CORTEX CINNAMOMI…

CORTEX CINNAMOMI

Cortex Cinnamomi Zeylanici; Cinnamon; F. Cannelle de Ceylan; G. Zimmt, Ceylon Zimmt, Kaneel.

=Botanical Origin=—Cinnamomum zeylanicum Breyne,—a small evergreen tree, richly clothed with beautiful, shining leaves usually somewhat glaucous beneath, and having panicles of greenish flowers of disagreeable odour.

It is a native of Ceylon, where, according to Thwaites, it is generally distributed through the forests up to an elevation of 3,000 feet, and one variety even to 8,000 feet. It is exceedingly variable in stature, and in the outline, size and consistence of the leaf; and several of the extreme forms are very unlike one another and have received specific names. But there are also numerous intermediate forms; and in a large suite of specimens, many occur of which it is impossible to determine whether they should be referred to this species or to that. Thwaites[1917] is of opinion that some still admitted species, as C. obtusifolium Nees and C. iners Reinw., will prove on further investigation to be mere forms of C. zeylanicum.

Beddome,[1918] Conservator of Forests in Madras, remarks that in the moist forests of South-western India there are 7 or 8 well-marked varieties which might easily be regarded as so many distinct species, but for the fact that they are so connected inter se by intermediate forms, that it is impossible to find constant characters worthy of specific distinction. They grow from the sea-level up to the highest elevations, and, as Beddome thinks, owe their differences chiefly to local circumstances, so that he is disposed to class them simply as forms of C. zeylanicum.

=History=—(For that of the essential oil of cinnamon see page 526). Cinnamon was held in high esteem in the most remote times of history. In the words of the learned Dr. Vincent, Dean of Westminster,[1919] it seems to have been the first spice sought after in all oriental voyages. Both cinnamon and cassia are mentioned as precious odoriferous substances in the Mosaic writings and in the Biblical books of Psalms, Proverbs, Canticles, Ezekiel and Revelations, also by Theophrastus, Herodotus, Galen, Dioscorides, Pliny, Strabo and many other writers of antiquity: and from the accounts which have thus come down to us, there appears reason for believing that the spices referred to were nearly the same as those of the present day. That cinnamon and cassia were extremely analogous, is proved by the remark of Galen, that the finest cassia differs so little from the lowest quality of cinnamon, that the first may be substituted for the second, provided a double weight of it be used.

[1917] Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ, 1864. 252.—Consult also Meissner in De Cand. Prod. xv. sect. i. 10.

[1918] Flora Sylvatica for Southern India, 1872. 262.

[1919] Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, ii. (1807) 512.

It is also evident that both were regarded as among the most costly of aromatics, for the offering made by Seleucus II. Callinicus, king of Syria, and his brother Antiochus Hierax, to the temple of Apollo at Miletus, B.C. 243, consisting chiefly of vessels of gold and silver, and olibanum, myrrh (σμύρνη), costus (page 382), included also two pounds of Cassia (κασία), and the same quantity of Cinnamon (κιννάμωμον).[1920]

In connexion with this subject there is one remarkable fact to be noticed, which is that none of the cinnamon of the ancients was obtained from Ceylon. “In the pages of no author,” says Tennent,[1921] “European or Asiatic, from the earliest ages to the close of the thirteenth century, is there the remotest allusion to cinnamon as an indigenous production, or even as an article of commerce in Ceylon.” Nor do the annuals of the Chinese, between whom and the inhabitants of Ceylon, from the 4th to the 8th centuries, there was frequent intercourse and exchange of commodities, name Cinnamon as one of the productions of the island. The Sacred Books and other ancient records of the Singhalese are also completely silent on this point.

Cassia, under the name of Kwei, is mentioned in the earliest Chinese herbal,—that of the emperor Shen-nung, who reigned about 2700 B.C., in the ancient Chinese[1922] Classics, and in the Rh-ya, a herbal dating from 1200 B.C. In the Hai-yao-pên-ts’ao, written in the 8th century, mention is made of Tien-chu kwei. Tien-chu is the ancient name for India: perhaps the allusion may be to the cassia bark of Malabar.

In connexion with these extremely early references to the spice, it may be stated that a bark supposed to be cassia is mentioned as imported into Egypt together with gold, ivory, frankincense, precious woods, and apes, in the 17th century B.C.[1923]

The accounts given by Dioscorides, Ptolemy and the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, indicate that cinnamon and cassia were obtained from Arabia and Eastern Africa; and we further know that the importers were Phœnicians, who traded by Egypt and the Red Sea with Arabia. Whether the spice under notice was really a production of Arabia or Africa, or whether it was imported thither from Southern China (the present source of the best sort of cassia), is a question which has excited no small amount of discussion.

We are in favour of the second alternative,—firstly, because no substance of the nature of cinnamon is known to be produced in Arabia or Africa; and secondly, because the commercial intercourse which was undoubtedly carried on by China with India and Arabia, and which also existed between Arabia, India and Africa, is amply sufficient to explain the importation of Chinese produce.[1924] That the spice was a production of the far East is moreover implied by the name Darchini (from dar, wood or bark, and Chini, Chinese) given to it by the Arabians and Persians.

