I.—Phænogamous or Flowering Plants (part 2)

The resin has a sp. gr. of about 1·2. It fuses at 85° C., emitting a peculiar odour somewhat like that of benzoin. It is easily soluble in acetone, ether, alcohol, amylic alcohol, chloroform, creosote, caustic alkaline 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 alcoholic 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 solution 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 Schönbein in his well-known researches on ozone.

Chemical Composition—The composition of guaiacum resin was ascertained by Hadelich (1862) to be as follows:—

Guaiaconic Acid, 70·3 per cent.

Guaiaretic Acid, 10·5 ”

Guaiac Beta-resin, 9·8 ”

Gum, 3·7 ”

Ash constituents, 0·8 ”

Guaiacic Acid, colouring matter

(Guaiac-yellow), and impurities, 4·9 ”

If the mother-liquor obtained in the preparation of the potassium salt of guaiaretic acid (vide infra) is decomposed by hydrochloric acid, and the precipitate washed with water, ether will extract from the mass Guaiaconic Acid, a compound discovered by Hadelich, having the formula C₃₈H₄₀O₁₀. It is a light brown, amorphous substance, fusing at 100° C. It is without acid reaction but decomposes alkaline carbonates, forming uncrystallizable salts easily soluble in water or alcohol. It is insoluble in water, benzol, or bisulphide of carbon, but dissolves in ether, chloroform, acetic acid or alcohol. With oxidizing agents it acquires a transient blue tint.

Guaiaretic Acid, C₂₀H₂₆O₄, discovered by Hlasiwetz in 1859, may be extracted from the crude resin by alcoholic potash or by quicklime. With the former it produces a crystalline salt; with the latter an amorphous compound: from either the liquid, which contains chiefly a salt of guaiaconic acid, may be easily decanted. Guaiaretic acid is obtained by decomposing one of the salts referred to with hydrochloric acid, and crystallizing from alcohol. The crystals, which are soluble also in ether, benzol, chloroform, carbon bisulphide or acetic acid, but neither in ammonia nor in water, melt below 80° C., and may be volatilized without decomposition. The acid is not coloured blue by oxidizing agents.

By exhausting guaiacum resin with boiling bisulphide of carbon a slightly yellowish solution is obtained (containing chiefly guaiaretic 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-resin 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 guaiaconic acid.

Guaiacic Acid, C₁₂H₁₆O₆, 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 octohedra, 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 rectifying the distillate, Guaiacene (Guajol of Völckel), C₅H₈O, passes over at 118° C. as a colourless neutral liquid having a burning aromatic taste.

At 205°-210° C., there pass over other products, Guaiacol, C₆H₄·OCH₃·OH, (methylic ether of pyrocatechin), and Kreosol C₆H₃·OH(CH₃)₂. Both are thickish, aromatic, colourless liquids, which become 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, CH₃I, with pyrocatechin, C₆H₄(OH)₂.

After the removal by distillation of the liquids just described, there sublime upon the further application of heat pearly crystals of Pyroguaiacin, C₃₈H₄₄O₆, an inodorous substance melting at 180° C. The same compound is obtained together with guaiacol by the dry distillation of guaiaretic acid. Pyroguaiacin is coloured green by ferric chloride, and blue by warm sulphuric acid. The similar reactions of the crude resin are probably due to this substance (Hlasiwetz).

Beautiful 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 with potassium hydrate. One of them is isomeric with pyrocatechuic acid.

Uses—Guaiacum resin is reputed diaphoretic and alterative. It is frequently prescribed in cases of gout and rheumatism.

Adulteration—The drug is sometimes imported in a very foul condition and largely contaminated with impurities arising from a careless method of collection.

Rutaceæ.

Cortex Angosturæ.

Cortex Cuspariæ; 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 to 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 in Europe either by way of Spain or England, and its use was gradually diffused. In South America it is known as Quina de Caroni and Cascarilla del Angostura.

Description—The bark occurs in flattish or channelled pieces, or in quills rarely as much as 6 inches in length and mostly shorter. The flatter pieces are an inch or more in width and ⅛ of an inch in thickness. The outer side of the bark is coated with a yellowish-grey corky layer, often soft enough to be removeable with the nail, and then displaying a dark brown, resinous under surface. The inner side is light brown with a rough, slightly exfoliating surface indicating close adhesion to the wood, strips of which are occasionally found attached to it; the obliquely cut edge also shows that it is not very easily detached. The bark has a short, resinous fracture, and displays on its transverse edge sharply defined white points, due to deposite 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 ¾ per cent. It is probably a mixture of a hydrocarbon (C₁₀H₁₆) with an oxygenated oil. Its boiling point is 266° C. Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen 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 crystalline, neutral, melting at 45° C., soluble in alcohol, sparingly in water, precipitable 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, nor have Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen met with it. The latter chemists, on the other hand, isolated an alkaloid Angosturine C₁₀H₄₀NO₁₄. It is in thin prisms, melting at 85° and yielding a crystallized chlorhydrate or sulphate. Angosturine turns red when touched with concentrated sulphuric acid, or green if nitric acid or iodic acid, or other oxydizing substances, have been previously mixed with the sulphuric acid. The alcoholic solution of the alkaloid is of decidedly alkaline reaction. A cold aqueous infusion of angostura bark yields an abundant red-brown precipitate with ferric chloride. Thin slices of the bark are not coloured by solution of ferrous sulphate, so that tannin appears to be absent.

Uses—Angostura bark is a valuable tonic in dyspepsia, dysentery and chronic diarrhœa, but is falling into disuse.

Adulteration—About the year 1804, a quantity of a bark which proved to be that of Strychnos Nux Vomica reached Europe from India, and was mistaken for Cusparia. The error occasioned great alarm and some accidents, and the use of angostura was in some countries even prohibited. The means of distinguishing the two barks (which are not likely to be again confounded) are amply contained in the above-given descriptions and tests, and at length pointed out by Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen. They also described the bark of Esenbeckia febrifuga Martius (Evodia febrifuga Saint Hilaire), a Brazilian tree belonging to the same natural order. Maisch was the first to draw attention to this “new false Angostura bark.” It is at once distinguished by being devoid of aromatic properties; its taste is purely bitter.

Folia Buchu.

Folia Buceo; Buchu, Bucchu, Bucha or Buka Leaves; F. Feuilles de Bucco; G. Bukublätter.

Botanical Origin—The Buchu leaves are afforded by three species of Barosma. The latter are erect shrubs some feet in height, with glabrous rod-like branches, opposite leaves furnished with conspicuous oil-cells on the toothed margin as well as generally on the under surface. The younger twigs and several parts of the flower are also provided with oil-cells. The white flowers with 5-partite calyx, and the fruit formed of five erect carpels, are often found, together with small leafy twigs, in the drug of commerce.

The leaves of the three species referred to may be thus distinguished:—

1. Barosma crenulata Hook. (B. crenata Kunze).—Oblong, oval, or obovate, obtuse, narrowed towards the base into a distinct petiole; margin serrulate or crenulate; dimensions, ¾ to 1½ inches long, ³/₁₀ to ⁴/₁₀ of an inch wide.

2. B. serratifolia Willd.—Linear-lanceolate, equally narrowed towards either end, three-nerved, apex truncate always furnished with an oil-cell; margin sharply serrulate; 1-1½ inches long by about ²/₁₀ of an inch wide.

3. B. betulina Bartling.—Cuneate-obovate, apex recurved; margin sharply denticulate, teeth spreading; ½ to ¾ of an inch long by ³/₁₀ to ⁵/₁₀ wide. Substance of the leaf more harsh and rigid than in the preceding.

B. crenulata and B. betulina grow in the Divisions of Clanwilliam and Worcester, north and north-east of Cape Town, and the former even on Table Mountain close to the capital; B. serratifolia is found in the Division of Swellendam farther south.

History—The use of Buchu leaves was learnt from the Hottentots by the colonists of the Cape of Good Hope. The first importations of the drug were consigned to the house of Reece & Co., of London, who introduced it to the medical profession in 1821. The species appears to have been B. crenulata.

Description—In addition to the characters already pointed out, we may observe that buchu leaves of either of the kinds mentioned are smooth and glabrous, of a dull yellowish-green hue, somewhat paler on the under side, on which oil-cells in considerable number are perceptible.

The leaves of B. crenulata vary in shape and size in different parcels, in some the leaves being larger and more elongated than in others, probably according to the luxuriance of the bushes in particular localities. Those of B. serratifolia and B. betulina present but little variation. Each kind is always imported by itself. Those of B. betulina are the least esteemed, and fetch a lower price than the others, yet appear to be quite as rich in essential oil.

Buchu leaves have a penetrating peculiar odour and a strongly aromatic taste.

Microscopic Structure—The essential oil is contained in large cells close beneath the epidermis of the under side of the leaf. The oil-cells are circular and surrounded by a thin layer of smaller cells; they consequently partake of the character of the oil-ducts in the aromatic roots of Umbelliferæ and Compositæ. The latter, however, are elongated.

The upper side of the leaf of Barosma exhibits an extremely interesting peculiarity. There is a colourless layer of cells separating the epidermis from the green inner tissue (mesophyllum). If the leaves are examined under alcohol or almond oil the colourless layer is seen to be very narrow, and the thin walls of its cells shrunken and not clearly distinguishable. If the transverse sections are examined under water, these cells immediately swell up, and become strongly distended, giving off an abundance of mucilage, the latter being afforded by the solution of the very cell-walls. The mucilage of buchu leaves thus originates in the same way as in flax seed or quince seed, but in the former the epidermis is thrown off without alteration. We are not aware that other mucilaginous leaves possess a similar structure, at least not those of Althæa officinalis and of Sesamum which we examined.

Chemical Composition—The leaves of B. betulina afforded us by distillation 1·56 per cent, of volatile oil, which has the odour rather of peppermint than of buchu, and deviates the ray of polarized light considerably to the left. On exposure to cold it furnishes a camphor which, after re-solution in spirit of wine, crystallizes in needle-shaped forms. After repeated purification in this manner, the crystals of Barosma Camphor have an almost pure peppermint odour; they fuse at 85° C., and begin to sublime at 110° C. After fusion they again solidify only at 50° C. Submitted to elementary analysis, the crystals yielded us 74·08 per cent. of carbon and from 9 to 10 per cent. of hydrogen. Barosma camphor is abundantly soluble in bisulphide of carbon.

The crude oil from which the camphor has been separated has a boiling point of about 200° C., quickly rising to 210° or even higher. That which distilled between these temperatures was treated with sodium, rectified in a current of common coal gas and submitted to elementary analysis, afforded us 77·86 per cent, of carbon and 10·58 of hydrogen. The formula C₁₀H₁₆O would require 78·94 of carbon and 10·53 of hydrogen.

Wayne’s experiments appear to indicate that the oil also contains a substance capable of being converted into salicylic acid. An aqueous infusion of buchu leaves turns beautifully yellow if it is mixed with alkali.

On addition of perchloride of iron the infusion assumes a dingy brownish-green colour changing to red by an alkali. The infusion added to a concentrated solution of acetate of copper causes a yellow precipitate which dissolves in caustic potash, affording a green solution. This may be due to the presence of a substance of the quercitrin or rutin class.

When the leaves are infused in warm water, the mucilage noticed under the microscope may easily be pressed out. It requires for precipitation a large amount of alcohol, being readily miscible with dilute alcohol. Neutral acetate of lead produces a yellow precipitate in an infusion of the leaves; the liquid affords a precipitate by a subsequent addition of basic acetate of lead. The latter precipitate is (probably) due to the mucilage, that afforded by neutral acetate partly to mucilage and partly, we suppose, to rutin or an allied substance. Yet the mucilage of buchu leaves is of the class which is not properly dissolved by water, but only swells up like tragacanth.

The leaves of B. crenulata afforded us upon incineration 4·7 per cent. of ash. Jones (1879) obtained on an average 4·54 per cent. from the same species; 5·27 from B. serratifolia; and 4·49 from B. betulina. He pointed out the presence of manganate in this ash.

The Diosmin of Landerer is entirely unknown to us.

Commerce—The export of buchu from the Cape Colony in 1872 was 379,125 lb., about one-sixth of which quantity was shipped direct to the United States.

Uses—Buchu is principally administered in disorders of the urino-genital organs. It is reputed diuretic and diaphoretic. In the Cape Colony the leaves are much employed as a popular stimulant and stomachic, infused in water, sherry, or brandy. They are also extensively used in the United States, both in regular medicine and by the vendors of secret remedies.

Substitutes—The leaves of Empleurum serrulatum Ait., a small shrub of the same order as Barosma and growing in the same localities, have been imported rather frequently of late and sold as Buchu. They have the same structure as regards mucilage, and nearly the same form as those of B. serratifolia, but are easily distinguished. They are still narrower, and often longer than those of B. serratifolia, devoid of lateral veins, and terminate in an acute point without an oil-duct. They have a bitterish taste and a less powerful odour than those of Barosma, even in fresh leaves as imported in London. The odour of Empleurum is moreover distinctly different from that of the leaves of Barosma. The flowers of Empleurum are still more distinct, for they are apetalous and reddish-brown. The fruit consisting of a single, compressed, oblong carpel, terminated by a flat-shaped horn, is quite unlike that of buchu.

The leaves of Barosma Eckloniana Berg (regarded by Sonder as a form of B. crenulata) have to our knowledge been imported on one occasion (1873). They are nearly an inch long, oval, rounded at the base, strongly crenate, and grow from pubescent shoots.

We have seen other leaves which had been imported from South Africa and offered as buchu; but though probably derived from allied genera they were not to be mistaken for the genuine drug.

Radix Toddaliæ.

Botanical Origin—Toddalia aculeata Pers., a ramous prickly bush, often climbing over the highest trees, common in the southern parts of the Indian peninsula as the Coromandel Coast, South Concans, and Canara, also found in Ceylon, Mauritius, the Indian Archipelago and Southern China.

History—The pungent aromatic properties which pervade the plant, but especially the fresh root-bark, are well known to the natives of India and have been utilized in their medical practice. They have also attracted the attention of Europeans, and the root of the plant is now recognized in the Pharmacopœia of India.

It is from this and other species of Toddalia, or from the allied genus Zanthoxylum, that a drug is derived which under the name of Lopez Root had once some celebrity in Europe. This drug which was more precisely termed Radix Indica Lopeziana or Root of Juan Lopez Pigneiro, was first made known by the Italian physician Redi, who described it in 1671 from specimens obtained by Pigneiro at the mouth of the river Zambesi in Eastern Africa,—the very locality in which in our times Toddalia lanceolata Lam. has been collected by Dr. Kirk. It was actually introduced into European medicine by Gaubius in 1771 as a remedy for diarrhœa, and acquired so much reputation that it was admitted to the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia of 1792. The root appears to have been sometimes imported from Goa, but its place of growth and botanical origin were entirely unknown, and it was always extremely rare andcostly. It has long been obsolete in all countries except Holland, where until recently it was to be met with in the shops. The Pharmacopœia Neerlandica of 1851 says of it “Origo botanica perquam dubia—Patria Malacca?”

Description—The specimen of the root of Toddalia aculeata which we have examined was collected for us by Dr. G. Bidie of Madras whose statements regarding the stimulant and tonic action of the drug may be found in the Pharmacopœia of India, p. 442. It is a dense woody root in cylindrical, flexuous pieces, which have evidently been of considerable length and are from ½ to 1½ inches in diameter, covered with bark ⅒ to ¹/₁₂ of an inch in thickness. The bark has a soft, dull yellowish, suberous coat, wrinkled longitudinally, beneath which is a very thin layer of a bright yellow colour, and still lower and constituting two-thirds or more of the whole, is the firm, brown middle cortical layer and liber, which is the part chiefly possessing the characteristic pungency and bitterness of the drug. The yellow corky coat is however not devoid of bitterness. The wood is hard, of a pale yellow, and without taste and smell. The pores of the wood, which are rather large, are arranged in concentric order and traversed by numerous narrow medullary rays.

In a letter which Frappier wrote to Guibourt from the island of Réunion where Toddalia aculeata is very common, he states that the roots of the plant are of enormous length (longueur incroyable) and rather difficult to get out of the basaltic rock into the fissures of which they penetrate. Mr. J. Horne of the Botanical Garden, Mauritius, has sent us a specimen of the root of this plant, the bark of which is of a dusky brown, with the suberous layer but little developed.

Microscopic Structure—We have examined the root for which we are indebted to Dr. Bidie, and may state that its cortical tissue is remarkable by the number of large cells filled with resin and essential oil; they are scattered through the whole tissue, the cork excepted. The parenchymatous cells are loaded with small starch granules or with crystals of oxalate of calcium. The vessels of younger roots abound in yellow resin.

Chemical Composition—None of the constituents of the Toddalia root of India have yet been satisfactorily examined. The bark contains an essential oil, which would be better extracted from fresh than from dry material. The tissue of the bark is but little coloured by salts of iron. In the aqueous infusion, tannic acid produces an abundant precipitate, probably of an indifferent bitter principle rather than of an alkaloid. We have been unable to detect the presence in the bark of berberine.

Lopez root was examined in Wittstein’s laboratory by Schnitzer who found that the bark contains in addition to the usual substances a large proportion of resin,—a mixture probably of two or three different bodies. The essential oil afforded by the bark had an odour resembling cinnamon and melissa.

Uses—The drug has been introduced into the Pharmacopœia of India chiefly upon the recommendation of Dr. Bidie of Madras, who considers it of great value as a stimulating tonic. The bark rasped or shaved from the woody root is the only part that should be used.

Folia Pilocarpi.

Folia Jaborandi.

Botanical Origin—Pilocarpus pennatifolius Lemaire, a slightly branched shrub, attaining about 10 feet in height. It is distributed through the eastern provinces of Brazil.

Pilocarpus Selloanus Engler, occurring in Southern Brazil and Paraguay, appears to be not considerably different from P. pennatifolius.

History—Piso recommended an infusion made with Ipecacuanha and Jaborandi. Plumier, who also mentioned this, figured under the name of Jaborandi two plants of the order Piperaceæ. The introduction of the leaves of Pilocarpus pennatifolius into medical use is due to Dr. Coutinho of Pernambuco, 1874. The plant has been cultivated in European greenhouses since about the year 1847; we have repeatedly seen it flowering at Strassburg. Baillon in 1875 showed the fragments of Jaborandi as supplied by Coutinho to belong to P. pennatifolius, which had been described in 1852 by Lemaire. Holmes (1875) in examining the drug as imported from Pernambuco came to the same conclusion.

Description—The leaves of the species under examination are long-stalked, imparipennate, the opposite leaflets in 2 to 5, in cultivated plants most commonly in 2 pairs, the terminal one longer stalked, while the others are provided with a petiole attaining 1½ inch in length or remaining much shorter. The whole leaf is frequently 1½ feet long, the leaflets being often as much as 5 inches long by 2 inches wide. The latter are entire oblong, tapering or rounded at the base, tapering or obtuse or even emarginate at the apex. The leaflets are coriaceous, with a slightly revolute margin and a prominent midrib below. In transmitted light they show very numerous pellucid oil-glands.

The taste of the leaves of Pilocarpus is at first bitterish and aromatic; they subsequently produce a tingling sensation in the mouth and an abundant flow of saliva.

Microscopic Structure—The oil-glands consist of large cells of the same structure as those occurring generally in the leaves of Rutaceæ, Aurantiaceæ, Myrtaceæ. In Pilocarpus they are largely distributed in the tissue covered on both sides of the leaf by the epidermis; the oil-cells are also abundantly met with in the petiole and in the bark of the stems and branches.

Chemical Composition—The active principle of Jaborandi is the alkaloid Pilocarpine, C₂₃H₃₅N₄O₄ + 4OH₂, discovered in 1875 by Hardy. It is an amorphous soft mass, but yielding crystallized salts, among which the hydrochlorate and the nitrate are now more frequently used than the drug itself. The leaves afford about ½ per cent. of the nitrate.

The occurrence of another peculiar alkaloid in Pilocarpus has been asserted, but not ultimately proved.

The leaves contain about ½ per cent. of essential oil, the prevailing constituent of it being a dextrogyrate terpene, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at 178°, which forms a crystallized compound C₁₀H₁₆ + 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 Piperaceæ, some of which are still known in Brazil under the name Jaborandi. The following may be quoted as being used at least in that country: Serronia Jaborandi Gaudichaud, Piper reticulatum L. (Enckea Miquel), Piper citrifolium Lamarck (Steffensia Kunth), Piper nodulosum Link, Artanthe mollicoma Miq.

Aubletia trifolia Richard (Monniera L.) and Xanthoxylum elegans Engler, belonging to the same order as Pilocarpus itself, are also sometimes called Jaborandi.

We are not aware that other leaves than those of Pilocarpus are imported to some extent in Europe under the name of Jaborandi.

Aurantiaceæ.

Fructus Limonis.

Lemon; F. Citron, Limon; G. Citrone, Limone.

Botanical Origin—Citrus Limonum Risso (C. Medica var. β Linn.), a small tree 10 to 15 feet in height, planted here and there in gardens in many subtropical countries, but cultivated as an object of industry on the Mediterranean coast between Nice and Genoa, in Calabria, Sicily, Spain, and Portugal.

The tree which is supposed to represent the wild state of the lemon and lime, and as it seems to us after the examination of numerous specimens in the herbarium of Kew, of the citron (Citrus Medica Risso) also, is a native of the forests of Northern India, where it occurs in the valleys of Kumaon and Sikkim.

The cultivated lemon-tree is of rather irregular growth, with foliage somewhat pallid, sparse, and uneven, not forming the fine, close head of deep green that is so striking in the orange tree. The young shoots are of a dull purple; the flowers, which are produced all the year except during the winter, and are in part hermaphrodite and in part unisexual, have the corolla externally purplish; internally white, and a delicate aroma distinct from that of orange blossom. The fruit is pale yellow, ovoid, usually crowned by a nipple.

History—The name of the lemon in Sanskrit is Nimbuka; in Hindustani, Limbu, Limu, or Ninbu. It is probably originally a Cashmere word, which was transferred to the Sanskrit in comparatively modern times, not in the antiquity. From these sounds the Arabians formed the word Limun, which has passed into the languages of Europe.

The lemon was unknown to the inhabitants of ancient Greece and Rome; but it is mentioned in the Book of Nabathæan Agriculture, which is supposed to date from the 3rd or 4th century of our era. The introduction of the tree to Europe is due to the Arabians, yet at what precise period is somewhat doubtful. Arance and Limone are mentioned 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 (limouna) as a very sour fruit of the size of an apple which was one of the productions of Mansouria on the Mahrân 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 is no mention either of lemon or orange in a letter written a.d. 1239 concerning the cultivation of the lands of the Emperor Frederick II. 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 Baytar of Malaga, who flourished in the first half of the 13th century, 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 Genoa, and there is evidence that also the lemon-tree was grown on the Riviera di Ponente about the middle of the 15th century, since Limones and also Citri are mentioned in the manuscript Livre d’Administration of the city of Savona, under date 1486. The lemon was cultivated as early as 1494 in the Azores, whence the fruit used to be largely shipped to England; but since the year 1838 the exportation has totally ceased.

