old specimens. We are not aware that it is distilled for essential oil. Cuscus or Vetti-ver’—This is the long fibrous root of Andropogon muratus Retz, a large grass found abundantly in rich moist ground in Southern India and Bengal. Inscriptions on copper-plates lately dis- _ covered in the district of Etawah, south-east of Agra, and dating from AD. 1103 and 1174, record grants of villages to Brahmins by the kings of Kanauj, and enumerate the imposts that were to be levied. These include taxes on mines, salt pits and the trade in precious metals, also on mahwah (Bassia) and mango trees, and on Cuscus Grass.” ,_ Cuseus, which appears occasionally in the London drug sales, is used in England for laying in drawers as a perfume. In India it serves for * 50 cases, containing about 225 ; ish i ia, is , g about 2250 1b.,im- name adopted by the English in India, Satie Bombay, were offered as ‘Rose probably See the Penan Khas. Vetti-ver 31 Jul be = byaLondondrugbroker, _is the Malyalim name of the plant. 3 2 Sen, P 267 . * Proc, of Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, Aug. 1873. * Cuscus, otherwise written Khus-khus, a ee _ RHIZOMA GRAMINIS. _ making tatties or screens, which are placed in windows and doorways, and when wetted, diffuse an agreeable odour and coolness. It is also used for making ornamental baskets and many small articles, and has some reputation as a medicine. RHIZOMA GRAMINIS. Radia Graminis; Couch Grass, Quitch Grass, Dog's Grass ; F. Chien- dent commun ow Petit Chiendent; G. Queckenwurzel, Graswurzel. Botanical Origin—Agropyrum repens P. Beauv. (Triticum re- pens L.), a widely diffused weed, growing in fields and waste places in all parts of Europe, in Northern Asia down to the region south of the Caspian, also in North America; and in South America to Patagonia and Tierra del Fuego. z History—The ancients were familiar with a grass termed” Aypwotis _ and Gramen, having a creeping rootstock like that under notice. It is impossible to determine to what species the plant is referable, though it is probable that the grass Oynodon Dactylon Pers., as well as Agropyrum repens, was included under these names. — oiler Dioscorides asserts that its root taken in the form of decoction, 1s a useful remedy in suppression of urine and vesical calculus. pape v2 statements are made by Pliny; and again occur in the writings 0 “3 basius' and Marcellus Empiricus’ in the 4th, and of Aétius’ in the 6t century, and are repeated in the medizval herbals,* where ye Fae of the plant may be found, as for instance in Dodoneus. The drug is also met with in the German pharmaceutical tariffs of the 16th eniwy, Turner’ and Gerarde both ascribe to a decoction of grass root diure . and lithontriptie virtues. The drug is still a domestic remedy 2 ee 2s in France, being taken as a demulcent and sudorific in the fo of tisane. : ooth Description—Couch-grass has a long, stiff, pale yellow, sm rhizome, zn of an inch in dinmete ereeping close under cod oe ime - the ground, occasionally branching, marked at intervals of a ae heath- by nodes, which bear slender branching roots and the remains of ing rudimentary leaves. _ As found ci the shops, the rhizome is always free ae ‘a “oy Aa 1nto short lengths of } to 4 of an inch, and dried. It is thus Chk eve of little, shining, straw-coloured, many: spaced, ernulat PENT) without odour, but have a slightly sweet taste. : : is rhizome shows Microscopic Structure—A transverse ee of ae J ahcs-abenice: ; two different portions of tissue, separated by the so-ca santo he latter consists of an unbroken ring of prismatic no Pega part : those oceurring in sarsaparilla. In Rhizoma Sy tae banallon Oy tie of the tissue exhibits a diffuse circle of about 20 segue Nick eke interior part about the same number of fibro-vascular ; ; : -onisejus. . . Valet contradissuriam = 1 De virtute simplicium, cap. i. (Agrostis). ogee a lapidem et curat vulnera 2 De medicamentis, cap. xxvi. vesiew et provocat urinam .. . - * Tetrabibli = sermo i. ‘ . As in the Herbarius Patavie printed in 485, in which it is said of Gramen—“ aqua 5 Herball, part 2, 1568. 13. aay GRAMINEA, densely packed. The pith is reduced to a few rows of cells, the rhizome — _ being always hollow, except at the nodes. No solid contents are to be met with in the tissue. Chemical Composition—The constituents of couch-grass include no substance to which medicinal powers can be ascribed. The juice of the rhizome afforded to H. Miller! about 3 per cent. of sugar, and 7 _ to 8 per cent. of Triticin, C°H”O", a tasteless, amorphous, gummy sub- stance, easily transformed into sugar if its concentrated solution is kept for a short time at 110°C. When treated with nitric acid, it yields oxalic acid. The rhizome affords also another gummy matter containing nitrogen, and quickly undergoing decomposition ; the drug moreover is somewhat rich in acid malates. Mannite is probably occasionally pre- sent as in taraxacum (p. 394), for such is the inference we draw from the opposite results obtained by Stenhouse and by Volcker. Starch, _ pectin and resin are wanting, The rhizome leaves 44 per cent. of asb. Uses—A decoction of the rhizome has of late been recommended in mucous discharge from the bladder. Substitutes—A gropyruin acutum R. et S., A. pungens R. et S., and A. juncewm P. Beauv., by some botanists regarded as mere maritime varieties of A. repens, have rootstocks perfectly similar to this latter. Cynodon Dactylon Pers., a grass very common in the South of Europe and the warmer parts of Western Europe, also indigenous to Northern Africa as far as Sennaar and Abyssinia, affords the Gros Chien- dent or Chiendent pied-de-poule of the French. It is a rhizome differing from that of couch-grass in being a little stouter. Under the microscope _ it displays an entirely different structure, inasmuch as it contains a large number of much stronger fibro-vascular bundles, and a cellular tissue loaded with starch, and is therefore in appearance much more woody. It thus approximates to the rhizome of Carex arenaria L., _ which is as much used in Germany as that of Cynodon in Southern Europe. The latter appears to contain Asparagin (the Cynodin of Semmola?), or a substance similar to it, * Archiv der Pharm. 203. (1873) 17. mola, Napoli, 1841.—Abstracted in the ~ , * Della Cinodina, nuovo prodotto organico, Jahreiberieht of Berzelius, Tubingen, 1845. trovato nella gramigna officinale, Cynodon 535. Dactylon.—Opere minori di Giovanni Sem- I—CRYPTOGAMOUS orn FLOWERLESS PLANTS. Vascular Crpptogams. LYCOPODIACE& SPOR LYCOPODII. Lycopodium; Semen vel Sporule Lycopodii; F. Lyeopode ; G. Barlappsamen, Hexenmehl. Te seen Origin—Lycopodiwm clavatwm L—This lant, the Com- enth ubmoss, is almost cosmopolitan. [tis found on hilly pastures and aths throughout Central and Northern Europe from the Alps and , aos to the Arctic reunions, in the mountains of the east and centre: saa my throughout Russian Asia to Amurland and Japan, in North i outh America, the Falkland Isles, Australia and the Cape of Good ae Tt occurs throughout Great Britain, but is most ple “Th nye atone counties. ine ils Oe : art of the plant employed in pharmacy is the minu nts a, as a yellow powder, a shake oak of the kidney-shaped capsules Sporangia, growing on the inner side of the bracts covering the t-spike. oie manner in which those spore: are able to reproduce the mother is not yet satisfactorily ascertained.’ as Muscus ter- History—The Common Clubmoss was well known Tragus, Dodonwus, by most of whom its — Supposed virtues as a herb have been commemorated. Though the ,and used as an application to Wounds in the middle of the 17th century,” it does not appear ® ort Tt ig Anown in the English shops until a paratively recent peri P ot included by Dale? in the list of drags ; x 92, nor efbamaccated in English drug lists of the last century ; and never had a place in the London Pharmacope?. The few . < 2 Schroder, Pharmacopeia Medico-chy- silent aeipton a ’Loeroutaum mma ol & Maal 2058: SOS ggg ee Bousen’s , Medicinisch - pharmaceutische » (quoted p. ph . "weg i, (Leipzig, 1878) 635, with ’ Pharmacologia, Lond. : tifulonthe ye 732 LYCOPODIACEZ. Description—Lycopodium is a fine, mobile, inodorous, tasteless powder of pale yellow hue, having at 16° C. a sp. gr. of 1:062. It floats on water and is wetted with difficulty, yet sinks in that fluid after boiling. By strong titration it coheres, assumes a grey tint, and leaves an oily stain on paper; it may then be mixed with water. It is imme- diately moistened by oily and alcoholic liquids, chloroform, or ether. It loses only 4 per cent. of moisture when dried at 100° C. When slowly _ heated, it burns away quietly, but when projected into flame, it ignites instantly and explosively, burning with much light, an effect exhibited by some other pulverulent bodies having a peculiar structure, as fern spores and kamala. Microscopic Structure—Under the microscope lycopodium is seen to be composed of uniform cells or granules, 25 mkm. in diameter, each bounded by four faces, one of which (the base) is convex, while the others terminate in a triangular pyramid, the three furrowed edges of which do not reach quite to the base. hese tetrahedral granules are marked by minute ridges, forming by their intersections, regular five- or six-sided meshes, At the points of intersection, small elevations are. produced, which, under a low magnifying power, give the granules a speckled appearance. Below this network lies a yellow, coherent, thin, but compact membrane, which exhibits considerable power of resistance, not being ruptured either by boiling water or by potash lye. Oil of vitriol does not act upon it in the cold, even after several days; but it instantly penetrates the grains and renders them transparent, while at the gine time numerous drops of oil make their appearance and quickly exude. Chemical Composition—One of the most remarkable constituents of Lycopodium spores is a fixed oil, which they contain to the astonishing amount of 47 per cent. Bucholz pointed out its existence in 1807, but obtained it only tothe extent of 6 per cent. Yet if the spores are thoroughly comminuted by prolonged trituration with sand, and are then exhausted with chloroform or ether, we find that the larger pro- portion above mentioned can be obtained. The oil is a bland liquid, which does not solidify even at — 15° C. _ By subjecting lypocodium or its extract to distillation with or without an alkali, Stenhouse obtained volatile bases, the presence of which we can fully confirm; but they occur in exceedingly small pro- portion. The ash of lycopodium amounts to 4 per cent. ; it is not alkaline; it contains alumina, and one per cent. of phosphoric acid, constituents likewise found in the green parts of the plant. . Production and Commerce—To obtain lycopodium, the tops of the plant are cut as the spikes approach maturity, taken home, and the powder shaken out and separated by a sieve. It is collected chiefly July and August, in Russia, Germany and Switzerland. The quantity aed re greatly by reason of frequent failures in the growth of plant. . France imported in 1870, 7262 kilo. (16,017 Ib.) of lycopodium, chiefly from Germany. The consumption in England is probably very much smaller, but there are no data to consult, : Uses—Ly copodium is not now regarded as possessing any medicinal virtues, and is only used externally for dusting excoriated surfaces au! RHIZOMA FILICIS. 733 for placing in pill boxes to prevent the mutual adhesion of pills. It is also employed by the pyrotechnist. Adulteration—The spores are so peculiar in structure, that they can be distinguished with certainty by the microscope from all other substances. It is only the species of clubmoss that are nearly related to L. clavatwm,' that yield an analogous product, and this may be used with equal advantage. ; The pollen of phzenogamous plants, as of Pinus silvestris, looks at first sight much like lyeopodium, but its structure is totally different and very easily recognized by the microscope. : Water, even on boiling, is unable to dissolve anything from lyco- podium ; slight traces of sulphate of calcium are not seldom met with in the filtrate. Yet an undue proportion of gypsum will be detected by the following methods :— 4 : Starch and dextrin, which are sometimes fraudulently mixed with the spores, are easily recognized by the well-known tests. Inorganic admixtures, as gypsum or magnesia, may be detected by their sinking in bisulphide of carbon, whereas lycopodium rises to the surface ; _ “i incineration, a good commercial drug leaving about 4 per cent. of ash. FILICES. RHIZOMA FILICIS. Radix Filicis maris ; Male Fern Rhizome, Male Fern Root; F. Racine de Fougtre mdle ; G. Farnwurzel. es ium Le Botanical Origin—Aspidiwm Filia mas Swartz (Polypodiwm ee Ne ephrodimm Michauy), The male fern is one of the most goed = buted species, usually growing in abundance and, aed ormation—The true nature of ergot —. diversity of opinion, not set at rest by th of L. R. Tulasne, from whose Mémoire sur V Erg following account is for the most part extrac The formation of ergot often affects only a few caryopsides in a nty. In the former Single ear; sometimes, however, more than twenty. | case, the healthy development of the other caryopsides is not prevented, but if too many are attacked, the entire ear decays. The more isolated ergots generally grow larger, and attain their greatest size on rye which Springs up here and there among other cereals. The first symptoms of ergot-formation is the so-called honey-dew of a. eay st ele mucus, having an intensely a eter wort gnea sagreeabl ing to fungi. Drops of this muc ag e odour frequently belonging gi cc phbtichesd = show themselves here and there on the ears in the nel . diseased grains, and attract ants and beetles of various kinds, especially et de Phys. méd. année 1776. 260-311. 417. 5 he " Th. von Heuglin, Reise nach Abessinien * Consult Hiser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medici , Pothctranbhiiten, 184 1868. 180. : icin und der Volkskrankheiten, 1845. ager and Husemann, Jahresbericht 1. 256. 830, ii. 94; C. F. Heusinger, Je- for 1870. 582. oes 1c z, Bot., Kx. (1853) has long been the source of e admirable researches ot des Glumacées,® the ~~ Elem. of Mat. Med. ii, (1850) cherches de Pthntocs eee Cased | . 554 5 “Verat et De L 5 Di t. 6 Ann. des Scie : “ed ed. iii, ig — on ayioane ais 1-56 and 4 ee a Bh. pad oe i : ~ i - . » in : issot of Lausanne, Phil. Trans. lv. tions ee, be <—_ hen tipy - —~ (1766 pi : )} 106.