[1920] Chishull, Antiquities Asiaticæ, 1728. 65-72.

[1921] Ceylon, i (1859) 575.

[1922] We are indebted to Dr. Bretschneider of Pekin for these references to Chinese literature. For information about some of the works quoted, see his pamphlet On the Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works, Foochow, 1870.

[1923] Dümichen, Fleet of an Egyptian Queen, Leipzig, 1868, p. 1.

[1924] “ ... That there was an ulterior commerce beyond Ceylon is indubitable; for at Ceylon the trade from Malacca and the Golden Chersonese met the merchants from Arabia, Persia and Egypt. This might possibly have been in the hands of the Malays or even the Chinese, who seem to have been navigators in all ages as universally as the Arabians....” Vincent, op. cit. ii. 284. 285.—In the time of Marco Polo, the trade of China westward met the trade of the Red Sea, no longer in Ceylon, but on the coast of Malabar, apparently at Calicut, where the Portuguese found it on their first arrival. Here, says Marco, the ships from Aden obtained their lading from the East, and carried it into the Red Sea for Alexandria, whence it passed into Europe by means of the Venetians.—See also Yule, Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) 325, 327.

If this view of the case is admissible, we must regard the ancient cinnamon to have been the substance now known as Chinese Cassia lignea or Chinese Cinnamon, and cassia as one of the thicker and perhaps less aromatic barks of the same group, such in fact as are still found in commerce.

Of the circumstances which led to the collection of cinnamon in Ceylon, and of the period at which it was commenced, nothing is known. That the Chinese were concerned in the discovery is not an unreasonable supposition, seeing that they traded to Ceylon, and were in all probability acquainted with the cassia-yielding species of Cinnamomum of Southern China, a tree extremely like the cinnamon tree of Ceylon.

Whatever may be the facts, the early notices of cinnamon as a production of Ceylon are not prior to the 13th century. The very first, according to Yule,[1925] is a mention of the spice by Kazwini, an Arab writer of about A.D. 1275, very soon after which period it is noticed by the historian of the Egyptian Sultan Kelaoun, A.D. 1283. The prince of Ceylon is stated to have sent an ambassador, Al-Hadj-Abu-Othman, to the Sultan’s court. It was mentioned that Ceylon produced elephants, Bakam (the wood of Cæsalpinia Sapan L.—see page 216), pearls and also cinnamon.[1926]

A still more positive evidence is due to the Minorite friar, John of Montecorvino, a missionary who visited India. This man, in a letter under date December 20th, 1292 or 1293, written at “Mabar, città dell’ India di sopra,” and still extant in the Medicean library at Florence, says that the cinnamon tree is of medium bulk, and in trunk, bark and foliage, like a laurel, and that great store of its bark is carried forth from the island which is near by Malabar.[1927]

Again, it is mentioned by the Mahomedan traveller Ibn Batuta about A.D. 1340,[1928] and a century later by the Venetian merchant Nicolo di Conti, whose description of the tree is very correct.[1929]

The circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope led to the real discovery of Ceylon by the Portuguese in 1505, and to their permanent occupation of the island in 1536, chiefly for the sake of the cinnamon. It is from the first of these dates that more exact accounts of the spice began to reach Europe. Thus in 1511 Barbosa distinguished the fine cinnamon of Ceylon from the inferior Canella trista of Malabar. Garcia de Orta, about the middle of the same century, stated that Ceylon cinnamon was forty times as dear as that of Malabar. Clusius, the translator of Garcia, saw branches of the cinnamon tree as early as 1571 at Bristol and in Holland.

[1925] Marco Polo, ii. 255.

[1926] Quatremère (in the book quoted at page 511, note 4), ii. 284.

[1927] Yule, Cathay and the way thither, i. 213, also Kunstmann, Anzeigen der baierischen Akademie, 24 and 25 December 1855. p. 163 and 169.

[1928] Travels of Ibn Batuta, translated by Lee, Lond. 1829. 184.

[1929] Ramusio, Raccolta delle Navigationi et Viaggi, i. (1563) 339; Kunstmann, Kenntniss Indiens im fünfzehnten Jahrhundert, 1864. 39.

At this period cinnamon was cut from trees growing wild in the forests in the interior of Ceylon, the bark being exacted as tribute from the Singhalese kings by the Portuguese. A peculiar caste called chalias, who are said to have emigrated from India to Ceylon in the 13th century, and who in after-times became cinnamon-peelers, delivered the bark to the Portuguese. The cruel oppression of these chalias was not mitigated by the Dutch, who from the year 1656 were virtually masters of the whole seaboard, and conceded the cinnamon trade to their East India Company as a profitable monopoly, which the Company exercised with the greatest severity.[1930] The bark previous to shipment was minutely examined by special officers, to guard against frauds on the part of the chalias.