Description—The fruit of Citrus Limonum as found in the shops is from about 2 to 4 inches in length, egg-shaped with a nipple more or less prominent at the apex; its surface, of a pale yellow, is even or rugged, covered with a polished epidermis. The parenchyme within the latter abounds in large cells filled with fragrant essential oil. The roughness of the surface of the rind is due to the oil-cells. The peel, which varies considerably in thickness but is never so thick as that of the citron, is internally white and fibrous, and is adherent to the pale yellow pulp. The latter is divided into 10 or 12 segments each containing 2 or 3 seeds. It abounds in a pale yellow acid juice having a pleasant 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 9½ 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 is boiled down in copper vessels, over an open fire, till its specific gravity is about 1·239. Lemon juice (Succus limonis) for administration as a medicine should be pressed as wanted from the recent fruit whenever the latter is obtainable.

The peel (Cortex limonis) cut in somewhat thin ribbons from the fresh fruit is used in pharmacy, and is far preferable to that sold in a dried state.

Microscopic Structure of the Peel.—The epidermis exhibits numerous stomata; the parenchyme of the pericarp encloses large oil-cells, surrounded by small tabular cells. The inner spongy tissue is built up of very remarkable branched cells, separated by large intercellular spaces. A solution of iodine in iodide of potassium imparts to 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 substance, which probably consists of hesperidin. There also occur large crystals of oxalate of calcium, belonging to the monoclinic system. The interior tissue is irregularly traversed by small vascular bundles.

Chemical Composition—The peel of the lemon abounds in essential oil, which is a distinct article of commerce, and will be described hereafter.

Lemons, as well as other fruits of the genus Citrus, contain a bitter principle, Hesperidin, of which E. Hoffmann obtained 5 to 8 per cent. from unripe bitter oranges. He extracted them with dilute alcohol, after they had previously been exhausted by cold water. The alcohol should contain about 1 per cent. of caustic potash; the liquid on cooling is acidulated with hydrochloric acid, when it yields a yellowish crystalline deposit of hesperidin, which may be obtained colourless and tasteless by recrystallization from boiling alcohol. By dilute sulphuric acid (1 per cent.) hesperidin is broken up as follows:—

C₂₂H₂₆O₁₂ = C₁₆H₁₄O₆ + C₆H₁₂O₆.

Hesperidin. Hesperetin. Glucose.

Hesperidin is very little soluble even in boiling water or in ether, but dissolves readily in hot acetic acid, also in alkaline solutions, the latter then turning soon yellow and reddish. Pure hesperidin, as presented to one of us by Hoffmann, darkens when it is shaken with alcoholic perchloride 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, C₁₀H₁₀O₄.

On addition of ferric chloride, thin slices of the peel are darkened, owing probably to some derivative of hesperidin, or to hesperidin itself.

The name hesperidin had also been applied to yellow crystals extracted from the shaddock, Citrus 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 C₂₃H₂₆O₁₂+4OH₂. Naringin 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 proportion is potash. Cossa on the other hand, who has recently studied the products of the lemon tree with much care, has found that the ash of dried lemon juice contains 54 per cent. of potash, besides 15 per cent. of phosphoric acid.

Stoddart has pointed out the remarkable tendency of citric acid to undergo decomposition, and has proved that in lemons kept from February to July this acid generally decreases in quantity, at first slowly, but afterwards rapidly, until at the end of the period it entirely ceases to exist, having been all split up into glucose and carbonic acid. At the same time the sp. gr. of the juice was found to have undergone but slight diminution:—thus it was 1·044 in February, 1·041 in May, and 1·027 in July, and the fruit had hardly altered in appearance. Lemon juice may with some precautions be kept unimpaired for months or even years. Yet it is capable of undergoing fermentation by reason of the sugar, gum, and albuminoid matters which it contains.

Commerce—Lemons are chiefly imported from Sicily, to a smaller extent from the Riviera of Genoa and from Spain. From the published statistics of trade, in which lemons are classed together with oranges under one head, it appears that these fruits are being imported in increasing quantities. The value of the shipments to the United Kingdom in 1872 (largely exceeding those of any previous year) was £1,154,270. Of this sum, £986,796 represents the value of the oranges and lemons imported from Spain, Portugal, the Canary Islands and Azores; £155,330 the shipments of the same fruit from Italy; and £3,825 those from Malta.

Of concentrated lemon juice there were exported in 1877 from Messina 1,631,332 kilogrammes, valued at 2,446,996 lire. The value of 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 in a free state.

Concentrated lemon juice is imported for the purpose of making citric acid; it is derived not only from the lemon, but also, to a smaller extent, from the lime and bergamot. Lime juice of the West Indies is 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 Limonum; Essential Oil or Essence of Lemon; F. Essence de Citron; G. Citronenöl.

Botanical Origin—Citrus Limonum Risso (see p. 114).

History—The chemists of the 16th century were well acquainted with the method of extracting essential oils by distillation. Besson in his work L’art et moyen parfaict de tirer huyles et eaux de tous medicaments simples et oleogineux, published at Paris in 1571, mentions lemon-(citron) and orange-peel among the substances subjected to this process. Giovanni Battista Porta, a learned Neapolitan writer, describes the method of preparing Oleum ex corticibus Citri to consist in removing the peel of the fruit with a rasp and distilling it so comminuted with water; and adds that the oils of lemon and orange may be obtained in the same manner. Essence of lemon of two kinds, namely expressed and distilled, was sold in Paris in the time of Pomet, 1692.

Production—Essential oil of lemon is manufactured in Sicily, at Reggio in Calabria, and at Mentone and Nice in France.

The lemons are used while still rather green and unripe, as being richer in oil than when quite mature. Only the small and irregular fruit, such as is not worth exporting, is employed for affording the essence.

The process followed in Sicily and Calabria may be thus described; it is performed in the months of November and December.

The workman first cuts off the peel in three thick longitudinal slices, leaving the central pulp of a three-cornered shape with a little peel at either end. This central pulp he cuts transversely in the middle, throwing it on one side and the pieces of peel on the other. The latter are allowed to remain till the next day and are then treated thus: the workman seated holds in the palm of his left hand a flattish piece of sponge, wrapping it round his forefinger. With the other he places on the sponge one of the slices of peel, the outer surface downwards, and then presses the zest-side (which is uppermost) so as to give it for the moment a convex instead of a concave form. The vesicles are thus ruptured, and the oil which issues from them is received in the sponge with which they are in contact. Four or five squeezes are all the workman gives to each slice of peel, which done he throws it aside. Though each bit of peel has attached to it a small portion of pulp, the workman contrives to avoid pressing the latter. As the sponge gets saturated the workman wrings it forcibly, receiving its contents in a coarse earthen bowl provided with a spout; in this rude vessel, which is capable of holding at least three pints, the oil separates from the watery liquid which accompanies it and is then decanted.

The yield is stated to be very variable, 400 fruits affording 9 to 14 ounces of essence. The prisms of pulp and the exhausted pieces of peel are submitted to pressure in order to extract from them lemon juice, and are said to be also subjected to distillation. The foregoing is termed the sponge-process; it is also applied to the orange. It appears rude and wasteful, but when honestly performed it yields an excellent product.

Essence of lemon is prepared at Mentone and Nice by a different method. The object being to set free and to collect the oil contained in the vesicles of the peel, an apparatus is employed, which may be thus described:—a stout saucer or shallow basin of pewter, about 8½ inches in diameter with a lip on one side for convenience of pouring. Fixed in the bottom of this saucer are a number of stout, sharp, brass pins, standing up about half an inch; the centre of the bottom is deepened into a tube about an inch in diameter and five inches in length, closed at its lower end. This vessel, which is called an écuelle à piquer, has therefore some resemblance to a shallow, dish-shaped funnel, the tube of which is closed below.

The workman takes a lemon in the hand, and rubs it over the sharp pins, turning it round so that the oil-vessels of the entire surface may be punctured. The essential oil which is thus liberated is received in the saucer whence it flows down into the tube; and as this latter becomes filled, it is poured into another vessel that it may separate from the turbid aqueous liquid that accompanies it. It is finally filtered and is then known as Essence de Citron au zeste. A small additional produce is sometimes obtained by immersing the scarified lemons in warm water and separating the oil which floats off.

A second kind of essence termed Essence de Citron distillée is obtained by rubbing the surface of fresh lemons, or of those which have been submitted to the process just described, on a coarse grater of tinned iron, by which the portion of peel richest in essential oil is removed. This grated peel is subjected to distillation with water, and yields a colourless essence of very inferior fragrance, which is sold at a low price.

Description—The oil obtained by the sponge-process and that of the écuelle à piquer are mobile liquids of a faint yellow colour, of exquisite fragrance and bitterish aromatic taste.

The different specimens which we have examined are readily miscible with bisulphide of carbon, but dissolve sparingly in spirit of wine (0·830). An equal weight of the oil and of spirit of wine forms a turbid mixture. No peculiar coloration is produced by mixture with perchloride of iron.

The oils are dextrogyre, but differ in their rotatory power, as may be illustrated by the following results, which we obtained by examining them in a column 50 millimetres long in the polaristrobometer of Wild. The oil of Signori Panuccio, due to the sponge-process (p. 118, note 2), deviated 20·9°, that of Monsieur Médecin (Essence de Citron au zeste) obtained by the éculle à piquer deviated 33·4° and his distilled oil 28·3°.

Chemical Composition—The prevailing portion of most essential oils of the Aurantiaceæ agrees with the formula C₁₀H₁₆; the differences which they exhibit chiefly concern their optical properties, odour, and colour. The boiling point mostly varies from about 170° to 180° C., the sp. gr. between 0·83 and 0·88. These oils are a mixture of isomeric hydrocarbons, and also contain a small amount of cymene, C₁₀H₁₄, and of oxygenated oils, not yet well known; of these we may infer the presence either from analytical results or simply from the fact that the crude oils are altered by metallic sodium. If they are purified by repeated rectification over that metal, they are finally no longer altered by it. Oils thus purified cease to possess their original fragrance, and often resemble oil of turpentine, with which they agree in composition and general chemical behaviour.

As to essential oil of lemons, its chief constituent is the terpene, C₁₀H₁₆, which, like oil of turpentine, easily yields crystals of terpin, C₁₀H₁₆ 3OH₂. There is further present, according to Tilden (1879) another hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, which already boils at 160° C., whereas the foregoing boils at 176° C. Lastly a small amount of cymene and of a compound acetic ether, C₂H₃O(C₁₀H₁₇O), would appear to occur also in oil of lemons. The crude oil of lemons already yields the crystalline compound C₁₀H₁₆ + 2HCl, when saturated with anhydrous hydrochloric gas, whereas by the same treatment oil of turpentine affords the solid compound C₁₀H₁₆ + HCl.

Essential oil of lemons (not the distilled) when long kept deposits a greasy mass, from which we have obtained small crystals apparently of Bergaptene (p. 123).

Commerce—Essence of lemons is shipped chiefly from Messina and Palermo, packed in copper bottles called in Italian ramiere and by English druggists “jars” holding 25 to 50 kilo. or more; sometimes in tin bottles of smaller size. The quantity of essences of lemon, orange and bergamot exported from Sicily in 1871 was 368,800 lb., valued at £144,520, of which about two-thirds were shipped to England. In 1877 the export of these essential oils from Messina amounted to 306,948 kilogrammes, valued at 6,130,960 lire.

Uses—Essence 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 turpentine 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 Bergamottæ.

Oleum Bergamii; Essence or Essential Oil of Bergamot; F. Essence de Bergamotte; G. Bergamottöl.

Botanical Origin—Citrus Bergamia var. vulgaris Risso et Poiteau, a small tree closely resembling in flowers and foliage the Bitter Orange. Its fruit is 2½ to 3 inches in diameter, nearly spherical, or slightly pear-shaped, frequently crowned by the persistent style; it is 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 abound in the genus Citrus, and which constitute the innumerable varieties of the orange, lemon and citron. Whether it is most nearly related to the lemon or to the orange is a point discussed as early as the beginning of the last century. Gallesio remarks that it so evidently combines the characters of the two that it should be regarded as a hybrid between them. The bergamot first appeared in the latter part of the 17th century. It is not mentioned in the grand work on orange trees of Ferrari, published at Rome in 1646, nor in the treatise of Commelyn (1676), nor in the writings of Lanzoni (1690), or La Quintinie (1692). So far as we know, it is first noticed in a little book called Le Parfumeur François, printed at Lyons in 1693. The author who calls himself Le Sieur Barbe, parfumeur, says that the Essence de Cedra ou Bergamotte is obtained from the fruits of a lemon-tree which has been grafted on the stem of a bergamot 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 limonum et fructus inter omnes nobilissimus. He states that the Italians prepare from it the finest essences, which are sold at a high price.

But, as shown by one of us, the essential oil of bergamot had already, in 1688, a place among the stores of an apothecary of the German town of Giessen.

The name Bergamotta was originally applied to a large kind of pear, called in Turkish “beg-ârmûdî,” 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 intermixed with lemon and orange trees, and the soil is well irrigated and cropped with vegetables.

The essential oil (Oleum Bergamottæ) 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 in a strong, saucer-like, metallic dish, about 10 inches in diameter, having in the centre a raised opening which with the outer edge forms a broad groove or channel; the dish is fitted with a cover of similar form. The inner surface both of the dish and cover is rendered rough by a series of narrow, radiating metal ridges of blades which are about ¼ of an inch high and resemble the backs of knifes. The dish is also furnished with some small openings to allow of the outflow of essential oil; and both dish and cover are arranged in a metallic cylinder, placed over a vessel to receive the oil. By a simple arrangement of cog-wheels moved by a handle, the cover, which is very heavy, is made to revolve rapidly over the dish, and the fruit lying in the groove between the two is carried round, and at the same time is subjected to the action of the sharp ridges, which, rupturing the oil-vessels, cause the essence to escape, and set it free to flow out by the small openings in the bottom of the dish. The fruits are placed in the machine, 6, 8, or more at a time, according to their size, and subjected to the rotatory action above described for about half a minute, when the machine is stopped, they are removed, and fresh ones substituted. About 7,000 fruits can thus be worked in one of these machines in a day. The yield of oil is said to be similar to that of lemon, namely 2½ to 3 ounces from 100 fruits.

Essence of bergamot made by the machine is of a greener tint than that obtained by the old sponge-process. During some weeks after 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 fluid of peculiar and very fragrant odour, bitterish taste, and slightly acid reaction. It has a pale greenish yellow tint, due to traces of chlorophyll, 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 crystallizable 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 iron imparts to bergamot oil dissolved in alcohol a dingy brown colour.

Panuccio’s oil of bergamot examined in the same way as that of 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 judged to be of good quality deviated from 6·8° to 10·4° to the right.

Chemical Composition—If essential oil of bergamot is submitted to rectification, the portions that successively distill over do not accord in 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 to consist of hydrocarbons, C₁₀H₁₆, and their hydrates, neither of which have as yet been satisfactorily isolated. Oil of bergamot, like that of turpentine, yields crystals of the composition C₁₀H₁₆ + 3H₂O, if 8 parts are allowed to stand some weeks with 1 part of spirit of wine, 2 of nitric acid (sp. gr. 1·2) and 10 of water, the mixture being frequently shaken. No solid compound is produced by saturating the oil with anhydrous 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 commerce, is called Bergaptene or Bergamot Camphor. We have obtained it in fine, white, acicular crystals, neutral and inodorous, by repeated solution in spirit of wine. Its composition according to the analysis of Mulder (1837) and of Ohme (1839) answers to the formula C₉H₆O₃, which in our opinion requires further investigation. Crystallized bergaptene is abundantly soluble in chloroform, ether, or bisulphide of carbon; the alcoholic solution is not altered by ferric salts.

Commerce—Essence 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 occasionally for the sake of imparting an agreeable odour to ointments.

Adulteration—Essence of bergamot, like that of lemon, is extensively and systematically adulterated, and very little is sent into the market entirely pure. It is often mixed with oil of turpentine, but a 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 assistance in detecting fraudulent admixtures, though as regards oil of turpentine it must be borne in mind that there are levogyre as well as dextrogyre 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 d’Oranges amères; G. Pomeranzenschale.

Botanical Origin—Citrus vulgaris Risso (C. Aurantium var. a amara Linn., C. Bigaradia Duhamel).

The Bitter or Seville or Bigarade Orange, Bigaradier of the French, is a small tree extensively cultivated in the warmer parts of the Mediterranean region, especially in Spain, and existing under many varieties.

Northern India is the native country of the orange tree. In Gurhwal, Sikkim, and Khasia there occurs a wild orange which is the supposed parent of the cultivated orange, whether Sweet or Bitter.

The Bitter Orange reproduces itself from seed, and is regarded, at least by cultivators, as quite distinct from the Sweet Orange, from which however it cannot be distinguished by any important botanical characters. Generally speaking, it differs from the latter in having the fruit rugged on the surface, of a more deep or reddish-orange hue, with the pulp very sour and bitter. The peel, as well as the flowers and leaves, are more aromatic than the corresponding parts of the Sweet Orange, and the petiole is more broadly winged.

History—The orange was unknown to the ancient Greeks and Romans; and its introduction to Europe is due to the Arabs, who, according to Gallesio, appear to have established the tree first in Eastern Africa, Arabia, and Syria, whence it was gradually conveyed to Italy, Sicily, and Spain. In the opinion of the writer just quoted, the bitter orange was certainly known at the commencement of the 10th century to the Arabian physicians, one of whom, Avicenna, employed its juice in medicine.

There is strong evidence to show that the orange first cultivated in Europe was the Bitter Orange or Bigarade. The orange tree at Rome, said to have been planted by St. Dominic about a.d. 1200, and which still exists at the monastery of St. Sabina, bears a bitter fruit; and the ancient trees standing in the garden of the Alcazar at Seville are also of this variety. Finally, the oranges of Syria (ab indigenis Orenges nuncupati) described by Jacques de Vitri, Bishop of Acon (ob. a.d. 1214) were acidi seu pontici saporis.

The Sweet Orange began to be cultivated about the middle of the 15th century, having been introduced from the East by the Portuguese. It has probably long existed in Southern China, and may have been taken thence to India. In the latter country there are but few districts in which its cultivation is successful, and the Bitter Orange is hardly known at all. The name it has long borne of China or Portugal Orange indicates what has been the usual opinion as to its origin. It probably alludes more exactly to a superior variety brought about 1630 from China to Portugal.

One of the first importations of oranges into England occurred in a.d. 1290, in which year a Spanish ship came to Portsmouth, of the cargo of which the queen of Edward I. bought one frail of Seville figs, one of raisins or grapes, one bale of dates, 230 pomegranates, 15 citrons, and 7 oranges (“poma de orenge”).

Description—The Bitter Orange known in London as the Seville Orange is a globular fruit, resembling in size, form, and structure the common Sweet Orange, but having the peel much rougher, and when mature of a somewhat deeper hue. The pulp of the fruit is filled with an acid bitter juice. The ripe fruit is imported into London; the peel is removed from it with a sharp knife in one long spiral strip, and quickly dried, or it is sold in the fresh state. It is the more esteemed when cut thin, so as to include as little as possible of the white inner layer.

Well-dried orange peel should be externally of a bright tint and white on its inner surface; it should have a grateful aromatic smell and bitter taste. The peel is also largely imported into London ready dried, especially from Malta. We have observed it from this latter place of three qualities, namely in elliptic pieces or quarters, in broad curled strips, and lastly a very superior kind, almost wholly free from white zest, in strips less than ⅛ of an inch in width, cut apparently by a machine. Such needless subdivision as this last has undergone must greatly favour an alteration and waste of the essential oil. Foreign-dried orange peel fetches a lower price than that dried in England.

Microscopic Structure—There is no difference between the tissues of this drug and those of lemon peel.

Chemical Composition—The essential oil to which the peel of the orange owes its fragrant odour, is a distinct article of commerce, and will be noticed hereafter under a separate head. The other constituents of the peel probably agree with those of lemon peel. The substance mentioned under the name of Hesperidin (p. 116) particularly abounds in unripe bitter oranges.

Uses—Bitter orange peel is much used in medicine as an aromatic tonic.

Oleum Neroli.

Oleum Aurantii florum; Oil or Essence of Neroli; F. Essence de Néroli; G. Neroliöl.

Botanical Origin—Citrus vulgaris Risso. (See page 124.)

History—Porta, the Italian philosopher of the 16th century referred to (p. 118), was acquainted with the volatile oil of the flowers of the citron tribe (“Oleum ex citriorum floribus”), which he obtained by the usual process of distillation, and describes as possessing the most exquisite fragrance. That distilled from orange flowers acquired a century later (1675-1685) the name of Essence of Neroli from Anne-Marie de la Trémoille-Noirmoutier, second wife of Flavio Orsini, duke of Bracciano and prince of Nerola or Neroli. This lady employed it for the perfuming of gloves, hence called in Italy Guanti di Neroli. It was known in Paris to Pomet, who says the perfumers have given it the name of Neroli, and that it is made in Rome and in Provence.

Production—Oil of Neroli is prepared from the fresh flowers of the Bigarade or Bitter Orange by the ordinary process of distillation with water, conducted in small copper stills. The flowers of all the allied plants are far less aromatic. The water which distills over with the oil constitutes, after the removal of the latter from its surface, the Orange Flower Water (Aqua aurantii florum vel Aqua Naphæ) of commerce. The manufacture is carried on chiefly in the south of France at Grasse, Cannes, and Nice. The yield is about 0·6 to 0·7 per cent. of oil from fresh flowers, as stated by Poiteau et Risso. The flowers of the sweet orange afford but half that amount of oil.

Description and Chemical Composition—Oil of Neroli as found in commerce is seldom pure, for it generally contains an admixture of the essential oil of orange-leaf called Essence of Petit Grain.

By the kind assistance of Mr. F. G. Warrick of Nice, we have obtained a sample of Bigarade Neroli of guaranteed purity, to which the following observations relate. It is of a brownish hue, most fragrant odour, bitterish aromatic taste, and is neutral to test-paper. Its sp. gr. at 11° C. is 0·889. When mixed with alcohol, it displays a bright violet fluorescence, quite distinct from the blue fluorescence of a solution of quinine. In oil of Neroli the phenomenon may be shown most distinctly by pouring a little spirit of wine on to the surface of the essential oil, and causing the liquid to gently undulate. The oil is but turbidly miscible with bisulphide of carbon. It assumes a very pure, intense, and permanent crimson hue if shaken with a saturated solution of bisulphide of sodium. Examined in a column of 100 mm. we observed the oil to deviate the ray of polarized light 6° to the right.