—See also Dodart, Mdém. de rra8T8) 418-434 with ol and espe- ? Acad. R. des Sci 1699 Fas, 1730) 561. Hist, de la Soe oy de cially in Luerssen (quote éd., année 1776, 345; and Mém. de Méd. — et 8°44 at p. 735) 156, 742 os FUNGL the yellowish-red Rhagonycha melanwra Fabr., but not bees, On this account the beetle in question has been supposed to be instrumental | in the development of ergot, and it may possibly be so, but only by transporting the saccharine mucus from one plant to another. _ The honey-dew of rye contains neither oil-drops nor starch. After dilution with water, it produces a rapid and abundant separation of cuprous oxide from an alkaline solution of cupric tartrate. Dried over sulphuric acid, it solidifies into a crystalline mass. After a few days the drops of honey-dew dry up and disappear from the ear. The grain at this period becomes completely disintegrated, and devoid of starch. The ergotized soft ovaries are covered with, and penetrated by a white, spongy, felted tissue, the myceliwm of the young fungus. It is made up of slender, threadlike cells, the hypho, the outer layer of which consists of radially-diverging cells, the basidia. The whole mycelium forms by its crevices and folds a number of cavities opening externally ; from its outer layer, which is also called the hymeniwm or spermato- phorum, an immense number of agglutinated, elongated granules, the conidia, are separated. These cells, the products of the basidia, are not more than four mkm. in length, and give the floral organs the appear- ance of being covered with a whitish dust. The honey-dew likewise contains an abundance of conidia, but it is only on dilution that they are precipitated and become easily perceptible; the formation of the honey-dew is intimately connected with that of the conidia themselves. Ergot in this primary or mycelium stage was regarded as an independent fungus by Léveillé (1827), who named it Sphacelia segetwm. According to Kiihn (1863), it may even be directly reprodued by germination ot the conidia within the ears of rye. The mycelium penetrates and envelops the caryopsis, with the ex- ception of the apex, and thereby prevents its further growth, destroying especially the epicarp and the embryo. At the base of the caryopsis, there is formed by tumefaction and gradual transverse separation of the thread-cells of the mycelium, a more compact kernel-like body (the future ergot) vidlet-black without, white within, which gradually but largely increases in size, and ultimately separates from the mycelium as the loose tissue of the latter dries and shrinks up after the completion of its functions, By this growth, the remains of the caryopsis, still _ Tecognizable by their hairs and by the rudiments of the style, as well as by the surviving portions of the mycelium-tissue, become visible above the paleze on the apex of the mature ergot, now projecting prominently from the ear, Very rarely the ergot is crowned by a fully developed seed ; in the commercial drug, the apex is usually broken of. oS It is evident that in the process of development just described, the very tissue of the caryopsis of the rye does not undergo a transformation, 2 but that it is simply destroyed. Neither in external form, nor in anatom!- cal structure does ergot exhibit any resemblance to a caryopsis or a seed, although its development takes ae between the feecaee time and wt at which the rye begins to ripen. It has been regarded as a com- ae fungus, and as such was named by De Candolle (1816) Selerotwum — and by Fries Spermedia Clavius. Batt o further change in the ergot occurs while it remains in the ears ut laid on damp earth, interesting phenomena take place. At certalt points, small orbicular patches of the rind fold themselves back, and Z fete s Ge ers 2 SECALE CORNUTUM, = 7H. gradually throw out little white heads. These increase ag sae the outer layers of the neighbouring tissue gradually peli oy eave and become soft and rather granular, at the same time that the cells, of which they are made up, become empty and extended, In the interior of the ergot, the cells retain their oil drops unaltered. The heads assume a ereyish-yellow colour, changing to purple, and finally after some weeks stretch themselves towards the Fight on slender shining stalks of a pale violet colour. The stalks often attain an inch in length se a thickness of about } a line. They consist of thin, para lel, : osely felted cell-threads, devoid of fat oil. “Ergot is susceptible of this urther development only so long as it is fresh, that is to say, at most until the next flowering time of rye. Within this period however, even fragments are capable of development. There are sometimes also pro- duced colourless threads of mould which belong to other fungi, as Verticillium cylindrosporwm Corda, and which frequently overgrow the Claviceps.' : At the point where the stalk joins the spherical or somewhat flattened — head, the latter is depressed and surrounds the stalk with an annular border. After a short time there appear on the surface of the head, which is 45 of an inch in diameter, a number of brownish warts, in — which are the openings of minute cavities, the concepta or perithecia. On transverse section, they appear arranged radially round the circumference of the head. In each cavity are a large number of delicate sacs, only 3-5 mkm. thick, and about 100 mkm. long, the thecw or asci, each containing, as is usual in fungi, 8 spores. These are simple thread-shaped cells, filled with a homogeneous solid mass. The thicker ends of the spore-sacs (asci) open while still within the — _-Perithecium ; the spores issue united in a bundle, and are emitted from the aperture of the perithecium. In consequence of their somewhat — glutinous consistence, they remain united even after their extrusion, and form white silky flocks; their number in the 20 or 30 heads somesiois produced from a single ergot, often exceeds a million. The heads them- Selves die in two or three weeks after they have begun to make _ appearance. They represent the true fructification of the fungus. oe state of the plant appears to have been first noticed in 1801 by Schumacher, who called it Spharia; it was subsequently known as Cordiceps, Cordyliceps, Kentrosporium, ete., until Tulasne proved it to be the final stage of development of ergot. en The three different forms of this structure, namely, the myoe™. the ergot, and the fruit-bearing heads, are therefore merely = States of one and the same biennial fungus, which have been apprey. ‘ ately united by Tulasne under the name of Claviceps PUNT of middle stage forms the sclerotiwm, which occurs 10 & : num — the most various fungi, and is @ special state of rest of t ao The direct proof that the mycelium 18 produced from spores 0: winter of 1869-70, Claviceps, Ergot of : after the cold ? : rye collected by myself in a , did not make its even in the germ llth May, The August, placed upon earth in a garden-pot "9 eft in the open air aniprosatel sieeniigh apps arance Lepage) fully developed ergots © winter, began to develop the Claviceps earliest instance d, occurred on the 1 onthe 20th March, and on another occasion which I ever observec, iy they are seen only onthe 20th April, at which date somesowed of Juune; MOM. fro A in February al A began to start. Sharp in the beginning of Juty.—?- t appears to retard the vegetation; thus, 744 FUNGI. head sown on ears of rye, was supplied by Kiihn in 1863. It has already been mentioned that the same organism is produced from conidia; whence it appears that a twofold formation of ergot is possible, as is frequently the case in other fungi. _ Description—Spurred rye, as found in commerce, consists of fusi- form grains, which it is convenient to term ergots. They are from } to 1} inch in length, and $ to 4 lines in diameter; their form is subcylin- drical or obtusely prismatic, tapering towards the ends, generally arched, - with a longitudinal furrow on each side. At the apex of each ergot, there is often a small whitish easily detached appendage, while the _ opposite extremity is somewhat rounded. The ergots are firm, horny, _ somewhat elastic, have a close fracture, are brittle when dry, yet difficult to pulverize. The whitish interior is frequently laid bare by deep transverse cracks. The tissue is but imperfectly penetrated by water, _ even the thinnest sections swelling but slightly in that fluid. _ Ergot of rye has a peculiar offensive odour, and a mawkish, rancid _ taste. It is apt to become deteriorated by keeping, especially when pulverized, partly from oxidation of the oil, and partly from the attacks of a mite of the genus Trombidium. To assist its preservation, it should be thoroughly dried, and kept in closed bottles. Microscopic Structure—In fully developed ergot, no organs can be distinguished. It consists of uniform, densely felted tissue of short, thread-like, somewhat thick-walled cells, which are irregularly packed, and so intimately matted together that it is only by prolonged boiling of thin slices with potash, and alternate treatment with acids and ether, that the individual cells can be made evident. Without such treatment, the cells even in the thinnest sections, show a somewhat _ Tounded, nearly isodiametric outline. This pseudo-parenchyme of ergot exhibits therefore an aspect somewhat different from that of the loosely felted cells (hyphe) of other fungi. Ergot nevertheless is not made up of cells differing from those of fungi generally. If thin longitudinal _ slices of the innermost tissue are allowed to remain in a, solution of chromic acid containing about 1 per cent., they will distinctly show the hyphe, which are however considerably shorter than those of other - fungi. They contain numerous drops of fat oil, but neither starch nor crystals. It is remarkable that this nearly empty and not much thickened parenchyme should form so compact and solid a tissue. ___ The cell-walls of the tissue of ergot are not coloured blue, even after prolonged treatment with iodine in solution of potassium iodide ; or when the tissue has been previously treated with sulphuric acid, or kept for days in contact with potash and absolute alcohol at 100° C. = _ respect the cellulose of fungi differs from that of phanerogamic Of the outermost rows of cells in ergot, a few only are of a violet colour, but they are not otherwise distinguishable from the colourless tissue-—or at most by the somewhat greater thickness of their walls. , ,Chemical Composition—The composition of ergot has been _ elaborately investigated by Wiggers as early as 1830. The drug contains about 30 per cent. of a non-drying, yellowish ol; chiefly consisting of olein, palmitin, and small proportions © volatile fatty acids, especially acetic and butyric, combined with SECALE CORNUTUM. Se glycerin. The large amount of oil is remarkable; the fungi, dried at 100°, usually contain not more than 5 per cent. of fat, mostly much less; they are on the other hand much richer in albumin than ergot of rye. ‘The oil of the latter, as extracted by bisulphide of carbon, is accompanied by small quantities of resin and cholesterin (see p. 420). It is erroneous to attribute to this oil the poisonous properties of ergot, although it has been shown by Ganser' to display irritating properties when taken in doses of about 6 grammes. But the effects observed appear dependent on the presence in it of resin. According to Wenzell (1864), ergot of rye contains two peculiar alkaloids, which he designated Kcboline and Ergotine, and claimed to be the active principles of the drug. They were, however, got merely as brownish amorphous substances. The two bases of ergot are, according Ergotic Acid, the existence of which has Ganser. It is said to be a volatile body yielding _ A crystallized colourless alkaloid, Hrgotinine, : isolated (1877-1878) by Tanret, a pharmacien of Troyes. He obtained it to the amount of about 0-04 per cent., some amorphous ergotinine moreover being present. Tanret exhausts the powdered drug with boiling alcohol, which by evaporation affords a fluid resin and an aqueous solution, besides a fatty layer. Some ergotinine is remove ixed with the main from th i ing it wi h d mi e resin by shaking it with ether, an of ether. Lastly, the f carbonate of potas- sium and shaking with ether, and recrystallizing from alcohol. The Solutions of ergotinine turn very soon greenish and red ; hols fluorescent. Sulphuric acid imparts to i¢ a red, violet, and finaly lue hue. 4 Re ae Dragendorff and several of his pupils, since 1875, have 1s0 Nee ig ollowing amorphous principles of the drug under notice —(1) sie acid (doubtful formula C"H"NO’), said to be a Vly me phar A naa chiefly in subeutaneous injections. About 4 per cent of ae ee: may be obtained from good ergot of rye. (2) gir BCE HS a ginous matter, which may be precipitated by alcoho. jaide in extracts of the drug. Scleromucin when dried is 20 long gota - water. (3) Sclererythrin, the red co A A to pur anthrachinon and the colouring substances madder, chienly | purin. (4) Sclerojodin, a bluish black powe ; gals “Nes ad (6) Picrosclerotine, apparently highly poisob ous alkaloid. Lastly (7) Scleroxanthin, agen ’ heir alcoholic to Wenzell, combined with been further admitted by erystallizable salts. C5 4°N408, has been crystallin, C'H'O*, have been obtained in ¢ sti f pon is but little coloured, yet assumes 4 violet hue on addition © erric chloride. atile camphoraceous Tanret also observed in ergot of rye ® vol substance : . ; terme Ergot, in common with other fungi,* contains 4 sugar d Mycose, . Pereira, Liem. of Mat. Med. : ~ Raed der abe exliv. Preto: 200. Pe e name Lrgotine has also been give? «(A = a medicinal extract of ergot, prepared ee: ter a method devised by Bonjean, @ phar- (1873) 649: macien of Chambéry, vide Journ. de Pharm. OTB apa cee -FUNGL closely allied to cane sugar, and probably identical with T'rehalose (see p- 417). Mycose crystallizes in rhombic octohedra, having the com- position C*H”O" + 2H’O. Mitscherlich obtained of it about one-tenth per cent. It appears that the sugar exuded in the first stage of growth of the fungus,—the so-called rye honey-dew,—is in its principal charac- ters different from mycose. Instead of the latter, Mitscherlich, as well as Fiedler and Ludwig, sometimes obtained from ergot Mannite. Schoonbroodt also found in ergot Lactie Acid. Several other chemists have further proved the presence of acetic and formic acids. Starch is entirely wanting in ergot at all times. The drug yields about 3 per cent. of nitrogen, corresponding probably to a large amount _ of albuminoid matter. Ganser, however, obtained only 3:2 per cent. of albumin soluble in water. : When ergot or its alcoholic extract is treated with an alkali it yields, as products of the decomposition of the albuminoid matters, ammonia or ammonia-bases,—according to Ludwig and Stahl, Methy- lamine,—aceording to others, Trimethylamine. Manassewitz, as well as Wenzell, state that phosphate of trimethylamine is present in an aqueous extract of ergot, but Ganser ascertained that no such base _ pre-exists in ergot, We have found that the crystals which abound in the extract, after it has been kept for some time, are an acid phosphate of sodium and ammonium with a small proportion of sulphate.’ Production and Commerce—Ergot of rye is to be met with in all the countries producing cereals; we have seen it in the high valleys of the Alps, and Schiibeler states that it grows in Norway, as far north as 60° N. lat. The drug is chiefly imported into London from Vigo in Spain and from Teneriffe ; it is also shipped from Hamburg and France. Dr. de Lanessan, writing to one of us from Vigo in 1872, remarks that vast quantities of rye are grown in Galicia, and that owing to the humidity of the climate the grain is extensively ergotized,—in fact the parasite is present in one ear out of every three. At the time of harvest the ergots are picked out, and the rye is thus rendered fit for food. Q Southern and Central Russia furnish considerable supplies of the drug.. Tn the central parts of Europe, ergot does not everywhere occur in sufficient abundance to be collected, and it greatly diminishes as the state of agriculture improves. We have noticed that ergot from — was of.a slaty hue and in much smaller grains than that from pain. Uses—Ergot is principally used on account of its specific action on the uterus in parturition. __. Other Varieties of Ergot—Ergot of Wheat (Triticum vulgare), which is in shorter and thicker ergots than that of rye, is picked out by hand in some parts of Italy and France, from grain intended to be used for the manufacture of vermicelli and other pastes ; and such ergot is sold to druggists. Carbonneaux Le Perdriel 2 has endeavoured to show ? The red colour of an alcoholic solution with i i . ma ; carbon bisulphide may also be recom : tee of akt pee seiontion of small quan- mended asa patra sl 4 as good cer our, e reaction with i i centage potash, and evolution of the characteristic pg contain but a very small per odour of he brine ma: ist i i C 2 Imay assist in the 2 Del’ Ergot de Froment et de ses proprietes same object. eatin of the fatty oil —_méd. (these) Montpetiex, 1862. - 747. that it is less prone to become deteriorated by age than that of rye, and that it never produces the deleterious effects sometimes occasioned by the latter. The same writer asserts that Ergot of Oat is sometimes collected and sold either per se, or mixed with that of rye. It differs from the latter in the ergots being considerably more slender. oe Ergot of the North African grass Arundo Ampelodesmos Cirillo, known as Diss, has been collected for use, and according to Lallemant is twice as active as that of rye. It is from 1 to 3 inches long by only about +15 of an inch broad, generally arched, or in the large ergots twisted spirally. We find it to share the structural character of the ergot of tye; it is in all probability the same formation, yet remarkably modified, CHONDRUS CRISPUS ALGA (FLORIDEA). CHONDRUS CRISPUS. Fucus Hibernicus; Carrageen? Ivish Moss; F. aaa pisontt Mousse perlé ; G. Knorpeltang, Irldndisches Moos, Perlmoos. Botanical Origin—Chondrus crispus Lyngbye hone f saul : asea weed of the class Floridew, abundant on rocky sea-s pers Baltic, — from the North Cape to Gibraltar; not frequent agi 7 wk on and altogether wanting in the Mediterranean, but largely me the eastern coasts of North America. Miriece® yet i History—Chondrus erispus was figured in 1699 Ba “A medical — only Todhunter at Dublin introduced it to the ee attracted some profession in England in 1831, and shortly ares wes Laan or British attention in Germany. It was never admitted to a! pharmacopceia, and is but little esteemed in iti fresh state it is Description—The entire plant is collected : ne 1 oo soft and cartilaginous, varying in colour from ye hing and exposure purple or purplish-brown, but becoming, afer bs as 28 horny and ad sun, white or yellowish, and when dry, 8 Tanslucent, ; ings a frond or The base is a small flattened dise, from ag ner subeylindrical thallus 4 to 6 inches or more in length, having & rile of very variable Stem, expanding fan-like into wedge- haped oe ale ‘or bifid at the ~ breadth, flat or curled, and truncate, emargini ‘aa summit, tocarps, rising bu The fructification ‘ consists of pita tia “i rearing as little wart- slightly from the substance of the thallus, and ap : € protuberances. ‘ + nal bulk, and acquires n cold water, carrageen swells up to ae ace equal to 20 or 30 4 distinct seaweed-like smell. A quantity > itten carrai- “ te ore correctly w Etude sur VErgot du Diss, Alger et neo est Academy of Madrid. We have not seen the earlier partial editions, ve Pe pargieed es de la natural y general Historia de las Indias,” Toledo, 152° ol, “Primera parte de la Historia natural y general de las Indias,” Sevil SP pe ee “Y APPENDIX, 7 por Cromberger, 1535, fol.; nor ‘Cronica de las Indias,” 1547. See also Colmeiro, La Botanica y los Botanicos de la peninsula Hispano-Lusi- tana, Madrid, 1858, 26, No. 220 (Fernandez) and 149; also Haller, Bibl. botanica, i. 272, who calls him Gundisalvus or Gonsalvus Hernandez. He is also quoted by others as Oviedo. See pages 95. 101. 186. 213. 453, 466. 534. Fuchs, Leonhard, 1501-1566, Professor of medicine in the University of Tubingen from 1535 to 1566, author of De historia stirpiwm commentarii insignes . . . . Basilew, 1542, fol., a work equally remarkable for the excellent woodcuts and the careful descriptions. See pages 170. 429. 453. 456. 469. 652. Galenos, Claudius Galenus Pergamenus, A.D. 131-200, a most distinguished medical writer, imperial physician at Rome. Many drugs and officinal plants are mentioned in his numerous works, which were held in the highest reputa- tion during the middle ages. See pages 35, 222. 268. 503. 519. 559. 609. Garcia—See Orta. Gerarde, John, 1545-1607, London, surgeon.—The Herbail, or generall historie of plantes, 1597. See pies 31. 71. 170. 218. 254. 268. 453. 459. 480. 486. 487. 537. 552. 568. 589. 611. 655. 661. 694. 700. 729. q : Gesner, Conrad, 1516-1565, Ziirich, the most learned naturalist of his time (See also Cordus). See pages 299, 384. 390. 439, 456. Helvetius, Jean-Claude-Adrien, 1661-1727, physician at Paris. See pages 26. 371. Hernandez, Francisco, physician to about the years 1561-1577 in Mexico.—Qu King Philip II. of Spain ; he lived os en el uso de medicina en la atro libros de la naturaleza y virtu- tes de las plantas y animales que estan recevid rey aly weforrel to Antoalb oS | Nueva Espafia ... . . Mexico, 1615.—We | : 4 i Reccho’s lintslaiioe: Nova plantarum, animalium fd eo saet orum Historia, rerum medicarum Nove Hispanie eet with G Fer- fol. (first. edition, 1628). Hernandez must not be confoun : aay de Oviedo (See Fernandez). ee pages 202, 206. 657. nel tb Hildegardis, 1099-1179, the abbess of the Benedictine o Phyeloa,” Lie Ruprechtsberg, near Bingen (“ Pinguia”) on io oe is contained in tom. of the most interesting medieval works of its kind, i completus, under exevii. (1855) 1117-1352 of J. P. Migne's Patrologia cur . . Liber i. the name “Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum + + + De Plantis, See pages 305. 378. 476. 512. 551. 584. Ibn Baitar—See Baitar. Ibn Batuta—See Batuta. Ibn Khordadbah—See Khurdadbah. Idrisi—See Edrisi. an Egypt I Jaqtib Ishaq. -- >> 5 labites ; Biivowan, i ates roe a physician Sseckgene vee Tiodliins “died about A.p. 932-941. See Choulant, Biicher “i 170 1841, 347 ; also Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, im. 1/0. See pages 217. 225. 325. 377. ~ jan Jew, living at 758 - APPENDIX. Isidorus, Hispalensis, Bishop of Sevilla, about a.p. 595-636, author of a great cyclopeedia, Htymologiarwm libri xx. We have referred to it in “ Sancti Isidori Opera omnia,” in the vol. Ixxxii. (1859) of J. P. Migne’s Patrologie cursus completus. See pages 305. 380, 493. 529. 664. Istachri, Abu Ishaq Alfarsi Alistachri (¢.¢. of Istachr, the ancient Perse- polis, in the Persian province Fars). His geographical work has been trans- lated (in the Transactions of the Academy of Ham) by Mordtmann: Das Buch der Linder you Schech Ebn Ishak el Farsi el Isztachri. Hamburg, 1845. See pages 316. 414. 716. Kamel (or Camellus), George Joseph, born at Briinn, Moravia, A.D. 1661, a member of the company of Jesus A.D. 1682, By permission of his superiors, he left in 1688 for the Marianne islands and the Philippines. After having acquired a certain knowledge of botany and pharmacy, he established, at Manila, a pharmaceutical shop with the view of supplying medicaments gratis to the poor ; he died there in 1706. Kamel communicated his botani- cal investigations to Ray and Petiver (see R.); consult also A. de Backer, Bibliotheque des Ecrivains de la compagnie de Jésus, iv. (Liége, 1858) 89. See pages 148. 432. Kampfer, Engelbert. Born in 1651 at Lemgo, Westphalia; travelled asa physician in Persia (1683-1685), India, Java, Siam (1690), Japan (1690-1692) ; graduated in 1694 at Leiden, and died in 1716 at Lemgo. His work, Ament tatum exoticarum fasciculi v., Lemgo, 1712, was intended as a specimen of more elaborate accounts of the various observations of the well-informed and zealous author. But only a History and description of Japan was published in German in 1777, by Dohm at Lemgo. Kiampfer’s unpublished manuscripts and collections were purchased, in 1753, by Sir Hans Sloane, for the British Museum. See pages 20, 44. 167. 263. 272. 315. 512. 513, 527. __ Kazwini, an Arabic geographer of the 13th century.—Ethé, Kazwini's Kosmographie. Leipzig, 1869. See pages 503. 521. 573, Khurdadbah or Ibn-Chordadbeh, engaged, towards the end of the 9th century, in the police and postal administration of Mesopotamia, and collect- ing informations about the products and tributes of the empire of the Khalifes. They are translated by Barbier du Meynard: Le livre des routes et des pro- vinces, par Ibn Khordadbeh. Journal asiatique, v. (1865) 227-296 and 446-527. See pages 282. 512, 518. 573. 577. 642. Kosmas Alexandrinos Indikopleustes, a Greek merchant, a friend of Alexander Trallianus (p. 752), living in Egypt, travelling in India, and lastly, towards the middle of the 6th century, a monk. His monstrous work, Christiana topographia, contains, nevertheless, a small amount of valuable information. We referred to it as contained in Migne’s Patrologie cursus completus, series greca, t. xxviii. (1850) 374. See pages 281. 577. 599, : Lefebvre or Le Fébre, Nicolas, 16. .-1674, Paris (partly also London), “ Apoticaire ordinaire du Roy, distillateur chymique de sa Majesté”—Zrave de la Chymie, Paris, i. (1660) 375-377, See pages 65. 381. Liber pontificalis seu de gestis Romanorum pontificum. Rome, 1724 _ (edition of Vignolius). A new edition will be brought out in the Monumenta Germanin, 7 See pages 137. 142, 281, APPRNGIE 2 7 eee Macer Floridus, wrote, A.D. 1140, the book De viribus herbarum. The editio princeps was printed A.D. 1487 in Naples; the best edition is that of Choulant, Leipzig, 1832 (140 pages). Nothing exact is known about that author himself. See pages 627. 642. 684. Marcellus Empiricus, a high functionary of the two emperors Theodosius, towards the end of the 4th and in the beginning of the 5th centuries.—De medicamentis empiricis, physicis ac rationalibus liber. Basilem, 1536. See pages 183. 729. Marcgraf, Georg, 1610-1644, astronomer and geographer to Count Johann Moriz von Nassau. See Piso. See pages 187. 211. 228. 371. Masudi, or Almasudi, Macoudi. A.D, 900-958, Born at Bagdad, travelled in Arabia, India, and in the East of Africa. One of the distinguished geographic writers of the Arabs. His works are being published by the Société asiatique of Paris: Les Prairies d'Or, texte et traduction par Barbier de Meynard et Pavet de Courteille, 8 vols., 1869-1873 (in continuation). See pages 503. 573. 584. 600. 680. Mattioli, Pierandrea. Born in 1501 at Siena; living asa physician at Trento, Gorz, Prag ; died A.D. 1577. There are many editions of his chief work, Commentarii in sex libros Pedacii Dioscoridis Anazarbei de medica materia. The first, in Italian, was published in 1544 at Venice. See pages 32. 147. 183. 390. 439. 456. 609. 650. Meddygon Myddvai—See Physicians. : a Mesué, the younger. Jahjé ben Masaweih ben Ahme ire orn al Maredin, Rindistads riya to the Khalif Alhakem at Cairo; died a.p. 1015. See pages 40. 225. 493. ek Monardes, Nicolas, 1493-1588, physician at eile ee i- de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales, ce idle cina, Sevilla, 1569. Latin edition by Clusius, a ee Antvetp 1574. ex occidentali India delatis, quorum m medicina usus ie 870) 298. See Hanbury’s appreciation of the book : Pharm. J, ge @ See pages 148, 202. 206. 443. 466. 534. 537. 6 ‘an to the viceroy of Mutis, José Celestino, 1732-1808; 1760, physic ica” of that New Granada; 1782, in charge of an “ expedicion Tr : pgs 4 Seen country. See Triana’s work, quoted at page gue cell appear to have apparently with good reason, the merits of Mutis, whic been overrated by Humboldt. 4 See pages 106. 345. Ionia, in the Nikandros Kolophonios, 2nd century B.c. Physician and poet. See page 6. ee Nostredame, Michel de. Born 1503 at ent orlanig astrologer at Aix and Lyons; died £D. ee page 405. ee r Julianus Oribasios Pergamenos, a friend and lhe Sr DF Darenbery Apostata, 4th century. We referred chiefly ms ue ahs completes pete aa pe an ety F ee ee pages 35. 129. 175. oA ee : known.) Orta, eee de, or Garcia ab Horto. (Years of birth and death asd of Klaros, near Kolophon in tRemi, Provence. Physi- at Salon, Provence. 760 APPENDIX. He was a student of medicine and natural sciences in the Universities of Sala- manea and Alcala, and a teacher and physician in the University of Coimbra (or Lissabon 1). In 1534 Garcia accompanied Martim Affonso de Souza, grand admiral of the Indian fleet, to Goa, and lived there as a royal physician _ (Physico @El Rey) to the hospital. Garcia appears to have been still living there in 1562, when he obtained the vice-regal privilege for his book “ Coloquios dos simples e drogas he cousas mediginais da India, e assi dalguas frutas achadas nella ande se tratam. . . . _Impresso em Goa, por Joannes de endem as x de Abril de 1563,” 436 pp., 4°. (British Museum).—F. A. von Varnhagen has caused the Coloquios to be reprinted in 1872 at Lisbon. Garcia de Orta’s Coloquios are, notwithstanding the utterly diffused style of the work, a precious source of information on eastern drugs. They had the good chance to be translated, as early as the year 1567, by Clusius, who omitted the insignificant parts of the book, re-arranged it conveniently, and added valuable notes. See Fliickiger in Buchner’s Repertorium fiir Pharmacie, xxv. (1876) 63-69. See pages 43. 86. 130. 154. 200. 225, 241. 272. 405. 415. 429. 462. 512. 521. 527. 547. 585. 638. 644. 712. Oviedo, Capitan Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdés—See Fer- nandez. Palladius, Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus, an agricultural author of the 4th or 5th century of our era, living probably in northern Italy. We have chiefly referred to Visurd’s edition of the fourteen books of Palladius “ De re 7 which is contained in Firmin Didot’s “Les Agronomes latins,” Paris, See page 328, Parkinson, John, 1567-1629 (2), an apothecary of London, and diree- tor of the Royal Gardens at Hampton Court. Zheatrum botanicum, or an herball of large extent... . . London, 1640. fol. _ See pages 84.. 189. 287. 429. 469. 470. 500. 556. 589. 616. 623. 648. 698. 731. Paulus Aigineta (Paulos Aiginetes), a physician of the first half ot the 7th century of our era, who appears to have lived for some time at Alex- andria, _ Author of “seven books” on medicine, which have been first pub- lished, in Greek, in 1528 at Venice, and, in Latin, in 1532 at Paris, translated by Winter (Guinterus) of Andernach : Compendii medici libri septem. We have also referred to the translation of Adams. See pages 3. 35. 175. 183. 271. 281. 559. 563. =>Pavon; J: osé, a Spanish botanist, who explored in common with Ruiz the flora of Peru. Biographic particulars about Pavon are wanting even in Col- ae : See y los botanicos de la peninsula Hispano-Lusitana, See pages 345. 590. Paxi or Pasi, Bartolomeo di ; the author of a curious book giving practical information about the weights and measures in use in various couD- tries. There are many editions, the first of which, as examined in 1876 by one she (P.A.F.) in the library of San Marco, Venice, is found to bear the olowing title:— Qui comincia la utilissima opera chiamata Taripha, la qvol tracta de ogni sorte de pexi e misure conrispondenti per tuto il mondo fata ¢ toe tery per lo excelente e eximio Miser Bartholomeo di Paai da Venezia. tampado in uenezia per Albertin da lisona uercellese regnante | inclyto prin- 88 ,miser Leonardo Loredano. Anno domini 1503. A di 26 del mese de See pages 235. 609, APPEND <7" 761. Peres—See Pires. Periplus Maris Erythreai, a survey of the Red Sea and the Indian _ Ocean as far as the coast of Malabar. In his interesting account, written about between A.D. 54 and 68, the author, commonly called Arrian of Alexandria, gives a list of imports and exports of the various places which he had visited or of which he had good informations. See Vincent, Commerce and Naviga- tion of the Ancients, etc.. London, vol. i. (1800), ii. (1805); also C. Miiller, Geographi greeci minores, i. (Paris, 1855) 257-305. Anonymi (Arriant ut fertur) Periplus maris erythrei. See pages 35. 142. 272. 493. 520. 529. 577. 599. 664. 675. 680. 715. Physicians of Myddvai (Meddygon Myddfai). Rhys Gryg (i. the Hoarse), prince of South Wales (died in 1233 at Llandeilo Vawr), had his domestic physician, namely Rhiwallon, who was assisted by his three sons Cadwgan, Gruffydd, Einion, from a place called Myddvai, in the present county of Caermarthen. They made a collection of recipes, the original manuscript of which is in the British Museum. Another collection has been compiled, from the original sources, by Howel the Physician, son of Rhys, son of Llewelyn, son of Philip the Physician, a lineal descendant of Einion, the son of Rhiwallon. Both these compilations have been published at Llandovery in 1861, together with a translation, by John Pughe, under the above title (470 pp.) ; Imeiro, La Botanica y los Sociedad Pharmaceutica Lusitana, According artery wes. 18, Peres was ba ” (secretary?) and a por of an ambassador, in order to examine more freely va after 1521 in prison. prisoned, says Colmeiro, at Pekin, and there died WG universelle” (1823), - Yet Abel Rémusat, in the 34th volume of the “ Biographie.