About 1770 De Koke conceived the happy idea, in opposition to the universal prejudice in favour of wild-growing cinnamon, of attempting the cultivation of the tree. This project was carried out under Governors Falck and Van der Graff with extraordinary success, so that the Dutch were able, independently of the kingdom of Kandy, to furnish about 400,000 lb. of cinnamon annually, thereby supplying the entire European demand. In fact, they completely ruled the trade, and would even burn the cinnamon in Holland, lest its unusual abundance should reduce the price.

After Ceylon had been wrested from the Dutch by the English in 1796, the cinnamon trade became the monopoly of the English East India Company, who then obtained more cinnamon from the forests, especially after the year 1815, when the kingdom of Kandy fell under British rule. But though the chalias had much increased in numbers, the yearly production of cinnamon does not appear to have exceeded 500,000 lb. The condition of the unfortunate chalias was not ameliorated until 1833, when the monopoly granted to the Company was finally abolished, and Government, ceasing to be the sole exporters of cinnamon, permitted the merchants of Colombo and Galle to share in the trade.

Cinnamon however was still burdened with an export duty equal to a third or a half of its value; in consequence of which and of the competition with cinnamon raised in Java, and with cassia from China and other places, the cultivation in Ceylon began to suffer. This duty was not removed until 1853.

The earliest notice of cinnamon in connexion with Northern Europe that we have met with, is the diploma granted by Chilperic II., king of the Franks, to the monastery of Corbie in Normandy, A.D. 716, in which provision is made for a certain supply of spices and grocery, including 5 lb. of Cinnamon.[1931]

The extraordinary value set on cinnamon at this period is remarkably illustrated by some letters written from Italy, in which mention is here and there incidentally made of presents of spices and incense.[1932] Thus in A.D. 745, Gemmulus, a Roman deacon, sends to Boniface, archbishop of Mayence (“cum magnâ reverentiâ”), 4 ounces of Cinnamon, 4 ounces of Costus, and 2 pounds of Pepper. In A.D. 748, Theophilacias, a Roman archdeacon, presents to the same bishop similar spices and incense. Lullus, the successor of Boniface, sends to Eadburga, abbatissa Thanetensis,[1933] circa A.D. 732-751—“unum graphium argenteum et storacis et cinnamomi partem aliquam”; and about the same date, another present of cinnamon to archbishop Boniface is recorded. Under date A.D. 732-742, a letter is extant of three persons to the abbess Cuneburga, to whom the writers offer—“turis et piperis et cinnamomi permodica xenia, sed omni mentis affectione destinata.”

[1930] Tennent, op. cit. ii. 52.

[1931] Pardessus, Diplomata, etc., Paris, 1849. ii. 309.

[1932] Jaffé, Bibliotheca Rerum Germanicarum, Berlin, iii. (1866) 154. 199. 214. 216-8. 109.

[1933] Doubtless Eadburh, third abbess of Minster in the Isle of Thanet in Kent. She died A.D. 751.

In the 9th century, Cinnamon, pepper, costus, cloves, and several indigenous aromatic plants were used in the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland as ingredients for seasoning fish.[1934]

Of the pecuniary value of this spice in England, there are many notices from the year 1264 downwards.[1935] In the 16th century it was probably not plentiful, if we may judge from the fact that it figures among the New Year’s gifts to Philip and Mary (1556-57), and to Queen Elizabeth (1561-62).[1936]

=Production and Commerce=[1937]—The best cinnamon is produced, according to Thwaites,[1938] from a cultivated or selected form of the tree (var. α.), distinguished by large leaves of somewhat irregular shape. But the bark of all the forms possesses the odour of cinnamon in a greater or less degree. It is not however always possible to judge of the quality of the bark from the foliage, so that the peelers when collecting from uncultivated trees, are in the habit of tasting the bark before commencing operations, and pass over some trees as unfit for their purpose. The bark of varieties β. multiflorum and γ. ovalifolium is of very inferior quality, and said to be never collected unless for the purpose of adulteration.

The best variety appears to find the conditions most favourable to its culture, in the strip of country, 12 to 15 miles broad, on the south-west coast of Ceylon, between Negumbo, Colombo and Matura, where the tree is grown up to an elevation of 1500 feet. A very sandy clay soil, or fine white quartz, with a good sub-soil and free exposure to the sun and rain, are the circumstances best adapted for the cultivation. The management of the plantations resembles that of oak coppice in England. The system of pruning checks the plant from becoming a tree, and induces it to form a stool from which four or five shoots are allowed to grow; these are cut at the age of 1½ to 2 years, when the greyish-green epidermis begins to turn brown by reason of the formation of a corky layer. They are not all cut at the same time, but only as they arrive at the proper state of maturity; they are then 6 to 10 feet high and 1 to 2 inches thick. In some of the cinnamon gardens at Colombo, the stools are very large and old, dating back, it is supposed, from the time of the Dutch.