Subjected to distillation, the larger part of the oil passes over at 185°-195° C.; we found this portion to be colourless, yet to display in a marked manner the violet fluorescence and also to retain the odour of the original oil. The portion remaining in the retort was mixed with about the same volume of alcohol (90 per cent.) and some drops of water added, yet not sufficient to occasion turbidity. A very small amount of the crystalline Neroli Camphor then made its appearance, floating on the surface of the liquid; by re-solution in boiling alcohol it was obtained in crystals of rather indistinct form. The redistilled oil gave no camphor whatever.

Neroli Camphor was first noticed by Boullay in 1828. According to our observations it is a neutral, inodorous, tasteless substance, fusible at 55° C., and forming on cooling a crystalline mass. The crystallization should be effected by cooling the hot alcoholic solution, no good crystals being obtainable by slow evaporation or by sublimation. The produce was extremely small, about 60 grammes of oil having yielded not more than 0·1 gramme. Perhaps this scantiness of produce was due to the oil being a year and a half old, for according to Plisson the camphor diminishes the longer the oil is kept. We were unable to obtain any similar substance from the oils of bergamot, petit grain, or orange peel.

Orange Flower Water is a considerable article of manufacture among the distillers of essential oils in the south of Europe, and is imported thence for use in pharmacy. According to Boullay it is frequently acid to litmus when first made,—is better if distilled in small than in large quantities, and if made from the petals per se, rather than from the entire flowers. He also states that only 2 lb. of water should be drawn from 1 lb. of flowers, or 3 lb. if petals alone are placed in the still. As met with in commerce, orange flower water is colourless or of a faintly greenish yellow tinge, almost perfectly transparent, with a delicious odour and a bitter taste. Acidulated with nitric acid, it acquires a pinkish hue more or less intense, which disappears on saturation by an alkali.

Uses—Oil of Neroli is consumed almost exclusively in perfumery. Orange flower water is frequently used in medicine to give a pleasant odour to mixtures and lotions.

Adulteration—The large variation in value of oil of Neroli as shown by price-currents indicates a great diversity of quality. Besides being very commonly mixed, as already stated, with the distilled oil of the leaves (Essence de Petit Grain), it is sometimes reduced by addition of the less fragrant oil obtained from the flowers of the Portugal or Sweet Orange. In some of these adulterations we must conclude that orange flower water participate: metallic contamination of the latter is not unknown.

Other Products of the genus Citrus.

Essence or Essential Oil of Petit Grain—was originally obtained by subjecting little immature oranges to distillation (Pomet—1692); but it is now produced, and to a large extent, by distillation of the leaves and shoots either of the Bigarade or Bitter Orange, or of the Portugal or Sweet Orange. The essence of the former is by far the more fragrant, and commands double the price. Poiteau and Risso state that the leaves of the Brigaradier with bitter fruit are by far the richest in essential oil among all the allied leaves; they are obtained in the lemon-growing districts of the Mediterranean where the essence is manufactured. Lemon-trees being mostly grafted on orange-stocks, the latter during the summer put forth shoots, which are allowed to grow till they are often some feet in length. The cultivator then cuts them off, binds them in bundles, and conveys them to the distiller of Petit Grain. The strongest shoots are frequently reserved for walking-sticks. The leaves of the two sorts of orange are easily distinguished by their smell when crushed. Essence of Petit Grain, which in odour has a certain resemblance to Neroli, is used in perfumery and especially in the manufacture of Eau de Cologne.

According to Gladstone (1864) it consists mainly of a hydrocarbon probably identical with that from oil of Neroli.

Essential Oil of Orange Peel—is largely made at Messina and also in the south of France. It is extracted by the sponge-, or by the écuelle-process, and partly from the Bigarade and partly from the Sweet or Portugal Orange, the scarcely ripe fruit being in either case employed. The oil made from the former is much more valuable than that obtained from the latter, and the two are distinguished in price-currents as Essence de Bigarade and Essence de Portugal.

These essences are but little consumed in England, in liqueur-making and in perfumery. For what is known of their chemical nature, the reader can consult the works named at foot.

Essence of Cedrat—The true Citron or Cedrat tree is Citrus medica Risso, and is of interest as being the only member of the Orange tribe the fruit of which was known in ancient Rome. The tree itself, which appears to have been cultivated in Palestine in the time of Josephus, was introduced into Italy in about the 3rd century. In a.d. 1003 it was much grown at Salerno near Naples, whence its fruits were sent as presents to the Norman princes.

At the present day, the citron appears to be nowhere cultivated extensively, the more prolific lemon tree having generally taken its place. It is however scattered along the Western Riviera, and is also grown on a small scale about Pizzo and Paola on the western coast of Calabria, in Sicily, Corsica, and Azores. Its fruits, which often weigh several pounds, are chiefly sold for being candied. For this purpose the peel, which is excessively thick, is salted and in that state shipped to England and Holland. The fruit has a very scanty pulp.

Essence of Cedrat which is quoted in some price-lists may be prepared from the scarcely ripe fruit by the sponge-process; but as it is more profitable to export the fruit salted, it is very rarely manufactured, and that which bears its name is for the most part fictitious.

Fructus Belæ.

Bela; Bael Fruit, Indian Bael, Bengal Quince.

Botanical Origin—Ægle Marmelos Correa (Cratæva Marmelos L.), a tree found in most parts of the Indian peninsula, which is often planted in the neighbourhood of temples, being esteemed sacred by the Hindus. It is truly wild in the forests of the Coromandel Ghâts and of the Western Himalaya, ascending often to 4,000 feet and growing gregarious when wild.

It attains a height of 30-40 feet, is usually armed with strong sharp thorns and has trifid leaves, the central leaflet being petiolate and larger than the lateral. The fruit is a large berry, 2 to 4 inches in diameter, variable in shape, being spherical or somewhat flattened like an orange, ovoid, or pyriform, having a smooth hard shell; the interior divided into 10-15 cells each containing several woolly seeds, consists of a mucilaginous pulp, which becomes very hard in drying. In the fresh state the fruit is very aromatic, and the juicy pulp which it contains has an agreeable flavour, so that when mixed with water and sweetened, it forms a palatable refrigerant drink. The fruit is never eaten as dessert, though its pulp is sometimes made into a preserve with sugar.

The fruit of the wild tree is described as small, hard, and flavourless, remaining long on the tree. The bark of the stem and root, the flowers and the expressed juice of the leaves are used in medicine by the natives of India.

History—The tree under the name of Bilva is constantly alluded to as an emblem of increase and fertility in ancient Sanskrit poems, some of which as the Yajar Veda are supposed to have been written not later than 1000 b.c.—Constantinus Africanus was acquainted with the fruit under notice.

Garcia de Orta, who resided in India as physician to the Portuguese viceroy at Goa in the 16th century, wrote an account of the fruit under the name of Marmelos de Benguala (Bengal Quince) Cirifole or Beli, describing its use in dysentery.

In the following century it was noticed by Bontius, in whose writings edited by Piso there is a bad figure of the tree as Malum Cydonium. It was also figured by Rheede, and subsequently under the designation of Bilack or Bilack tellor by Rumphius. The latter states that it is indigenous to Gujarat, the eastern parts of Java, Sumbawa and Celebes, and that it has been introduced into Amboina.

But although Ægle Marmelos has thus been long known and appreciated in India, the use of its fruit as a medicine attracted no attention in Europe till about the year 1850. The dried fruit which has a place in the British Pharmacopœia is now not unfrequently imported.

Description—We have already described the form and structure of the fruit, which for medicinal use should be dried when in a half ripe state. It is found in commerce in dried slices having on the outer side a smooth greyish shell enclosing a hard, orange or red, gummy pulp in which are some of the 10 to 15 cells existing in the entire fruit. Each cell includes 6 to 10 compressed oblong seeds nearly 3 lines in length, covered with whitish woolly hairs. When broken the pulp is seen to be nearly colourless internally, the outside alone having assumed an orange tint. The dried pulp has a mucilaginous, slightly acid taste, without aroma, astringency, or sweetness.

There is also imported Bael fruit which has been collected when ripe, as shown by the well-formed seeds. Such fruits arrive broken irregularly and dried, or sawn into transverse slices and then dried, or lastly entire, in which case they retain some of their original fragrance resembling that of elemi.

Microscopic Structure—The rind of the fruit is covered with a strong cuticle, and further shows two layers, the one exhibiting not very numerous oil-cells, and the other an inner made up of sclerenchyme. The tissue of the pulp, which, treated with water, swells into an elastic mass, consists of large cells with considerable cavities between them. The seeds when moistened yield an abundance of mucilage nearly in the same way as White Mustard or Linseed. In the epidermis of the seeds certain groups of cells are excessively lengthened, and thus constitute the curious woolly hairs already noticed. They likewise afford mucilage in the same way as the seed itself.

Chemical Composition—We are unable to confirm the remarkable analyses of the drug alluded to in the Pharmacopœia of India; nor can we explain by any chemical examination upon what constituent the alleged medicinal efficacy of bael depends.

The pulp moistened with cold water yields a red liquid containing 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 possessed of astringent properties.

Uses—Bael is held in high repute in India as a remedy for dysentery and diarrhœa; 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 Ægle 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 Bael.

Simarubeæ.

Lignum Quassiæ.

Quassia, Quassia Wood, Bitter Wood; F. Bois de Quassia de la Jamaïque, Bois amer; G. Jamaica Quassiaholz.

Botanical Origin—Picræna excelsa Lindl. (Quassia excelsa Swartz, Simaruba excelsa DC., Picrasma excelsa Planchon), a tree 50 to 60 feet in height, somewhat resembling an ash and having inconspicuous greenish flowers 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 islands of Antigua and St. Vincent. It is called in the West Indies Bitter 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 shrub or small tree with handsome crimson flowers, belonging to the same order, native of Panama, Venezuela, Guiana, and Northern Brazil. It was subsequently found that the Bitter Wood of Jamaica which Swartz and other botanists referred to the same genus, possessed similar properties, and as it was obtainable of much larger size, it has since the end of the last century been generally preferred. The wood of Q. amara, called Surinam Quassia, is however still used in France and Germany.

The first to give a good account of Jamaica quassia was John 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 Pharmacopœia of 1788; in the edition of 1809, it was superseded by the wood of Picræna 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 rasuræ), when it was reckoned as having cost 4s. 2d. per lb.

Description—The quassia wood of commerce consists of pieces of the stem and larger branches, some feet in length, and often as thick as a man’s 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. In a longitudinal section, whether tangential or radial, the wood appears transversely striated by reason of the small vertical height of the medullary rays.

The wood often exhibits certain blackish markings due to the mycelium of a fungus; they have sometimes the aspect of delicate patterns, and at others appear as large dark patches.

Quassia has a strong, pure bitter taste, but is devoid of odour. It is always supplied to the retail druggist in the form of turnings or raspings, the former being obtained in the manufacture of the Bitter Cups, now often seen in the shops.

Microscopic Structure—The wood consists for the most part of elongated pointed cells (libriform), traversed by medullary rays, each of the latter being built up of about 15 vertical layers of cells. The single layers contain from one to three rows of cells. The ligneous rays thus enclosed by medullary parenchyme, are intersected by groups of tissue constituting the above-mentioned irregular rings. On a longitudinal section this parenchyme exhibits numerous crystals of oxalate of calcium, and sometimes deposits of yellow resin. The latter is more abundant in the large vessels of the wood. Oxalate and resin are the only solid matters perceptible in the tissues of this drug.

Chemical Composition—The bitter taste of quassia is due to Quassiin, which was first obtained, no doubt, from the wood of Quassia amara, by Winckler in 1835. It was analysed by Wiggers, who assigned it the formula C₁₀H₁₂O₃, now regarded as doubtful. According to the latter, quassiin is an irresolvable, neutral substance, crystallizable from dilute alcohol or from chloroform. It requires for solution about 200 parts of water, but is not soluble in ether; it forms an insoluble compound with tannic acid. Quassia wood is said to yield about ⅒ per cent. of quassiin. A watery infusion of quassia, especially if a little caustic lime has been added to the drug, displays a slight fluorescence, 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 protocatechuic 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 greyish yellow, and separates easily from the wood. The latter is somewhat denser than the quassia of Jamaica, from which it may be distinguished by its medullary rays being composed of a single or less frequently of a double row of cells, whereas in the wood of Picræna 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 lb.

The bark of Samadera indica Gärtn., a tree of the same natural order, owes its bitterness to a principle which agrees perhaps with quassiin. The aqueous infusion of the bark is abundantly precipitated by tannic acid, a compound of quassiin probably being formed. A similar treatment applied to quassia would possibly easier afford quassiin than the extraction of the wood by means of alcohol, as performed by Wiggers.

Burseraceæ.

Olibanum.

Gummmi-resina Olibanum, Thus masculum; Olibanum, Frankincense; F. Encens; G.Weihrauch.

Botanical Origin—Olibanum is obtained from the stem of several species of Boswellia, inhabiting the hot and arid regions of Eastern Africa, near Cape Gardafui and of the southern coast of Arabia. Notwithstanding the recent elaborate and valuable researches of Birdwood, the olibanum trees are still but imperfectly known, as will be evident in the following enumeration:—

1. Boswellia Carterii 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 Lubân Bedowi or Lubân 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 in 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. xxvii., 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.

c. Maghrayt d’sheehaz of the Maharas, Birdwood, l. c. tab. 30, reprinted in Cooke’s report, plate I; Carter, Journ. of Bombay Branch of R. Asiat. Soc. ii., tab. 23; B. sacra Flückiger, Lehrbuch der Pharmakognosie des Pflanzenreiches, 1867. 31.—Ras Fartak, S.E. coast of Arabia, growing in the detritus of limestone cliffs and close to the shore, also near the village of Merbat (Carter, 1844-1846).

Birdwood’s figure refers to a specimen propagated in the Victoria Gardens, Bombay, from cuttings sent there from the Somali country by Playfair.

2. B. Bhau-Dajiana Birdw. l. c. tab. 31, or plate III. of the reprint.—Somali Country (Playfair); cultivated in Victoria Gardens, Bombay, where it flowered in 1868. The differences between this species and B. Carterii are not very obvious.

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 Lubân 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 Beyu of the Somalis (Boido, Capt. Hunter) is agreeing with this tree.

4. Boswellia neglecta, S. 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 Mohr add.

In addition to the foregoing, from which the olibanum of commerce is collected, it may be convenient to mention also the following:—

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 Lubân Meyeti or Lubân Mati, which we regard to be the substance originally known as Elemi (see this article).

2. B. papyrifera Richard (Plösslea 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 resin 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 Salai tree of India, produces a soft odoriferous resin which is used in the country as incense but is not the olibanum of commerce. The tree is particularly abundant on the trap hills of the Dekhan and Satpura range. Berg, in “Offizinelle Gewächse,” xiv. c. gives a good figure of this species.

History—The use of olibanum goes back to a period of extreme antiquity, as proved by the numerous references in the writings of the Bible to incense, of which it was an essential ingredient. It is moreover well known that many centuries before Christ, the drug was one of the most important objects of the traffic which the Phœnicians and Egyptians carried on with Arabia.

Professor Dümichen of Strassburg has discovered at the temple of Dayr el Báhri 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. Inscriptions 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 antimony), 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.c. 370-285) who relates that the commodity is produced in the country of the Sabæans, one of the most active trading nations of antiquity, occupying the southern shores of Arabia. It appears from Diodorus that the Sabæans sold their frankincense to the Arabs, through whose hands it passed to the Phœnicians 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 Sabæans is in fact the very country visited by Carter in 1844 and 1846, and lying as he states on the south coast of Arabia between long. 52° 47′ and 52° 23′ east. It was also known to the ancients, at least to Strabo and Arrian, that the opposite African coast likewise produced olibanum, as it is now doing almost exclusively; and the latter states that the drug is shipped partly to Egypt and partly to Barbaricon at the mouth of the Indus.

As exemplifying the great esteem in which frankincense was held by the ancients, the memorable gifts presented by the Magi to the infant Saviour will occur to every mind. A few other instances may be mentioned: Herodotus relates that the Arabians paid to Darius, king of Persia, an annual tribute of 1000 talents of frankincense.

A remarkable Greek inscription, brought to light in modern times on the ruins of the temple of Apollo at Miletus, records the gifts made to the shrine by Seleucus II., king of Syria (b.c. 246-227), and his brother Antiochus Hierax, king of Cilicia, which included in addition two vessels of gold and silver, ten talents of frankincense (λιβανωτοός) 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 incensum, terms under which olibanum is to be understood.

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 1Oth century, carried with them olibanum, myrrh, dragon’s blood, and liquid storax, drugs which are still imported from the west into China. The first-named is called Ju-siang, i.e. milk perfume, a curious allusion to its Arabic name Lubân signifying milk. In the year 1872, Shanghai imported of this drug no less than 1,360 peculs (181,333 lb.).

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 distance. 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 succession 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. A third month elapses and the operation is again repeated, after which the gum is supposed to have attained a proper degree of consistency. The mountain sides are immediately covered with parties of men and boys, who scrape off the large clear globules into a basket, whilst the inferior 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 trees producing larger quantities as the season advances, until the middle of September, when the first shower of rain puts a close to the gathering that year.”

The informations due to J. M. Hildebrandt, who visited the Somali in 1875, are in accordance with Cruttenden’s statements. The former says, that the latest crops are greatly injured by the rains, the drug being partly dissolved by the water.

Carter describing the collection of the drug in southern Arabia, 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 of 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 ground, 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 Lubân, 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 Lubân 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. 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 considerably in quality and appearance. It may in general terms be described as a dry gum-resin, consisting of detached tears up to an inch in length, of globular, pear-shaped, clavate, or stalactitic form, mixed with more or less irregular lumps of the same size. Some of the longer tears are slightly agglutinated, but most are distinct. The predominant forms are rounded,—angular fragments being less frequent, though the tears are not seldom fissured. Small pieces of the translucent brown papery bark are often found adhering to the flat pieces. The “Lubân Fasous Bedow” as exported from the Mijjertheyn district, in the eastern part of the Somali Country, is in very fine large tears.

The colour of the drug is pale yellowish or brownish, but the finer qualities consist of tears which are nearly colourless or have a greenish hue. The smallest grains only are transparent, the rest are translucent and somewhat milky, and not transparent even after the removal of the white dust with which they are always covered. But if heated to about 94° C., they become almost transparent. When broken they exhibit a rather dull and waxy surface. Examined under the polarizing microscope no trace of crystallization is observable.

Olibanum softens in the mouth; its taste is terebinthinous and slightly bitter, but by no means disagreeable. Its odour is pleasantly aromatic, but is only fully developed when the gum-resin is exposed to an elevated temperature. At 100° C. the latter softens without actually fusing, and if the heat be further raised decomposition begins.

Chemical Composition—Cold water quickly changes olibanum into a soft whitish pulp, which when rubbed down in a mortar forms an emulsion. Immersed in spirit of wine, a tear of olibanum is not 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 alcohol removes 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 C₂₀H₃₀O₃. We find that it is not soluble in alkalis, nor have we succeeded 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 concentric 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 0·866, a boiling point of 179·4° C., and an odour resembling that of turpentine but more agreeable. Kurbatow separated this oil into two portions, the one of which has the formula C₁₀H₁₆, boils at 158° C., and combines with HCl to form crystals; the other contains oxygen. The bitter principle of olibanum forms an amorphous brown mass.

The resin of olibanum submitted to destructive distillation affords no umbelliferone. 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 to the same oxidizing agent.

Commerce—The olibanum of Arabia is shipped from several small places along the coast between Damkote and Al Kammar, but the quantity produced in this district is much below that furnished by the Somali Country in Eastern Africa. The latter is brought to Zeyla, Berbera, Bunder Murayah, and many smaller ports, whence it is shipped to Aden or direct to Bombay. The trade is chiefly in the hands of Banians, and the great emporium for the drug is Bombay. A certain portion is shipped through the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb to Jidda,—Von Kremer says to the value of £12,000 annually. The quantity exported from Bombay in the year 1872-73 was 25,100 cwt., of which 17,446 cwt. were shipped to the United Kingdom, and 6,184 cwt. to China.

Uses—As a medicine olibanum is nearly obsolete, at least in Britain. The great consumption of the drug is for the incense used in the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches.

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 Dhizân), a town on the strip of coast-region called Tihâma, 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 neighbouring 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 to the 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:—“Ipsa Myrrhæ arbor ad Gison,—Martio,” and “Ex huic simillima arbore ad Gison ipse Myrrham effluentem legi. Hæc specimina lecta sunt in montibus Djara et Kara Februario.” This plant Berg named B. Ehrenbergianum. Oliver in his Flora of Tropical Africa (1868) is disposed to consider Berg’s plant the same as B. Opobalsamun Kth., a tree or shrub yielding myrrh, found by Schweinfurth on the Bisharrin mountains in Abyssinia, not far from the coast between Suakin and Edineb. But Schweinfurth himself does not admit the identity of the two plants. It is certain, however, that the myrrh of commerce is chiefly of African origin.

Captain F. M. Hunter, Assistant Resident of Aden, informed us that the Arabian myrrh tree, the Didthin, is found not only in the southern provinces of Arabia, Yemen, and Hadramant, probably also in the southern part of Oman, but likewise on the range of hills which, on the African shore, runs parallel to the Somali coast. The Somalis who gather the myrrh in Arabia allege that the Arabian “Didthin” is identical with that of their own district. Its exudation is the true myrrh, “Mulmul” of the Somalis, the “Mur” of the Arabs, or “Heerabole” of the Indians.

Another myrrh tree, according to Captain Hunter, is growing in Ogadain and the districts round Harrar, that is between the 7th and 10th parallels, N. lat., and 43° to 50° E. long. This is the “Habaghadi” of the Somalis, which is not found in Arabia, nor in the coast range of 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, Balsamodendron Myrrha Nees. It is a low tree of crippled appearance, attaining 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 mediæval 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 “judicium aquæ bullientis.” The drug was also used by the Welsh “Physicians of Myddfai” in the 13th century. In the Wardrobe accounts of Edward I. there is an entry under date 6th January, 1299, for gold, frankincense, and myrrh, offered by the king in his chapel on that day, it being the Feast of Epiphany. Myrrh again figures in the accounts of Geoffroi de Fleuri, master of the wardrobe (argentier) to Philippe le Long, king of France, where record is made of the purchase of—“4 onces d’estorat calmite” (see Styrax) “et mierre (myrrh) ... encenz et laudanon,” (Ladanum, the resin of Cistus creticus L.)—for the funeral of John, posthumous son of Louis X., a.d. 1316.

Gold, silver, silk, precious stones, pearls, camphor, musk, myrrh, and spices are enumerated as the presents which the Khan of Cathay sent to Pope Benedict XII. at Avignon about the year 1342. The myrrh destined for this circuitous route to Europe was doubtless that of the Arabian traders, with whom the Chinese had constant intercourse during the middle ages. Myrrh in fact is still somewhat largely consumed in China.