* (1828) 203, states p. 498, and also in his “ Nouveaux mélanges org eam in 1521. From this that Pires proceeded first to Canton, one ee Place he was sent to Canton and im precaet:? causes. He was still living in 1543. See pages 43, 255. 681. tain, London, among the , Library of the Pharm. Soc. of Great Bri 30” (Sept. 1878). years from political — : «Pamphlets, No. 762 APPENDIX. Piso, Willem. The Dutch, having conquered in 1630 from the Spanish the north-eastern part of the Brazilian coast, between Natal and Porto Calvo, Count Johann Moriz von Nassau-Siegen was appointed, in 1636, Governor- General of these possessions. He left them in 1644; the history of his reign is contained in the work of Barleus, Rerum per Octoennium . . . gestarum .. . historia, Amstelodami, 1647. The Count had also instituted a scientific exploration of the environs of Pernambuco (or Recife), his residence, by his physician Piso and Marcgraf, the friend of the latter (see M.), who lived also at the Count’s court. They devoted several years (from 1638 to 1641) zealously to their task. The results of their investigations are found in—(J) Historia naturalis Brasilie, published by Joh. de Laet, Lugd. Bat., 1643. (2) Pisonis de medicina brasiliensi libri iv., et G. Maregravii Mistorie rerum na- turalium Brasilie libri viii. Lugd. Bat., 1648. (3) Pisonis de utriusque Indie historia naturali et medica libri xiv. Amstelodami, 1658. See pages 27. 113. 114. 130. 152. 211. 228. 371. 591. See pages 225. 316. 581. Plinius (Cajus Plinius Secundus), A.D. 23-79, the well-known author of the “ Naturalis historie libri xxxyii.” We have particularly used Littré’s translation, “Histoire naturelle de Pline,” published in 2 vols. by Firmin Didot, Paris, 1877. _ See pages 6. 35. 43. 97. 147. 161. 179. 234. 276, 281. 291. 305. 310. 328, 329, 333, 377. 434, 439. 474, 486. 488. 493. 503, 519. 529, 543. 556. 558. 576. _ 595. 609, 627. 644, 661. 664. 672. 677. 680. 729. 733. Plukenet, Leonard, 1642-1706, physician, director of the Royal gardens, London; collector of a large herbarium still existing in the British Museum. See page 16. Polo, Marco, a noble Venetian, the most famous among medieval travellers. He spent 25 years, from 1271 to 1295, in Asia, chiefly in China. The account of his travels was written, in French, in 1298, by Rusticiano 0 Pisa, and published since in numerous translations and abstracts. We have chiefly referred to the two following excellent works: (1) Pauthier. 10 livre de Marco Polo, publié pour la premitre fois d’aprés trois manuscrits inédits de la Bibliotheque impériale de Paris, 1865. (2) Yule. The book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, concerning the kingdom and marvels of ngs — with notes and illustrations. 2 vols. London, 1871, second edition See pages 200. 282. 494. 510. 512. 520. 584. 636. 717. Pomet, Pierre, “marchand épici cars . : des Lone i 1)? : picier et droguiste 4 Paris, rué des bards, & la Barbe d’Or.”—Histoire générale des drogues, 1694, fol. 528 pages, 400 engravings. There are later editions in 2 vols., 4°; that of 1735 by the “APPENDIRS 5 0 ey gg author's son, an “ apotiquaire” at St. Denis. See Hanbury's appreciation of : the book, Pharm. Journ. i. (1870) 298. heat See pages 21. 26. 73. 118, 126. 148. 260. 263. 479. 617, 623, 648, 657, Porta, Giovanni Battista, 1539(?)-1615, a distinguished Napolitan noble- ” man. Of his remarkable works we have before us—De distillatione, lib. ix. Rome 1608, 154 pp. It is partly contained also in Porta’s Magiw naturalis libri xx, 1589, yet not in the earlier editions of the Magia, the first of which appeared in 1558. Another work of the same author, the Phytognomica, Naples, 1583, may be mentioned as one of the chief works treating on the “Doctrine of Signatures.” There are several editions of it, usually containing” the curious figures of the tubers of orchids as especially connected with that superstitious doctrine. See pages 118. 263. 385. 479. 526. 580. 653. 655. Prepositus, Nicolaus, one of the eminent physicians of the school of Salerno (see S.) living in the first half of the 12th century. He gives in his Antidotarium, first edition, Venetiis 1471, the composition of about 150 medicines, which were much used, under his name, during the following centuries. They are enumerated in Choulant’s book, mentioned p. 751 meer Pun-tsao, a great Chinese herbal, written by Le-she-chin, in the mid of the 16th century. It consists of 40 thin octavo volumes, the first three of = which contain about 1,100 woodcuts. For more exact information 00 Hanbury, Science Papers, 212 et seq. See pages 4. 76. 83. 167. 510, 520. ee Ramusio, Giovanni Battista.—Terza editione delle navigationi e viaggl raccolti gid da G. B. Ramusio, 3 vol. fol. Venetia, 1554. A valuable collection of accounts of medizval travellers, chiefly Italian. a See page 4. ‘ ae : d disti M25 Ray (Wray, or Rajus) John, 1628-1705, a clergyman an aay a ey botanist, ( His Herbarium is preserved in the British Museum. ee plantarum, 3 vols., folio, London; 1686-1704. oo See pages 254. 277. 481. 482. 615. 731. 740. Redi, Francesco, a physician of Arezzo, Esperienze intorno a diverse cose naturali e particularmente a ie dell’ India. Firenze, 1671. ee pages 24, 111. 287. A wun Rhazes (Abu Bekr Muhammad ben Zakhariah seepage agen a ae ersian province Chorassan, where he was & physician cs subsequently at Bagdad ; died A.D. 923 or 932. See pages 3. 271. 393. 642. 716. senna Detch ved at Florence who liv goals che clsea, Rheede tot Draakestein, Hendrik Adriaan van, lants of India to be governor of Malabar. He ordered the most conspicuous P tany at figured and to be described, mostly by Jan Commelin, spore eS Amsterdam. This great and valuable work is the ae tus ee 12 vols. folio, Amstelodami 1678-1703, with 794 p: 565, 680. 644. 677. 726. See pages 130, 189, 211. 297. 403. 421. 425. 047. eat Ricettario Fiorentino; one of the earliest, "ees Ricoktario di dottori harmacopaia published by authority. It bears tie® dell’ arte, e di medicina del collegio Fiorentino 1498. Folio. We have © Consoli della universita delli speciali. Firenze, “Nella Stamperia dei — referred to the edition of 1567, printed at ee ehspeesiod Pharmacopeia Giunti 1574.” There are other editions of that : down to the year 1696. See pages 40. 410. 706. all’ instantia delli Signori — : 764 APPENDIX. Roteiro. The account of the famous expedition of Vasco da Gama to the Cape (22nd November, 1497), due to one of his companions, Alvaro Velho. The author enumerates in his remarkable pamphlet (see title at page 496) several spices and drugs of India, stating their prices there and in Alexandria. See also Heyd, Geschichte des Levantehandels, ii. (1879) 507. See pages 404, 496. Ruel, or Ruellius, also de la Rouelle, Jean. 1474-1537. Physician at, Soissons, lastly canon at Paris. De natura stirpium libri iii. Parisiis, 1536. Folio. (See also Seribonius Largus.) See pages 31. 388. Ruiz, Hipolito. 1754-1816. A Spanish botanist, in 1777 appointed director of the celebrated exploration of Peru and Chile. (See also Pavon.) See pages 79. 345. 590. Rumphius (Rumpf), Georg Eberhard, 1627-1702. Dutch governor of Amboina. He figured and described 715 plants of that island in the Her- barium amboinense, 7 vols., Amstelodami, 1741-1755, folio, 696 plates. See pages 130. 189. 211. 278. 297. 336. 421. 565, 600. 673. 726. 749. Saladinus, of Ascoli (probably Ascoli di Satiano in the Capitanata, Apulia), physician to one of the Princes of Tarentum (and apparently also to the grand constable of Naples, Prince Giovanni Antonio de Balzo Ursino). He is the author of the “Compendium aromatariorum Saladini, principis tarenti dignissimi medici, diligenter correctum et emendatum. Impressum in almo studio Bononiensi, 1488 ;” 4°. 58 pages. Further on, the author calls himself Dominus Saladinus de Esculo, Serenitatis Principis Tarenti phisicus princi- palis. At the end of his pamphlet he gives the list of drugs “ communiter hecessariis et usitatis in qualibet aromataria vel apotheca.” . ... This book intended for the druggists, aromatarii, was written between A.D. 1442 and 1458, as shown by Hanbury, Science Papers, 358. See pages 148. 183. 225. 377. 388. 456, 582. 585. 600. Salerno, the school of medicine. During the middle ages, from about the 9th century, there were flourishing in the said Italian town a large number of distinguished medical practitioners and teachers. It is one of their merits to have transmitted the medical art and knowledge of the Arabs to medieval Europe.—See also Alphita, Constantinus A {fricanus, Platearius, Nicolaus Prepo- situs. That once famous institution continued an obscure existence even down to the year 1811, when it was suppressed, November 29th, by order of _ Napoleon.—See pages 31. 225. 321. 334. 377. 690, Sanudo, Marino, a well informed Venetian writer, author of (1) Vite de duchi di Venezia, in Mauratori, Scriptores rerum italicarum xxii. (Mediolani, 1733) 954 et seq. (2) Marinus Sunutus dictus Torsellus Patricius Venetus, Liber Secretorum fidelium crucis super terre sancte recuperatione et conserva- tione, in Orientalis Historie, tom ii, (Hanovie, 1611) 22; lib. i. part 1 cap. 1. The latter work contains, at page 23, a classified list of eastern drugs ; ‘among the most valuable spices, Sanudo mentions cloves, cubebs, mace, nut- “Inegs, spikenard ; among those less costly, cinnamon, ginger, olibanum, pepper- See pages 245. 636. : Scribonius Largus, a Roman physician of the first century of our era. He accompanied, in A.p. 43, the emperor Claudius when he attempted the definite conquest of the island of Britain. Scribonius is the author of the valuable book, Compositiones Medicamentorum seu Compositiones medice, the earliest edition of which is due to Ruel, Paris, 1529. See pages 6. 35. 42. 147, 179. 219. 245. 331. 493. 503. APPENDIX. Simon Januensis—See pages 6. 44. 582. 652, Sloane, Sir Hans, 1660-1753. In 1687 physician to the governor of Barbados and Jamaica. His library and large collections of natural history formed the nucleus of the British Museum. He wrote (1) Catalogus plantarum que in insula Jamaica sponte proveniunt vel vulgo coluntur.... . adjectis aliis quibusdam, que in insulis Madere, Barbados, Nieves et St. Christophori nascuntur, Londini, 1696. (2) A voyage to the islands Madera, Barbados, Nieves, St. Christophers and Jamaica. London, 1707-1725, fol. See pages 18. 73. 188. 203. 288, 591. 615. 629. 710. Susruta. The author of “Ayurvedas,” i.e. the book of health, an old Sanskrit medical work in which a large number of eastern drugs are mentioned, It was first printed in the original language at Calcutta, 2 vols., 1835-1836, and afterwards translated under the name Susrutas Ayurvedas, id est medicine systema a venerabili D’hanvantare demonstratum, a Susruta discipulo composi- tum. Nunc primum ex Sanskrita in Latinum sermonem vertit... . Fr. Hessler, Erlang, 3 vols., 1844-1850. And by the same translator, Com- mentarii et annotationes in Susrute ayurvedam, 1852-1855. Susruta was once supposed to have written centuries before Christ, but chiefly the researches oO. “ Prof. Haas, London, in the Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlindischon — : schaft, xxx. (1876) 617 sq. and xxxi. (1877) 647, make it not impro "e the Sanskrit “Susruta” might have been generated from the Greek Hip- pokrates by way of the intermediate form “Bukrat.” The oldest apres as to the time of Susruta (and Charaka, see before) is the aspen siti ae Oseibiah, in the 13th century, that Susruta had been trans ic about the end of the 8th century. = See pages 154. 188. 211. 225. 295. 315, 421. 425. 436. 503, 547. 572. ss sician at Heidelberg; died Tabernzemontanus, Jacob Theodor, phy’ Te A.D. 1590. A pupil of Tragus.—Neuw Kreuterbueh, Aagepaa goa) oo . second part, 1591, both with fig. Later editions, aig plsaterttd seu Bauhin and Hieronymus Bauhin. Latin translation, Eicones ee stirpium . . . Francofurti, 1590, with 2225 engravings. Ce See pages 308. 390. 731. Noyia, a rational to London, and in 1672 published a small book called eens ot page 344,00 Ce Gey July of the same year, | ; ot a member 0 hood at Whitehall, But he wir irles II. eased from interfering with him in his the profits and privileges appertaining to & Phys! rd reign. In 167¢ Talbor visited France and Spain, ) 166 (this includes the des nouvelles ete. pendant l'année 16 Spain he made in the Gazette de France, 23rd Sept., 1679). iM cua niece 0: . : Suite of the young queen of Spain, Louise 1% Talbor’s absence, his prac- Whom he is described as premier médecin. or John Talbor, as is proved by tice in London was carried on by his brother, = ‘Anglicus, January 7-10, 1679, ati advertisement in the 'rue News or Mercurius Ang0e’ eS i Lois XIV, 8 766 : APPENDIX. “In France Talbor had the good fortune to cure the Dauphin of an attack of fever, and also treated with success other eminent persons. (See Lettres de Madame de Sévigné, nouv. ed. tome v., 1862, 559 ; also tome vi., letters of 15th and 29th Sept. and 6th Oct. 1679.) The physicians both in England and France were exceedingly jealous of the successes of an irregular practitioner like Talbor, and averse to admit the merits of his practice. Yet D’Aquin, first physician to Louis XIV., prescribed Vin de Quinquina, as well as pow- dered bark, for the king in 1686.—See J. A. Le Roi, J. Journal de la santé du roi Louis XIV., Paris, 1862. 171. 431. But Talbor’s happy results brought him into favour with Louis XIV., who induced him, in consideration of a sum of 2,000 louis d’or and an annual pension of 2,000 livres, to explain his mode of treatment, which proved to consist in the administration of considerable doses of cinchona bark infused in wine, as will be seen in the pamphlet : Les _admirables qualitez du Kinkina confirmées par plusieurs expériences, Paris, 1689. 12°. Talbor did not long enjoy his prosperity, for he died in 1681, aged about 40 years. He was buried in Trinity Church, Cambridge, where a monumen- tal inscription describes him as—* Febrium malleus” and physician to Charles IL, Louis XTV,, and the Dauphin of France, In Talbor’s will, proved by his widow, Dame Elizabeth Talbor, alias Tabor, relict and executrix, 18th Nov 1861, and preseryed at Doctors’ Commons, mention is made of an only son, Philip Louis. See page 344, Theophrastos Eresios, of Eresos, in the island of Lesbos, about 370- 285 B.c. The earliest botanical author in Europe, having consigned in his works, written about the year 314 B.o. or later, an admirable amount of excel- lent observations, either of his own, or, as many suggest, originated from Aristotle. Among the numerous editions of Theophrast’s works (printed as early as A.D. 1483) we may point out Wimmer’s Latin translations, tom. i. Historia plantarum, tom, il. De Causis plantarum. Leipzig, 1854; or the French edition of the same translator, Théophraste, Ciuyres completes. Paris, 1866, Firmin Didot. See pages 42. 97. 136, 142, 146, 147. 161, 166, 175, 179, 234. 259. 292. 310. 321. 393. 418, 439. 519. 529. 567. 576. 595, 598, 620. 644. 661. 664. S77. 690. 710.723. 733. Tournefort, Joseph Pitton de, 1656-1708, Important as are his attempts _ to establish a scientific classification of plants, his merits as a careful observer (17 00-1702) of eastern plants are of still more weight from a pharmaceutical standpoint. The latter is evidenced by his Relations d’un voyage du Levant. oe. . Paris, 1717, 2 vols: See pages 163. 