[1934] Pharm. Journ. viii. (1877) 121.

[1935] Eden, State of the Poor, ii. (1797) appendix; Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, ii. (1866) 543.

[1936] Nicholls, Progresses and Processions of Q. Elizabeth, i. (1823) xxxiv. 118.

[1937] Additional information may be found in two papers by Marshall, in Thomson’s Annals of Philosophy, x. (1817) 241 and 346; see also Leschenault de la Tour, Mém. du Musée d’Hist. nat. viii. (1822) 436-446.

[1938] Op. cit. 252-253.

In consequence of the increased flow of sap which occurs after the heavy rains in May and June, and again in November and December, the bark at those seasons is easily separated from the wood, so that a principal harvest takes place in the spring, and a smaller one in the latter part of the year.

The shoots having been cut off by means of a long sickle-shaped hook called a catty, and stripped of their leaves, are slightly trimmed with a knife, the little pieces thus removed being reserved and sold as Cinnamon Chips. The bark is next cut through at distances of about a foot, and slit lengthwise, when it is easily and completely removed by the insertion of a peculiar knife termed a mama, the separation being assisted, if necessary, by strongly rubbing with the handle. The pieces of bark are now carefully put one into another, and the compound sticks firmly bound together into bundles. Thus they are left for 24 hours or more, during which a sort of “fermentation” (?) goes on which facilitates the subsequent removal part. This is accomplished by placing each quill on a stick of wood of suitable thickness, and carefully scraping off with a knife the outer and middle cortical layer. In a few hours after this operation, the peeler commences to place the smaller tubes within the larger, also inserting the small pieces so as to make up an almost solid stick, of about 40 inches in length. The cinnamon thus prepared is kept one day in the shade, and then placed on wicker trays in the sun to dry. When sufficiently dry, it is made into bundles of about 30 lb. each.[1939]

The cinnamon gardens of Ceylon were estimated in 1860-64 to occupy an area of about 14,400 acres; in the catalogue of the British Colonies, Paris Exhibition, 1878, about 2 millions of acres are stated to be under cultivation in the island, 26,000 acres with cinnamon.[1940]

The exports of cinnamon from Ceylon have been as follows:—

1871 1872 1875 1,359,327 lb., 1,267,953 lb., 1,500,000 lb. value £67,966. value £64,747.

At present the cultivation of coffee is displacing that of cinnamon, the exports of the former in 1875 being 928,606 cwts. valued at 4¼ millions sterling. Of the crop of 1872 there were 1,179,516 lb. of cinnamon shipped to the United Kingdom, 53,439 lb. to the United States of North America, and 10,000 lb. to Hamburg.

Besides the above-named exports of cinnamon, the official statistics[1941] record the export of “Cinnamon Bark”—8846 lb. in 1871—23,449 lb. in 1872. This name includes two distinct articles, namely Cinnamon Chips, and a very thick bark derived from old stems. The Cinnamon Chips which, as explained on the previous page, are the first trimmings of the shoots, are very aromatic; they used to be considered worthless, and were thrown away. The second article, to which in the London drug sales the name “Cinnamon Bark” is restricted, is in flat or slightly channelled fragments, which are as much as ⁴/₁₀ of an inch in thickness, and remind one of New Granada cinchona bark. It is very deficient in aromatic qualities, and quite unfit for use in pharmacy.

[1939] Formerly called fardela or fardello, a name signifying in the Romance languages bundle or package. The word fardel, having the same meaning, is found in old English writers.

[1940] Yet the cultivation was far more extensive in the earlier part of the century, as we may judge by the statement that the five principal cinnamon gardens around Negumbo, Colombo, Barberyn, Galle, and Matura, were each from 15 to 20 miles in circumference (Tennent’s Ceylon, ii. 163).

[1941] Ceylon Blue Books for 1871 and 1872, printed at Colombo.

In most other countries into which Cinnamomum zeylanicum has been transplanted, it has been found that, partly from its tendency to pass into new varieties and partly perhaps from want of careful cultivation and the absence of the skilled cinnamon-peeler, it yields a bark appreciably different from that of Ceylon. Of other cinnamon-producing districts, those of Southern India may be mentioned as affording the Malabar or Tinnevelly, and the Tellicherry Cinnamon of commerce, the latter being almost as good as the cinnamon of Ceylon.[1942] The cultivation in Java commenced in 1825. The plant, according to Miquel, is a variety of C. zeylanicum, distinguished by its very large leaves which are frequently 8 inches long by 5 inches broad. The island exported in 1870, 1109 peculs (147,866 lb.); in 1871 only 446 peculs (59,466 lb.).[1943]

Cinnamon is also grown in the French colony of Guyana and in Brazil, but on an insignificant scale. The samples of the bark from those countries which we have examined are quite unlike the cinnamon of Ceylon. That of Brazil in particular has evidently been taken from stems several years old.