The name Myrrh is from the Hebrew and Arabic Mur, meaning bitter, whence also the Greek σμύρνα. The ancient Egyptian Bola or Bal, and the Sanskrit Vola are preserved in the Persian and Indian words Bol, Bola, and Heerabol, well-known names for myrrh.

Stacte (στακτὴ), a substance often mentioned by the ancients, is said by Pliny to be a spontaneous liquid exudation of the myrrh tree, more valuable than myrrh itself. The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea represents it as exported from Muza in Arabia together with myrrh. Theophrastus a.d. 314-335.

The myrrh of the ancients was not always obtained from Arabia. The author of the Periplus, who wrote about a.d. 64, records it to have been an export of Abalites, Malao, and Mosyllon (the last named the modern Berbera), ancient ports of the African coast outside the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb; and he even mentions that it is conveyed by small vessels to the opposite shores of Arabia.

Secretion—Marchand who examined and figured the sections of a branch of three years’ growth of B. Myrrha, represents the gum-resin as chiefly deposited in the cortical layers, with a little in the medulla.

Collection—By the Somal tribe myrrh is largely collected as it flows out, incisions, according to Hildebrandt, being never practised. From the information given by Ehrenberg to Nees von Esenbeck, it appears that myrrh when it first exudes is of an oily and then of a buttery appearance, yellowish white, gradually assuming a golden tint and becoming reddish as it hardens. It exudes from the bark like cherry-tree gum, and becomes dark and of inferior value by age. Although Ehrenberg says that the myrrh he saw was of fine quality, he does not mention it being gathered by the natives.

With regard to the localities in which the drug is collected, Cruttenden, who visited the Somali coast in 1843, says that myrrh is brought from the Wadi Nogâl, south west of Cape Gardafui, and from Murreyhan, Ogadain and Agahora; and that some few trees are found on the mountains behind Bunder Murayah. Major Harris saw the myrrh tree in the Adel desert and in the jungle of the Háwash, on the way from Tajura to Shoa.

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 scarcely 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 affording myrrh, namely that just alluded to, secondly the “Habaghadi,” and thirdly that growing east of Aden.

Description—Myrrh consists of irregular roundish masses, varying in size from small grains up to pieces as large as an egg, and occasionally much larger. They are of an opaque reddish-brown with dusty dull surface. When broken, they exhibit a rough or waxy fracture, having 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 agreeable 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.

Water disintegrates myrrh, forming a light brown emulsion, which viewed under the microscope appears made up of colourless drops, among which are granules of yellow resin. Alcohol dissolves the resin of myrrh, leaving angular non-crystalline particles of gum and fragments of bark.

Chemical Composition—Myrrh is a mixture, in very varying proportions, of resin, mucilaginous matters, and essential oil. A fine specimen of myrrh from the Somali coast, with which Captain Hunter, in 1877, kindly presented one of us, yielded 27 per cent. of resin. The undissolved portion is partly soluble in water.

The resin dissolves completely in chloroform or alcohol, and the colour of the latter solution is but slightly darkened by perchloride of iron. It is but partially soluble in alkalis or in bisulphide of carbon. Brückner (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 protocatechuic acid are produced in small amount.

Myrrh yields on distillation a volatile oil which in operating on 25 lb. of the drug, we obtained to the extent of ¾ per cent. It is a yellowish, rather viscid liquid, neutral to litmus, having a powerful odour of myrrh and sp. gr. 0·988 at 13° C. In a column 50 mm. long, it deviates a ray of light 30·1° to the left. By submitting it to distillation, we obtained before the oil boiled, a few drops of a strongly acid liquid having the smell of formic acid. Neutralized with ammonia, this liquid produced in solution of mercurous nitrate a whitish precipitate which speedily darkened, thus indicating formic acid, which is developed 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 9·98. Having been again rectified in a current of dry carbonic acid, it had a boiling point of 262-263° C., and now afforded carbon 84·70, hydrogen 10·26, which would nearly answer to the formula C₂₂H₃₂O. The results of Ruickholdt’s analysis (1845) of essential oil of myrrh assign it the formula C₁₀H₁₄O, which is widely different from that indicated by our experiments.

The oil which we rectified displays a faintly greenish hue; it is miscible in every proportion with bisulphide of carbon, the solution exhibiting at first no peculiar coloration when a drop of nitric or sulphuric acid is added. Yet the mixture to which nitric acid (1·20) has been added, assumes after an hour or two a fine violet hue which is very persistent, enduring even if the liquid is allowed to dry up in a large capsule. If to the crude oil dissolved in bisulphide of carbon bromine be added, a violet hue is produced; and if the solution is allowed to evaporate, and the residue diluted with spirit of wine, it assumes a fine blue which disappears on addition of an alkali. The 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 substance, 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 principle 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 fiscal year 1875 to 1876 were 1439 cwt.; 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.

Other Varieties of Myrrh—Though the myrrh of commerce exhibits some diversity of appearance, the drug-brokers and druggists of London are not in the habit of applying any special designations to the different qualities. There are however two varieties which deserve notice.

1. Bissa Bol (Bhesabol, Bysabole), Habaghadi or Hebbakhade of the Somalis, formerly called East India Myrrh.

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 Ból or true myrrh, but that it is nevertheless distinct. The drug is exported from the whole Somali coast to Mokha, Jidda, Aden, Makulla, the Persian Gulf, India and even China. Bombay official returns show that the quantity imported thither in the year 1872-73, was 224 cwt, all shipped from Aden.

Some myrrh, no doubt that from the interior of north-eastern Africa, the Habaghadi or Baisabole, finds its way by the country of the Wagadain (Ugahden or Ogadain) to the small port of Brava (Barawa, Braoua), about 1° N. lat., and to Zanzibar. This is, possibly, 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 Bôl 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 bright gloss to whitewashed walls.

Miles 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. Probably hodthai and habaghadi is one and the same thing.

Bissa Bôl 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 Bôl 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 marked differences no doubt depend upon a widely discrepant composition of the resins of the two kinds of myrrh as well as upon a different proportion of gum and resin. The Bissa Bôl usually seen is an impure and 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. 143 as collected to the eastward of Aden, is of interest as substantiating the statement of Theophrastus that both olibanum and myrrh grow in Southern Arabia.

The drug, which is not distinguished by any special name in English trade, is in irregular masses seldom exceeding 1½ inches long, and having a somewhat gummy-looking exterior. The larger lumps seem formed by the cohesion of small, rounded, translucent, externally shining tears or drops. The fracture is like that of common myrrh, but 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 of a sample of this myrrh from the territory of the Fadhli, as sent to us by Captain Hunter. Its solution in bisulphide of carbon or petroleum ether was coloured by bromine as stated above, (p. 144) with regard to typical myrrh (Heerabol) from the Somali Country. The name applies to 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 coloured when treated in the same way. This is the myrrh “Hodaidia Jebeli” from north and north-western Yenen.

Elemi.

Resina Elemi; Elemi; F. Résine Elemi; 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 Abilo, but which is completely unknown to the botanists of Europe. Blanco’s description is such that, if correct, the plant cannot be placed in either of the old genera Icica or Elaphrium, comprehended by Bentham and Hooker in that of Bursera, nor yet in the allied genus Canarium; in fact even the order to which it belongs is somewhat doubtful.

The tree grows in the province of Batangas in the island of Luzon (south of Manila), where its name in the Tagala language is ábilo; the Spaniards call it Arbol a brea, i.e. pitch-tree, from the circumstance that its resin is used for the caulking of boats.

History—The explicit statements of Theophrastus in the 3rd century b.c. relative to olibanum have already been mentioned. The same writer narrates that a little above Coptus on the Red Sea, no tree is found except the acacia (ἀκάνθη) of the desert ... but that on the sea there grow laurel (δάϕνη) and olive (ἐλαία), from the latter of which exudes a substance much valued to make a medicine for the staunching of blood.

This story appears again in Pliny who says that in Arabia the olive tree exudes tears which are an ingredient of the medicine called by the Greeks Enhæmon, from its efficacy in healing wounds.

Dioscorides briefly notices the Gum of the Ethiopian olive, which he likens to scammony; and the same substance is named by Scribonius Largus who practised medicine at Rome during the 1st century.

The writers who have commented on Dioscorides have generally adopted the opinion that the exudation of the so-called olive tree of Arabia and Ethiopia was none other than the substance known to them as Elemi, though, as remarked by Mattioli, the oriental drug thus called by no means well accords with the description left by that author.

As to that name, the earliest mention of it appears in the middle of the 15th century. Thus in a list of drugs sold at Frankfort about 1450, we find Gommi Elempnij. Saladinus, who lived about this period, enumerates Gumi Elemi among the drugs kept by the Italian apothecaries, but we have not met with the name in any other writer of the school of Salerno. The Arbolayre, a herbal supposed to have been printed about 1485, gives some account of Gomme Elempni, stating that it is the gum of the lemon tree and not of fennel as some think,—that it resembles Male Incense,—and makes an excellent ointment for wounds.

The name Enhæmon of Pliny, also written Enhæmi, is probably the original form of the word Animi, another designation for the same drug, though also applied as at the present day to a sort of copal. It is even possible that the word Elemi has the same origin.

This primitive Elemi is in our opinion identical with a peculiar sort of olibanum known as Luban Meyeti, afforded by Boswellia Frereana Birdwood (p. 135). It has a remarkable resemblance both in external appearance and in odour to the substance in after-times imported from America, and which were likened to the elemi and animi of the Old World. The description of “gummi elemnia” given by Valerius Cordus, the most careful observer of his period, could in our opinion well apply to Luban Meyeti. (See p. 153 further on.)

The first reference to Elemi as a production of America comes from the pen of Monardes who has a chapter on Animi and Copal. He describes animi as of a more oily nature than copal, of a very agreeable odour, and in grains resembling olibanum but of larger size, and adds that it differs from the animi of the Old World in being less white and clear.

At a somewhat later period this resin and some similar substances began to be substituted for Elemi which had become scarce. Pomet, who as a dealer in drugs was a man of practical knowledge, laments that this American drug was being sold by some as Elemi, and by others as Animi or as Tacamaca. It was however introduced in great plenty, and at length took the place of the original elemi which became completely forgotten.

American Elemi was in turn discarded in favour of another sort imported from the Philippines. The first mention of this substance is to be found among the descriptions accompanied by drawings sent by Father Camellus to Petiver of London, of the shrubs and trees of Luzon, in the year 1701. Camellus states that the tree, which from his drawing preserved in the British Museum appears to us to be a species of Canarium, is very tall and large, that it is called by the Spaniards Arbol de la brea, and that it yields an abundance of odorous resin which is commonly used for pitching boats. Living specimens of the tree together with samples of the resin were brought to Paris from Manila by the traveller Perrottet about the year 1820. For the last twenty years the resin has been common, and is now imported in large quantities for use in the arts, so displacing all other kinds. It has been adopted as the Elemi of the British Pharmacopœia (1867), and is in fact the only variety of elemi now found in English commerce.

Description—Manila elemi is a soft, resinous substance, of granular consistence not unlike old honey, and when recent and quite pure is colourless; more often it is found contaminated with carbonaceous matter which renders it grey or blackish, and it is besides mixed with chips and similar impurities. By exposure to the air it becomes harder and acquires a yellow tint. It has a strong and pleasant odour suggestive of fennel and lemon, yet withal somewhat terebinthinous. When moistened with spirit of wine, it disintegrates, and examined under the microscope is seen to consist partly of acicular crystals. At the heat of boiling water the hardened drug softens, and at a somewhat higher temperature fuses into a clear resin.

Chemical Composition—Manila elemi is rich in essential oil. On submitting 28 lb. of it to distillation with water, we obtained 2 lb. 13 oz. (equivalent to 10 per cent.) of a fragrant, colourless, neutral oil, of sp. gr. 0·861 at 15° C. Observed in Wild’s polaristrobometer we found it to be strongly dextrogyre. H. Sainte Claire Deville on the other hand has examined an oil of elemi that was strongly levogyre. This discrepancy shows that there are among the oils of various kinds of elemi, differences similar to those existing in the oils of turpentine and copaiba. By the action of dry hydrochloric acid gas, Deville obtained from his oil of elemi a solid crystalline substance, C₁₀H₁₆ + 2 HCl. We failed to produce any such compound from the oil of Manila elemi. Our oil of elemi dissolves in bisulphide of carbon; when mixed with concentrated sulphuric acid, it becomes thick and assumes a deep orange colour.

By submitting the crude oil to fractional distillation, we separated it into six portions, of which the first five were dextrogyre in gradually diminishing degree, while the sixth displayed a weak deviation to the left. The first portion having been dissolved in four times its weight of strong sulphuric acid, washed and again distilled, exhibit a deviation to the left.

If the essential oil of elemi (8 parts) is shaken with alcohol, 0·816 sp. gr. (2 parts), nitric acid, 1·2 sp. gr. (1 part) and water (5 parts), the mixture, on exposure to air in a shallow capsule soon yields large crystals, which were found to agree crystallographically perfectly with terpin, C₁₀H₂₀O₂ + OH₂ from oil of turpentine.

Maujean, a French pharmacien, examined Manila elemi as long ago as 1821 and proved it to contain two resins, the one soluble in cold, the other only in hot spirit of wine. The former, which appears to constitute by far the prevailing part of all varieties of elemi, has not yet been satisfactorily examined. Bonastre a little latter made a more complete analysis, showing that the less soluble resin which he obtained to the extent of 25 per cent. is easily crystallizable, and apparently identical with a substance obtainable in a similar manner from what he regarded as true elemi, which the Manila resin was not then held to be. Baup (1851) gave it the name of Amyrin. According to our experiments, it is readily isolated to the extent of 20 per cent. when Manila elemi is treated with cold spirit of wine, in which the crystals of amyrin are but slightly soluble. If the elemi is pure, the amyrin may be thus obtained (by washing with spirit and pressure between bibulous paper) in a cake of snowy whiteness, which may be further purified by crystallization from boiling alcohol. The fusing point of the crystals is 177° C.; their composition has been ascertained by Buri to agree with the formula C₂₅H₄₂O, which may be written thus: (C₅H₈)₅ OH₂. Amyrin at 16° C. dissolves in 27·5 parts of alcohol 0·816 sp. gr., being readily soluble also in all the usual solvents for resins. The alcoholic solution is slightly dextrogyre. Amyrin is a neutral substance, and may be sublimed in small quantities by very carefully heating it.

By heating amyrin with zinc dust Ciamician obtained chiefly toluol, methyl-ethyl-benzol and ethyl-naphtalin.

By allowing an alcoholic solution of the amorphous resin of Manila elemi to evaporate, Baup obtained in very small quantity crystals of Bréine, a substance fusing at 187° C., which he considered to be distinct from amyrin. In our opinion it was impure amyrin; it is extremely difficult, or rather practically impossible to extract all the crystallizable resin from the amorphous. If the latter, perfectly transparent, is kept for several years, an elegant crystallization at last begins to make its appearance throughout the bulk of the resin.

Baup further extracted from Manila elemi a crystallizable substance soluble in water to which he gave the name of Bryoidin, and in smaller quantity a second also soluble in water which he called Bréidine. From the experiments of Baup it appears that bryoidin is soluble in 360 parts of water at 10° C., and melts at 135° C.; whereas bréidine requires for solution 260 parts of water and fuses at a temperature not much over 100° C.

We have also obtained Bryoidin by operating in the following manner: the watery liquid left in the still after the distillation of 28 lb. of Manila elemi was poured off from the mass of hard resin, and having been duly concentrated, it deposited together with a dark extractiform matter, colourless acicular crystals of bryoidin. The deposit in question having been drained and allowed to dry, the bryoidin may be separated by boiling water or by cold ether. We found the latter the more convenient; it readily takes up the bryoidin contaminated only with a little resin. The ethereal solution should be allowed to evaporate and the residual crystalline mass boiled in water, when the solution (which is colourless), poured off from the resin, will deposit upon cooling brilliant tufts of acicular crystals of bryoidin. The boiling in water requires to be several times repeated before the whole of the bryoidin can be removed; the latter sometimes crystallizes as a mossy arborescent growth. Bryoidin is a neutral substance, of bitter taste, scarcely soluble in cold water, but dissolving easily in boiling water, or in alcohol or ether. When a little is placed in a watch-glass, covered with a plate of glass, and then gently heated over a lamp, it sublimes in delicate needles. To obtain it perfectly pure, it is best to sublime it in a current of dry carbonic acid. Thus purified its fusing point is 133·5 C.; after fusion it concretes as a transparent, amorphous mass, which if immersed in glycerin and raised to the temperature of 135° C., suddenly crystallizes.

We have observed that if the filtered mother-liquor of bryoidin after complete cooling and standing for a day or two is warmed, it becomes turbid and that in a few minutes there separate from it long white flocks like bits of paper or wool, which do not disappear either by warming or by cooling the liquid; under the microscope they are seen to consist partly of thread-like, partly of acicular crystals. It is possible this substance is Baup’s Bréidine; we found it to fuse at 135° C., to be neutral, and to crystallize from weak alcohol exactly like bryoidin. Both it and bryoidin look very voluminous in water, but are extremely small in weight, and are present in the drug in but a very small amount. The composition of bryoidin agrees with the formula C₂₀H₃₈O₃, which might be written thus (C₅H₈)₄+3OH₂. But it contains no water of crystallization. In the vapour of dry hydrochloric gas, bryoidin assumes a fine red colour, turning violet, then blue, and lastly green. This behaviour is not at all displayed by amyrin.

The liquids from which bryoidin is obtained contain an amorphous brown substance of intensely bitter taste, at the same time somewhat aromatic. It is decomposed by dilute mineral acids, evolving a very peculiar strong odour.

Buri isolated from Manila Elemi an extremely small amount of Elemic acid, C₃₅H₅₆O₄. It is in very brilliant crystals, much larger than those of the other constituents of elemi. Although we have before us some prisms of the acids several millimetres long, it has been found impossible to ascertain their crystallographic character, each of the prisms being formed of very intimately aggregated crystals. Elemic acid melts at 215° C.; its alcoholic solution decidedly reddens litmus. Elemate of potassium is a crystalline salt.

The relations of the substances hitherto isolated from elemi may perhaps be given thus:—

Essential oil, C₅H₈.

Amyrin, (C₅H₈)₅ + OH₂

Amorphous resin (?) (C₅H₈)₂ + OH₂

Bryoidin, (C₅H₈)₄ + 3OH₂

Elemic acid, (C₅H₈)₇ + O₄

Uses—Elemi is scarcely used in British medicine except in the form of an ointment, sometimes prescribed as a stimulating application to old wounds.

Other sorts of Elemi—1. Mexican Elemi, Vera Cruz Elemi—This drug, which used to be imported into London about thirty years ago, but which has now disappeared from commerce, is the produce of a tree named by Royle Amyris elemifera growing at Oaxaca in Mexico. It is a light yellow, or whitish, brittle resin occurring in semi-cylindrical scraped pieces, or in irregular fragments which are sometimes translucent but more often dull and opaque. It easily softens in the mouth so that it may be masticated, and has an agreeable terebinthinous odour. Treated with cold spirit of wine (·828), it breaks down into a white magma of acicular crystals (Amyrin?).

2. Brazilian Elemi—Was described as long ago as 1658 by the traveller Piso, as a substance completely resembling the elemi of the Old World and applicable to the same purposes. It is the produce of several trees described as species of Icica, as I. Icicariba DC., I. heterophylla DC., I. heptaphylla Aublet, I. guianensis Aubl., I. altissima Aubl.—In New Granada a similar exudation is furnished by I. Caranna H.B.K.

A specimen in our possession from Pernambuco is a translucent, greenish yellow, fragrant, terebinthinous resin, which by cold spirit of wine may be separated into two portions, the one soluble, the other a mass of colourless acicular crystals. The resin spontaneously exuded and collected from the trunks, is often opaque and white, grey, or yellowish, looking not unlike fragments of old mortar. The microscope shows it to be made up of minute acicular crystals.

3. Mauritius Elemi—Fine specimens of this substance and of Colophonia Mauritiana DC. the tree affording it, were sent to one of us (H.) in 1855 by Mr. Emile Fleurot of Mauritius. The resin accords in its general characters with Manila elemi, like which it leaves after treatment with cold spirit of wine, an abundance of crystals resembling amyrin.

4. Luban Meyeti or Luban Mati.—This substance, which we claim to be the Oriental or African Elemi of the older writers, and also one of the resins anciently designated Animi, is the exudation of Boswellia Frereana Birdwood, a remarkable tree gregarious on the bare limestone hills near Bunder Murayah to the west of Cape Gardafui. The tree which is called Yegaar by the natives, is of small stature, and differs from the other species of Boswellia growing on the same coast in having glabrous, glaucous leaves with obtuse leaflets, crisped at the margin. The bark is smooth, papery, and translucent, and easily stripped off in thin sheets which are used for writing on. Though growing wild, the trees are said by Capt. Miles to be carefully watched and even sometimes propagated. The resin exudes after incision in great plenty, soon hardens, and is collected by the Somali tribes who dispose of it to traders for shipment to Jidda and ports of Yemen: occasionally a package reaches London among the shipments of olibanum. It is used in the East for chewing like mastich.

In modern times Luban Mati has been mentioned by Wellsted in his “Travels in Arabia” (1838).

Luban Meyeti occurs in the form of detached droppy tears and fragments, occasionally in stalactitic masses several ounces in weight. It breaks very easily with a brilliant conchoidal fracture, showing an internal substance of a pale amber yellow and perfectly transparent. Externally it is more or less coated with a thin opaque white crust, which seen under the microscope appears non-crystalline. Many of the tears have pieces of the thin, brown, papery bark adhering to them. The resin has an agreeable odour of lemon and turpentine, and a mild terebinthinous taste.

Treated with alcohol (·838) it is almost entirely dissolved; the very small undissolved portion is not crystalline. The former agrees with the formula C₂₀H₃₀O₂. 20 lb. of Luban Mati yielded us 10 ounces of a volatile oil (= 3·1 per cent.) having a fragrant odour suggestive of elemi and sp. gr. 0·856 at 17° C. The oil examined in a column 50 millim. long, deviates the ray 2°·5 to the left. By fractional distillation we found it to consist of dextrogyre hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, mixed with an oxygenated oil which we did not succeed in isolating; the latter is evidently lævogyre, and exists in proportion more than sufficient to overcome the weak dextrogyre power of the hydrocarbon.

There is no gum in this exudation; it is therefore essentially different from olibanum, the product of closely allied species of Boswellia.

Meliaceæ.

Cortex Margosæ.

Cortex Azadirachtæ; Nim Bark, Margosa Bark.