175. Tragus (Bock), Hieronymus, 1498-1554. A friend and pupil of Brunfels (see B.), protestant clergyman at Hornbach, near Zweibriicken, Bavarian Palatinate. He gave remarkably good descriptions of the indigenous plants, with figures, in his “ Kreuterbuch,” the best edition of which was published in German at_ Strassburg, A.D. 1551, and a translation in 1552: Hieronymi Tragi, de stirpium, maxime earum quae in Germania nostra nascuntur usitatis nomenclaturis, etc. libri tres. _ See pages 170. 295. 384. 388. 434. 450, 45 65. 676. 694. “arta a . 456, 469. 540. 665. Turner, William, born at Morpeth, Northumberland (date not_ known), “died. 1568, Tn 1538. he was. a student of theology and medicine in Pembroke College, Cambridge, Turner lived many years in Germany, and was an intimate friend of Conrad Gesner. The “ New Herball, wherein are | APPEND ee ae contayned the names of herbes in Greeke, Latin, ... ~ and in the potecaries 1a and herbaries . . . . with the properties ete., by William Turner, London, 1551; the seconde parte, Collen (Cologne), 1562; the third parte, London, 1568,” is the earliest scientific work on botany in the English literature. To its author is also due the foundation of the Kew Gardens. See pages 292. 378. 480. 556. 568. 571. 729. Vasco da Gama—See Roteiro. Vegetius Renatus. A treatise on veterinary medicine, written appar ently about the beginning of the 5th century of our era, is attributed to an author of the above name. See Choulant, p. 223 of the work quoted before (p. 751). See pages 175. 380. Vignolius—See Liber pontificalis. Vindicianus, physician to the Emperor Vale 364-375. For further information see Choulant’s w p. 215; also Haller, Bibl. bot. i. 151. See page 559. ntinianus I., about A.D- ork (quoted at p. 751), Aaqargarha, 383 Abelmoschus esculentus Guill. et Pod rottet, 94 Abies Dalanhed Marshall, 612 » Canadensis Michaux, 612 » excelsa DC., 616 » pectinata DC,, 615 Abietic acid, 607. 608 Abietite, 615 Abilo, 47 Abrus precatorius, 4. 188 Abuta rufescens Aublet, 30 Abutua, 26, 30 Acacia abyssinica Hochst., 234 » ° Adansonii Guill. et Perr., 234 » arabica Willd., 234 » Capensis Burch., 237 » Catechu Willd., 240 » dealbata Link, 237 » decurrens Willd., 237 » fistula Schweinfurth, 234 Ss glaucophylla Steudel, 234 » homalophylla Cunningh., 237 ” horrida Willd., 237 » Karroo Hayne, 237 ” lophantha Willd., 67 » mollissima Willd., 237 » nilotica Desfont., 234 » pycnantha Benth., 237 » Senegal Willdenow, 233 » Seyal Delile, 234, 237 ” Stenocarpa Hochstetter, > 234 » Suma Kurz, 241 o » Verek Guill. et Perrott., 232 Acacien-Gummi, 23 INDEX. Natural Orders are printed in small capitals, as AcantHace.®: headings of articles in thick type, as Ammoniacum, ACANTHACEA, 472 Acer, sugar-yielding species, 7 = Aceite del palo, 229 » de Sassafras, 540 Aconella, 11 Aconine, 9 Aconite, japanese, 10 » indian, 12 leaves, 11 Nepal, 12 » root, 8 - Aconitic acid, u. 718° Aconitine, 9 Aconitum Anthora a 10 78 : Adraganthin, 174.1 Aigle Marmelos Correa, 129 ¥ Fs 770 INDEX. Aaseulin, 541 4Ethusa Cynapium L., 302 Affium, 49 Afyun, 43 Agaricus Oreades Bolt., 251 Agave americana L., 680 Agi, 452 _ Agropyrum acutum R. et S., 730 ii junceum P. de Beauy., 730 5 pungens R. et S., 730 My repens P. de Beauv., 729 Ajowan or Ajvan, 302. 333 Akulkara, 383. Alantcamphor, 381 Alantic acid, 381 Alantol, 381 Alantwurzel, 380 Albizzia lophantha Benth., 67 Aleurites cordata Miiller Arg., 91 Aleuron, 565 _ Alga marina, 749 Alga zeylanica, 749 Axes, 747 Alhagi Camelorum Fischer, 414 ~ Allspice, 287 _ Allyl cyanide, 66 », Sulphocyanide, 66 _ Almond, bitter, 247 e » ess. oil of, 248 ” -legumin, 247 3 pyr oil, 246 oy sweet, 244 s, Aloe, 679 » Species yielding the drug, 679 Aloes wood, 281 Aloéresic acid, 689 Aloéretic acid, 689 Aloéretin, 689 »Aloes, 679 » Barbados, 685 » bitter of, 689 5 Bombay, 684 » Cape, 685 », Curagao, 685 _» East Indian, 684 5, hepatic, 684 ” Moka, 685 4 Natal, 686 » Yesin of, 686 ” Socotrine, 684 liquid, 685 ”? Pe Aloes, Zanzibar, 684 Aloétic acid, 689 Aloétin, 689 Aloin, 687 Aloisol, 689 Alorcinic acid, 689 Alpinia Cardamomum Roxb., 648 » Galanga Willd., 643 » . Officinarum Hance, 641 Alstonia scholaris R. Brown, 421 Althzea officinalis L., 92 Altingia excelsa Noronha, 272. 277 Amandes améres, 247 » douces, 244 Amantilla, 377 Ammi copticum L., 302 » majus L., 304 Amomis acris Berg, 289 Ammoniacum, 324 = African, 327 Ammoniak-Gummiharz, 324 ‘Ammoniaque, gomme-résine, 324 Amomum aromaticum Roxb., 650 me Cardamomum L., 648 genuinum, 648 5 Korarima, 650 ra maximum Roxb., 650 » Melegueta Roscoe, 651 ‘ rotundum, 648 ¢ = subulatum Roxb., 649 5 verum, 648 », xanthioides Wallich, 649 < Zingiber L., 635 AMPELIDES, 159 _ Amygdale amare, 247 +5 dulces, 244 Amygdalin, 248 Amygdalus communis, 244, 247 Amylum Marantz, 629 Amyrin, 150 Ampyris elemifera Royle, 152 ANACARDIACE, 161 Anacyclus ofticinarum Hayne, 354 Qe Pyrethrum DC., 383 Anamirta Coceulus Wight et Arnott, 31 ‘ paniculata Colebr., 31 Anamirtic acid, ~ Ananto-mul, 42 : Andrographis paniculata Wall., 498 472 725 : citratus DC., 725 laniger Desf., 728 Martini Roxb., 725 muricatus Retzius, 728 Nardus L., 725 pachnodes Trinius, 725 Schcenanthus L., 267. 725. 728 - Anethol, 22. 309 Anethum Feoeniculum L., 308 graveolens L., 327 segetum L., 328 » >. sowa Roxb.; 398 Angelic acid, 313. 386. 389. 391 Angelic acid in Sumbul, 313 Angelin, 81 Angostura Bark, 106 Angosturine, 107 Anguzeh, 318 Animi, 148. 152. 153 Anis étoilé, 20 Anise de Sibérie, 21 Anise or Aniseed, 310 -camphor, 22. 309 » Star-, 20 Antamul, 427 Anthemis nobilis L., 384 ’, Pyrethrum L., 383 -Anthophylli, 286 ; Anthriscus vulgaris Persoon, 302. Aphis chinensis, 168 » Pistacize, 598 Aplotaxis auriculata DC., 382 » Lappa Decaisne, 382 Apocodeine, 59 _ Apocynzs, 421 _ Apomorphine, 59 Aporetin, 499 Aqua Aurantii florum, 126. 127 4, Naphee, 126. 127 Aquilaria Agallocha Roxb., 681 Arabic acid, 238 a Arabin, 238 Arabisches Gummi, 233 Arachic acid, 97. 187. 420 Arachide, 186 ‘ _ Arachis hypogvea L., 186 oil, 186 »” ”» ” . » _ Arbol-a-brea, 147. 150 _ Arbutin, 401 | Andropogon Calamus aromaticus Royle, a » But, 211. 512.7669 Arekaniisse, 211, 512 Arenga saccharifera Mart., 721 Argel plant, 220 Aricine, 359 Arka, 425 Aristolochia reticulata Nuttal, 593 ‘ Serpentaria L., 592 ARISTOLOCHIACE®, 591 Armon, 71 © Armoracia, 71 E : Arnica angustifolia Vahl, 390 bie 772 fe INDEX. _ Aspartate of ammonium, 93 Aspic, 479 Aspidine, 735 Aspidium Filix-mas Swartz, 733 A Goldieanum Hooker, 733 9 Oreopteris Sw., 735. 736 Bes spinulosum Sw., 735. 736 af marginale Sw., 733. 786 Asplenium Filix-foemina Bernhard, 735. 736 Assafoetida, 314 Astragalus adscendens Boissier et : Haussknecht, 174. 415 » brachycalyx Fischer, 174 is cylleneus Boiss. et Heldr., 175 + eriostylus B. et Hausskn., 177 » florulentus B, et Hkn., 415 gummifer Labill., 174. 176 Rs kurdicus Boiss., 174 7 leioclados Boiss., 174 5 microcephalus Willd., 174 » pyenocladus B. et H., 174 . stromatodes Bunge, 174 oe verus Olivier, 175 a yielding manna, 174 Astaphis agria, 6 Atis or Atees, 14 Atraphaxis spinosa L., 415 Atropa Belladonna L., 455 Atropic acid, 457 Atropine, 457 Atrosin, 458 Attar of rose, 262 3 adulteration of, 237 Aucklandia Costus Falconer, 382 Atherosperma moschatum Labill., 539 Atisine, 15 Ativisha, 12 - Aubletia trifolia Rich., 114 _Aunée, 380 AURANTIACES, 114 : Azadirachta indica Jussieu, 154 Babul or Babur, 234 Babunah, 386 Baccxe Spine cervinee, 157 - Bacez, see Fructus Bactyrilobium Fistula Willd., 221 Badiane, 20 - Badiyane-khatai, 22 Bael Fruit, 129 Baisabole, 141 Bakam, 216. 521 Baldrianwurzel, 377 Baliospermum montanum Miiller Arg.,. 567 Balisier,. 633 Balm of Gilead, 613 - Balsam, Canada, 612 % Capivi, 227 s Copaiba, 227. 3 Gurjun, 88 . of Peru, 205 - of Tolu, 202 Balsamo blanco, 210 » catolico, 210 5 negro, 207 : Balsamodendron africanum Arnett, 140 % Ehrenbergianum Berg, 140 Myrrha Nees, 140) Opobalsamum Kunth, ” ” 140 Balsamum canadense, 612 5 Copaiba, 227 ‘ Dipterocarpi, 88 is Gurjune, 85 indicum, 205 nuciste, 507 peruvianum, 205 7 Styracis, 271 : * tolutanum, 202 Barbaloin, 687 Barberry, indian, 34 Barbotine, 387 Barentraubenblitter, 401 Barlappsamen, 731 Barley, pearl, 722 Baros camphor, 516 Barosma betulina Bartl., 108 » Camphor, 109 » crenata Kunze, 108 » erenulata Hkr., 108 », Eckloniana Berg, 110 » serratifolia Willd., 108 Barras or Galipot, 608 Barwood, 202 Bassia tree, 728 Bassora gum, 178 Bassorin, 178 Bastaroni, 286 Batatas Jalapa Choisy, 444 Baume de Canada, 612 iy Chio; 16 Baume de Chypre, 265 = Copahu, 227 33 Pérou, 205 : 5 8. Salvador, 205 » Tolu, 202 Baumil, 417 Bay-berry tree, 289 Bay leaves (Pimenta acris), 284 Bazghanj, 598 Bdellium, 35 Bearberry Leaves, 401 Bebeeru or Bibiru Bark, 535 Bebirine or Bibirine, 536 Behenic acid, 68. 70 Bela, 129 Beli, 130 Belladonna Leaves, 458 5 Root, 455 Belladonnine, 457 Bendi-kai, 94 Benic acid, 68. 70 Benjoin, 403 Beuné Oil, 473 Benzoéharz, 403 Benzoic acid, 408 ” in Balsam. Peruv., 208 - in Dragon’s Blood, 674 Benzoin, 403 » Penang, 407 = Siam, 406 ‘i Samiatra, 407 Benzylic alcohol, 274 ” cinnamate, 209 Brrperipem, 34 Berberine in Berberis, 36 . in Calumba, 25 5 in Coptis, 5 8 in Podophyllum, 38 Berberis aristata DC., 34 » asiatica feels, 35 » Chinensis Desf., 36 » Lycium Royle, 34 » Vulgaris L., 36 Bergamot Camphor, 123 ” essence of, 121 gaptene, 123 Bertramwurzel, 383 enginster, 170 Beta maritima L. » 720 » -quinine, 358. 360 Betel Nuts, 669 Betelniisse, 669 sae Bhau-Dajiana Birdwood, 134 Bhang, 547. 548 Bibiric acid, 536 Bibirine, 28. 536 » _ Sulphate, 536 Bibiru Bark, 535 Bigaradier, 124. 128 Bikh, 12 Bilack, 130 Bilsenkraut, 463 Bilva, 129 Bisabol, 141. 145 Bish, 12. Bishop’s Weed, 302. Bissa Bol, 145. Bitter Apple, 295 » Wood, 131 » Surinam, 133 Bitter Orange Peel, 124 Bittersiiss, 450 Bitter-sweet, 450 Brxine&, 75 Blauholz, 212 Blockwood, 213 Bloodwood, 199 ; ses lated DC, 518 Su, ee Boi (Bombay Sumbal), 313 Boido, 135 Boigue, 18 Bois amer, 133 ,, de Campiche, 213 ae gaiae, 100 de quassia, 133 rneol, 517 i $n Valerian, 379 34 Carterii Bi Birdwood, 1 ” Frereana Binkwood, 135 ” 774 oe SNE. Boswellia glabra Roxb., 135 neglecta Le Moore, 135 papyrifera Richard, 185 sacra Fliickiger, 134 serrata Roxb.. 135 thurifera Colebr., 135 Boteyopiis platyphylla Miers, 25 Brasilin, 216 Brassic acid, 67 Brassica alba Hook. et Thoms., 68 » juncea Hook. et Thoms., 68 » nigra Koch, 64 -Brayera anthelminthica Kunth, 256 ~ Brazil wood, 216. 635 Brechniisse, 428 Brechwurzel, 370 Bréidine, 150 Bréine, 150 Brindones, 86 Brindonia indica Dupetit Thouars, 86 Bromaloin, 687 Broom Tops, 170 Brucea antidysenterica Mill., 430 _» ferruginea Héritier, 430 Brucine, 430 Bryoidin, 150 Bubon Galbanum L. 320 Buchu or Bucco Leaves, 108 Bulbus Colchici, 699 Buckthorn Berries, 157 Buena hexandra Pohl, 358 4, +magnifolia Weddell, 364 Bugbane, 15 Buka Leaves, 108 Bukublitter, 108 Bulbus Scillz, 690 Burgundy pitch, 616 BursEracex, 133 _ Busserole, 401 Butea frondosa Roxb., 197 oy S10; 197 », parviflora Roxb., 198 » superba Roxb., 198 Butua, 26 _ Butyrum Cacao, 95 Buxine in Bibiru, 536 » in Pareira, 28 Buxus sempervirens L., 536 Casipeba, a7 a Cabbage Rose, 261 Cabriuva preta, 211 Cabueriba, 211 Cacao Butter, 95 Cachou, 240 5» jaune ou Gambir, 335 Cacumina Scoparii, 170 Cade, huile de, 623 Czesalpinia Bonduc Roxb., 211 Bonducella Roxb., 211 = Sapan L., 521 Cajuput Oil, 277 Cajuputene or Cajuputol, 279 Calabar Bean, 191 Calabarine, 193 Calamus aromaticus, 677 » Draco Willd., 672 Caliaturholz, 199 Calisaya Bark, 353 Calotropis gigantea R. Brown, 424 Hamiltonii Wight, 424 o procera R. Brown, 424 Calumba Root, 23 Cambogia, 83 Camomille romaine, 384 Campecheholz, 213 Camphor, Barus, 516 5 Blumea, 518 0 ” S Borneo, 516 3 China, 515 ss common, 510 < Dryobalanops, 516 a Formosa, 515 ee Japan, 515 . laurel, 511 Malayan, 516 5 Negai,-518 oils, 516 Camphors; 510 officinaram Bauhin, 519 ” Camphoric acid, 515 Camphre, 510 Camphretic acid, 139 Canada-balsam, 612 Canarium, 147 Candy, 715 Cane Sugar, 714 3 varieties of, 720 Cane, sweet, 715 Canefice, 221 Canella alba Murray, 19. 20, 73. 635 CANELLACEX, 73 Canellin, 75 Canna edulis Ker, 634 Canna indica Ruiz et Pavon, 634 Canna Starch, 633 Cannabene, 549 CANNABINE®, 546 Cannabis indica Lamarck, 546 » sativa L., 546 Cannacex, 629 Cannelle blanche, 73 » de Ceylan, 519 Capivi, 229 CaPRIFOLIACER, 333 Capsaicin, 455 Capsicin, 454 Capsicum annuum L., 452 = fastigiatum Blume, 452 - grossum Willd., 452 3 longum DC., 452 » minimum Roxb., 452 Capsule Papaveris, 40 Caqueta Bark, 353 Caramania gum, 178 Caraavay, 304 Cardamom, 643 - bastard, 649 7 Bengal, 649 » Ceylon, 647 y cluster, 648 S Java, 650 ” Korarima, 650 » Malabar, 643 5 Nepal, 649 3 round, 648 5 Siam, 649 xanthioid, 649 Cardamoms; Aleppi, 646 Cardamomum majus, 650. 651 . siberiense, 21 Carex arenaria L., 730 Carice, 542 Carmufellic acid, 285 Carobbe di’ Giudea, 598 Carolina Pink Root, 433. Carony Bark, 106 Carrageen, 747 Carthagena Bark, 353° Carum Ajowan ‘Bentham et Hooke, a 302 Carum Carvi L., 304 » Ridolfia Benth., 328 Carvene, 306 Carvi, 304 Carvol, 306. 329. 640 Caryophyllinic acid, 285 _ Caryophyllum regium, 287 Caryophyllus aromaticus | 280 nue Caryota urens L., 721 Cascarilla Bark, 561 Cascarilla del Angostura, 106 Cascarillin, 563 Casse ou canefice, 221 Casia, 222 cae acutifolia Delile, 216 alba, 73. : oe ia Vabl, 217 © | Bark, 137. 597. 715 -prasiliana Lamarck, 224 776 INDEX Centifolienrosen, 261 Cephaélis Ipecacuanha Richard, 370 Cerasus serotina DC., 2538 Cerealin, 724 Cetraria islandica Achar., 737 Cetrariec acid, 739 Cetrarin, 739 Cevadic acid, 699 Cevadilla, 697 _ Cevadilline, 699 Cevadine, 699 Ceylon moss, 749 Cherophyllum Anthriseus L., 302 Chamomile, common, 384. 385 . flowers, 384 3 german, 386 oP roman, 384 Chanvre indien, 546 Charas, 550 Chardinia xeranthemoides Desfont., 250 - Chasmanthera Columba Baiill., 23 Chaulmugra Seed, 75 Chavica officinarum Miquel, 582 » Roxburghii Miq., 582 Chelbenah, 321 Chelidonium majus L., 3 _ Chéne, écorce de, 593 _ Cherry-laurel Leaves, 254 — Chesteb, 234 _ Chiendent, 729 ” gros, 730 _ Chillies, 452 China bicolorata, 359 y, nova, 364. 561 China Root, 712 Chinarinde, 338 Chinasiure, 336 Chinawurzel, 712 Chinoidin, 359 Chinovie acid, 335 - Chinovin, 336 Chiratin, 438 _ Chiratogenin, 438 _ Chiretta or Chirayta, 436 _ Cholesterin, 420 ” in barley, 725 » _Inergot, 745 = Chondodendron tomentosum Ruiz et : Pavyon, 25 ” tomentosum, stems of, 2 80 _Chondrus crispus, 747 Chondrus mammillosus Grev., 749 Chop-nut, 179 Chren, 71 Christmas Rose, 1 Chrysammic acid, 689 Chrysanthemum Parthenium Persoon, 386. 518 Chrysophan, 499 3 in Senna, 220 Chrysophanic acid, 499 Chrysoretin, 220 Chrysorhamnine, 158 Chuen-lien, 4 Churrus, 550 Chusalonga, 591 Cicuta virosa L., 299. 332. 333 Cigué, feuilles de; 301 » fruits de, 299 Cimicifuga racemosa Elliott, 15 Cimicifugin, 16 Cinchona, acid principles of, 363 = alkaloids, 359 estimation dy 364 proportion in bark, 361 ” ” ” ” is Bark, 338 » chemical composition of, 57 commerce in, 347 pale, 352 red, 353. 364 structure, 354 ‘5 yellow, 353 5 Calmayi Weddell, 340 ‘< conspectus of, 355 5 cultivation of, 348 » _ history of, 341 » lancifolia Mutis, 353 ee magnifolia Pavon, 364 iy officinalis Hooker, 340 » pitayensis Mutis, 353 = -red, 353 5 succirubra Pavon, 341 rs works relating to, 367 Cinchonicine, 359 Cinchonidine, 361 Cinchonine, 361 Cincho-tannic acid, 363 Cinchovatine, 358 Cinene or Cynene, 389 Cinnamein, 209 Cinnamic acid, 526 INDEX. Cinnamic acid in Bals. Peruv., 208 - Tolut., 204 in benzoin, 408 * » aldehyde, 526 Cinnamodendron corticosum Miers, 19 Cinnamomum, Burmanni Blume, 528 Camphora Nees, 510 Cassia, 528 iners Reinwardt,528.533 obtusifolium Nees, 528 »” ” ” ”? is Tamala Nees, 528 ss zeylanicum Breyne, 519 Cinnamon, 519 es chinese, 530 + chips, 524 $5 leaf, oil of, 529 . oil of, 526 root, oil of, 529 Cinnamon Bark (Bahamas), 73 Cinnamylic cinnamate, 274 Cipo de cobras, 27 Cirifole, 130 Cissampelos Pareira, 29 Cistus creticus L., 141 Cistus ladaniferus L., 416 Citric acid, 116 Citridic acid, 11 Citron, 114 Citronella Oil, 726 Citronellol, 727 Citrullus Colocynthis Schrader, 295 Citrus Aurantium L., 124 » Bergamia Risso et Poiteau, 121 » Bigaradia Duhamel, 124 » decumana L., 117 » Limonum Risso, 114. 