The importations of cinnamon into the United Kingdom from Ceylon are shown by the following figures:—

1867 1869 1870 859,034 lb. 2,611,473 lb. 2,148,405 lb.

1871 1872 1876 1,430,518 lb. 1,015,461 lb. 1,339,060 lb.

During 1872, 56,000 lb. of cinnamon were imported from other countries.

=Description=—Ceylon cinnamon of the finest description is imported in the form of sticks, about 40 inches in length and ⅜ of an inch in thickness, formed of tubular pieces of bark about a foot long, dexterously arranged one within the other, so as to form an even rod of considerable firmness and solidity. The quills of bark are not rolled up as simple tubes, but each side curls inwards so as to form a channel with in-curving sides, a circumstance that gives to the entire stick a somewhat flattened cylindrical form. The bark composing the stick is extremely thin, measuring often no more than ¹/₁₁₁₁ of an inch in thickness. It has a light brown, dull surface, faintly marked with shining wavy lines, and bearing here and there scars or holes at the points of insertion of leaves or twigs. The inner surface of the bark is of a darker hue. The bark is brittle and splintery, with a fragrant odour, peculiar to itself and the allied barks of the same genus. Its taste is saccharine, pungent, and aromatic.

[1942] Some of it however is very thick, though neatly quilled.

[1943] Consular Reports, Aug. 1873. 952.

The bales of cinnamon which arrive in London are always re-packed in the dock warehouses, in doing which a certain amount of breakage occurs. The spice so injured is kept separate and sold as Small Cinnamon, and is very generally used for pharmaceutical purposes. It is often of excellent quality.

=Microscopic Structure=—By the peeling above described, Ceylon cinnamon is deprived of the suberous coat and the greater part of the middle cortical layer, so that it almost consists of the mere liber (endophlœum). Three different layers are to be distinguished on a transverse section of this tissue:—

1. The external surface which is composed of one to three rows of large thick-walled cells, forming a coherent ring; it is only interrupted by bundles of liber-fibres, which are obvious even to the unaided eye; they compose in fact the wavy lines mentioned in the last page.

2. The middle layer is built up of about ten rows of parenchymatous thin-walled cells, interrupted by much larger cells containing deposits of mucilage, while other cells, not larger than those of the parenchyme itself, are loaded with essential oil.

3. The innermost layer exhibits the same thin-walled but smaller cells, yet intersected by narrow, somewhat darker, medullary rays, and likewise interrupted by cells containing either mucilage or essential oil.

Instead of bundles of liber-fibres, fibres mostly isolated are scattered through the two inner layers, the parenchyme of which abounds in small starch granules accompanied by tannic matter. On a longitudinal section, the length of the liber-fibres becomes more evident, as well as oil-ducts and gum-ducts.

=Chemical Composition=—The most interesting and noteworthy constituent of cinnamon is the essential oil, which the bark yields to the extent of ½ to 1 per cent., and which is distilled in Ceylon,—very seldom in England. It was prepared by Valerius Cordus, who stated,[1944] somewhat before 1544, that the oils of cinnamon and cloves belong to the small number of essential oils which are heavier than water, “fundum petunt.” About 1571 the essential oils of cinnamon, mace, cloves, pepper, nutmegs and several others, were also distilled by Guintherus of Andernach,[1945] and again, about the year 1589, by Porta.[1946]

In the latter part of the last century, it used to be brought to Europe by the Dutch. During the five years from 1775 to 1779 inclusive, the average quantity annually disposed of at the sales of the Dutch East India Company was 176 ounces. The wholesale price in London between 1776 and 1782 was 21_s._ per ounce; but from 1785 to 1789, the oil fetched 63_s._ to 68_s._, the increase in value being doubtless occasioned by the war with Holland commenced in 1782. The oil is now largely produced in Ceylon, from which island the quantity exported in 1871 was 14,796 ounces; and in 1872, 39,100 ounces.[1947] The oil is shipped chiefly to England.

Oil of cinnamon is a golden yellow liquid, having a sp. gr. of 1·035, a powerful cinnamon odour, and a sweet and aromatic but burning taste. It deviates a ray of polarized light a very little to the left. The oil consists chiefly of Cinnamic Aldehyde, C₆H₅(CH)₂COH, together with a variable proportion of hydrocarbons. At a low temperature it becomes turbid by the deposit of a camphor, which we have not examined. The oil easily absorbs oxygen, becoming thereby contaminated with resin and cinnamic acid, C₆H₅(CH)₂COOH.

[1944] In his book “De artificiosis extractionibus,” published by Gesner, Argentorati, 1561, fol. 226.

[1945] De medicina veteri et nova, Basileæ, 1571. 630-635.

[1946] Magiæ Naturalis libri xx. Neapoli 1589. 184.

[1947] Ceylon Blue Books for 1871 and 1872.