Botanical Origin—Melia indica Brandis (M. Azadirachta L., Azadirachta indica Juss.), an ornamental tree, 40 to 50 feet high and attaining a considerable girth, well known throughout India by its Hindustani name of Nim, or by its Portuguese appellation of Margosa. It is much planted in avenues, but occurs wild in the forests of Southern India, Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago, as far as Java.

The hard and heavy wood which is so bitter that no insect will attack it, the medicinal leaves and bark, the fruit which affords an acrid bitter oil used in medicine and for burning, the gum which exudes from the stem, and finally a sort of toddy obtained from young trees, cause the Nim to be regarded as one of the most useful trees of India.

M. indica is often confounded with M. Azedarach L., a native of China, and probably of India, now widely distributed throughout the warmer regions of the globe, and not rare even in Sicily and other parts of the south of Europe. The former has an oval fruit (by abortion) one-celled and one-seeded, and leaves simply pinnate. The latter has the fruit five-celled, and leaves bipinnate.

History—The tree under the Sanskrit name of Nimba is mentioned in Susruta, one of the most ancient Hindu medical writings, composed perhaps about the 10th century of our era.

In common with many other productions of India, it attracted the notice of Garcia de Orta, physician to the Portuguese viceroy at Goa, and he published an account of it in his work on drugs in 1563. Christoval Acosta in 1578 supplied some further details and also a figure of the tree. The tonic properties of the bark, long recognized by the native physicians of India, were successively tested by Dr. D. White of Bombay in the beginning of the present century, and have since been generally admitted. The drug has a place in the Pharmacopœia of India.

Description—The bark in our possession is in coarse fibrous pieces about ⅕ of an inch thick and 2 to 3 inches wide, slightly channelled. The suberous coat is rough and cracked, and of a greyish rusty hue. The inner surface is of a bright buff and has a highly foliaceous structure. On making a transverse section three distinct layers may be observed—firstly the suberous coat exhibiting a large brown parenchyme interwoven with small bands of corky tissue,—secondly a dark cellular layer, and then the foliaceous liber. The dry bark is inodorous and has a slightly astringent bitter taste.

Microscopic Structure—The suberous coat consists of numerous layers of ordinary cork-cells, which cover a layer of nearly cubic sclerenchymatous cells. This latter however is not always met with, secondary bands of cork (rhytidoma) frequently taking its place. The liber is commonly built up of strong fibre-bundles traversed by narrow medullary rays, and transversely separated by bands of parenchymatous liber tissue. Crystals of oxalate of calcium occur in the parenchyme more frequently than the small globular starch grains. The structure of the bark varies considerably according to the gradual development of the secondary cork-bands.

Chemical Composition—Margosa bark was chemically examined in India by Cornish (1856), who announced it as a source of a bitter alkaloid to which he gave the name of Margosine, but which he obtained only in minute quantity as a “double salt of Margosine and Soda” in long white needles.

From the bitter oil of the seeds he isolated a substance which he called Margosic Acid, and which he doubted to be capable of affording crystallizable salts. The composition neither of this acid nor of margosine is known, nor have the properties of either been investigated.

The small sample of the bark at our disposal only enables us to add that an infusion produced with perchloride of iron a blackish precipitate, and that an infusion is not altered by tannic acid or iodohydrargyrate of potassium. If the inner layers of the bark are alone exhausted with water, the liquid affords an abundant precipitate with tannic acid; but if the entire bark is boiled in water, the tannic matter which it contains will form an insoluble compound with the bitter principle, and prevent the latter being dissolved. It is thus evident that to isolate the bitter matter of the bark, it would be advisable to work on the liber or inner layers alone, which might readily be done, as they separate easily.

According to the recent researches of Broughton the bitter principle is an amorphous resin soluble in the usual solvents and in boiling solutions of fixed alkalis. From the latter it is precipitated by acids, yet, probably, altered. Broughton ascribed the formula C₃₆H₅₀O₁₁ to this bitter resin purified by means of bisulphide of carbon, ether and absolute alcohol; it fused at 92° C. He obtained moreover a small quantity of a crystallized principle, which he believed to be a fatty body, yet its melting point of 175° C. is not in favour of this suggestion.

Uses—In India the bark is used as a tonic and antiperiodic, both by natives and Europeans. Dr. Pulney Andy of Madras has found the leaves beneficial in small-pox.

Cortex Soymida.

Cortex Swieteniæ; Rohun Bark.

Botanical Origin—Soymida febrifuga Juss. (Swietenia febrifuga Willd.), a tree of considerable size not uncommon in the forests of Central and Southern India. The timber called by Europeans Bastard Cedar is very durable and strong, and much valued for building purposes.

History—The introduction of Rohun Bark into the medical practice of Europeans is due to Roxburgh who recommended the drug as a substitute for Cinchona, after numerous trials made in India about the year 1791. At the same time he sent supplies to Edinburgh, where Duncan made it the subject of a thesis which probably led to it being introduced into the materia medica of the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia of 1803, and of the Dublin Pharmacopœia of 1807.

Though thus officially recognized, it does not appear that the bark came much into use or by any other means fulfilled the expectations raised in its favour. At present it is regarded simply as a useful astringent tonic, and as such it has a place in the Pharmacopœia of India (1868).

Description—Our specimen of Rohun bark which is from a young tree, is in straight or somewhat curved, half-tubular quills, an inch or more in diameter and about ⅕ of an inch in thickness. Externally it is of a rusty grey or brown, with a smoothish surface exhibiting no considerable furrows or cracks, but numerous small corky warts. These form little elliptic scars or rings, brown in the centre and but slightly raised from the surface. The inner side and edges of the quills are of a bright reddish colour.

A transverse section exhibits a thin outer layer coloured by chlorophyll, and a middle layer of a bright rusty hue, traversed by large medullary rays and darker wedge-shaped rays of liber. The latter has a fibrous fracture, that of the outer part of the bark being rather corky or foliaceous. The whole bark when comminuted is of a rusty colour, becoming reddish by exposure to air and moisture. It has a bitter astringent taste with no distinctive odour. The older bark frequently half an inch thick and fibrous, has a thick ragged corky layer of a rusty blackish-brown colour, deeply fissured longitudinally, and minutely cracked transversely. Old bark, according to Dymock (1877), is generally in half quills of a rich red-brown colour.

Microscopic Structure—The bark presents but few structural peculiarities. The ring of liber is made up of alternating prosenchymatous and parenchymatous tissue. In the latter the larger cells are filled with mucilage, the others with starch. The prosenchymatous groups of the liber exhibit that peculiar form we have already described as hornbast (p. 74); it chiefly contains the tannic matter, besides stellate crystals of oxalate of calcium which are distributed through the whole tissue of the bark. The medullary rays are of the usual form, and contain starch granules. The corky coat is built up of a smaller number of vaulted cells.

Chemical Composition—The bitter principle of the bark has been ascertained by Broughton to be a nearly colourless resinous substance, sparingly soluble in water but more so in alcohol, ether, or benzol. It does not appear to unite with acids or bases, and is less soluble in water containing them than in pure water. It has a very bitter taste, and refuses to crystallize either from benzol or ether. It contains no nitrogen. To this we may add that the bark is rich in tannic acid.

Uses—Rohun bark is administered in India as an astringent tonic and antiperiodic, and is reported useful in intermittent fevers and general debility, as well as in the advanced stages of dysentery and in diarrhœa.

Rhamnaceæ.

Fructus Rhamni.

Baccæ Rhamni, Baccæ Spinæ cervinæ; Buckthorn Berries; F. Baies de Neprun; G. Kreuzdornbeeren.

Botanical Origin—Rhamnus cathartica L., a robust diœcious shrub with spreading branches, the smaller of which often terminate in a stout thorn. It is indigenous to Northern Africa, the greater part of Europe, and stretches eastward to the Caucasus and into Siberia. We have seen stems 50 years old, having a diameter of 8 inches, sent from the government of Cherson, Southern Russia. In England the buckthorn though generally distributed is abundant only in certain districts; in Scotland it occurs wild in but a single locality. Yet in Norway, Sweden, and Finland it grows much further north.

The fruit which ripens in the autumn is collected for use chiefly in the counties of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and also from Wiltshire. The collectors usually prefer to supply the juice as expressed by themselves.

History—The Buckthorn was well known to the Anglo-Saxons, and is mentioned as Hartsthorn or Waythorn in their medical writings and glossaries dating before the Norman conquest. The Welsh physicians of Myddfai (“Meddygon Myddvai”) in the 13th century prescribed the juice of the fruit of buckthorn boiled with honey as an aperient drink.

As Spina Cervina the shrub is referred to by Piero de’ Crescenzi of Bologna about a.d. 1305.

The medicinal use of the berries was familiar to all the writers on botany and materia medica of the 16th century. Syrup of buckthorn first appeared in the London Pharmacopœia of 1650; it was aromatized by means of aniseed, cinnamon, mastich and nutmeg.

Description—The fruits, which are only used in the fresh state, are small, juicy, spherical drupes the size of a pea, black and shining, bearing on the summit the remnants of the style, and supported below by a slender stalk expanded into a disc-like receptacle. Before ripening the fruit is green and distinctly 4-lobed, afterwards smooth and plump. It contains 4 one-seeded nuts meeting at right angles in the middle. The seed is erect with a broad furrow on the back: in transverse section the albumen and cotyledons are seen to be curved into a horseshoe form with the ends directed outwards.

The fresh juice is green, has an acid reaction and a sweetish, afterwards disagreeably bitter taste, and repulsive odour. It is coloured dingy green by ferric chloride, yellow by alkalis, red by acids. According to Umney it should have a sp. gr. of 1·070 to 1·075, but is seldom sold pure. By keeping the juice gradually turns red.

Microscopic Structure—The epidermis consists of small tabular cells, followed by a row of large cubic cells and then by several layers of tangentially-extended cells rich in chlorophyll. This thick epicarp passes into the loose thin-walled and large-celled sarocarp. Besides chlorophyll it exhibits numerous cells each containing a kind of sac, which may be squeezed out of the cell. These sacs are violet, turning blue with alkalis. Similar, yet much more conspicuous bodies occur also in the pulp of the Locust Bean (Ceratonia Siliqua L.).

Chemical Composition—The berries of buckthorn and other species of Rhamnus contain interesting colouring matters, which have been the subject of much chemical research and controversy. Winckler in 1849 extracted from the juice Rhamnocathartin, a yellowish uncrystallizable bitter substance, soluble in water but not in ether. Alkalis colour it golden yellow; perchloride of iron, dark greenish brown.

In 1840 Fleury, a pharmacien of Pontoise, discovered in buckthorn juice a yellow substance forming cauliflower-like crystals to which he gave the name of Rhamnine. This body has been recently studied by Lefort, who identified it with the Rhamnetine of Galletly (1858) and the Chrysorhamnine of Schützenberger and Bertèche (1865). Though obtainable from the berries of all kinds of Rhamnus used in dyeing (including the common buckthorn), it is got most easily and abundantly from Persian Berries. When pure, and crystallized from absolute alcohol, it is described as forming minute yellow translucent tables. It is scarcely soluble in cold water, though colouring it pale yellow; is soluble in hot alcohol, insoluble in ether or bisulphide of carbon. It is very soluble in caustic alkalis, forming uncrystallizable reddish-yellow solutions. From alkaline solutions it is precipitated by a mineral acid in the form of a glutinous magma resembling hydrated silica. Lefort assigns to it the formula C₁₂H₁₂O₅ + 2H₂O.

This chemist has likewise found in the berries of Rhamnus, though not with certainty in those of R. cathartica, a neutral substance isomeric with rhamnine, to which he has given the name of Rhamnegine. Unlike rhamnine it is very soluble in cold water, but in all other respects it agrees with that body in chemical and physical properties. The two substances have the same taste, almost the same tint, the same crystalline form, and lastly they give rise to the same reactions with chemical agents.

The conclusions of Lefort have been contested by Stein (1868) and by Schützenberger (1868), the latter of whom succeeded in decomposing rhamnegine and proving it a glucoside having the formula C₂₄H₃₂O₁₄. Its decomposition gives rise to a body named Rhamnetin, C₁₂H₁₀O₅, and a crystallizable sugar isomeric with mannite. Schützenberger admits that the berries contain an isomeric modification of rhamnegine; but in addition another colouring matter insoluble in water, which appears to be the Rhamnine of Lefort, but to which he assigns a different formula, namely, C₁₈H₂₂O₁₀. This is also a glucoside capable of being split into rhamnetin and a sugar. There are thus, according to Schützenberger, two forms of rhamnegine which may be distinguished as α and β, and there is the substance insoluble in water, named by Lefort Rhamnine.

The question of the purgative principles of buckthorn, it will be observed, has not been touched by all these researches.

Uses—From the juice of the berries is prepared a syrup having strongly purgative properties, much more used as a medicine for animals than for man. The pigment Sap Green is also made from the juice.

Ampelideæ.

Uvæ Passæ.

Passulæ majores; Raisins; F. Raisins; G. Rosinen.

Botanical Origin—Vitis vinifera L., the Common Grape-vine. It appears to be indigenous to the Caucasian provinces of Russia, that is to say, to the country lying between the eastern end of the Black Sea and the south-western shores of the Caspian; extending thence southward into Armenia. Under innumerable varieties, it is cultivated in most of the warmer and drier countries of the temperate regions of both the northern and southern hemispheres. Humboldt defines the area of the profitable culture of the vine as a zone lying between 36° and 40° of north latitude.

History—The vine is among the oldest of cultivated plants, and is mentioned in the earliest Mosaic writings. Dried grapes as distinguished from fresh were used by the ancient Hebrews, and in the Vulgate are translated Uvæ passæ. During the middle ages, raisins were an article of luxury imported into England from Spain.

Description—The ovary of Vitis vinifera is 2-celled with 2 ovules in each cell; it develops into a succulent, pedicellate berry of spherical or ovoid form, in which the cells are obliterated and some of the seeds generally abortive. As the fruit is not articulated with the rachis or the rachis with the branch, it does not drop at maturity but remains attached to the plant, on which, provided there is sufficient solar heat, it gradually withers and dries: such fruits are called Raisins of the sun. Various methods are adopted to facilitate the drying of the fruit, such as dipping the bunches in boiling water or in a lye of wood ashes, or twisting or partially severing the stalk,—the effect of each operation being to arrest or destroy the vitality of the tissues. The drying is performed by exposure to the sun, sometimes supplemented by artificial heat.

The raisins commonly found in the shops are the produce of Spain and Asia Minor, and are sold either in entire bunches or removed from the stalk. The former kind, known as Muscatel Raisins and imported from Malaga, are dried and packed with great care for use as a dessert fruit. The latter kind, which includes the Valencia Raisins of Spain, and the Eleme, Chesme and stoneless Sultana Raisins of Smyrna, are used for culinary purposes. For pharmacy, Valencia raisins are generally employed.

Microscopic Structure—The outer layer or skin of the berry is made up of small tabular cells loaded with a reddish granular matter, which on addition of an alcoholic solution of perchloride of iron assumes a dingy green hue. The interior parenchyme exhibits large, thin-walled, loose cells containing an abundance of crystals (bitartrate of potassium and sugar). There are also some fibro-vascular bundles traversing the tissue in no regular order.

Chemical Composition—The pulp abounds in grape sugar and cream of tartar, each of which in old raisins may be found crystallized in nodular masses; it also contains gum and malic acid. The seeds afford 15 to 18 per cent. of a bland fixed oil, which is occasionally extracted. Fitz has shown that it consists of the glycerides of Erucic Acid, C₂₂H₄₂O₂, stearic acid, and palmitic acid, the first-named acid largely prevailing. The crystals of erucic acid melt at 34° C.; by means of fused potash they may be resolved into arachic acid, C₂₀H₄₀O₂, and acetic acid, C₂H₄O₂.

The seeds further contain 5 to 6 per cent. of tannic acid, which also exists in the skin of the fruit. The latter is likewise the seat of chlorophyll and other colouring matter.

Commerce—The consumption of raisins in Great Britain is very large and is increasing. The imports into the United Kingdom have been as follows:—

1870. 1871. 1872. 1876.

365,418 427,056 617,418 583,860 cwt.

val. £593,527. val. £707,344. val. £1,149,337. val. £1,058,406.

Of the quantity mentioned for 1872 there were 400,570 cwt. shipped from Spain, 176,500 cwt. from Asiatic Turkey, and the remainder from other countries. It is stated that Greece, in 1874, exported about 1⅓ millions of cwt., value £28,000,000; much of this was shipped to England.

Uses—Raisins are an ingredient of Compound Tincture of Cardamoms and of Tincture of Senna. They have no medicinal properties, and are only used for the sake of the saccharine matter they impart.

Anacardiaceæ.

Mastiche.

Mastix, Resina Mastiche; Mastich; F. Mastic; G. Mastix.

Botanical Origin—Pistacia Lentiscus L., the lentisk, is a diœcious evergreen, mostly found as a shrub a few feet high; but when allowed to attain its full growth, it slowly acquires the dimensions of a small tree having a dense head of foliage. It is a native of the Mediterranean shores from Syria to Spain, and is found in Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries. In some parts of Italy it is largely cut for fuel.

Mastich is collected in the southern and south-western part of the island of Scio, which was long regarded as the only region in the world capable of affording it. Experiments made in 1856 by Orphanides have proved that excellent mastich might be easily obtained in other islands of the Archipelago, and probably also in Continental Greece. The same botanist remarks that the trees yielding mastich in Scio are exclusively male.

History—Mastich has been known from a very remote period, and is mentioned by Theophrastus, who lived in the 4th century before the Christian 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 (i.e. Mediterranean or Christian), and the dark or Nabathæan,—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 to the East about a.d. 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 “Meddygon Myddvai” as an ingredient of ointments.

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 the Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus II. conceded in 1304 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, a rich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia (the ancient Phocæa), 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.

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 or reinforcement). Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled themselves 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 Giustiniani. This extraordinary society played a part exactly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa it had its “Officium Chii”; 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 all 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, Constantinople and the Crimea), Occidente (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Vera Turchia (Asia Minor), and Oriente (Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 lire; in 1417, the price was fixed at 25 lire. In the 16th century, the whole income from the drug 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 that the customary tribute was not duly paid. A few years before that event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon who testifies from 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 lb. 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 volcanic 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 understand its ancient importance; but a glance at the pharmacopœias of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries shows that it was an ingredient of a large 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 Umbelliferæ or Compositæ. In Pistacia they may even be shown in the petioles. The wood is devoid of resin, so that slight incisions are sufficient 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 in the bark of the stems and principal branches. From these incisions which are vertical and very close together, the resin speedily flows, and 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 children 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 κυλιστὸ and ϕλισκάρι, that collected from the ground πῆττα, and the worst of all ϕλοῦδα.

Description—The best sort of mastich consists of roundish tears about the size of small peas, together with pieces of an oblong or pear-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 are no longer dusty, but have a glassy transparent appearance. Mastich is brittle, has a conchoidal fracture, a slight terebinthinous balsamic odour. It speedily softens in the mouth, and 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 vegetable impurities.

The sp. gr. of selected tears of mastich is about 1·06. They soften at 99° C. but do not melt below 108°.

Mastich dissolves in half its weight of pure warm acetone and then deviates the ray of polarized light to the right. On cooling, the solution becomes turbid. It dissolves slowly in 5 parts of oil of cloves, forming even in the cold a clear solution; it is but little soluble in glacial acetic acid or in benzol.

Chemical Composition—Mastich is soluble to the extent of about 90 per cent in cold alcohol; the residue, which has been termed Masticin or Beta-resin of Mastich, is a translucent, colourless, tough substance, insoluble in boiling alcohol or in solution of caustic alkali, but dissolving in ether or oil of turpentine. According to Johnston, it is somewhat less rich in oxygen than the following.

The soluble portion of mastich, called Alpha-resin of Mastich, possesses acid properties, and like many other resins has the formula C₂₀H₃₂O₃. Hartsen asserts that it can be obtained in crystals. Its alcoholic solution is precipitated by an alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead. Mastich contains a very little volatile oil.

Commerce—Mastich still forms the principal revenue of Scio, from which island the export in 1871 was 28,000 lb. of picked, and 42,000 lb. of common. The market price of picked mastich was equal to 6s. 10d. per lb.—that of common 2s. 10d. The superior quality is sent to Turkey, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste, Vienna, and Marseilles, 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-rúmí (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, Belúchistan 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 East 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. Térébenthine ou Baume de Chio ou de Chypres; G. Chios Terpenthin, Cyprischer Terpenthin.

Botanical Origin—Pistacia Terebinthus L. (P. atlantica Desf., P. palæstina 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, extending, as P. palæstina, to Syria and Palestine; and eastward, as P. cabulica, to Belúchistan 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.

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 they 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 tree it forms in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. But the different types are united by so many connecting links, that we have felt warranted in dissenting 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 Gallæe halepenses.

History—The terebinth was well known to the ancients; it is the τέρμινθος of Theophrastus, τερέβινθος 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, τερεβίνθινον ἔλαιον, a mixture of essential and fat oil was obtained, as it is in the East to the present day. The resinous juice of the stem and branches, the true, primitive turpentine, ῤητίνη τερμινθίνη, 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. Lentiscus. That found in 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 scraped 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 collected by means of little earthen vessels tied to the incised stems. The trade is asserted to be now almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews, who dispose of the drug in the interior part of the Turkish Empire.

Description—A specimen collected by Maltass near Smyrna in 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 in 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 of this genuine turpentine dissolved in one of acetone deviate a ray of polarized light 7° to the right in a column 50 mm. long.

Chian turpentine as found in commerce and believed to be genuine, is a soft solid, becoming brittle, by exposure to the air; viewed in mass it appears opaque and of a dull brown hue. If pressed while warm 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, dissolves 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 14½ 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 Coniferæ, 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 0·862. It has now a more agreeable 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.

Uses—Chian Turpentine appears to have exactly the properties of the pinic turpentines; in British medicine it is almost obsolete. In Greece it is sometimes added to wine or used to flavour cordials, in the same manner as turpentine of the pine, or mastich.

Gallæ Chinenses Seu Japonicæ.

Botanical Origin—The plant which bears this important kind of gall, is Rhus semialata Murray (Rh. Bucki-amela Roxb.), a tree attaining 30 to 40 feet, common in Northern India, China and Japan, ascending in the outer Himalaya and the Kasia hills to elevations of 2,500 to 6,000 feet.

History—In China these galls are probably known and used both medicinally and in dyeing since very long; they are mentioned in the herbal Puntsaou, written in the middle of the 16th century. They also occur in Cleyer’s “Specimen medicinæ sinicæ,” Frankfort, 1682, No. 225, under the name u poi çu. Kämpfer also mentions a tree “Baibokf, vulgo Fusi,” growing on the hills, the pinnate leaves of which he found often provided with an excrescence: “Ἐπίϕνσι foliorum informi, tuberosa, multiplici, tenui, dura, cava, Gallæ nostratis usu praestante.” No 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 Doubleday, 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 in 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 of Europe, the sac ruptures and allows of their escape. This, we may imagine, takes place at the period when, after some generations all wingless and perhaps all female (for the female aphis produces for several generations without impregnation), a winged generation is brought forth of both sexes. These may then fly to other spots, and deposit eggs for a further propagation of their race.