118 » Medica L., 114. 128 vulgaris Ria, 124, 126 Rinvioens purpurea Tulasne, 740 Clematis Vitalba L., 29 Clous de girofles, 280 Clove bark, 285 Clove Leaves, 286 = » Stalks, 286 Cloves, 280 » Mother, 286 » Oil of, 284 » Royal, 287 Cniquier, 211 Cocca gnidia, 540 Coceulus Chondodendron DC., 25 pauciflorum Nees, 528 - Colophony. , 607 Coceulus cordifotins DC, 33 » indicus, 31 » palmatus DC., 23 Cochlearia Armoracia L., 71 Cocos nucifera L., 721 Codamine, 59 Codagam, 297 Codeine, 42. 58. 59, 62 Cohosh, 15 Coing, semences de, 269 Col, 329 Colchicein, 702 Colchicin, 702 Colchicum autumnale L., 699 », other species, 701 » Seed, 702 Colchique, biilbe de, 699 - semence de, 702 Colocynth, 295 Colocynthein, 296 Colocynthin, 296 Colocynthitin, 296 Colombo Root, 23 Colophonia mauritiana DC., 152 Coloquinte, 295 Coloquintida, 295 Coniferin, 659 Conine, 300 Convolvulinol, 445 Convolvulinolic acid, 446 lus Nil L., 448 Convolvul Panga Wenderoth, 443 Scammonia L., - ” Conylene, 300 Ne oe Copahu, 227 _Copaiba or Copaiva, 227 Copaifera bijuga Hayne, 228 Ss cordifolia Hayne, 228 om coriacea Martius, 228 4 glabra Vogel, 228 = guianensis Desfont., 227 = Jacquini Desfont., 227 Rs Jussieui Hayne, 228 a Langsdorffii Desfont., 228 Hi laxa Hayne, 228 a multijuga Hayne, 228 3 nitida Hayne, 228 xs officinalis L., 227 » Sellowii Hayne, 228 Copaivic acid, 231 Copalchi Bark, 564 : Coptis Root, 3 4 Teeta Wall., 3 » trifolia Salisb., 5 Coque du Levant, 31 Coquelicot, 39 Cordiceps, 743 Cordyliceps, 743 Corail des jardins, 452 Coriander, 329 Coriandrum sativum L., 329 Coriaria myrtifolia L., 221 Cormus Colchici, 699 Cortex Alstoniz, 421 yy Angosture, 106 » Aurantii, 124 » Azadirachte, 154 » Berberidis, 34 ” Bibiru, 535 » Canelle albe, 73 » Cascarille, 561 » Cassie lignez, 527 » Chine, 338 ; » Cinchona, 338 » Cinnamomi, 519 5, Cusparie, 106 5, Eleutheriz, 561 'y Granati fructus, 289 » Granati radicis, 290 » Laricis, 611 4 Limonis, 116 x Magellanicus, 17 » Margose, 154 a Mezerei, 540 a oe Mudar, 424 ” Nectandree, 535 INDEX. | Cortex Olibani, 273 », Peruvianus, 338 » 7Pruni serotine, 253 » Quercus, 593 » Sassafras, 538 » Soymide, 156 » Swietenic, 156 » Thymiamatis, 273. 276 » Ulmi, 556 i » fulve, 557 » Winteranus, 17 2 Costus, 35. 382. 503. 520. 523 5, corticosus, 73 yo aulcis, 73 » root, 383 Cotarnine, 58 Cotoneaster nummularia Fischer et Meyer, 415 Couch Grass, 729 Cowberry, 402 Cowhage, 189 Cow-itch, 190 Cran de Bretagne, 71 Crateeva Marmelos L., 129 Creyat or Kariyat, 472 Crinum asiaticum Herbert, 693 » toxicarium Roxb., 693 Crocetin, 667 Crocin, 667 Crocus, 663 » sativus L., 663 Croton Cascarilla Bennett, 562 » Draco Schlechtendal, 676 » Eluteria Bennett, 561 » Ilucidus L., 564 » nhiveus Jacquin, 564 » Oblongifolius Roxb., 567 » Oil, 566 » Pavanz Hamilton, 567 » philippensis Lamarck, 572 ,; polyandrus Roxb., 567 » Pseudo-China Schl., 564 » Seeds, 565 » Tiglium L., 565 Crotonic acid, 566 Crotonol, 566 Crown Bark, 352 Crucirers, 64 Cryptopine, 59. 63 Cubeba canina Migq., 588 » Clusii Miq., 589 » crassipes Miq., 588 Cubebee, 584 Cubebin, 587 Cubeba Lowong, Migq., 588 © » Officinalis Miq., 587 » Wallichii Mig., 588 Cubebic acid, 587 Cubebs, 582. 635 yy african, 589 » camphor, 587 Cucumber, squirting or wild, 292 Cucumis Colocynthis L., 295 53 Hard wickii Bele; 297 » Prophetarum-L., 294 ” Pseudo-colocynthis Royle, 297 » trigonus Roxb., 297 Cucursiracez, 292 Cumic acid, 332 Cumin, 305. 331 a armenian, 305 » roman, 331 Cuminaldehyde, 332 Cuminol, 332 Cuminum Cyminum L., 331 Cummin seeds, 331. 635 CupuLirer2, 593 Curcuma angustifolia Roxb., 634 ” Curcumin, 640 : Cusconine, 359 Cuscus Grass, 728 Cusparia Bark, 106 Dah cae » trifoliata Engler, 1060 Cusparin, 107 Cusso or Koso, 256 Cutch, 240 leucorrhiza Roxb., 634 » longa L., 638 s starch, 634 Cydonia vulgaris Persoon, 269 — Cymene or Cymol from ajowan, 304 from alanteamphor, 381 _ ” ” ” » ” ” : : ; thyme,488- Cyaanehane Argel Hayne, 220 ” Cynanchol, 398 Cynene or Cinene, 389 camphor, 515 Cynips Galle tinctorive Oliv., 506 — Cynodon Dactylon Pers., Cynorrhodon, 268 Cynosbata, 268 — . 729.7 730 Vincetoxicum R.. Cytisus Laburnum re 172 » Scoparius — 170 Deemonorhops Draco Marton 6 672 Dalleiochine, 360 Dandelion Root, 392 Daphne Gnidium L., 542 » Laureola L., 541 » Mezereum L,, 540 Daphnetin, 541 Daphnin, 541 Date, Indian, 225 ~ Datura alba Nees, 462 fastuosa L., 459, 462 Stramonium L., 459 » Tatula L., 460 Daturine, 461 Delphinine or Delphine, a : Delphinium ee L, ” ” turbinatus Garto.,. ae ae zeylanicus ead Diss, 747 Dita bark, 421 780 oe Spe Ditaine, 422 Dithin, 140 Dog rose, 268 _ Dog’s Grass, 729 Dolichos pruriens L., 189 Dorema Ammoniacum Don, 313, 324 » Aucheri Boissier, 325 » robustum Loftus, 325 -_Douce-amare, 450 Draceena Draco L., 672 z Ombet Kotschy, 675 ‘% schizantha Baker, 675 Drachenblut, 672 Draconyl, 674 Dracyl, 675 Dragon’s Blood, 137 » Canary Islands, 675 2299 » drop, 675 me » lump, 673 eS » reed, 673 3 9» Socotra, 675 Drimia ciliaris Jacq., 693 Drimys Winteri Forster, 17 Droga amara, 472 Dryandra cordata Thunb., 91 Dryobalanops aromatica Girtner, 229. 516 Dulcamara, 450 _Dulcamarine, 451 Earth-nut Oil, 186 Expenacex, 403 ‘Echalline, 294 -Ecballium Elaterium Richard, 292 Ecboline, 745 __Echicaoutchin, 422 _ Echicerin, 398, 422. ~ Echinus philippinensis Baillon, 572 Kchites scholaris L., 421 Echitin, 422 _ Ecorce de Winter, 17 _ Eibischwurzel, 92 Hichenrinde, 593 Ein or Engben, 243 Eisenhut, 8 Elvis guineensis Jacquin, 194 _ Eleococea Vernicia Sprgl., 91 _ Elaidie acid, 187. 475 _ Elaphrium, 147 _ Elateric acid, 294 Elateride, 294 Elaterin, 294 Elaterium Fruit, 292. Elder Flowers, 333 Elecampane, 380 Eleme, 544 Elemi, 147 » african, 152 » brazilian, 152 Mauritius, 152 mexican, 152 oriental, 135. 152 Vera Cruz, 152 Elemic acid, 151 Elettaria Cardamomum Maton, 643 » Major Smith, 644 Eleusine coracana Girtner, 241 Eleuthera Bark, 561 Ellagic acid, 291 Ellébore blanc, 693 jy SOW SL Elm Bark, 556 a slippery, 557 Embryopteris glutinifera Roxb., 403 Embelia Ribes Burmann, 581 Emetine, 374 Emodin, 499 Empleurum serrulatum Ait., 110 Emulsin, 247 Encens, 133 Enckea reticulata Miq., 114 Enhemon, 147. 145 Entershah, 267 Enzianwurzel, 434 Kosin, 323 Epacris, 402 Equisetic acid, 11 Erdnussdl, 186 Ergot of diss, 747 » Oat, 747 » rye, 740 » wheat, 746 Ergota, 740 Ergotine, 745 Ericace®, 401 Ericinol, 402 Ericolin, 402 Erucic acid, 67. 160 Erucin, 70 Erythroretin, 499 Esenbeckia febrifuga Martius, 107 Eseré Nut, 191 Eserine, 193 Essigrosenbliitter, 259 _ Eucalyptus citriodora Hooker, 199 5 corymbosa Smith, 199 7 gigantea Hooker, 199 — 3 globulus Labill., 280. 333 & Kino, 199 3 Manna, 417 s Oil, 280 re obliqua L’Hér., 199 » ~ Oleosa F. Miller, 280 5 resinifera Smith, 195 5 rostrata Schlechtend., 199 viminalis Labill., 417 Eugenia caryophyllata Thunberg, 280 i Pimenta DC., 287 Engenic acid, 284 os 3 in Canella, 75 Eugenin, 285 Eugenol, 75. 284. 319, 527. 659 Enugetic acid, 319 Eulophia yielding Salep, 655 Eupatorium glutinosam Lamek., 592 Euphorbia resinifera Berg, 558 Euphorbic acid, 560 Eurxorsracem, 558 Euphorbium, 558 Euphorbon, 398, 560 Euryangium Sumbul Kauffm., 312 Evodia febrifuga St. Hilaire, 107 Exacum, 438 Exogonium Purga Bentham, 443 Extractum Glycyrrhize, 188 5 Uncarie, 335 Faba Calabarica, 191 » Physostigmatis, 191 4, Sancti Ignatii, 431 Fagus silvatica, tar of, 623 Farnwurzel, 733 Feigen, 542 Fenchel, 308 Fennel, 308 4» bitter, 309 » german, 309 » indian, 309 » Oils of, 310 » roman, 309 » saxon, 309 » sweet, 308 wild, 309 Fenouil, 308 Fenngresk, 172 Fern Root, 733 INDEX. Feronia —— Correa, 131, 239 » gam, 239 Ferreirea spectabilis Allemio, Sl Ferula alliacea Boissier, 320 » Asafcetida Boissier et Buhse, 320 » Asafoetida L., 314 » erubescens Boiss., 321 » galbaniflua Boiss. et Buhse, 321 Narthex Boiss., 314 rubricaulis Boiss,, 321 Scorodosma Benth. et Hkr., 314 Sumbul Hooker, 312 teterrima Karelin et Kiril, 320 tingitana L., 327 Ferulago galbanifera Koch, 320 Ferulaic acid, 319 Festuce Caryophylli, 286 Feve de Calabar, 191 » Saint Ignace, 431 Feverfew, 386 Fichtenharz, 616 Fichtentheer, 619 Ficus Carica L., 542 Figs, 542 Fiuices, 733 Filicic acid, 735 Filixolic acid, 735 Filixolin, 735 Filix-red, 735 Filosmylic acid, 735 Fingerhutblitter, 469 ey Balsam or balm of Gilead, 612. , Norway Spruce, 616 ” Silver, 615 Flachssamen, 97 Flag, blue, 660 » root, sweet, 676 » yellow, 678 Flax Seed, 97 Fliederblumen, 333 Flores idi Arnice, 390 Casseei, 533 Chamomille romane, 384 Cine, 387 », Koso, 256 Lavandule, 476 Rheeados, 39 Rose incarnate, 261 pallide, 261 rubrie, 259 * 782 Flores Sambuci, 333 : », Stoechados, 479 _ Fiore, 747. 749 - Feeniculum capillaceum Gilibert, 308 dulce DC., 308 Panmorium DC., 309 sinense, 22 vulgare Gartner, 308 Foenum Camelorum, 728 Foenum grecum, 172 Fofal, 669 ‘Folia Aconiti, 11 Belladonne, 458 Buchu, 108 Conii, 301 Dature albx, 462 Digitalis, 469 Hyoscyami, 463 ~ Indi, 533 Jaborandi, 113 Lauro-cerasi, 254 Malabathri, 533 Matico, 589 Pilocarpi, 113 Sennz, 216 Tabaci, 466 Tylophore, 427 Uve Ursi, 401 ” ” = Fool’s Parsley, 302 Fougére male, 733 Foxglove Leaves, 469 ‘Frankincense, 133 + an common, 608 - Fraxetin, 413 Fraxin, 413 -Fraxinus Bungeana DC.; 409 excelsior L., 409 Ornus L., 409 Ajowan, 302 Anethi, 327 . Anisi, 310 » _ stellati, 20 Belz, 129 Capsici, 452 Cardamomi, 643 Carice, 542 ,» Carui, 304 | Cassie fistula, 221 — Coceuli, 31 Colocynthidis, 295 Conii, 299 Coriandri, 329 ” » Fructus INDEX. Fructus Cubebe, 584 _ Cumini, 331 Diospyri, 403 Ecballii, 292 Elaterii, 292 Feeniculi, 308 Hibisci, 94 Juniperi, 624 Limonis, 114 Mori, 544 Papaveris, 40 Pimentz, 287 Piperis longi, 582 » nigri, 576 Pruni, 251 Rhamni, 157 Rose canine, 268 ”? 9 Fu, 377 Fucus amylaceus, 749 erispus L., 747 » bibernicus, 747 Fucosol, 748 Funet, 740 Fuhb-ling, 714 Fusanus spicatus Br., 599. 601 Fuscosclerotinic ae 745 Fusti, 286 ” Geeidinic acid, 187 Gaiac, bois de, 100 » .résine, 103 Galanga major, 643 » minor, 671 Galangal, 641 ” greater, 643 _ Galbanum, 320 Galbuli Juniperi, 624 Galgant, 651 Galipea Cusparia St. Hil., 106 » Officinalis Hancock, 106 Galipot or Barras, 607 Galle chinenses, 167 halepenses, 595 » japonice, 167 Gallipfel, 595 _ Galle @’Alep, 1. 595 Gallic acid from galls, 169. 597 Gallo-tanic acid, 169. 597 Galls, Aleppo, 595 blue, 596 Bokhara, 598 chinese, 167 te ” ” 2”? Galls, green, 596 - 4 japanese, 167 » oak, 595 » Pistacia, 165. 598 » Tamarisk, 598 » turkey, 595 white, 596 a 335 Gamboge, 83 Ganja, 548 Garcinia indica Choisy, 86 » + Morella Desr., 83 + pictoria Roxb., 83 5 purpurea Roxb., 86 af travancoria Bedd., 86 Garou, 542 ' Gayac, bois de, 100 » résine de, 103 Gaz Alefi, 415 7 jokes, 414 xy Khonsari, 415 Gaultheria procumbens L., 402 Gelbwurzel, 638 Gelose, 750 Galnatiiiea nitidum Mich., 541 ee. sempervirens Ait., 541 Genét & balais, 170 Geniévre, 624 . Genista, 170 Gentian-bitter, 435 » Root, 434 Gentiana Catesbeei Walter, 436 » Chirayita Roxb., 436 i lutea L., 434 y; Pannonica Scopoli, 436 » punctata L., 486 » purpurea L,, 436 _y Saponaria L., 436 GENTIANER, 434 Gentianic acid, 435 Gentianin, 435 Gentiogenin, 435 Gentiopicrin, 435 Geranium Oil, 267. 726. 728 oe Gergelim, 474 Germer, 693 Gerste, 722 : Geum urbanum L., 390. 391 Gewiirznelken, 280 Ghittaiemou, 83. Giftlattich, 395 ——* acieularis Lamour, 9 7 = Gigartina m Gigambo, 94 Gingeli Oil, 473 Gingembre, 636 Ginger, 635 » grass oil, 726 Gingili Oil, 473 Ginseng, American, 79 Girofles, 280 » gtiffes de, 286 Gizeis, Gizi, 222 Glandule Humuli, 554 Rottlerae, 562 Glycyrretin, 181, 182 Glycyrrhiza echinata L., 179 glabra L., 179, 183° glandulifera Waldst, et ” » Glyeyrrhizin, 181 Gnoseopine, 59 Gombo, 94 Gomme arabique, 233 — » Gitte, 83 Goolwail, 33 — Goudron végétal, 619 Gracillaria confervoides: sii cece tack, 206 Grevades Goorce de, 280 : Grenadier, Georce de racine de, 200° Grieswurzel, 25 Ground-nnt Oil, 186 Barbary, 237 Bassora, INDEX. Guragi, 650 Gurjun Balsam, 88 Gurjunie acid, 90 Gutti, 83 | Gurtirer.sx, 83 Gywyosreras, 604 Gynocardia odorata R. Brown, 75 Habaghadi, 140. 145 Heematein, 214 Hematoxylin, 214 Hewmatoxylon campechianum te 213 Hagebutten, 268 Hagenia abyssinica Willd., 256 Hagenic acid, 258 HaMAmetipe®, 271 Hanfkraut, 546 Hardwickia pinnata Roxb., 232 Hartsthorn, 157 Hashab, 233, 235 Hashish, 548 Hawkbit, 394 Hedeoma pulegioides Pers., 486 Helenin, 381 Hellebore, black, 1 Helonias frigida Lindley, 695 Hématine, 214 Hemidesmus indicus R. Brown, 423 Hemlock fruits, 299 . » leaves, 301 Hemlock Spruce, 612 Herba Aconiti, 11 = _ Andrographidis, 472) » Anthos, 488 _ Herba Chirate, 436 _ » Hydrocotyles, 297 » Lactuce, 395 » Lobelia, 399 » Matico, 589 » Menthe piperite, 481 » Menthe viridis, 479 » Nicotiane, 466 » pedicularia, 6 » Pulegii, 486 » Rosmarini, 488 » Sabinz, 626 » Schoenanthi s. Squinanthi, 728 » Scoparii, 170 » Stramonii, 459 Thymi vulgaris, 487 Hermodactyinn, 701 Herva de Nossa Senhora, 27 Hesperetic acid, 117 Hesperetin, 116 Hesperidin, 116. 126 Hexenmehl, 731 Hibiscus esculentus L., 94 Hill colocynth, 297 Hiltit, 316 Hing, 318 Hingra, 319 Hips, 268 Hodthai, 146 Hog gum, 178 Holcus saccharatus L., 721 Holunderbliithe, 333 Holztheer, 619 Hopfen, 551 Hopfenbittersiure, 555 *Hopfendriisen, 554 Hopfenstaub, 554 Hops, 551 Hordeinic acid, 725 Hordeum decorticatum, 722 » a perlatum, 722 Hornbast, 74. 157 Horse-radish, 71 Houblon, 551 Huile d’Arachides, 186 » de Cade, 623 @enfer, 419.8 » fermentée, 419 » Olives, 417 tournante, 419 Halba, 173 "| -Hamnlos Lupulue 1. 561 a Teicariba DC., 152 — reales spilipiaien Loureiro, $1 : distichum L., 722 | Imperata Kénigii P. de B,, 336 Humulotannie acid, 553 _ Hwang-lien, 4 Hydnocarpus inebrians Vahl, a » odorata Lindley, 75 ” venenata Giirtner, 76 ” Wightiana Blume, 76 Hydrocotarnine, 59 : Hydrocotyle asiatica L., 297 ” rotundifolia Roxb., 298 — ” vulgaris L., 298 Hydrocyanie acid, 249. 250. 255 Hydrokinone, 401 a ee Hyoscine, 465 Hyoscinic acid, 465 ae Hyoscyamine, 464 oe Hyoscyamus albus L., 463.465 insanus Stocks, 466 — Pr niger L., 204. 463 Hypogeic acid, 187 Hypopicrotoxic acid, 33 ” Ibischa, 92 Tceland Moss, 737 Icica Abilo Blanco, 147 altissima Aublet, 152 — 2 Caranna Humb. B. eK, 152 guianensis Aubl., 152 a ylla Aubl., 152 heterophylla. DC., 152 : >. = Sy vadienepeciea, 147 lis ya 207 728. ius oo 431 Tlachi, 644 Tllicium anisatum Taohihind, pies » _ Teligiosum. Siebold, 20 Imperatoria Ostruthium L, 1 10 Indian Bael, 129 786 SS Tnulin, from Araica, 391 - » Taraxacum, 394 Tnuloid, 382 Ionidium, 375, 382 Ipéca sauvage, 427 Ipecacuanha, 370 = Carthagena, 373 . Indian, 427 = New Granada, 373 5 striated, 376 = undulated, 376 _ Ipecacuanhic acid, 374 Ipomeea dissecta Willd., 251 me Jalapa Pursh, 441 i orizabensis Ledanois, 446 Gs Purga Hayne, 443 * simulans Hanbury, 447 Tpomeeic acid, 446 Trmpacee, 660 Tris florentina L., 660 - y germanica L., 660 » nepalensis Wall., 663 » pallida Lamarck, 660 » Pseudacorus L., 678 Trlindisches Moos, 747 Ishpingo, 533 Islindisches Moos, 737 Isuvitinic acid, 85 Isobutyric acid, 391 Tsolusin, 79 Ispaghul Seeds, 490 Jaborandi, 113. 114 Bae Jadvar, 14 _ Jaffna moss, 749 _ Jaggery, 720 Jalap, 443 » fusiform, light or male, 446 »» resin of, 445 > stalks or tops, 446 », Tampico, 447 » Vera Cruz, 446 woody, 446 Filan, 445 ss of Mayer, 447 = in scammony, 441 ; Jempaica pepper, 287 ; » Winter’s Bark, 75 Jateorhiza palmata Miers, 23 sar | ernang, 673 Jervic acid, 695 Jervine, 694. 