Cinnamon contains sugar, mannite, starch, mucilage, and tannic acid. The Cinnamomin of Martin (1868) has been shown by Wittstein to be very probably mere mannite. The effect of iodine on a decoction of cinnamon will be noticed under the head of Cassia Lignea. Cinnamon afforded to Schätzler (1862) 5 per cent. of ash consisting chiefly of the carbonates of calcium and potassium.

=Uses=—Cinnamon is used in medicine as a cordial and stimulant, but is much more largely consumed as a spice.

=Adulteration=—Cassia lignea being much cheaper than cinnamon, is very commonly substituted for it. So long as the bark is entire, there is no difficulty in its recognition, but if it should have been reduced to powder, the case is widely different. We have found the following tests of some service, when the spice to be examined is in powder:—Make a decoction of powdered cinnamon of known genuineness; and one of similar strength of the suspected powder. When cool and strained, test a fluid ounce of each with one or two drops of tincture of iodine. A decoction of cinnamon is but little affected, but in that of cassia a deep blue-black tint is immediately produced (see further on, Cort. Cassiæ). The cheap kinds of cassia, known as Cassia vera, may be distinguished from the more valuable Chinese Cassia, as well as from cinnamon, by their richness in mucilage. This can be extracted by cold water as a thick glairy liquid, giving dense ropy precipitates with corrosive sublimate or neutral acetate of lead, but not with alcohol.

Other products of the Cinnamon Tree.

Essential Oil of Cinnamon Leaf (Oleum Cinnamomi foliorum)—This is a brown, viscid, essential oil, of clove-like odour, which is sometimes exported from Ceylon. It has been examined by Stenhouse (1854), who found it to have a sp. gr. of 1·053, and to consist of a mixture of Eugenol (p. 284) with a neutral hydrocarbon having the formula C₁₀H₁₆. It also contains a small quantity of benzoic acid.

Essential Oil of Cinnamon Root (Oleum Cinnamomi radicis)—A yellow liquid, lighter than water, having a mixed odour of camphor and cinnamon, and a strong camphoraceous taste. Both this oil and that of the leaf were described by Kämpfer (1712) and by Seba in 1731,[1948] and perhaps by Garcia de Orta so early as 1563. Solid camphor may also be obtained from the root. A water distilled from the flowers, and a fatty oil expressed from the fruits are likewise noticed by old writers, but are unknown to us.

[1948] Phil. Trans. xxxvi. (1731) 107.

CORTEX CASSIÆ LIGNEÆ.

Cassia Lignea, Cassia Bark.

=Botanical Origin=—Various species of Cinnamomum occurring in the warm countries of Asia from India eastward, afford what is termed in commerce Cassia Bark. The trees are extremely variable in foliage, inflorescences and aromatic properties, and the distinctness of several of the species laid down even in recent works is still uncertain.

The bark which bears par excellence the name of Cassia or Cassia lignea, and which is distinguished on the Continent as Chinese Cinnamon, is a production of the provinces of Kwangtung, Kwangsi and Kweichau in Southern China. The French expedition of Lieut. Garnier for the exploration of the Mekong and of Cochin China (1866-68) found cassia growing in about N. lat. 19° in the forests of the valley of the Se Ngum, one of the affluents on the left bank of the Mekong near the frontiers of Annam. A part of this cassia is carried by land into China, while another part is conveyed to Bangkok.[1949] Although it is customary to refer it without hesitation to a tree named Cinnamomum Cassia, we find no warrant for such reference: no competent observer has visited and described the cassia-yielding districts of China proper, and brought therefrom the specimens requisite for ascertaining the botanical origin of the bark.[1950]

Cassia lignea is also produced in the Khasya mountains in Eastern Bengal, whence it is brought down to Calcutta for shipment.[1951] In this region there are three species of Cinnamomum, growing at 1000 to 4000 feet above the sea-level, and all have bark with the flavour of cinnamon, more or less pure: they are C. obtusifolium Nees, C. pauciflorum Nees, and C. Tamala Fr. Nees et Eberm.

Cinnamomum iners Reinw., a very variable species occurring in Continental India, Ceylon, Tavoy, Java, Sumatra and other islands of the Indian Archipelago, and possibly in the opinion of Thwaites a mere variety of C. zeylanicum, but according to Meissner well distinguished by its paler, thinner leaves, its nervation, and the character of its aroma, would appear to yield the cassia bark or wild cinnamon of Southern India.[1952]

C. Tamala Fr. Nees et Eberm., which besides growing in Khasya is found in the contiguous regions of Silhet, Sikkim, Nepal, and Kumaon, and even reaches Australia, probably affords some cassia bark in Northern India.

Large quantities of a thick sort of cassia have at times been imported from Singapore and Batavia, much of which is produced in Sumatra. In the absence of any very reliable information as to its botanical sources, we may suggest as probable mother plants, C. Cassia Bl. and C. Burmanni Bl., var. α. chinense, both stated by Teijsmann and Binnendijk to be cultivated in Java.[1953] The latter species, growing also in the Philippines, most probably affords the cassia bark which is shipped from Manila.