The galls are collected when their green colour is changing into yellow; they are then scalded.

Description—The galls are light and hollow, varying in length from 1 to 2½ inches, and of extremely diverse and irregular form. The simplest are somewhat egg-shaped, the smaller end being attached to the leafstalk; but the form is rarely so regular, and more often the body of the gall is distorted by numerous knobby or horn-like protuberances or branches; or the gall consists of several lobes uniting in their lower part and gradually attenuated to the point by which the excrescence is attached to the leaf. But though the form is thus variable, the structure of these bodi4s is very characteristic. They are striated towards the base, and completely covered on other parts with a thick, velvety, grey down, which rubbed off on the prominences, displays the reddish-brown colour of the shell itself. The latter is ⅒ to ¹/₂₀ of an inch in thickness, translucent and horny, but brittle with a smooth and shining fracture. It is rather smoother on the inner surface 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 parenchyme 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, consisting 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 Gallæ halepenses), the so-called gallo-tannic or common tannic acid. It is remarkable 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 Sumach.

Stein, however, pointed out at the same time, that in Chinese galls gallo-tannic 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 cwt; 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 cwts., valued at £20,098. In the China trade returns, the drug is always miscalled “Nut galls,” or “gallnuts.” Only those called “Wu-pei-tze” are the galls under examination. There are also oak galls exported from China resembling those from Western Asia. Japanese galls, “Kifushi,” are shipped in increasing quantities at Hiogo.

Uses—The galls under notice are employed, chiefly in Germany, for the manufacture of tannic acid, gallic acid, and pyrogallol.

Leguminosæ.

Herba Scoparii.

Cacumina vel Summitates Scoparii; Broom Tops; F. Genêt à balais; G. Besenginster, Pfriemenkraut.

Botanical Origin—Cytisus Scoparius Link (Spartium Scoparium L., Sarothamnus vulgaris Wimmer), the Common Broom, a woody shrub, 3 to 6 feet high, grows gregariously in sandy thickets and uncultivated 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 is 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.

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 Sanitatis, 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 Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai.” It had a place in the London Pharmacopœia of 1618, and has been included in nearly every subsequent edition. Hieronymus Brunschwyg gives directions for distilling a water from the flowers, “flores genestæ”—a medicine which Gerarde relates was used by King Henry VIII. “against surfets and diseases thereof arising.”

Broom was the emblem of those of the Norman sovereigns of England descended from Geoffrey the “Handsome,” or “Plantagenet” count of Anjou (obiit a.d. 1150), 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 leaves, of which the largest are barely an inch long, consist of 3 obovate leaflets on a petiole of their own length. Towards the extremities of the twigs, the leaves are much scattered and generally reduced to a single ovate leaflet, nearly sessile. The leaves when young are clothed on both sides with long reddish hairs; these under the microscope are seen each to 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, 1½ to 2 inches long by about ½ 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, C₂₁H₂₂O₁₀, an indifferent or somewhat acid body, and the alkaloid Sparteine, C₁₅H₂₆N₂, 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° C.

To obtain scoparin, a watery decoction of the plant is concentrated so 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 and 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 kino or quercetin, into Phloroglucin, C₆H₆O₃, and Protocatechuic Acid, 2 C₇H₆O₄.

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 current of dry carbonic acid. It is colourless, but becomes brown by exposure to light; it has at first an odour of aniline, but this is altered by rectification. Sparteine has a decidedly alkaline reaction and readily neutralises acids, forming crystallizable salts which are extremely bitter. Conine, nicotine, and sparteine are the only volatile alkaloids devoid of oxygen hitherto known to exist in the vegetable kingdom.

Mills extracted sparteine simply by acidulated water which he concentrated and then distilled with soda. The distillate was then saturated with hydrochloric acid, evaporated to dryness, and submitted to distillation with potash. The oily sparteine thus obtained was dried by prolonged heating with sodium in a current of hydrogen, and finally rectified per se. Mills succeeded in replacing one or two equivalents of the hydrogen of sparteine by one or two of C₂H₅ (ethyl). From 150 lb. the (dried?) plant, he obtained 22 cubic centimetres of sparteine, which we may estimate as equivalent to about ½ per mille.

Stenhouse ascertained that the amount of sparteine and scoparin depends much on external conditions, broom grown in the shade yielding less than that produced in open sunny places. He states that shepherds are well aware of the shrub possessing narcotic properties, from having observed their sheep to become stupified and excited when occasionally compelled to eat it.

The experiments of Reinsch (1846) tend to show that broom contains a bitter crystallizible principle in addition to the foregoing. The seeds of the allied Cytisus Laburnum L. afford two highly poisonous alkaloids, Cytisine and Laburnine, discovered by A. Husemann and Marmé in 1865.

Uses—A decoction of broom tops, made from the dried herb, is used as a diuretic and purgative. The juice of the fresh plant, preserved by the addition of alcohol, is also administered and is regarded as a very efficient preparation.

Semen Fœni Græci.

Semen Fœnugræci; Fenugreek; F. Semences de Fenugrec; G. Bockshornsamen.

Botanical Origin—Trigonella Fœnum græcum L., an erect, sub-glabrous, annual plant, 1 to 2 feet high, with solitary, subsessile, whitish flowers; indigenous to the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, in which it has been long cultivated, and whence it appears to have spread to India.

History—In the old Egyptian preparation Kyphi, an ingredient “Sebes or Sebtu” is mentioned, which is thought by Ebers to mean fenugreek. This plant was well known to the Roman writers on husbandry, as Porcius Cato (b.c. 234-149) who calls it Fœnum Græcum and directs it to be sown as fodder for oxen. It is the τῇλις of Dioscorides and other Greek writers. Its mucilaginous seeds, “siliquæ” of the Roman peasants, were valued as an aliment and condiment for man, and as such are still largely consumed in the East. They were likewise supposed to possess many medicinal virtues, and had a place in the pharmacopœias of the last century.

The cultivation of fenugreek in Central Europe was encouraged by Charlemagne (a.d. 812), and the plant was grown in English gardens in the 16th century.

Description—The fenugreek plant has a sickle-shaped pod, 3 to 4 inches long, containing 10 to 20 hard, brownish-yellow seeds, having the smell and taste which is characteristic of peas and beans, with addition of a cumarin-or melilot-flavour.

The seeds are about ⅛ of an inch long, with a rhomboid outline, often shrivelled and distorted; they are somewhat compressed, with the hilum on the sharper edge, and a deep furrow running from it and almost dividing the seed into two unequal lobes. When the seed is macerated in warm water, its structure becomes easily visible. The testa bursts by the swelling of the internal membrane or endopleura, which like a thick gelatinous sac encloses the cotyledons and their very large hooked radicle.

Microscopic Structure—The most interesting structural peculiarity of this seed arises from the fact that the mucilage with which it abounds is not yielded by the cells of the epidermis, but by a loose tissue closely surrounding the embryo.

Chemical Composition—The cells of the testa contain tannin; the cotyledons a yellow colouring matter, but no sugar. The air-dried seeds give off 10 per cent. of water at 100° C., and on subsequent incineration leave 7 per cent. of ash, of which nearly a fourth is phosphoric acid.

Ether extracts from the pulverized seeds 6 per cent. of a fœtid, fatty oil, having a bitter taste. Amylic alcohol removes in addition a small quantity of resin. Alcohol added to a concentrated aqueous extract, forms a precipitate of mucilage, amounting when dried to 28 per cent. Burnt with soda-lime, the seeds yielded to Jahns 3·4 per cent. of nitrogen, equivalent to 22 per cent. of albumin. No researches have been yet made to determine the nature of the odorous principle.

Production and Commerce—Fenugreek is cultivated in Morocco, in the south of France near Montpellier, in a few places in Switzerland, in Alsace, and in some other provinces of the German and Austrian empires, as Thuringia and Moravia. It is produced on a far larger scale in Egypt, where it is known by the Arabic name Hulba, and whence it is exported to Europe and India. In 1873 it was stated that the profits of the European growers were much reduced by the seed being largely exported from Mogador and Bombay.

Under the Sanscrit name of Methi, which has passed, slightly modified, into several of the modern Indian languages, fenugreek is much grown in the plains of India during the cool season. In the year 1872-73, the quantity of seed exported from Sind to Bombay was 13,646 cwt., valued at £4,405. From the port of Bombay there were shipped in the same year 9,655 cwt., of which only 100 cwt. are reported as for the United Kingdom.

Uses—In Europe fenugreek as a medicine is obsolete, but the powdered seeds are still often sold by chemists for veterinary pharmacy and as an ingredient of curry powder. The chief consumption is, however, in the so-called Cattle Foods.

The fresh plant in India is commonly eaten as a green vegetable, while the seeds are extensively used by the natives in food and medicine.

Tragacantha.

Gummi Tragacantha; Tragacanth, Gum Tragacanth; F. Gomme Adragante; G. Traganth.

Botanical Origin.—Tragacanth is the gummy exudation from the stem of several pieces of Astragalus, belonging to the subgenus Tragacantha. The plants of this group are low perennial shrubs, remarkable for their leaves having a strong, persistent, spiny petiole. As the leaves and shoots are very numerous and regular, many of the species have the singular aspect of thorny hemispherical cushions, lying close on the ground; while others, which are those furnishing the gum, grow erect with a naked woody stem, and somewhat resemble furze bushes.

A few species occur in South-western Europe, others are found in Greece and Turkey; but the largest number are inhabitants of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia, Kurdistan and Persia. The tragacanth of commerce is produced in the last named countries, and chiefly, though not exclusively, by the following species:—

1. Astragalus adscendens Boiss. et Hausskr., a shrub attaining 4 feet in height, native, of the mountains of South-western Persia at an altitude of 9,000 to 10,000 feet. According to Haussknecht, it affords an abundance of gum.

2. A. leioclados Boiss.

3. A. brachycalyx Fisch., a shrub of 3 feet high, growing on the mountains of Persian Kurdistan, likewise affords tragacanth.

4. A. gummifer Labill., a small shrub of wide distribution occurring on the Lebanon and Mount Hermon in Syria, the Beryt Dagh in Cataonia, the Arjish Dagh (Mount Argæus) near Kaisariyeh in Central Asia Minor, and in Armenia and Northern Kurdistan.

5. A. microcephalus Willd., like the preceding a widely distributed species, extending from the south-west of Asia Minor to the north-east coast, and to Turkish and Russian Armenia. A specimen of this plant with incisions in the stem, was sent some years ago to the Pharmaceutical Society by Mr. Maltass of Smyrna. We received a large example of the same species, the stem of which is marked by old incisions, from the Rev. W. A. Farnsworth of Kaisariyeh, who states that tragacanth is collected from it on Mount Argæus.

6. A. pycnocladus Boiss. et Haussk., nearly related to A. microcephalus; it was discovered on the high mountains of Avroman and Shahu in Persia by Professor Haussknecht, who states that it exudes tragacanth in abundance.

7. A. stromatodes Bunge, growing at an elevation of 5,000 feet on the Akker Dagh range, near Marash in Northern Syria.

8. A. kurdicus Boiss., a shrub 3 to 4 feet high, native of the mountains of Cilicia and Cappadocia, extending thence to Kurdistan. Haussknecht has informed us that from this and the last named species, the so-called Aintab Tragacanth is chiefly obtained.

Probably the drug is also to some extent collected from

9. A. verus Olivier, in North-western Persia and Asia Minor.

Lastly as to Greece, tragacanth is also afforded by

10. A. Parnassi Boiss., var. cyllenea, a small shrub found in abundance on the northern mountains of the Morea, which is stated by Heldreich to be the almost exclusive source of the tragacanth collected about Vostizza and Patras.

History—Tragacanth has been known from a very early period. Theophrastus in the 3rd century b.c. mentioned Crete, the Peloponnesus and Media as its native countries. Dioscorides, who as a native of South-eastern Asia Minor was probably familiar with the plant, describes it correctly as a low spiny bush. The drug is mentioned by the Greek physicians Oribasius, Aëtius, and Paulus Ægineta (4th to 7th cent.), and by many of the Arabian writers on medicine. The abbreviated form of its name “Dragantum” already occurs in the book “Artis veterinariæ, seu mulomedicinæ” of Vegetius Renatus, who lived about a.d. 400. During the middle ages the gum was imported into Europe through the trading cities of Italy, as shown in the statutes of Pisa, a.d. 1305, where it is mentioned as liable to impost.

Pierre Belon, the celebrated French naturalist and traveller, saw and described, about 1550, the collecting of tragacanth in the northern part of Asia Minor; and Tournefort in 1700 observed on Mount Ida in Candia the singular manner in which the gum is exuded from the living plant.

Secretion—It has been shown by H. von Mohl and by Wigand that tragacanth is produced by metamorphosis of the cell membrane, and that it is not simply the dried juice of the plant.

The stem of a gum-bearing Astragalus cut transversely, exhibits concentric annual layers which are extremely tough and fibrous, easily tearing lengthwise into thin filaments. These inclose a central column, radiating from which are numerous medullary rays, both of very singular structure, for instead of presenting a thin-walled parenchyme, they appear to the naked eye as a hard translucent gum-like mass, becoming gelatinous in water. Examined microscopically, this gummy substance is seen to consist not of dried mucilage, but of the very cells of the pith and medullary rays, in process of transformation into tragacanth. The transformed cells, if their transformation has not advanced too far, exhibit the angular form and close packing of parenchyme-cells, but their walls are much incrassated and evidently consist of numerous very thin strata.

That these cells are but ordinary parenchyme-cells in an altered state, is proved by the pith and medullary rays of the smaller branches which present no such unusual structure. Mohl was able to trace this change from the period in which the original cell membrane could be still easily distinguished from its incrusting layers, to that in which the transformation had proceeded so far that it was impossible to perceive any defined cells, the whole substance being metamorphosed into a more or less uniform mucilaginous mass.

The tension under which this peculiar tissue is held in the interior of the stem is very remarkable in Astragalus gummifer which one of us had the opportunity of observing on the Lebanon in 1860. On cutting off a branch of the thickness of the finger, there immediately exudes from the centre a stream of soft, solid tragacanth, pushing itself out like a worm, to the length of ¾ of an inch, sometimes in the course of half an hour; while much smaller streams (or none at all) are emitted from the medullary rays of the thick bark.

Production—The principal localities in Asia Minor in which tragacanth is collected are the district of Angora, the capital of the ancient Galatia; Isbarta, Buldur and Yalavatz, north of the gulf of Adalia; the range of the Ali Dagh between Tarsous and Kaisariyeh, and the mountainous country eastward as far as the valley of the Euphrates. The drug is also gathered in Armenia on the elevated range of the Bingol Dagh south of Erzerum; throughout Kurdistan from Mush for 500 miles in a south-eastern direction as far as the province of Luristan in Persia, a region including the high lands south of lake Van, and west of lake Urumiah. It is likewise produced in Persia farther east, over an area 300 miles long by 100 to 150 miles broad, between Gilpaigon and Kashan, southward to the Mahomed Senna range north-east of Shiraz, thus including the lofty Bakhtiyari mountains.

As to the way in which the gum is obtained, it appears from the statements of Maltass, that in July and August the peasants clear away the earth from around the stem of the shrub, and then make in the bark several incisions, from which during the following 3 or 4 days the gum exudes and dries in flakes. In some localities they also puncture the bark with the point of a knife. Whilst engaged in these operations, they pick from the shrubs whatever gum they find exuded naturally.

Hamilton, who saw the shrub in 1836 on the hills about Buldur, says “the gum is obtained by making an incision in the stem near the root, and cutting through the pith, when the sap exudes in a day or two and hardens.”

Formerly the peasants were content to collect the naturally exuded gum, no pains being taken to make incisions, whereby alone white flaky gum is obtained. We have in fact heard an old druggist state, that he remembered the first appearance of this fine kind of tragacanth in the London market. According to Professor Haussknecht, whose observations relate chiefly to Kurdistan and Persia, the tragacanth collected in these regions is mostly a spontaneous exudation.

Tragacanth is brought to Smyrna, which is a principal market for it, from the interior, in bags containing about 2 quintals each, by native dealers who purchase it of the peasants. In this state it is a very crude article, consisting of all the gatherings mixed together. To fit it for the European markets, some of which have their special requirements, it has to be sorted into different qualities, as Flaky or Leaf Gum, Vermicelli and Common or Sorts; this sorting is performed almost exclusively by Spanish Jews.

Description—The peculiar conditions under which tragacanth exudes, arising from the pressure of the surrounding tissues and the power of solidifying a large amount of water, will account to some extent for the strange forms in which this exudation occurs.

The spontaneously exuded gum is mostly in mammiform or botryoidal masses from the size of a pea upwards, of a dull waxy lustre, and brownish or yellowish hue. It also occurs in vermiform pieces more or less contorted and very variable in thickness; some of them may have exuded as the result of artificial punctures. It is this form that bears the trade name of Vermicelli. The most valued sort is however the Flake Tragacanth, which consists of thin flattish pieces or flakes, 1, 2, 3 or more inches in length, by ¼ to 1 in width. They are marked on the surface by wavy lines and bands, or by a series of concentric wave-marks, as if the soft gum had been forced out by successive efforts. The pieces are contorted and altogether very variable in form and size. The gum is valued in proportion to its purity and whiteness. The best, whether vermiform or flaky, is dull white, translucent, devoid of lustre, somewhat flexible and horny, firm, and not easily broken, inodorous and with scarcely any or only a slight bitterish taste.

The tragacanth of Kurdistan and Persia shipped from Bagdad, which sometimes appears in the London drug sales under the incorrect name of Syrian Tragacanth, is in very fine and large pieces which are rather more translucent and ribbon-like than the selected tragacanth imported from Smyrna: in fact, the two varieties when seen in bulk are easily distinguishable.

The inferior kinds of tragacanth have more or less of colour, and are contaminated with bark, earth and other foreign substances. They used formerly to be much imported into Europe, and were frequently mentioned during the past centuries as black tragacanth.

Microscopic Structure—The transformation of the cells into tragacanth is usually not so complete, that every trace of the original tissue or its contents has disappeared. In the ordinary drug, the remains of cell-walls as well as starch granules may be seen, especially if thin slices are examined under oil or any other liquid not acting on the gum. Polarized light will then distinctly show the starch and the cell-walls. If a thin section is imbued with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium and then moistened with concentrated sulphuric acid, the cell-walls will assume a blue colour as well as the starch.

Chemical Composition—When tragacanth is immersed in water it swells, and in the course of some hours disintegrates so that it can be diffused through the liquid. So great is its power of absorbing water that even with 50 times its weight, it forms a thick mucilage. If one part of tragacanth is shaken with 100 parts of water and the liquid filtered, a neutral solution may be obtained which yields an abundant precipitate with acetate of lead, and mixes clearly with a concentrated solution of ferric chloride or of borax,—in these respects differing from a solution of gum arabic. On the other hand, it agrees with the latter in that it is thrown down as a transparent jelly by alcohol, and rendered turbid by oxalate of ammonium. The residue on the filter is a slightly turbid, slimy, non-adhesive mucilage, which when dried forms a very coherent mass. It has received the name of Bassorin, Traganthin or Adraganthin, and agrees with the formula C₁₂H₂₀O₁₀.

Tragacanth is readily soluble in alkaline liquids, even in ammonia water and at the same time assumes a yellow colour; heated with ammonia in a sealed tube at 90° C. it blackens.

The drug loses by drying about 14 per cent. of water, which it absorbs again on exposure to the air. Pure flake tragacanth incinerated leaves 3 per cent. of ash.

Commerce—Tragacanth is shipped from Constantinople, Smyrna and the Persian Gulf. The annual export of the gum from Smyrna has been recently stated to be 4,500 quintals, value 675,000 Austrian florins (£67,500); and the demand to be always increasing.

Uses—Though tragacanth is devoid of active properties, it is a very useful addition to many medicines. Diffused in water it acts as a demulcent, and is also convenient for the suspension of a heavy powder in a mixture. It is an important ingredient for imparting firmness to lozenges and pill-masses.

Adulteration—The fine quantities consisting of large distinct pieces are not liable to adulteration, but the small and the inferior kinds are often sophisticated. At Smyrna, tragacanth is mixed with gums termed respectively Mosul and Caramania Gum. The former appears to be simply very inferior tragacanth; the latter which is sometimes called in the London market Hog Gum Tragacanth or Bassora Gum, is said to be the exudation of almond and plum trees. It occurs in nodular masses of a waxy lustre and dull brown hue, which immersed in water gradually swells into a voluminous white mass. To render this gum available for adulteration, the lumps are broken into small angular fragments, the size of which is adjusted to the sort of tragacanth with which they are to be mixed. As the Caramania Gum is somewhat dark, it is usual to whiten it by white lead, previous to mixing it with Small Leaf or Flake, or with the Vermicelli gum.

By careful examination the fraud is easily detected, angular fragments not being proper to any true tragacanth. The presence of lead may be readily proved by shaking suspected fragments for a moment with dilute nitric acid, which will dissolve any carbonate present, and afford a solution which may be tested by the ordinary reagents.

Radix Glycyrrhizæ.

Radix Liquiritiæ; Liquorice Root; F. Réglisse; G. Süssholz, Lakritzwurzel.

Botanical Origin—Glycyrrhiza glabra L., a plant which under several well marked varieties is found over an immense extent of the warmer regions of Europe, spreading thence eastward into Central Asia. The root used in medicine is derived from two principal Varieties, namely:—

α. typica—Nearly glabrous, leaves glutinous beneath, divisions of the calyx linear-lanceolate often a little longer than the tube, corolla purplish blue, legume glabrous, 3-6 seeded. It is indigenous to Portugal, Spain, Southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, Crimea, the Caucasian Provinces and Northern Persia; and is cultivated in England, France and Germany.

γ. glandulifera (G. glandulifera W.K.)—Stems more or less pubescent or roughly glandular, leaves often glandular beneath, legume sparsely or densely echinate-glandular, many-seeded, or short and 2-3 seeded. It occurs in Hungary, Galicia, Central and Southern Russia, Crimea, Asia Minor, Armenia, Siberia, Persia, Turkestan and Afghanistan.

G. glabra L. has long, stout, perennial roots, and erect, herbaceous annual stems. In var. α., the plant throws out long stolons which run horizontally at some distance below the surface of the ground.

History—Theophrastus in commenting on the taste of different roots (3rd cent. b.c.) instances the sweet Scythian root which grows in the neighbourhood of the lake Mæotis (Sea of Azov), and is good for asthma, dry cough and all pectoral diseases,—an allusion unquestionably to liquorice. Dioscorides, who calls the plant γλυκιῤρίζη, notices its glutinous leaves and purplish flowers, but as he describes the pods to be in balls resembling those of the plane, and the roots to be sub-austere (ὑπόστρυϕνοι) as well as sweet, it is possible he had in view Glycyrrhiza echinata L. as well as G. glabra.