696 INDEX. Jeukbol, 672 Jinjili Oil, 473 Ju-siang, 137 Juckborsten, 189 Juncus odoratus, 728 Juniper Berries, 624 » Tar, 523 Juniperus communis L., 624 = nana Willd., 625 ¥ Oxycedrus L., 623 is pheenicea L., 628 a Sabina L., 626 i virginiana L., 628 Jusquiame, 463 Justicia paniculata Burmann, 472 Kaddigbeeren, 624 Kakul, 234 Kaladana, 448 Kalmia latifolia L., 402 Kalmus, 676 Kalumb, 24 Kalumbawurzel, 23 Kamala or Kamela, 572 Kamalin, 575 Kamanan, 403 Kami, 234 Kamillen, 386 Kaminan, 403 Kampferid, 643 Kanbil, 572 Kand, 715 Kandahari Hing, 317 Kaneel, 519 Kapi-Kachchu, 190 Kapila or Kapila-podi, 572 Karawya, 305 Kariyat or Creyat, 472 Karroodoorn, 237 Kasia, 222 Kat or Kut, 241, 242 Kayu-puti Oil, 277 Keersal, 244 Kentrosporium, 743 Kesso, 380 Khulakhudi, 297 Kikar, 234 Kinbil, 572. 573 Kinie acid, 363. 402. 595 Kinnah, 321 Kino, 194. ’ Kino, African, 198 Australian, 198 Bengal, 197 » Botany Bay, 198 » Butea, 197 East Indian, 194 : Eucalyptus, 199 » Gambia, 198 » Palas or Pulas, 197 Kinoin, 197. 199 Kinone, 363. 402 Kino-red, 196 Kino-tannic Acid, 196 Kirata-tikta, 436 Kirschlorbeerblitter, 254 Kiwanch, 190 Klatschrosen, 39 Knorpeltang, 747 Kokkelskérner, 31 Kokum Butter, 86 Korarima, 650 Kordofan-Gummi, 233 Koriander, 329 Kosala, 259 Kosin, 258 Koso, Kosso, Kousso, 256 Kostus, 383 Krameria argentea Martius, 81 * cistoidea Hooker, 80 mt grandifolia Berg, 82 _ aK Ixina Triana, 82 ~ secundiflora DC., 82 tomentosa St. Hilaire, 82 Bs triandra Ruiz et Par., 79 Krenai, 71 Kreuzdornbeeren, 157 Kreuzkiimmel, 331 Kiimmel, 304 % langer oder rémischer, 331 Kunkuma, 664 Kurkuma, 638 Kustumburu, 329 Kut or Kat, 241. 242 Kutakan, 297 Kyphi, 141. 172 Lapiara, 476 Laburnine, 172 Lactuca altissima Bieberst., 396 » capitata DC., 396 » elongata Miihlenbk., 396 » sativa L., 396 Lactuca Scariola, 395 » Virosa, 395, 396 Lactucarium, 396 Lactucerin, 398 Lactucic acid, 398 Lactucin, 398 Lactucone, 398 Lactucopicrin, 398 Ladanum, 141 Levulinic acid, 748 Laitue vireuse, 395 Lakriz, 179. 183 Lakrizwurzel, 179 Lalang grass, 336 Lanthopine, 59 Larch Bark, 611 » Turpentine, 609 Larix europea DC., 609. 611 » sibirica Ledebour, 619 Larixin, 611 Larixinic acid, 611 Laser, 315 Laudanine, 59 Laudanosine, 59 LAuRACEz, 510 Laurel oil, 540 Laurel, common, 254 Laurier-cerise, 254 Laurocerasin, 255 Laurus Camphora L., 510 — Cubeba Loureiro, 588 » Sassafras L., 537 Liiusesamen, 5. 697 Lavandula lanata Boissier, 479 Lavandula Spica DC., 478 Steechas L., 479 ” vera DC., 476 Lavanga, 281 Lavendelblumen, 476 Lavender Flowers, 476 » oil of, 478 i nia alba Lam., oa hyacinthina Roth, 693 LEGUMINOSé, 170 ee Leinsamen, 97 on, 114 — Ea of, 118 725 Sk takin L., 394 i Taraxacum L., 392 Leontodonium, 394 Lerp, 417 ” ” ” 788 ~ INDEX. Lettuce, garden, 396 Liquorice, spanish, 183 » Opium, 399 : Lobelacrin, 400 » prickly, 396 Lobelia inflata L., 399 Leu-sung-kwo, 432 LoBELIACcE®, 399 Lewa, 51 Lobelianin, 400 Liane a réglisse, 188 Lobelic acid, 400 - Lichen islandicus, 737 Lobeliin, 400 _ ',, starch, 739 Lobelina, 400 LicHENEs, 737 Loblolly Pine, 607 Lichenic acid, 739 Lobus echinodes, 211 Lichenin, 739 Logantacem, 428 Licheno-stearic acid, 739 Logwood, 213 Lignum Aloés, 681 ‘5 extract of, 215 > » Brasile, 216 Long Pepper, 582 : » campechianum, 213 Lopez Root, 111 » floridum, 537 Léwenzahnwurzel, 392 = 4. . Guaiaci; 100 Loxa Bark, 352 " =. »~ .Hematoxyli, 213 Luban, 133. 137 fee 3 Pterocarpi, 199 » Bedowi, 134. 135 a 5, +Quassiz, 131 » Fasous, 138 » Sanctum, 100 » Santali, 599 » Maheri, 138 » Mascati, 138 » -Santalinum rubrum, 199 >» Mati, 135 » Sassafras, 537 » Meyeti, 135 » Vite, 100 Sheheri, 134 Lin1ace®, 679 Tukenbo, 76 _ Limbu, 115 Lupulin, 554 _ Limon, 114 Lupuline (alkaloid), 553 ~ Lin, 97 Lupulinic Grains, 554 Linea, 97 Lupulite, 555 Linoleic acid, 99 Lupulus, 551 Linoxyn, 98 : Lycium, 35. 512 Linseed, 97 LycopopracEa&, 731 Linum usitatissimum L., 97 Lycopodium clavatum L., 731 Lippia citriodora Humb. Bonpl. et Kth., : 726 _ Liquidambar Altingiana Blume, 272. Mace, 508 277 » oil of, 507 5s formosana Hance, 277 Macene, 509 eG imberbis Aiton, 271 Macis, 508 oi orientalis Miller, 271 Macrotin, 16 ” ag pan i, OE 271; Magellanischer Zimmt, 17 Magican, 595 Magisterium Opii, 57 Maeyouiaces, 17 Maha-tita, 473 ooh radix, 179 oo ss succus, 183 oe i iasttos: extract of, 183 a indian, 188 Mahmira, 3 is paste, 184 Mahwah tree, 728 » root, 179 Maniguette, 651 ” e russian, 181 Makar tree, 135 ” » Spanish, 181 Malabathri folia, 533 =, » - Solem, 164 Malayan camphor, 516 INDEX. Male Fern, 733 Malic acid in Euphorbium, 561 Mallotus philippinensis Miiller, 572 MALVAcEm, 92 Mambroni chini, 4 Mamiran, 4 Mandara, 425 Mandeln, bittere, 247 5 siisse, 244 Mandobi, 187 Mandragora microcarpa Bertoloni, 458 officinarum 458 3 vernalis 5 458 Manduka-parni, 297 Mangosteen, oil of, 86 Mani, 187 Manihot utilissima Pohl, 250 Manna, 409 ys Alhagi, 414 > Australian, 417 4 Briangon, 416 ” ” flake, 412 » -.- Lerp, 417 ” oak, 415 ” -Sugar, 412 a tamarisk, 414 Tolfa, 412 ” Mannite, 412. 730 s in Aconite, 10 » in ergot, 746 a in Taraxacum, 394 Mapouria Ipecacuanha Miill. Arg-, 370 Maranta arundinacea L., 629 ‘5 indica Tussac, 629 Margosa Bark, 154 Margosic acid, 155 Margosine, 155 Marmelos, 130 Marshmallow Root, 92 Mastich, Alpha-resin, 164 i Beta-resin, 164 9 Bombay, 165 » East India, 165 Mastiche, 161 Masticin, 164 Maticin, 590 Matico, 589 ; Matricaria Chamomilla L., 358. 386 iy suaveolens L., 386 Maulbeeren, 544 May Apple, 36 Meadow Saffron, 699 Mechoacan, 444. Meconic acid, 40. 58._63 Meconidine, 59 Meconine, 60 Meconium, 42 Meconoiosin, 60 Meerrettig, 71 Meerzwiebel, 690 Melaleuca ericcefolia Smith, 280 Leucadendron L., 277 linaricefolia Smith, 280 minor Smith, 278 MELANTHACES, 693 Melegueta Pepper, 651 Melezitose, 414. 416 Melia Azadirachta L., 154 Azedarach L., 154 » indica Brandis, 154 Metiaces&, 154 Melitose, 417 Memeren, 4 MENISPERMACER, 23 Menispermine, 33 Menispermum Cocculus L., 31 Menispermum palmatum Lam., 23 Mentha crispa, 481 piperita Hudson, 481 Pulegium L., 486 » viridis L., 479 Menthe poivrée, 481 » pouliot, 486 Menthol, 483 ; oi Mespilodaphne Sassafras Meissner, 539° Mesquite gum, 239 Meta-dioxybenzol, 323 Metacopaivic acid, 91. 231 Metastyrol, 274 Methylamine in ergot, 746 Mezereon Bark, 540 Mimosa Catechu L., fol., 240 Suma Kurz., 241 Senegal L., 233 ,, Sundra Roxb., 240 Mint, black, 484 », white, 484 Mishmi Bitter, 3 Mismalvas, 92 Mohnkapseln, 40 Mohr add, 135 Mohr meddu, 134 Mohrenkiimmel, 331 Molasses, 722 ” ” ” Po | INDEX. Momiri, 4. 5 Momordica Elaterium L., 292 Monniera trifolia L., 114 ‘Moracra, 544 - Morelle grimpante, 450 Moringa pterygosperma Gartner, 73 Morphine or Morphia, 41. 57. 63 a estimation, 63 Morus alba L., 545 » nigra L., 544 - Moschuswurzel, 312 Moss, Ceylon, 749 3 irish, 747 » daftna, 749 Mosul gum, 178 - Mother Cloves, 286 - Mousse d’Irlande, 747 _y @Islande, 737 » perlée, 743 - Moutarde anglaise, 68 3 blanche, 68 . grise, 64 = noire, 64 Moutarde des Allemands, 71 Mucuna cylindrosperma Welwitsch 191 » pruriens DC., 189 » prurita Hkr., 189 Mudar, 424 ? _ Mudarine, 425 _ Mulberries, 544 ~ Mulmul, 140 Mundubi, 187 Munjit, 438 Mar, 140. 142 Mares, 544 Murlo, 135 ee -Muscade, 502 : » beurre de, 507 “Muskatbliithe, 508 - Muskatbutter, 507 _ Muskatnuss, 502 Muskatnussél, 507 sae Mustard, black, brown red, 64 6 oil of, 66 » white, 68 _ Mustard paper, 68 - Mutterharz, 320 Mutterkorn, 740 Mutterkiimmel, 331 Mycose, 745 _ Myrcia acris DC., 289 Myristic acid, 507. 508. 663 %5 » from kokum, 87 aS me » orris, 663 Myristica, 502 i fatua Houtt., 502. 506 a fragrans Houtt., 502 a moschata Thunb., 502 a officinalis L., 502 Myrnisticem, 502 Myristicene, 506 Myristicin, 506 Myristicol, 506 Myristin, 508 Myrocarpus frondosus Allemao, 211 Myronate of potassium, 66 Myrosin, 66. 70 Myrospermum Pereirse Royle, 205 3 toluiferum‘A. Rich., 202 Myroxocarpin, 210 Myroxylon Pereirze Klotzsch, 205 3 peruiferum L., 210 a punctatum Klotzsch, 202 Ps Toluifera, H.B.K., 202 Myrrh, 140. 520 » arabian, 143. 146 Myrrha, 140 Myrraces, 277 Myrtus Pimenta L., 287 Narceine, 59. 63 Narcotine, 57. 59. 62 Nard, Indian, 312 Nardostachys, 312 Naringin, 117 Narthex Asafcetida Falconer, 314 Nataloin, 687 Nauclea Gambir Hunter, 335 Nectandra cinnamomoides Meissner, 534 4 Cymbarum Ness, 540 » Rodizi Schomburgk, 535 — Nectandria, 536 Nelkenképfe, 287 Nelkenpfeffer, 287 Nelkenstiele, 286 Nephelium lappaceum L., 187 Neroli Camphor, 127 97 ~ Oil of, 126 Nerprun, 157 Neugewiirz, 287 Ngai Camphor, 518 Ngan-si-hiang, 403 Nhandi, 591 INDEX, Nicker seeds, 211 Olea ferruginea Royle, 417 Nicotiana multivalvis Lindley, 469 Otxace®, 409 _ persica Lindley, 469 Oleic acid in almonds, 246 3 quadrivalvis Pursh, 469 » in Arachis, 187 +5 repanda Willd., 469 Olen, 4 ». Tabacum L., 466 Oleum Andropogonis, 725 Nicotianin, 468 » Arachis, 186 Nicotine, 467 » Aurantii florum, 126 Nieswurzel, 1 », Bergamii, 121 7 weisse, 639 » Bergamotte, 121 Nightshade, deadly, 458 », Cacao, 95 Pe woody, 450 iy cadinum, 623 Nim Bark, 154 ” Cajuputi, 277 Nimba, 154 », Crotonis, sr Nimbuka, 115 » Garciniae, 86 Nipa fruticans Thunb., 721 » Graminis indici, 725 Noix d’Arec, 669 » Tuniperi empyreumaticum, 623 » de galle, 595 » Limonis, 8 » Igasur, 431 yy Macidis, 507 ye » de muscade, 502 een a ae wae » vVomique, 428 » Menthe» piperite, so7 Nunnari Root, 423 » My — pe dO Nutgalls, 595 yp Nero; 196 Nutmeg, 502 ” ree. 5 Butter, 507 » Olivae, ae Nutmeg, expressed oil of, 507 ” ete 273 Nuts, Areca, 669 & eee » Betel, 669 ” ace ie 95 -Nux Areca, 669 ‘i; Tiglii, 565 »” Betel, 669 uM, “Wittnebianum, 278 » indica, 502. 503. 670 0 a 133. 141. 520 »» Methel, 429 ee ve Oil 2 417 »» Moschata, 502 Lise Olivendl, 417 Nux Vomica, 428 Omam, 302. 726 Ophelia angustifolia Don, 438 Oak bark, 593 Chirata Grisebach, 436 » galls, 595 ” densifolia Griseb., 438 »» Manna, 415 3 elegans Wight, 438 Ognon marin, 690 multiflora Dalz., 438 Oil, citronella, 726 Ophelie acid, 437 » Geranium, 728 Ophioxylon serpentinum L, 4 » ginger grass, 726 ‘anic acid, 58 »» demon grass, 725 Og janine, 58 : » Melissa, 725 Opianyl (Meconin), 60 » Namur or Nimar, 726 Opium, 42 »» palmarosa, 728 e Abkari, 52 ees » Tusa, 728 +s Americanum, rm ee » Theobroma, 95 - 7 ck Asia Minor, 49. »» Werbena, 725 Z Chinese, 53 : Okro, 94 Constantinople, 45 Olea cuspidata Wallich, 417 * East Indian, 50. 61. 62 » europea L., 417 792 - Opium, Egyptian, 47, 61 5 European, 49. 60. 62 » Malwa, 50. 62 5 Mosambik, 55 See Patna, 50, 53, 61 ',, Persian, 48. 61. 62 ao. Balt, 57 i Smyrna, 45, 63 * thebaicum, 44 » Turkey, 45 3 wax, 56 : Zambezi, 55 Bpvidia galbanifera Lindley, 320 Opopanax, 327 Opopanax Chironium Koch, 327 s _ persicum Boiss,, 327 Deanee, Bigarade, 124 f ‘, _ bitter, 124 » Elower Water, 127 Dae - Peel, 124 = » oil of, 128 » Seville, 124 OrcHIDACER, 654 Orchis, species yielding Salons 654 Ordeal Bean, 191 -Oreodaphne opifera Nees, 540 Orge mondé ou perlé, 722 Orizaba Root, 446 Orme, 556 Orinthogalum altissimum L., 693 _ Ornus europzea Pers., 409 Orris Camphor, 663 » Root, 660 Otto of Rose, 262 Oxyacanthine, 36 Oxycannabin, 549 _ Oxycopaivie acid, 231 Oxylinoleic acid, 99 Oxypheenica, 225 Pachyma Cocos, 714 Palas, 197 Palas Tree, 197 _ Palma Christi Seeds, 567 Patu”, 669 Palmarosa Oil, 726 -Palmitic acid, 419 » in Arachis, 187 Palo del soldado, 590, 591 Panax quinquefolium L., 79. 593 Papaver dubium L., 39 + officinale Goielin, 40 INDEX, Papaver Rheeas L., 39 35 setigerum DC., 40 ae somniferum L., 39 PapaVERACEE, 39 Papaverin, 42 Papaverine, 42. 59 Papaverosine, 42. 58 Paracumaric acid, 689 Paradieskiérner, 651 Paraftin, 266 Paramenispermine, 33 Para-oxybenzoic acid from aloes, 689 . 5 ,, benzoin, 408 3 5) 24; ~ Gragons blood, 674 3 a 5, Kamala,575 Pareira Brava, 25 9 AS false, 28 - white, 30 s = yellow, 30 Paricine, 358 Parigenin, 711 Pariglina, 711 Parillin, 711 Pasewa, 51 Passulze majores, 159 Patrinia scabioszefolia Link, 380 Pavot, 40 Paytine, 359 Peachwood, 213 Pe-fuh-ling, 714 Pea nut oil, 186 Pech, 619. 623 Paasgistam: Radula Bion: 726 Pelletierine, 291 Pellitory Root, 383 Pelosine in Bibiru, 536 +s in Pareira, 28. 29 Pennyroyal, 486 Pennywort, Indian, 297 Pepins de coings, 269 Pepita, 432 Pepper, black, 137. 576 e » African, 589 a Cayenne, 452 a Guinea, 452 » Jamaica, 287 a long, 582 » pod or red, 452 white, 581 Pippasint; 481 Peppermint camphor, 483 Peppermint oil, 482 3 », chinese, 483 Periploca indica Willd., 423 Perlmoos, 747 Persian berries, 158 Pérusse, 612 Perubalsam, 205 Peruvian Bark, 338 Peruvin, 209 Petala Rheeados, 39 6 Rose centifoliz, 261 ay gallice, 259 Petit Grain, essence, 126. 128 Peucedanum graveolens Hiern, 327 Pfeffer, 576 » ° langer, 582 » Spanischer, 452 Pfefferminze, 481 Pfriemenkraut, 170 Pheeoretin, 499. 500 Pharbitis hispida Choisy, 448 Pharbitis Nil Choisy, 448 Pharbitisin, 449 Phaseolus multiflorus Lam., 191 Phoenix silvestris Roxb., 721 Pholoroglucin from catechin, 423 dragon’s blood, 675 ” ” gamboge, 85 . » hesperetin, 117 e », kino, 196 % » scoparin, 171 Phu, 377 Phyco-erythrin, 748 Phyllinic acid, 256 Physostigma venenosum Balfour, 191 Physostigmine, 193 Phytosterin, 193 Pichurim Beans, 540 Picreena excelsa Lindley, 131 Picraconitine, 10 Picrasma excelsa Planchon, 131 Picrosclerotin, 745 Picrotoxin, 32 Pignons d’Inde, 565 Pilocarpine, 113 Pilocarpus pauciflorus St. 113 pennatifolius Lam., 113 ‘ Selloanus Engler, 113 Pimarie acid, 607 Piment des Anglais, 287 ” ” jardins, 452 Hilaire, ” x INDEX. 1s Pimenta acris Wight, 289 » Officinalis Lindley, 287 » Pimento Grisebach, 289 Pimento, 287 Pimienta de Tabasco, 287. 289 Pimpinella’Anisum L., 310 Pin-lang, 669 Pine, Lohlolly, 604 Scotch, 604 », Swamp, 604 Pinic acid, 607 Pink Root, 433 Pinus Abies L., 615 australis Michaux, 604 balsamea L., 612 ~ canadensis: L., 612 Cedrus L., 416 Fraseri Pursh, 612 Laricio Poiret, 604 Larix L., 416. 609. 611 Ledebourii Endl., 619 maritima Poiret, 604 palustris Miller, 604 Picea L.,'615 Pinaster Solander, 604 Pumilio Hiinke, 614 _ silvestris L., 604. 619 ” Teda L., 604 Piper aduncum L, 591 ‘ angustifolium Ruiz et Pavon, 589 Betle L., 583. 669 caninum A. Dietr., 588 citrifolium Lam., 114 Clusii DC., 589 crassipes Korthals, 588 Cubeba L. fil., 584 i“ Janceeefolium Humb. B. et K.,591 longum L., 582. 591 Lowong BI., 588 nigrum L., 576 nodulosum Link, 114 — officinarum C. DC., 582 , _reticulatum Lellt Prreraces, 576 Piperic acid, 580 Piperidine, 580° Piperin, 580 pitied, 583. 584 Pirus Cydonia Li, 269 glabra Boissier,415 Pissenlit, 392 ” 794 Ses - ERG. __ Pistache de terre, 186 PoLyGaLEx, 77 - Pistacia atlantica Desf., 165 Polygalic acid, 78 » cabulica Stocks, 165 - Poryconaces, 491 » galls, 165 Pomegranate Peel, 289 » Khinjuk Stocks, 165 Pomegranate-root Bark, 290 » Lentiscus L., 161. 598 Pomeranzenschale, 124 » paleestina Boissier, 165 Pontefract Cakes, 186 Terebinthus L., 165. 598 Poppy Capsules, 40 Pitayo Bark, 345 » Heads, 40 Pitch, black, 623 % «red, 3d » Burgundy, 616 Portugal, oil of, 128 Pitoya Bark, 359 Potato Starch, 633 Pitoyine, 359 Potentilla Tormentilla Sibthorp, 81. _ Pix abietina, 616 364 » burgundica, 616 Poudre des Capucins, 698 » liquida, 619 Pouliot vulgaire, 486 » havalis, 623 Prophetin, 294 » nigra, 623 Prosopis glandulosa Torrey, 239 » Ssicca, 623 Protium Icicariba Marchand, 152 ~~ 4, Solida, 623 — Protocatechuic acid, 171. 243. 637. 640 Puireaonetk, 490 Protopine, 59 Plantago Cynops L., 490 Provencer Oel, 417 a Sain bend Forsk., 490 Pruneaux 4 médecine, 251 » ispaghula Roxb., 490 Prunes, 251 » Psyliium L., 490 Prunier de St. Julien, 251 Plaqueminier, 403 : Prunus Amygdalus Buill., 244. 247 Plocaria candida Nees, 749 » domestica L., 251 Plosslea floribunda Endl., 135 » Lauro-cerasus L., 254 _, Poaya, 375 ‘ » economica Borkh., 252 __ Pockholz, 100 » serotina Ehrh,, 253 ; Pod pepper, 452 virginiana Biller, 253 _ Podisoma fuscum Duby, 628 Beales Padus L., 253 Podophyllin, 38 Pseudaconine, 9 Podophyllum peltatum L., 36 Pseudaconitine, 9 » resin, 37 Pseudomorphine, 59, 62 - Peis & gratter, 189 * Psychotria emetica Mutis, 376 » pouillieux, 189 Pteritannic acid, 735 » quéniques, 211 Pterocarpin, 201 Poivre, 576 Pterocarpus angolensis DC., 202 » de Guinée, 452 - Draco L., 676 es » adInde, 452 - erinaceus Poiret, 198 : » de la Jamaique, 287 - indicus Willd., 194 » long, 582 e Marsupium Roxh., 194 _ Poix de Bourgogne, 616 santalinus L., 199 » jaune, 616 Ptychotis Ajowan DC., 302 » liquide, 619 : » coptica DC., 302 » hoire, 623 Puchury Beans, 540 » des Vosges, 616 Pulas tree, 197 Poke, Indian, 695 Punica Granatum L., 289. 