[1949] Thorel, Notes médicales du Voyage d’Exploration du Mékong et de Cochinchine, Paris, 1870. 30.—Garnier, Voyage en Indo-Chine, ii. (Paris, 1873) 438.

[1950] The greatest market in China for cassia and cinnamon according to Dr. F. Porter Smith, is Taiwu in Ping-nan hien (Sin-chau fu), in Kwangsi province.—Mat. Med. and Nat. Hist. of China, 1871. 52.—The capital of Kwangsi is Kweilin fu, literally Cassia-Forest.

[1951] Hooker, Himalayan Journals, ed. 2. ii. (1855) 303.

[1952] A specimen of the stem-bark of C. iners from Travancore, presented to us by Dr. Waring, has a delightful odour, but is quite devoid of the taste of cinnamon.

[1953] Catalogues Plantarum quæ in Horto Botanico Bogoriensi coluntur, Batavia, 1866. 92.

=History=—In the preceding article we have indicated (p. 520) the remote period at which cassia bark appears to have been known to the Chinese; and have stated the reasons that led us to believe the cinnamon of the ancients was that substance. It must, however, be observed that Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Strabo and others, as well as the remarkable inscription on the temple of Apollo at Miletus, represent cinnamon and cassia as distinct, but nearly allied substances. While, on the other hand, the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, in enumerating the products shipped from the various commercial ports of Eastern Africa[1954] in the first century, mentions Cassia (κμσία or κασσία) of various kinds, but never employs the word Cinnamon (κινναμώμον).

In the list of productions of India on which duty was levied at the Roman custom-house at Alexandria, circa A.D. 176-180, Cinnamomum is mentioned as well as Cassia turiana, Xylocassia and Xylocinnamomum.[1955] Of the distinction here drawn between cinnamon and cassia we can give no explanation; but it is worthy of note that twigs and branches of a Cinnamomum are sold in the Chinese drug shops, and may not improbably be the xylocassia or xylocinnamon of the ancients.[1956] The name Cassia lignea would seem to have been originally bestowed on some such substance, rather than as at present on a mere bark. The spice was also undoubtedly called Cassia syrinx and Cassia fistularis (p. 221),—names which evidently refer to a bark which had the form of a tube. In fact there may well have been a diversity of qualities, some perhaps very costly. It is remarkable that such is still the case in China, and that the wealthy Chinese employ a thick variety of cassia, the price of which is as much as 18 dollars per catty, or about 56_s._ per lb.[1957]

Whether the Aromata Cassiæ, which were presented to the Church at Rome under St. Silvester, A.D. 314-335, was the modern cassia bark, is rather doubtful. The largest donation, 200 lb., which was accompanied by pepper, saffron, storax, cloves, and balsam, would appear to have arrived from Egypt.[1958] Cassia seems to have been known in Western Europe as early as the 7th century, for it is mentioned with cinnamon by St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville.[1959] Cassia is named in one of the Leech-books in use in England prior to the Norman conquest.[1960] The spice was then sold in London as Canel in 1264, at 10_d._ per lb., sugar being at the same time 12_d._, cumin 2_d._, and ginger 18_d._[1961] In the Boke of Nurture,[1962] written in the 15th century by John Russell, chamberlain to Humphry, duke of Gloucester, cassia is spoken of as resembling cinnamon, but cheaper and commoner, exactly as at the present day.

[1954] Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients in the Indian Ocean, ii. (1807) 130. 134. 149. 150. 157.—That the ancients should confound the different kinds of cassia is really no matter for surprise, when we moderns, whether botanists, pharmacologists, or spice-dealers, are unable to point out characters by which to distinguish the barks of this group, or even to give definite names to those found in our warehouses.

[1955] Vincent, op. cit. ii. 701-716.

[1956] See further on, Allied Products, Cassia twigs, page 533.

[1957] Very fine specimens of this costly bark have been kindly supplied to us by Dr. H. F. Hance, British Vice-Consul at Whampoa.

[1958] Vignolius, Liber Pontificalis, Romæ, i. (1724) 94. 95.

[1959] Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus, lxxxii. (1850) 622.—St. Isidore evidently quotes Galen, but his remarks imply that both spices were known at the period when he wrote.

[1960] Cockayne, Leechdoms, etc., of Early England, ii. (1865) 143.

[1961] Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, ii. (1866) 543.

[1962] The book has been reprinted for the Early English Text Society, 1868.—Russell says:—“Looke that your stikkes of synamome be thyn, bretille and fayre in colewr ... for canelle is not so good in this crafte and cure.”—And in his directions “how to make Ypocras,” he prescribes synamome in that “for lordes,” but “canelle” in that for “commyn peple.”

=Production=—We have no information whether the tree which affords the cassia bark of Southern China is cultivated, or whether it is exclusively found wild.

The Calcutta cassia bark collected in the Khasya mountains and brought to Calcutta is afforded by wild trees of small size. Dr. Hooker who visited the district with Dr. Thomson in 1850, observes that the trade in the bark is of recent introduction.[1963] The bark which varies much in thickness, has been scraped of its outer layer.