Roman writers, as Celsus and Scribonius Largus, mention liquorice as Radix dulcis. Pliny, who describes it as a native of Cilicia and Pontus, makes no allusion to it growing in Italy.

The cultivation of liquorice in Europe does not date from a very remote period, as we conclude from the absence of the name in early mediæval lists of plants. It is, for instance, not enumerated among the plants which Charlemagne ordered (a.d. 812) to be introduced from Italy into Central Europe; nor among the herbs of the convent gardens as described by Walafridus Strabus, abbot of Reichenau, lake of Constance, in the 9th century; nor yet in the copious list of herbs contained in the vocabulary of Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury in the 10th century.

On the other hand, liquorice is described as being cultivated in Italy by Piero de’ Crescenzi of Bologna, who lived in the 13th century. The cultivation of the plant in the north of England existed at the close of the 16th century, but how much earlier we have not been able to trace.

As a medicine the drug was well known in Germany in the 11th century, and an extensive cultivation of the plant was carried on near Bamberg, Bavaria, in the 16th century, so that in many of the numerous pharmaceutical tariffs of those times in Germany not only Glycyrrhizæ succus creticus, seu candiacus, seu venetus is quoted, but also expressly that of Bamberg.

The word Liquiritia, whence is derived the English name Liquorice (Lycorys in the 13th century), is a corruption of Glycyrrhiza, as shown in the transitional mediæval form Gliquiricia. The Italian Regolizia, the German Lacrisse or Lakriz, the Welsh Lacris and the French Réglisse (anciently Requelice or Recolice) have the same origin.

Cultivation, and habit of growth—The liquorice plant is cultivated in England at Mitcham and in Yorkshire, but not on a very extensive scale. The plants, which require a good deep soil, well enriched by manure, are set in rows, attain a height of 4 to 5 feet and produce flowers but not seeds. The root is dug up at the beginning of winter, when the plant is at least 3 or 4 years old. The latter has then a crown dividing into several aerial stems. Below the crown is a principal root about 6 inches in length, which divides into several (3 to 5) rather straight roots, running without much branching, though beset with slender wiry rootlets, to a depth of 3, 4 or more feet. Besides these downward-running roots, the principal roots emit horizontal runners or stolons, which grow at some distance below the surface and attain a length of many feet. These runners are furnished with leaf buds and throw up stems in their second year.

Every portion of the subterraneous part of the plant is carefully saved; the roots proper are washed, trimmed, and assorted, and either sold fresh in their entire state, or cut into short lengths and dried, the cortical layer being sometimes first scraped off. The older runners distinguished at Mitcham as “hard,” are sorted out and sold separately; the young, called “soft,” are reserved for propagation.

In Calabria, the singular practice prevails of growing the liquorice among the wheat in the cornfields.

Description—Fresh liquorice (English) when washed is externally of a bright yellowish-brown. It is very flexible, easily cut with a knife, exhibiting a light yellow, juicy, internal substance which consists of a thick bark surrounding a woody column. Both bark and wood are extremely tough, readily tearing into long, fibrous strips. The root has a peculiar earthy odour, and a strong and characteristic sweet taste.

Dried liquorice root is supplied in commerce either with or without the thin brown coat In the latter state it is known as peeled or decorticated. The English root, of which the supply is very limited, is usually offered cut into pieces 3 or 4 inches long, and of the thickness of the little finger.

Spanish Liquorice Root, also known as Tortosa or Alicante Liquorice, is imported in bundles several feet in length, consisting of straight unpeeled roots and runners, varying in thickness from ¼ to 1 inch. The root is tolerably smooth or somewhat transversely cracked and longitudinally wrinkled; that from Tortosa is usually of a good external appearance, that from Alicante sometimes untrimmed, dirty, of very unequal size, showing frequently the knobby crowns of the root. Alicante liquorice root is sometimes shipped in bags or loose.

Russian Liquorice Root, which is much used in England, is we presume derived from G. glabra var. glandulifera. It is imported from Hamburg in large bales, and is met with both peeled and unpeeled. The pieces are 12 to 18 inches long, with a diameter of ¼ of an inch to 1 or even 2 inches. Sometimes very old roots, split down the centre and forming channelled pieces as much as 3½ inches wide at the crown end, are to be met with. This liquorice in addition to being sweet has a certain amount of bitterness.

Microscopic Structure—The root exhibits well-marked structural peculiarities. The corky layer is made up of the usual tabular cells; the primary cortical tissue of a few rows of cells. The chief portion of the bark consists of liber or endophlœum, and is built up for the most part of parenchymatous tissue accompanied by elongated fibres of two kinds, partly united into true liber-bundles and partly forming a kind of network, the smaller threads of which deviate considerably from the straight line. Solution of iodine imparts an orange hue to both kinds of bast-bundles, and well displays the structural features of the bark.

The woody column of the root exhibits three distinct forms of cell, namely ligneous cells (libriform) with oblique ends; parenchymatous, almost cubic cells; and large pitted vessels. In the Russian root, the size of all the cells is much more considerable than in the Spanish.

Chemical Composition—The root of liquorice contains, in addition to sugar and albuminous matter, a peculiar sweet substance named Glycyrrhizin, which is precipitated from a strong decoction upon addition of an acid or solution of cream of tartar, or neutral or basic acetate of lead. When washed with dilute alcohol and dried, it is an amorphous yellow powder, having a strong bitter-sweet taste and an acid reaction. It forms with hot water a solution which gelatinizes on cooling, does not reduce alkaline tartrate of copper, is not fermentable, and does not rotate the plane of polarization. From the analysis and experiments of Rösch, performed in the laboratory of Gorup-Besanez at Erlangen, in 1876, the formula C₁₆H₂₄O₆ was derived for glycyrrhizin. By boiling it with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid it is resolved into a resinous amorphous bitter substance named Glycyrretin, and an uncrystallizable sugar having the characters of glucose. The formula of glycyrretin has not yet been settled. Weselsky and Benedikt, in 1876, showed that 65 per cent. of it may be obtained from glycyrrhizin. By melting glycyrretin with about 5 parts of caustic potash paraoxy-benzoïc acid is produced.

Alkalis easily dissolve glycyrrhizin with a brown colour and emission of a peculiar odour. In the root it perhaps exists combined with ammonia, inasmuch as the aqueous extract evolves that alkali when warmed with potash (Roussin, 1875). According to Sestini (1878) glycyrrhizin is present in the root combined with calcium; he obtained 6·3 per cent. of glycyrrhizin from the root previously dried at 110°. By exhausting glycyrrhizin with glacial acetic acid Habermann in 1876 succeeded in isolating almost colourless crystals having the sweet taste of the root. They yield, by boiling them with dilute acids, a yellow substance which would appear to agree with glycyrretin. The deep yellow walls of the vessels and prosenchymatous cells appear to be the chief seat of the glycyrrhizin.

The sugar of liquorice root has not yet been isolated; the aqueous infusion of the dried root separates protoxide of copper from an alkaline solution of cupric tartrate. Yet the sugar as extracted from the fresh root by cold water does not precipitate alkaline cupric tartrate at all in the cold, and not abundantly even on prolonged boiling.

Asparagin was obtained from the root by Robiquet (1809) and by Plisson (1827). Sestini (1878) isolated 2-4 parts of asparagin from 100 parts of the root dried at 110° C. Robiquet also found the root to contain malic acid. The presence of starch in abundance is shown by the microscope as well as by testing a decoction of the root with iodine. The outer bark of the root contains a small quantity of tannin.

Commerce—Liquorice root is imported into Great Britain from Germany, Russia and Spain, but there are no data for showing to what extent. France imported in 1872 no less than 4,348,789 kilogrammes (4282 tons), which was more than double the quantity imported the previous year.

Liquorice root is much used in China, and is largely produced in some of the northern provinces. In 1870, 1,304 peculs were shipped from Ningpo, and 7,147 pepuls in 1877 from Cheefu (one pecul = 133·33 lb. avdp.).

Uses—Liquorice root is employed for making extract of liquorice and in some other pharmaceutical preparations. The powdered root is used to impart stiffness to pill-masses and to prevent the adhesion of pills. Liquorice has a remarkable power of covering the flavour of nauseous medicines. As a domestic medicine, liquorice root is far more largely used on the Continent than in Great Britain.

Succus Glycyrrhizæ.

Succus Liquiritiæ, Extractum Glycyrrhizæ Italicum; Italian Extract of Liquorice, Spanish Liquorice, Spanish Juice; F. Jus ou Suc de Réglisse; G. Süssholzsaft, Lakriz.

Botanical Origin—Glycyrrhiza glabra L., see preceding article, p. 179.

History—Inspissated liquorice juice was known in the time of Dioscorides, and may be traced in the writings of Oribasius and Marcellus Empiricus in the latter half of the 4th century, and in those of Paulus Ægineta in the 7th. It appears to have been in common use in Europe during the middle ages. In a.d. 1264, “Liquorice” is charged in the Wardrobe Accounts of Henry III.; and as the article cost 3d. per lb., or the same price as grains of paradise and one-third that of cinnamon, we are warranted in supposing the extract and not the mere root is intended. Again, in the Patent of Pontage granted by Edward I., a.d. 1305, to aid in repairing the London Bridge, permission is given to lay toll on various foreign commodities including Liquorice. A political song written in 1436 makes mention of Liquorice as a production of Spain, but the plant is not named as an object of cultivation by Herrera, the author of a work on Spanish agriculture in 1513.

Saladinus, who wrote about the middle of the 15th century, names it among the wares kept by the Italian apothecaries; and it is enumerated in a list of drugs of the city of Frankfort written about the year 1450.

Dorsten, in the first half of the 16th century, mentions the liquorice plant as abundant in many parts of Italy, and describes the method of making the Succus by crushing and boiling the fresh root. Mattioli states that the juice made into pastilli was brought every year from Apulia, and especially from the neighbourhood of Monte Gargano. Extract of liquorice was made at Bamberg in Germany, where the plant is still largely cultivated, as early as 1560.

Manufacture—This is conducted on a large scale in Spain, Southern France, Sicily, Calabria, Austria, Southern Russia (Astracan and Kasan), Greece (Patras) and Asia Minor (Sokia and Nazli, near Smyrna); but the extract with which England is supplied is almost exclusively the produce of Calabria, Sicily and Spain.

The process of manufacture varies only by reason of the amount of intelligence with which it is performed, and the greater or less perfection of the apparatus employed. As witnessed by one of us (H.) at Rossano in Calabria in May, 1872, it may be thus described from notes made at the time. The factory employs about 60 persons, male and female. The root having been taken from the ground the previous winter, is stacked in the yard around the factory; it is mostly of the thickness of the fingers, with here and there a piece of larger size up to a diameter of nearly 2 inches; some of it sprouting.

As required, the root is taken within the building and crushed under a heavy millstone to a pulp, water-power being employed. It is then transferred to boilers and boiled with water over a naked fire. The decoction is run off and the residual root pressed in circular bags like those used in the olive-mills. The liquor which is received into cisterns below the floor is then pumped up into copper pans, in which the evaporation is conducted also over the naked fire—even to the very last, care being taken by constant stirring to avoid burning the extract. The extract or pasta is removed from the pan while warm, and taken in small quantities to an adjoining apartment where a number of women are employed in rolling it into sticks. It is first weighed into portions, each of which the woman seated at the end of a long table tears with her hand into about a dozen pieces. These are passed to the women sitting next who roll them with their hands into cylindrical sticks, the table on which the rolling is done being of wood, and the pasta moistened with oil to prevent its adhesion to the hands. Near the further end of the table are some frames made of marble or metal, clean and bright, so arranged as to bring the sticks when rolled in them to the proper length and thickness. When thus adjusted, they are carefully ranged on a board, and a woman then stamps them with the name of the manufacturer. Lastly the sticks laid on boards are stacked up in a room to dry.

In some establishments the vacuum-pan has been introduced for the inspissation of the decoction. At the great manufactory of Mr. A. O. Clarke at Sokia near Smyrna, all the processes are performed by steam power.

Description—Liquorice juice of good quality is met with in cylindrical sticks stamped at one end with the maker’s name or mark. They are of various sizes, but generally not larger than 6 to 7 inches long by about an inch in diameter. They are black, when new or warm slightly flexible, but breaking when struck, and then displaying a sharp-edged fracture, and shining conchoidal surface on which a few air bubbles are perceptible; thin splinters are translucent. The extract has a special odour and dissolves in the mouth with a peculiar strong sweet taste. By complete drying, it loses from 11 to 17 per cent. of water.

Several varieties of Stick Liquorice are met with in English commerce, and command widely different prices. The most famous is the Solazzi Juice, manufactured at Corigliano, a small town of Calabria in the gulf of Taranto, at an establishment belonging to the sons of Don Onorato Gaetani, duke of Laurenzano and prince of Piedimonte d’Alife, who inherited the manufacture from his father-in-law, the Cavaliere Domenico Solazzi Castriota. The Solazzi Juice destined for the English market is usually shipped at Naples; it has for many years been wholly consigned to two firms in London, and in quantity not always equal to the demand. Of the other varieties we may mention Barracco, manufactured at the establishment of Messieurs Barracco at Cotrone on the eastern coast of Calabria; Corigliano, produced at a factory at Corigliano, belonging to Baron Compagna. The sticks stamped Pignatelli are from the works of Vincenzo Pignatelli, prince of Strongoli, at Torre Cerchiora, where 300 to 400 workmen are employed.

The juice is also imported in a block form, having while warm and soft been allowed to run into the wooden case in which it is exported. This juice, which is known as Liquorice Paste, is largely imported from Spain and Asia Minor, but on account of a certain bitterness is unsuited for use as a sweetmeat.

Chemical Composition—Hard extract of liquorice, such as that just described, is essentially different in composition and properties from the Extract of Liquorice (Extractum Glycyrrhizæ) of the British Pharmacopœia. The latter is a soft, hygroscopic substance, entirely soluble in cold water, whereas the so-called Spanish Juice when treated with cold water leaves a large residue undissolved.

It has been sometimes supposed that the presence of this residue indicates adulteration, but such is far from being the fact, as was conclusively shown by the researches of a French Commission appointed to investigate the process recommended by Delondre. This commission subjected liquorice root to the successive action of cold water, boiling water, and lastly of steam. By the first menstruum 15 per cent., and by the second an additional 7½ per cent., were obtained of a hygroscopic extract much more soluble than commercial liquorice, and totally unsuitable for being moulded into sticks. The residue having been then exhausted by steam, 16 per cent. was obtained of an extract differing entirely from those of the previous operations. It was a dry friable substance, cracking and falling to pieces in the drying stove, having a sweet taste without acridity, not readily dissolving in the mouth, and very imperfectly soluble in cold water. This then was the substance required to give firmness to the more soluble matter, and to render possible the preparation of an extract possessing that degree of solubility and hardness which would render it an agreeable sweetmeat, as well as a permanent and stable commodity. In fact, by treating the root at once with steam according to Delondre’s process, the experimenters obtained 42 to 45 per cent. of extract having all the qualities desired in good Italian or Spanish Juice.

When the latter substance is suspended in water undisturbed, the soluble matter may be dissolved out, the stick still retaining its original form. Glycyrrhizin, which is but slightly soluble in cold water, remains to some extent in the residue, and by an alkaline solution may be afterwards extracted together with colouring matter and probably also pectin. The proportion of soluble matter which the best varieties of liquorice juice yield to cold water varies from about 60 to 70 per cent. A sample of Solazzi Juice recently examined by one of us, lost 8·4 per cent. when dried at 100° C.; it was then exhausted by 60 times its weight of cold water used in successive quantities, by which means 66·8 per cent. of soluble matter were removed. The residue consisted of minute starch granules, fragments of the root, and colouring matter partially soluble in ammonia. Small shreds of copper were also visible to the naked eye. The dried juice yielded 6·3 per cent. of ash.

Corigliano liquorice treated in the same manner gave 71·2 per cent. of extract soluble in cold water; Barracco liquorice 64·9.

The small liquorice lozenges known as Pontefract Cakes (Dunhill’s), not previously dried, gave 71 per cent. of matter soluble in cold water.

Commerce—The value of the imports of Liquorice into the United Kingdom has been for the last five years as follows:—

1868 1869 1870 1871 1872

£89,482 £83,832 £70,165 £55,120 £75,991

The last named sum represents a quantity of 28,000 cwt., of which 11,170 cwt. were furnished by Italy, and the remainder by Turkey, France, Spain and other countries.

The total exports of Liquorice Paste from Smyrna were estimated in 1872 as 1,200 to 1,400 tons (24,000 to 28,000 cwt.) per annum.

Uses—Stick liquorice is sucked as a remedy for coughs, and by children as a sweetmeat. It is also used in lozenges, and in some pharmacopœias is admitted as the raw material from which to prepare soft extract of liquorice.

The block liquorice, of which a large quantity is imported, is chiefly used in the manufacture of tobacco for smoking and chewing.

Oleum Arachis.

Ground-nut oil, Earth-nut oil, Pea-nut oil, Arachis oil; F. Huile d’Arachide ou de Pistache de terre; G. Erdnussöl.

Botanical Origin—Arachis hypogæa L., a diffuse herbaceous annual plant, having stems a foot or two long, and solitary axillary flowers with an extremely long filiform calyx-tube. After the flower withers, the torus supporting the ovary becomes elongated as a rigid stalk, which bends down to the ground and forces into it the young pod, which matures its seeds some inches below the surface. The ripe pod is oblong, cylindrical, about an inch in length, indehiscent, reticulated, and contains one or two, or exceptionally even four irregularly ovoid seeds.

The plant is cultivated for the sake of its nutritious oily seeds in all tropical and subtropical countries, but especially on the west coast of Africa. It is unknown in the wild state. De Candolle regards it as a native of Brazil, to which region the other species of the genus exclusively belong. But the opinion of one of us is strongly in favour of the plant being indigenous to Tropical Africa, and so is that also of Schweinfurth. Arachis is one of the most universally cultivated plants throughout Tropical Africa, from Senegambia to lake Tanganyika. In Europe it has not proved remunerative.

History—The first writer to notice Ground-Nut appears to be Fernandez de Oviedo y Valdes, who lived in Hayti from a.d. 1513 to 1525; he mentions in his Cronica de las Indias that the Indians cultivated very much the fruit Mani, a name still used for Arachis in Cuba and in South America. A little later, Monardes, described a nameless subterraneous fruit, found about the river Maranon and held in great esteem by both Indians and Spaniards. But before, the French colonists sent in 1555 by Admiral Coligny to the Brazilian coast had become acquainted with the “Mandobi,” which Jean de Léry described quite unmistakably. Good accounts and figures of it were given in the following century by Johannes de Laet (1625), and by Marcgraf, who calls it by its Brazilian name of Mundubi. It is enumerated by Stisser among the rare plants cultivated by him at Helmstedt (Brunswick), about the year 1697.

It is only in very recent times that the value of the Ground-Nut has been recognized in Europe. Jaubert, a French colonist at Gorée near Cape Verde, first suggested about 1840 its importation as an oil-seed into Marseilles, where it now constitutes one of the most important articles of trade.

Description—The fat oil of Arachis, as obtained by pressure without heat, is almost colourless, of an agreeable faint odour and a bland taste resembling that of olive oil. An inferior oil is obtained by warming the seeds before pressing them. The best oil has a sp. gr. of about 0·918; it becomes turbid at 3° C., concretes at -3° to -4°, and hardens at -7°. On exposure to air it is but slowly altered, being one of the non-drying oils. At length it thickens considerably, and assumes even in closed vessels a disagreeable rancid smell and taste.

Chemical Composition—The oil consists of the glycerides of four different fatty acids. The common Oleic Acid, C₁₈H₃₄O₂, that is to say its glycerin compound, is the chief constituent of Arachis oil. Hypogæic Acid, C₁₆H₃₀O₂, has been pointed out by Gössmann and Scheven (1854) as a new acid, whereas it is thought by other chemists to agree with one of the fatty acids obtained from whale oil. The melting point of this acid from Arachis oil is 34-35° C. The third acid afforded by the oil is ordinary Palmitic Acid, C₁₆H₃₂O₂, with a fusing point of 62° C. Arachic Acid, C₂₀H₄₀O₂, the fourth constituent, has also been met with among the fatty acids of butter and olive oil, and, according to Oudemans (1866), in the tallow of Nephelium lappaceum L., an Indian plant of the order Sapindaceæ.

When ground-nut oil is treated with hyponitric acid, which may be most conveniently evolved by heating nitric acid with a little starch, a solid mass is obtained, which yields by crystallization from alcohol Elaïdic and Gæidinic acids, the former isomeric with oleic, the latter with hypogæic acid.

Production and Commerce—The pods are exported on an immense and ever increasing scale from the West Coast of Africa. From this region, not less than 66 millions of kilogrammes, value 26 millions of francs (£1,040,000), were imported in 1867, almost exclusively into Marseilles. From the French possessions on the Senegal, 24 millions of kilogr. were exported in 1876.

The oil is exported from India where the ground-nut is also cultivated, though not on so large a scale as in Western Africa. In Europe it is manufactured chiefly at Marseilles, London, Hamburg and Berlin. The yield of the seeds varies from 42 to nearly 50 per cent. The softness of the seeds greatly facilitates their exhaustion, whether by mechanical power or by the action of bisulphide of carbon or other solvent.

Uses—Good arachis oil may be employed in pharmacy in the same way as olive oil, for which it is a valuable substitute, though more prone to rancidity. It has been introduced into the Pharmacopœia of India, and is generally used instead of olive oil in the Indian Government establishments. Its largest application is for industrial purposes, especially in soap-making.

Radix Abri.

Indian Liquorice; F. Liane à réglisse, Réglisse d’Amérique.

Botanical Origin—Abrus precatorius L., a twining woody shrub indigenous to India, but now found in all tropical countries.

History—The plant is mentioned in the Sanskrit medical writings of Susruta, whence we may infer that it has long been employed in India. Its resemblance to liquorice was remarked by Sloane (1700), who called it Phaseolus glycyrrhites. As a substitute for liquorice, the root has been often employed by residents in the tropical countries of both hemispheres. It was introduced into the Bengal Pharmacopœia of 1844, and into the Pharmacopœia of India of 1868.

The seeds, of the size of a small pea, well known for their polish and beautiful black and red colours, have given their name of Retti to a weight (= 2³/₁₆ grains) used by Hindu jewellers and druggists.

Description—The root is long, woody, tortuous and branching. The stoutest piece in our possession is as thick as a man’s finger, but most of it is much more slender. The cortical layer is extremely thin and of a light brown or almost reddish hue. The woody part breaks with a short fibrous fracture exhibiting a light yellow interior. The root has a peculiar, disagreeable odour, and a bitterish acrid flavour leaving a faintly sweet after-taste. When cut into short lengths it has a slight resemblance to liquorice, but may easily be distinguished by means of the microscope.