290 Polei, 486 Punicin, 291 _ Polychroit, 666 Punico-tannic acid, 291 Polygala Senega 1.., 77 Purging cassia, 221 Purga de Sierra Gorda, 447 Purgirkérner, 565 Purgo macho, 446 Puti-Karanja, 211 Pyréthre, 383 Pyrocatechin from Areca nut, 671 bearberry, 402 cutch, 244 . » kino, 196. 199 in tar, 620. 622 Pyroleam Oxycedri, 623 Pyroligneous acid, 621 29 ” ” ” Qinbil, 572. 573 Qinnab, 548 Qinnaq, 548 Quassia amara L., 131. 133 » excelsa Swartz, 131 » Wood, 131 » » Surinam, 133 Quassiin, 132, 133 Queckenwurzel, 729 Quercetin, 244 Quercite, 595 Quercitannie acid, 594 Quercitrin, 260 Quercus infectoria Olivier, 595 lusitanica Webb, 595 » pedunculata Ehrh., 593 » persica Jaub. et Spach, 416 ”» Robur Lj 593 » sessiliflora Sm., 593 species yielding Manna, 416 Vallonea Kotschy, 416 Quetachsn or Zwetschen, 252 Quina blanca, 564 », Caroni, 106 Quinamine, 358 Quince, Bengal, 129 » Seeds, 269 Quinicine, 359 Quinidine, 358, 360 Quinine, 359 5 iodo-sulphate, 360 Quinoidine, 359 Quinone or Kinone, 363 Quinovic or Chinovie acid, 338. 364 Quinovin or Chinovin, 364 Quinquina, 338 Quitch Grass, 729 Quittensamen, 269 INDEX. Radix Abri, 188 ~ » Aconiti, 8 heterophylli, 14 5 rs indica, 12 Acori, 676 Acts racemose, 15 Althae, 92 Armoraciz, 71 Arnice, 390 Belladonne, 455 Calami aromatici, 676 Calumbe, 23 Chine, 712 3 » occidentalis, 714 Cimicifuge, 15 Colchici, 699 Columbo, 238 Coptidis, 3 dulcis, 179 Ellebori nigri, 1 st Enule, 380 4 Filicis, 733 Gentianz, 434 Glycyrrhize, 179 Graminis, 729 Helenii, 380 Hellebori albi, 693 Hellebori nigri, 1 Hemidesmi, 423 ” ” Liquiritiz, 179 Lopeziana, lll Mechoacanne, 444 Melampodii, 1 Pareirse, 25 Podophylli, 36 Polygale Senege, 17 pretiosa amara, 4 796 Radix, Taraxaci, 392 » Toddaliz, 111 » Tylophorx, 428 » Valerianz, 377 3, Verabri, 693 Raifort, 71 Raisins, 159 RaANUNCULACES, 1 Raphanus rusticanus, 71 -Rasamala, 272. 277 Rasot or Rusot, 35 Ratanhia des Antilles, 81 Ratanhia-red, 80 : » tannic acid, 80 Ratanhiawurzel, 79 -Ratanhin, 81 Red-Cole, 71 Red Poppy Petals, 39 » Sanders Wood, 199 Réglisse, 179 » @Amérique, 188 re suc de, 183 Reseda lutea L., 67 » luteola L., 67 | Resina Benzoe, 403 » Draconis, 672 » Guaiaci, 103 » dSalape, 445 » Podophylli, 38 » Scammonie, 442 Resorcin, 323. 326° Retti, 188 Rhabarber, 491 Rhabarberin, 499 Rhabarbic acid, 499 - Raamyacem, 157 Rhamnegine, 159 Rhamnetin, 159 Rhamnetine, 158 -Rhamnine, 158 ~ Rhamnocathartin, 158 Rhamaous cathartica L., 157 _Rhatany Cearé4, 81 Rhatania Root, 79 _Rhatany, Brazilian, 81 » New Granada, 82 «ard, 81 ” Payta, 79 ” Peruvian, 79 ” Savanilla, 82 Rhein, 499 : Rheo-tannic acid, 499 INDEX. Rheum australe L., 502 compactum Don, 502 Emodi Wallich, 502 officinale Baillon, 492 palmatum L., 492 Rhaponticum L., 500 undulatum L., 502 Stheuniis acid, 499 Rheumin, 499 Rhizoma Arnice, 390 Rhizoma Calami aromatici, 676 s Coptidis, 3 5 Curcume, 638 » Filicis, 733 o Galange, 641 “7 Graminis, 729 os Iridis, 660 ss Podophylli, 36 Veratri albi, 693 - » viridis, 695 Zingiberis, 635 Bitadine; 40, 42. 59. 63 Rheeagenine, 59 Rhubarb, 491 Austrian, 502 Canton, 496 China, 496 pe crown, 496 i East India, 496 » English, 500 French, 501 » Mauscovitic, 496 i Russian, 499 Turkey, 496 Pkubarb: -bitter, 409 Rhubarb-yellow, 409 Rhus Bucki-amela Roxb., 167 » coriaria L., 169. 597 » semialata Murray, 167 Richardsonia scabra Saint Hilaire, 376 Ricinelaidic acid, 570 Ricinelaidin, 570 Ricinine, 570 Ricinoleic acid, 570 Ricinus communis L., 567 Rohrencassie, 221 Rohrzucker, 714 Rohun Bark, 156 Romarin, 488 Rosa acicularis Lindley, 268 ', bifera Redouté, 261 » canina L., 265, 268 Rosa centifolia L., 261 » cinnamomea L., 268 »» damascena Miller, 262 » gallica L., 259 Rosacrm, 244 Rose, Attar of, 262 » Cabbage, 261 » Damask, 262 » Dog, 268 » leaves, 259 » Malloes, 272 %. oil, 262 » Pale, 261 » petals, red, 259 » Provence, 261 » Provins, 259 » de Puteaux, 261 » rouge, 259 Roseau aromatique, 676 Rosemary, 488 Rosenil, 262 Rosin, black, 607 » transparent, 607 » yellow, 607 Rosinen, 159 Rosmarinus officinalis L., 488 Reestelia cancellata Rebent., 626 Rotang, 672 Rottlera tinctoria Roxb., 572 Rottlerin, 575 Rubia cordifolia L., 438 Rustacna#, 335 Ruby Wood, 199 Rusa ka tel, 726 Rusot or Rasot, 35 Riisterrinde, 556 Ruracrsx, 106 Rye, spurred, 740 Sabadilla officinarum Brandt, 697 Sabadillic acid, 699 : Sabadilline, 698 Sabatrine, 699 Sabine, 626 Sabzi, 548 Saccharum, 714 chinense Roxb., 715 officinarum L., 714 ” ” Saffron, 137, 663 » meadow, 699 Safran, 663 violaceum Tussac, 715 _ é INDEX. _ ee. - - ag7 Safrene, 538 Safrol, 538 Sagapenum, 324 Salai tree, 135 Salep, 654 Salib misri, 655 Salicylic acid, 285 Salix fragilis L., 416 Salsepareille, 703 Salseparin, 711 Samadera indica Girtner, 133 Samara Ribes, 581 Sambola, 312 Sambucus canadensis L., 334 Ebulus L., 334 » nigra L., 333 Sandal Wood, 599 ” ” red, 199 Sandelholz, 599 % rothes, 199 Sanders Wood, red, 199 = Sang-dragon, 672. 675 Sanguis Draconis, 672. 675 Sankira, 712 Sant, 234 Santal, 599 ” -Santal citrin, bois de, 599 SANTALACEX, 599 Santalic acid, 201 — Santalin, 201 Santalum album L., 599. 602 : austro-caledonicum Vieill., se Miq., 599 ! orum Miq., Peay dha Gaud., 599 lanceolatum Br.,599 pyrularium A. Gray, 599 rubrum, 199 spicatum DC., 599. 601 Yasi Seemann, 599 ” ” 5 ” Santonica, 387 Santonin, 389 Santoninic acid, 389 Saj n, 159 saree 216, 521 Sapin, 615 Sapogenin, 78 nin, 38 Saptachhada, 421 Saptaparna, 421 iva, 423 : capaci vulgaris Wimmer, 170 798 Sarsa, 703 - Sarsaparilla, 703 Brazilian, 709 Guatemala, 709 5 Guayaquil, 710 a Honduras, 709 i Indian, 423 “en Jamaica, 709 5 Lisbon, 709 ra Mexican, 710 re Para, 709 Sarza, 703 Sassafras Bark, 539. 540 5 camphor, 538 me nuts, 540 ae officinalis Nees, 537 » oil, 229, 538 Siok 539 Rumabcabale 537 Sassafrid, 539 } Basiafrin, 539 Sassarubin, 539 Satyrii radix, 654 Saussurea, 382 Savin, 626 Scammonium, 438 Scammony, 438 es resin, 438 » root, 442 Schierlingsblitter, 301 Schierlingsfrucht, 299 Schiffspech, 623 Schlangenwurzel, 591 Scheenanthus, 726, 728 Schcenocaulon officinale A. Gray, 697 Schusterpech, 623 Scilla indica Roxb., 693 » maritima L., 690 Scillain, 692 Scillin, 692 - Scillipicrin, 692 Scillitin, 692 - Scillitoxin, 692 Sclererythrin, 745 _ Sclerocrystallin, 745 _ Scelerojodin, 745 Scleromucin, 745 Sclerotic acid, 745 Sclerotium Clavus DC., 742 Scleroxanthin, 745 Scoparii cacumina, 170 Scoparin, 171 INDEX. Scorodosma feetidum Bunge, 314 Scrape, 608 Scrophularia frigida Boiss., 416 ScroPHULARIACER, 469 Sebacic acid, 446 Secale cornutum, 740 Seidelbastrinde, 540 Seigle ergoté, 740 Semen Ajavee, 302 » Ammi, 304 Amomi, 287 Anisi stellati, 20 Arecz, 211. 512. 669 Badiani, 20 » Bonducelle, 211 Calabar, 191 Carui, 304 Cataputize, 567 3 Cine, 387 5 Colchici, 702 3 Contra, 387 ,, Crotonis, 565 » Cydoniz, 269 » et folia Dature albx, 462 » Foeni-greeci, 172 Guilandine, 211 » Gynocardiz, 75 » Ignatii, 431 » Ispaghule, 490 Kaladane, 448 eid, 97, » Nucis vomice, 428 » Physostigmatis, 191 » Ricini, 567 » Sabadille, 697 » sanctum, 387 Santonice, 387 » Sinapis nigre, 64 a » alba, 68 » Staphisagrie, 5 » Stramonii, 461 » Tiglii, 565 » Zedoarizx, 387 Semencine, 387 Senapium, 65 Séné, feuilles de, Senega Root, 77 Senegin, 78 Seneka Root, 77 Senf, schwarzer, 64 9) Weisser, 68 Senna, 216 Senna, Alexandrian, 218 » Arabian, 219 » Bombay, 219 », East Indian, 219 » Moka, 219 » Tinnevelly, 219 Sennacrol, 219 Sennapicrin, 219 Serpentary Root, 591 Serapinum, 322. 324 Serpentaire, 591 ; Serronia Jaborandi Gaud., 114 Sesamé Oil, 473 SEsaAMEm, 473 Sesamil, 473 Sesamum indicum DC., 473 Sete Mucune, 189 Setwall, 378 Sevenkraut, 626 Sharkara, 715 Shi-mi, 716 Shir-kisht, 415 Siddhi, 548 Sigia, 271 Siliquee, 172 Silphium, 320 Silva do Praya, 211 Silvie acid, 607 Simaruba excelsa DC., 131 StmarvuBeg, 131 Sinalbin, 69 Sinapic acid, 70 Sinapine, sulphate, 70 Sinapis alba L., 68 Sinapis erucoides L., 65 »» juncea L., 68 » Nigra L., 64 Sinapoleic acid, 68 Sinigrin, 66 Sinistrin, 725 Sireh grass, 725 Sison Amomum L., 304 Skimmi, 20 Skulein, 692 Slevogtia orientalis Grisebach, 438 SmiLacem, 703 Smilacin, 711 Smilax aspera L., 703. 705 Balbisiana Kunth, 714 brasiliensis Sprgl., 714 » China L;.7i2 : cordato-ovata Rich., 705 . INDRA ee Smilax glabra Roxb., 712 Japicanga Griseb., 714 lancezefolia Roxb., 712 medica Schl. et Cham., 704 officinalis Humb. Boupl. et Kth. 704, 707 : papyracea Poiret, 705 Pseudo-China L., 714 Purhampuy Ruiz, 705 Schomburgkiana Kunth, 705 syphilitica H.B. et K., 205 syringoides Griseb., 714 ,, tamnifolia Michaux, 714 Snake-root, black, 15 Red River, 593 Texan, 593 E, Virginian, 592 Socaloin, 688 Soffar, 234 SoLanacez, 450 Solanicine, 451 Solanidine, 451 Solanine, 451 Solanum Dulcamara L., 450 nigrum L., 450 5; tuberosum L., 633 Solazzi Juice, 184 Solenostemma Argel Hayne, 218. 220 Somo, 20 Sont, 234 Sorghum saccharatum Pers., 721 Soyah or Suva, 328 oe Soymida febrifuga Jussieu, 156 Spanish Juice, 183 Sparteine, 171 : Spartium Scoparium L., 170 rmint, 479 creda Clavus Fries, 742 Sphacelia segetum Léveillé, 742 Spheerococcus confervoides Ag., 749 — lichenoides Agardh, 749 ” ” ” : Spigelia marilandica L., 433. 593 Spike, oil of, 479 Spikenard, 503 Spina cervina, 157 Spogel Seeds, 490 Spoonwood, 402 Spore Lycopodii, 731 Springgurke, 292 Spurred Rye, 740 Squill, 690 Squinanthus, 726, 728 800 INDEX. -» Squine, 712 Styrol, from Dragon’s Blood, 673 Squirting cucumber, 292 Styrone, 274 Ssoffar, 234 Suc d’Aloés, 679 Ssont, 234 . Succus Glycyrrhize, 182 Stacte, 137, 142 Succus Limonis, 116 Staphisagria, 6 Sucre de canne, 714 Staphisagrine, 7 Sugar, 714 Staphisaigre, 5 » beet root, 720 Star-Anise, 20 » maple, 72 Starch, Canna, 633 » palm, 720 4, chemistry of, 631 » Sorghum, 721 ',, Curcuma, 634 _ Sumach, 169 » Potato, 633 Sumbul root, 312 » structure of, 631 Sumbulamic acid, 313 Stavesacre, 5. 698 Sumbulic acid, 313. Stearophanic acid, 33 Sumbulin, 313 Stechapfelblatter, 459 Sumbulolic acid, 313 = Stechapfelsamen, 461 Summitates Scoparii, 170 Steffensia citrifolia Kunth, 114 Sureau, 333 Stephanskérner, 5 Surinjan, 701 STERCULIACER, 95 Suseman, 474 Sternanis, 20 Siissholz, 179 Stinkasant, 314 | Stissholzsaft, 183 Stipes Dulcamare, 450 Sweet cane, 715 Stipites Caryophylli, 286 Sweet Flag root, 676 _Stizolobium pruriens Persoon, 189 » Gum, 276 Steechas arabica, 479 », Wood bark, 561 Storax, liquid, 271 Swietenia febrifuga Willd., 156 » true, 137. 141. 276 Sylvic acid, 607 Storesin, 274 Synanthrose, 381 Stramonium, 459 : Synaptase, 247 » Seeds, 461 Syrup, golden, 722 ~ Stringy bark, 199 Syrupus communis, 722 Strobili Humuli, 551 » hollandicus, 722 Strychnos colubrina L., 430 : » Ignatii Bergius, 431 Tabac, 466 ‘ Nux-vomica L., 107, 428 Tabakblitter, 466 » Pphilippensis Blanco, 431 Ta-fung-tsze, 75 +» Tieute Lesch., 430 Taj-pat, 533 Sturmhut, 8 Talch or Talha, 234 Styphnic acid, 323 Tamarind, 224 Srrracex, 403 Tamarisk galls, 598 _ Styracin, 274 Tamarindi pulpa, 224 Styrax Benzoin Dryander, 403 Tamarindus indica L., 224 » calamita, 276 5 occidentalis Giirtner, 224 » Finlaysoniana Wallich, 404 Tamarix gallica mannifera Ehrenbg., - » liquidus, 271 414 » Officinalis L., 271. 276 es orientalis L., 598 » — subdenticulata Miquel, 407 Tang-hwang, 83 Styrol, 274 Tannaspidic acid, 735 » from Balsam of Tolu, 205 Tannenharz, 616 is »» Benzoin, 408 _ Tannic acid from galls, 597 Tar, 619 Archangel, 620 beech, 623 birch, 623 juniper, 623 oil of, 623 Stockholm, 620 » water, 622 Taraxacerin, 394, 398 Taraxacin, 394 Taraxacum Dens-leonis Desfont., 392 me officinale Wiggers, 392 Tecamez Bark, 359 Teel Oil, 473 Tephrosia Apollinea Delile, 221 _ Terebinthina argentoratensis, 615 canadensis, 612 chia, 165 cypria, 165 laricina, 609 veneta, 609 vulgaris, 604 d’Alsace, 615 de Briangon, 609 de Canada, 612 de Chio, 165 de Chypres, 165 commune, 604 du méléze, 609 du sapin, 615 de Strasbourg, 615 e de Venise, 609 Terpenthin, Chios, 165 Cyprischer, 165 gemeiner, 604 Lirchen-, 609 Strassburger, 615 s Venetianischer, 609 Terra japonica (Catechu), 240. 335 = (Gambier), 335 Tetranthera, 589 Thalictrum foliolosum DC., 6 Thalleioquin, 360 Thallochlor, 739 THALLOGENS, 737 Thebaicine, 59 Thebaine, 59, 62 Thebenine, 59 ’ Thebolactic acid, 58 Theobroma Cacao L., 9% leiocarpum Bern., 95 oil of, 95 ” Térébenthine ? ”» ” ” INDEX. 801 Theobroma pentagonum Bern., 95 % Salzmannianum Bern., 95 Theobromic acid, 97 Theriaca, 44. 48, 439 Thornapple, 459 Thridace, 396 Thus americanum, 603 libycum, 325 » masculum, 133 » vulgare, 608 Thyme, 487 camphor, 487 » oil of, 487 THYMELER, 540 Thymene, 488 Thymiankraut, 487 Thymol, 488 » from ajowan, 303 Thymus vulgaris L., 487 Tigala, 417 Tiglinic acid, 386. 566. 699 Tiglium officinale Klotzsch, 565 Tikhur or Tikor, 634 Til Oil, 473 Tinospora cordifolia Miers, 33 crispa Miers, 34 ” ” ” Tita, 4 Tobacco, 466 Camphor, 468 » Indian, 469 Toddalia aculeata Pers., 111 » lanceolata Lam., 111 Toddy, 120 Tolene, 205 Tollkraut, 458 Tolomane, 633 Tolubalsam, 202 Toluene, 622 Toluifera Balsamum Miller, 202 Toluol or Toluene, 204 » from Dragon’s Blood, 674 Toulema, 633 Tous-les-mois, 633 Toute-épice, 287 Toxiresin, 471 Tragacanth, black, 177 5 flake, 177 A syrian, 177 vermicelli, 177 Tragacantha, 174 thin, 178 Treacle or Molasses, 722 ” 802 : INDEX. Trehala, 417. 746 Trehalose, 417. 746 Trigonella Foenumgrecum L., 172 Trimethylamine, in ergot, 746 e in hop, 553 Triticin, 730 Triticum repens L., 729 Tropic acid, 457 Tropine, 457 Tubera Chine, 712 e Aconiti, 8 » Colchici, 699 : Salep, 654 Tu-fuh-ling, 714 Tung tree, 91 Turanjabin, 414 Turmeric, 638 Turpentine, American, 606 i Bordeaux, 606 Ss Canadian, 612 3 Chian, 165 < Cyprian, 165 ee larch, 609 5 Strassburg, 615 Venice, 609 tpliphors asthmatica Wight et Arnott, 427 Tyrosin, 81 Uéhka, 94 UbMAcram, 556 Ulmenrinde, 556 Ulmin, 557 Ulmus campestris Smith, 556 » fulva Michaux, 557 » montana With., 556 UMBELLIFER®, 297 Umbelliferone, 322 o from asafcetida, 319 > » galbanum, 322 ” »» mezereon, 541 » sumbul, 313 Daearis acida Roxb., 335 » Gambier Roxb. » 835 Urginea altissima Baker, 693 » indica Kunth, 693 a maritima Baker, 690 s Scilla Steinheil, 690 Ursone, 402 Uruk, 4 Unhak, 325 Uve passe, 159 Vaccinium Vitis-idea L., 402 Vacha, 677 Valerian, japanese, 380 9 Root, 877 Valeriana angustifolia Tausch, 377 oy celtica L., 378 5 officinalis L., 377 re Phu L., 380 VALERIANACES, 377 Valerianic acid, 379. 553 Valerol, 553 Vanilla, 657 » Pplanifolia Andrews, 657 Vanillic acid, 659 Vanillin, 285, 409. 659 is artificial, 659 Vanillon, 659 Vars, 574 Veilchenwurzel, 660- Vellarin, 298 Veratramarin, 695 Veratric acid, 699 Veratridine, 696 Veratrine, 698 Veratroidine, 695. 696 Veratrum album L., 693 is frigidum Schlechtendal, 695 * Lobelianum Bernhard, 695 s nigrum L., 695 . officinale Schlecht., 697 is Sabadilla Retzius, 697 viride Aiton, 695 Werk; 233 Vermicelli, 17G2 Verzino, 216 Vetti-ver, 728 Vikunia, 286 Virginic acid, 79 Vitis vinifera L., 159 Vincetoxicum officinale Monch, 79 Virgin dip, 605 Visha, 12 Vola, 142 Wacholderbeeren, 624 Waltheria glomerata Presl., 591 Waras, Wars, or Wurus, 572. 573. 576 Wattle tree, 237 Waythorn, 157 Weihrauch, 133 White Wood Bark, 73 Whortleberry, red, 402 INDEX. Wild black Cherry bark, 253 Winter’s Bark, 17 » false, 19 Wintergreen, 402 Wittedoorn, 237 Wood Apple, 131. 239 » Oil, 88. 91, 229 Wormseed, 387 Wu-pei-tze, 169 Wurmsamen, 387 Wurus, 572. 573, 576 Xanthoxylum elegans Engler, 114 Ximenia americana L., 250 Xylenol, 689 Xylocassia, 529 Xylocinnamomum, 529 Xylole, 622 Xylomarathrum, 537 1 PRINTED BY ROBERT MACLEHOSE A’ Yegaar tree, 35 | Yerba del soldado, 590 | Yuh-kin, 639 | Zadvar, 14 Zanthoxylum, 111. 114 Zeitlosenknollen, 699 Zeitlosensamen, 702 Zestes d’Oranges, 124 Zimmt, 519 Zingiber officinale Roscoe, 635 ZINGIBERACER, 635 Zitwersamen, 387 Zucker, 714 Zwetschen, 252 Zygia, 271. 272 ZYGOPHYLLEZ, 100 ‘)HE UNIVERSITY PRESS, GLASGOW.