Mr. Moodeen Sheriff, who says he has often examined the root of Abrus both fresh and dried, remarks that it is far from abounding in sugar as generally considered;—that it does not possess any sweetness at all until it attains a certain size, and that even then its sweet taste is 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 exhibits 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 a very 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. This behaviour is similar to that of glycyrrhizin (see p. 181).

Berzelius observed, so long ago as 1827, that the leaves of Abrus contain a sweet principle similar to that of liquorice.

Uses—The root has been used in the place of liquorice, for which it is in our opinion a very bad substitute.

Setæ Mucunæ.

Dolichi pubes vel setæ; Cowhage, Cow-itch; F. Pois à gratter, Pois pouillieux; G. Juckborsten.

Botanical Origin—Mucuna pruriens DC. (Dolichos pruriens L., Stizolobium pruriens Pers., Mucuna prurita Hook.), a lofty climbing plant with large, dark purple papilionaceous flowers, and downy legumes in size and shape not unlike those of a sweet pea, common throughout the tropical regions of both Africa, India and America.

History—The earliest notice we have found of this plant is that of Parkinson, who in his Theater of Plants, published in 1640, names it “Phaseolus siliquâ hirsutâ, the Hairy Kidney-Beane called in Zurrate [Surat] where it groweth, Couhage” It was subsequently described by Ray (1686), who saw the plant raised from West Indian seeds, in the garden of the Hatton family in Holborn. Rheede figured it in the Hortus Malabaricus, and it was also known to Rumphius and the other older botanists. We find it even in the pharmaceutical tariff of the county of Nürnberg, a.d. 1714.

The employment of cowhage as a vermifuge originated in the West Indies, and is quite unknown in the East. In England the drug 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 Pharmacopœia of 1783, and into the London Pharmacopœia of 1809. At the present day it has been almost discarded from European medicine, but has been allowed a place in the Pharmacopœia of India (1868).

The name Cowhage is Hindustani, and in the modern way is written Kiwânch, which is generally derived from the Sanskrit Kapi-Kachchu, monkey’s itch (Dr. Rice); the corruption into Cow-itch is absurd. Mucuna is the Brazilian name of another species mentioned in 1648 by Marcgraf.

Description—The pods are 2 to 4 inches long, about ⁴/₁₀ of an inch wide, and contain 4 to 6 seeds; they are slightly compressed and of a 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 ⅒ of an inch in length. The hairs are perfectly straight and easily detached from the valves, out of the epidermis of which they rise. If incautiously touched, they enter the skin and occasion an intolerable itching.

Microscopic Structure—Under the microscope the hairs are seen to consist of a single, sharply pointed, conical cell, about ¹/₄₀ of an inch in diameter at the base, with uniform brownish walls 5 mkm. 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 chromic acid, no structural peculiarity is revealed that calls for remark. The walls however are somewhat separated into indistinct layers, the presence of which is confirmed by the refractive power displayed by the hairs in polarized light.

Chemical Composition—The hairs when treated with sulphuric acid and iodine assume a dark brown colour. Boiling solution of potash does not considerably swell or alter them. They are completely decolorized by concentrated nitric acid.

Uses—Cowhage is administered for the expulsion of intestinal worms, especially Ascaris lumbricoides and A. vermicularis, which it effects by reason of its mechanical structure. It is given mixed with syrup or honey in the form of an electuary.

The root and seeds are reputed medicinal by the natives of some part of India. The pods when young and tender may be cooked and eaten.

Semen Physostigmatis.

Faba Calabarica, Faba Physostigmatis; Calabar Bean, Ordeal Bean of Old Calabar, Eseré Nut, Chop-nut; F. Fève de Calabar; G. Calabarbohne.

Botanical Origin—Physostigma venenosum Balfour, a perennial plant resembling the common Scarlet Runner (Phaseolus multiflorus 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 the mouths of the Niger and the Old Calabar River in the Gulf of Guinea.

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 flowers each, pendent from the axils of the ternate leaves.

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 the stigma backwards as a broad, flat, hooked appendage, and the seeds half surrounded by a deeply grooved hilum.

History—The pagan tribes of Tropical Western Africa compel persons 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 1846. The highly poisonous effects of the bean were observed in 1855 by Christison in his own person, and in 1858 by Sharpey, who administered it to frogs.

Before the seed became an object of commerce, it was regarded by the natives with some mystery and was reluctantly parted with to Europeans. 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 on the West Coast of Africa, forwarded the plant to Professor Balfour of 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 alcoholic extract is applied to the eye. These myotic effects, counteracting those of atropine 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 Calabar Beans, are 1 to 1⅜ inches long, about ⁶/₈ of an inch broad, and ⁴/₈ to ⅝ 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, ⅛ 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 a 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 testa having been previously cracked, the whole seed softens and swells so that its structure may be easily studied. Each cotyledon is then seen to be marked on the hilum-side by a long shallow furrow, at one end of which, just below the micropyle, lies the plumule and radicle. A dark brown inner membrane, constituting part of the testa, surrounds the cotyledons.

The seeds have scarcely any taste, or not more than an ordinary bean; nor in the dry state have they any odour. After being boiled, 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 and of rather cubic form. This parenchyme is loaded with starch granules, frequently as much as 50 mkm. in diameter. Their interior part is less distinctly stratified than the outer; the hollow centre radiates in various directions around the axis of the ovate granule. Polarized light does not show a cross as in other more globular starch granules, but two elliptic curves approaching one another near the axis of the granule. Similar starch granules are commonly met with in the seeds of Leguminosæ.

In the Calabar seeds the starch is accompanied by numerous particles of albuminous matter becoming distinctly perceptible by addition of iodine, which imparts to them an orange colouration.

The shell of the seed is built up of four different layers; the prevailing layer consists of very long, simply cylindrical cells, densely packed so as to form only one radial row. Tison has endeavoured to ascertain in what region of the seed the active principle 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 precipitating 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 C₃₀H₂₁N₃O₄; 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 in nearly the same way, prepared an alkaloid which they called Eserine. It differs from Hesse’s physostigmine in that it forms colourless, rhomboidal, tabular crystals of a bitter taste, melting at 90° C. It dissolves easily in ether, alcohol, or chloroform, but very sparingly in water. The last named solution is alkaline, and reddens by exposure to the air.

It is assumed by some writers, as Tison, that eserine is only the pure form of physostigmine; but at present we feel hardly warranted in admitting the identity of the two substances.

Harnack 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 is 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 petroleum ether, and obtained crystals of a new indifferent substance C₂₆H₄₄+OH₂, which he called Phytosterin. It is closely allied to Cholesterin, but, in its solution in chloroform, devoid of rotatory power and melting at 133°. Cholesterin melts at 145°, and deviates, in its ethereal solution, the ray of polarized light to the left. Phytosterin also occurs in peas; Hesse suggests that the crystallized appearance of alkaloids as prepared by former observers was perhaps due to phytosterin.

From the cotyledons per se, cold water extracts mucilage, precipitable by neutral acetate of lead. The watery infusion contains also albumin, which may be coagulated by heat or by alcohol. The infusion is colourless, does not redden litmus, nor does it contain sugar in appreciable proportion; a few drops of solution of potash cause it to assume an orange colour. An infusion of the shell of the seed is already of this colour, but the tint is intensified by caustic alkali.

The cotyledons yield to boiling ether ½ to ⅓ per cent. of fatty oil, and after exhaustion by ether and alcohol, afford to cold water 12 per cent. of albuminous and mucilaginous constituents. The proportion of starch according to Teich amounts to 48 per cent., the albuminous matter to 23 per cent. The entire seed furnishes 3 per cent. of ash, chiefly phosphate of potash. These constituents do not widely differ in proportion from those found in the common bean, which yields 23 to 25 per cent. of albuminous matters, and 32 to 38 per cent. of starch, besides 1 to 3 per cent. of oil.

The shells of Calabar bean are stated by Fraser to be by no means devoid of active principle.

Vée asserts that if to a solution of eserine, a little potash, lime, or carbonate of sodium be added, there is developed a red colour which rapidly increases in intensity. This colour is transient, passing into yellow, green and blue. If chloroform is shaken with such coloured solution, it takes up the colour; ether on the other hand remains uncoloured.

Uses—Calabar has been hitherto chiefly employed as an ophthalmic medicine, for the purpose of contracting the pupil. It has however been occasionally administered in tetanus and in neuralgic, rheumatic, and other diseases.

Adulteration—Other seeds are sometimes fraudulently mixed with Calabar beans. We have noticed in particular those of a Mucuna and of the Oil Palm, Elæis guineensis Jacq. The slightest examination suffices for their detection.

Kino.

Kino, Gum Kino, East Indian Kino; F. and G. Kino.

Botanical Origin—Pterocarpus Marsupium Roxb., a handsome tree 40 to 80 feet high, frequent in the central and southern parts of the Indian Peninsula and also in Ceylon, and affording a valuable timber. In the Government forests of the Madras Presidency, it is one of the reserved trees, the felling of which is placed under restrictions.

Pt. indicus Willd., a tree of Southern India, the Malayan Peninsula and the Indian and Philippine Islands, is capable of yielding kino, and is the source of the small supplies of that drug that were formerly shipped from Moulmein.

Several other plants afford substances bearing the name of Kino, which will be noticed at the conclusion of the present article.

History—The introduction of kino into European medicine is due to Fothergill, an eminent physician and patron of economic botany of the last century. The drug which Fothergill examined was brought 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.

Duncan in the Edinburgh Dispensatory of 1803, while asserting that “kino 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 commencement 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 East Indian Kino, the botanical origin of which was shown by Wight and by Royle (1844-46) to be Pterocarpus Marsupium Roxb.,—a tree which, curiously enough, is closely allied to the kino tree of Tropical Africa.

This is the drug which is recognized as legitimate kino in all the principal pharmacopœias of Europe. It appears to have been first prepared for the European market in the early part of the present century, on a plantation of the East India Company called Anjarakandy, a few miles 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 distance inland.

Extraction—Kino is the juice of the tree, dried without artificial heat. 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 forests of the Malabar Coast whence the supplies are obtained, permission to collect the drug is granted on payment of a small fee, and on the understanding that the tapping is performed skilfully and without damage to the timber. The method pursued is this:—A perpendicular incision with lateral ones leading into it, is made in the trunk, at the foot of which is placed a vessel to receive the outflowing juice. This juice soon thickens, and when sufficiently dried by exposure to the sun and air, is packed into wooden boxes for exportation.

Description—Malabar kino consists of dark, blackish-red, angular 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. But a violet colour is produced as soon as the liquid is cautiously neutralized. This can be done by diluting it with common water (containing 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 proto-salt 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 with water. By long keeping the violet liquid gelatinizes. It is decolorized by acids, and turns red on addition of an alkali, whether caustic or bicarbonated. Catechu, as well as crystallized catechin, show the same behaviour, but these solutions quickly turn green on exposure to air.

Solutions of acids, of metallic salts, or of chromates produce copious precipitates in an aqueous solution of kino. Ferric chloride forms a dirty green precipitate, and is at the same time reduced to a ferrous salt. Dilute mineral acids or alkalis do not occasion any decided change of colour, but the former give rise to light brownish-red precipitates of Kino-tannic Acid. By boiling for some time an aqueous solution of kino-tannic acid, a red precipitate, Kino-red, is separated.

Kino in its general behaviour is closely allied to Pegu catechu, and yields by similar treatment the same products, that is to say, it affords Pyrocatechin when submitted to dry distillation, and Protocatechuic Acid together with Phloroglucin when melted with caustic soda or potash.

Yet in catechu the tannic acid is accompanied by a considerable amount of catechin, which may be removed directly by exhaustion with ether. Kino, on the other hand, yields to ether only a minute percentage of a substance, whose scaly crystals display under the microscope the character of Pyrocatechin, rather than that of catechin, which crystallizes in prisms. The crystals extracted from kino dissolve freely in cold water, which is not the case with catechin, and this solution assumes a fine green if a very dilute solution of ferric chloride is added, and turns red on addition of an alkali. This is the behaviour of catechin as well as of pyrocatechin; but the difference in solubility speaks in favour of the crystals afforded by kino being pyrocatechin rather than catechin.

We thought pyrocatechin must also occur in the mother plant of 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 Kinoïn 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 kinoïn. The latter is extracted by exhausting the liquid with ether, which by evaporation affords crystals of kinoïn. They should be recrystallized from boiling water; they agree with the formula C₁₄H₁₂O₆, which is to be regarded as that of a methylated gallic ether of pyrocatechin, viz., C₆H₄ (OCH₃) C₇H₅O₅.

Kinoïn by heating it to 130° C. gives off water and turns red:

2 C₁₄H₁₂O₆ = OH₂ · C₂₈H₂₂O₁₁.

The latter product is an amorphous mass agreeing with kino-red; by heating it at 160-170° it again loses water, thus affording another anhydride.

Etti succeeded in preparing methylic chloride, pyrocatechin CH₄(OH)₂ as well as gallic acid C₇H₆O₅, by decomposing kinoïn.

We have prepared kinoïn from Australian kino (see page 198), but failed in obtaining it from Malabar kino, which however Etti states to have used. Kino affords about 1½ per cent. of kinoïn.

The solutions of kinoïn 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 is comparatively small, probably not exceeding a ton or two annually. 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 in tanning and dyeing.

Other sorts of Kino.

1. Butea Kino, Butea Gum, Bengal Kino, Palas or Pulas Kino, Gum of the Palas or Dhak Tree.

This is an exudation from Butea frondosa Roxb. (Leguminosæ), a tree of India and Burma, well known under the name of Palas or Dhak, and conspicuous for its splendid, large, orange, papilionaceous flowers. According to Roxburgh it flows during the hot season from natural fissures or from wounds made in the bark, as a red juice which soon hardens into a ruby-coloured, brittle, astringent gum.

Authentic specimens of this kino have been placed at our disposal by Mr. Moodeen Sheriff of Madras and by Dr. J. Newton of Bellary. That received from the first-named gentleman consists of flattish, angular fragments (the largest about ½ an inch across) and small drops or tears of a very dark, ruby-coloured gum, which when held to the light is seen to be perfectly transparent. The flat pieces have been mostly dried on leaves, an impression of the veins of which they retain on one side, 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, produces an abundant greyish-green precipitate with perchloride of iron, and a white one with acetate of lead. It may be hence inferred that a 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 submitting 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.

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. It is not 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 by Moore in 1733 (see p. 195), and by Park at the commencement of the present century. The tree yielding it, which still bears the Mandingo name Kano, and grows to a height of 40 to 50 feet, is Pterocarpus erinaceus Poiret, a native of Tropical Western Africa from Senegambia to Angola. The juices exude naturally from crevices in the bark, but much more plentifully by incisions; it soon coagulates, becoming deep blood-red and remarkably brittle. That in our possession is in very small, shining, angular fragments, which in a proper light appear transparent and of a deep ruby colour. In solubility and chemical characters, we can trace no difference between it and the kino of the allied Pt. Marsupium Roxb. This kino does not now find its way to England as a regular article of trade. From the statement of Welwitsch, it appears that the Portuguese of Angola employ it under the name of Sangue de Drago.

3. Australian, Botany Bay, or Eucalyptus Kino.—For some years past, the London drug market has been supplied with considerable quantities of kino from Australia; in fact at one period this kino was the only sort to be purchased.

As it is the produce of numerous species of Eucalyptus, it is not surprising that it presents considerable diversity of appearance. The better qualities closely agree with Pterocarpus kino. They are in dark reddish-brown masses or grains, which when in thin fragments are seen to be transparent, of a garnet red hue and quite amorphous. The substance is mostly collected by the sawyers and wood-splitters. It is found within the trunks of trees of all sizes, in flattened cavities of 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 inspissated 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 occasionally 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 Eucalyptus sent from Australia by F. von Müller, 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 L’Hér. (Stringy-bark Tree), the solution of which was coloured dark violet.

Wiesner further states, that Eucalyptus kino affords a little Catechin and Pyrocatechin. It contains no pectinous matter, but in some varieties a gum-like that of Acacia. In one sort, the kino of E. 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 kinoïn from an Australian Kino, which contained numerous fragments of the wood. We noticed that both Australian and Malabar kino emitted a somewhat balsamic odour, when they were treated with hydrochloric acid.

From this examination, it is evident that the better varieties of Eucalyptus kino, such for instance as those derived from E. rostrata Schlecht. (Red or White Gum, or Flooded Gum of the colonists), E. corymbosa Sm. (Blood-wood) and E. citriodora Hook., possess the properties of Pterocarpus kino and might with no disadvantage be substituted for it.

Lignum Pterocarpi.

Lignum Santalinum rubrum, Santalum rubrum; Red Sanders Wood, Ruby Wood; F. Bois de Santal rouge; G. Rothes Sandelholz, Caliaturholz.

Botanical Origin—Pterocarpus santalinus Linn. fil.—A small tree not often exceeding 3½ to 4 feet in girth, and 20 to 25 feet in height; it is closely related to Pt. Marsupium Roxb., from which it differs chiefly in having broader leaflets always in threes. It is a native of the southern part of the Indian Peninsula, as Canara, Mysore, Travancore and the Coromandel Coast, but also occurs in Mindanao, in 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 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—It 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 dyewood 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-coloured sandal-wood, though it has none whatever of the peculiarities of the odorous wood of Santalum. Red Sanders Wood was formerly supposed to possess medicinal powers: these are now disregarded, and it is 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 food. The price in England between 1326 and 1399 was very variable, but on an average exceeded 3s. per lb. Many entries for the purchase of Red Sanders along with spices and groceries, occur in the accounts of the Monastery of Durham, a.d. 1530-34.

Description—The wood found in English commerce is mostly that of the lower parts of the stem and that of the thickest roots. It appears in the market in ponderous, irregular logs, rarely exceeding the thickness of a man’s thigh and commonly much smaller, 3, 4 or 5 feet in length; they are without bark or sapwood, and are externally of a dark colour. The internal wood is of a deep, rich, blood-red, exhibiting in transverse section zones of a lighter tint, and taking a fine polish.

At the present day, druggists generally buy the wood rasped into small chips, which are of a deep reddish-brown hue, tasteless and nearly without odour.

Microscopic Structure—The wood is built up for the greater part of long pointed cells, having thick walls (libriform). Through this ligneous tissue, there are scattered small groups of very large vessels. In a direction parallel to the circumference of the stem, there are less coloured small parenchymatous layers, running from one vascular bundle to another. 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 longitudinally, 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 prismatic 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 a little potash, and obtained by means of hydrochloric acid a red precipitate, which was redissolved in boiling alcohol and then furnished colourless crystals of Santal, C₈H₆O₃. 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 colourless crystals of Pterocarpin was obtained, which were purified by recrystallization 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 C₁₇H₁₆O₅. 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 C₁₇H₁₆O₆ to another principle of Red Sanders Wood, which he isolated by means of alcohol. It is an amorphous substance, melting at 105°. By extracting the wood with a solution of carbonate of sodium, Hagenbach (1872) obtained a fluorescent solution. Red Sanders Wood yielded us of ash only 0·8 per cent.

Commerce—In the official year 1869-70, Red Sanders Wood produced to the Madras Government a revenue of 26,015 rupees (£2,601). The quantity taken from the forests was reported as 1,161,799 lb.

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 DC., which is largely exported from the French colony of Gaboon; it is the “Santal rouge d’Afrique of the French,” or Barwood of the English commerce.

Balsamum Tolutanum.

Balsam of Tolu; F. Baume de Tolu; G. Tolubalsam.

Botanical Origin—Myroxylon Toluifera H B K. (Toluifera Balsamum Miller, Myrospermum toluiferum 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 Cartagena called Tolu, 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,” i.e. peruvianum.

A specimen agreeing with this description was given to Clusius in 1581 by Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth, but the drug was certainly not common till a much later period. In the price-list of drugs of the city of Frankfort of 1669, Balsamus tolutanum (sic) is expressly mentioned, but there can be but little doubt that Balsamum Americanum resinosum or siccum or durum as occurring in many other tariffs of the 17th century, printed in Germany, was also the balsam under notice; in a similar list emanating from the city of Basle in 1646, we noticed B. indicum album, B. peruvianum and B. siccum,—the last with the explanatory words, “trockner Balsam in der Kürbsen” (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 overgrown with lichens.

That which botanists had failed to do, has been accomplished by an ornithologist, Mr. Anton Goering, who, travelling in Venezuela to collect 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 Magdalena. 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 balsam is collected by cutting in the bark two deep sloping notches, meeting at their lower ends in a sharp angle. Below this V-shaped cut, 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, so 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 give space for any fresh incisions, a rude scaffold is sometimes erected, and a new series of notches made higher up. The balsam-gatherer goes from 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 Europe. The bleeding of the trees goes on for at least eight months of the year, causing them ultimately to become much exhausted, and thin in foliage.

In some districts, as we learn from another traveller, it is customary to let the balsam flow down the trunk into a receptacle at its base, formed of the large leaf of a species of Calathea.

From the observations of Mr. Weir, it appears that the balsam tree is plentifully scattered throughout the Montaña around Plato and other small ports on the right bank of the Magdalena. He states that he saw at least 1,500 lb. 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, crystalline 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, alcohol, 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 of an amorphous resin, not soluble in bisulphide of carbon, which is supposed to be the same as the dark resin precipitated by the bisulphide from balsam of Peru. Scharling (1856) assigned the formula C₁₈H₂₀O₅ to that part of the balsam which is soluble in potash.

If Tolu balsam is boiled with water, it yields to it cinnamic and benzoic acid, which we have (1877) perfectly succeeded in separating by repeated recrystallization from water; we have before us good specimens of either, showing not only different melting points (133° C. and 121° C.), but as to our crystals of benzoïc acid, isolated from the balsam as stated above, we find that they also do not evolve bitter almond oil when mixed with sulphuric acid and chromate of potassium. The acids may also be removed by boiling bisulphide of carbon.

Busse showed that benzylic ethers of both benzoic and cinnamic acid are also constituents of the balsam, the cinnamate of benzyl being present in larger quantity.

Upon distilling the balsam with water, it affords 1 per cent. of Tolene, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at about 170° C. This liquid rapidly absorbs oxygen from the air. By destructive distillation, the balsam affords the 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 lb. 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 resemblance 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—Myroxylon Pereiræ Klotzsch (Myrospermum Pereiræ Royle), a tree attaining a height of about 50 feet, and throwing 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 a 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, Chiltiuapan, Talnique, Jicalapa, Teotepeque, Comasagua and Jayaque. All the lands on the Balsam Coast are Indian Reservation Lands.

The Balsam of Peru tree was introduced in 1861 into Ceylon, where it flourishes with extraordinary vigour.