Cassia is extensively produced in Sumatra, as may be inferred from the fact that Padang in that island, exported of the bark in 1871, 6127 peculs (817,066 lb.), a large proportion of which was shipped to America.[1964] Regarding the collection of cassia on the Malabar coast, in Java and in the Philippines, no particular account has, so far as we know, been published. Spain imported from the Philippines by way of Cadiz in 1871, 93,000 lb. of cassia.[1965]

=Description=—Chinese Cassia lignea, otherwise called Chinese Cinnamon, which of all the varieties is that most esteemed, and approaching most nearly to Ceylon cinnamon, arrives in small bundles about a foot in length and a pound in weight, the pieces of bark being held together with bands of bamboo.

The bark has a general resemblance to cinnamon, but is in simple quills, not inserted one within the other. The quills moreover are less straight, even and regular, and are of a darker brown; and though some of the bark is extremely thin, other pieces are much stouter than fine cinnamon,—in fact, it is much less uniform. The outer coat has been removed with less care than that of Ceylon cinnamon, and pieces can easily be found with the corky layer untouched by the knife.

Cassia bark breaks with a short fracture. The thicker bark cut transversely shows a faint white line in the centre running parallel with the surface. Good cassia in taste resembles cinnamon, than which it is not less sweet and aromatic, though it is often described as less fine and delicate in flavour.

An unusual kind of cassia lignea is imported since 1870 from China and offered in the London market as China Cinnamon,[1966] though it is not the bark that bears this name in continental trade. The new drug is in unscraped quills, which are mostly of about the thickness of ordinary Chinese cassia lignea; it has a very saccharine taste and pungent cinnamon flavour.

[1963] Hooker, op. cit.

[1964] Consular Reports, August 1873. 953.

[1965] Consul Reade, Report on the Trade, etc., of Cadiz for 1871, where the spice is called “cinnamon.”

[1966] Flückiger in Wiggers and Husemann’s Jahresbericht for 1872. 52.

The less esteemed kinds of cassia bark, which of late years have been poured into the market in vast quantity, are known in commerce as Cassia lignea, Cassia vera or Wild Cassia, and are further distinguished by the names of the localities whence shipped, as Calcutta, Java, Timor, etc.

The barks thus met with vary exceedingly in colour, thickness and aroma, so that it is vain to attempt any general classification. Some have a pale cinnamon hue, but most are of a deep rich brown. They present all variations in thickness, from that of cardboard to more than a quarter of an inch thick. The flavour is more or less that of cinnamon, often with some unpleasant addition suggestive of insects of the genus Cimex. Many, besides being aromatic, are highly mucilaginous, the mucilage being freely imparted to cold water. Finally, we have met with some thick cassia bark of good appearance that was distinguished by astringency and the almost entire absence of aroma.

=Microscopic Structure=—A transverse section of such pieces of Chinese Cassia lignea as still bear the suberous envelope, exhibits the following characters. The external surface is made up of several rows of the usual cork-cells, loaded with brown colouring matter. In pieces from which the cork-cells have been entirely scraped, the surface is formed of the mesophlœum, yet by far the largest part of the bark belongs to the liber or endophlœum. Isolated liber-fibres and thick-walled cells (stone-cells) are scattered even through the outer layers of a transverse section. In the middle zone they are numerous, but do not form a coherent sclerenchymatous ring as in cinnamon (p. 526). The innermost part of the liber shares the structural character of cinnamon with differences due to age, as for instance the greater development of the medullary rays. Oil-cells and gum-ducts are likewise distributed in the parenchyme of the former.

The “China Cinnamon” of 1870 (p. 530) comes still nearer to Ceylon cinnamon, except that it is coated. A transverse section of a quill, not thicker than one millimetre, exhibits the three layers described as characterizing that bark. The sclerenchymatous ring is covered by a parenchyme rich in oil-ducts, so that it is obvious that the flavour of this drug could not be improved by scraping. The corky layer is composed of the usual tabular cells. The liber of this drug in fact agrees with that of Ceylon cinnamon.

In Cassia Barks of considerable thickness, the same arrangement of tissues is met with, but their strong development causes a certain dissimilarity. Thus the thick-walled cells are more and more separated one from another, so as to form only small groups. The same applies also to the liber-fibres, which in thick barks are surrounded by a parenchyme, loaded with considerable crystals of oxalate of calcium. The gum-ducts are not larger, but are more numerous in these barks, which swell considerably in cold water.

=Chemical Composition=—Cassia bark owes its aromatic properties to an essential oil, which, in a chemical point of view, agrees with that of Ceylon cinnamon. The flavour of cassia oil is somewhat less agreeable, and as it exists in the less valuable sorts of cassia, decidedly different in aroma from that of cinnamon. We find the sp. gr. of a Chinese cassia oil to be 1·066, and its rotatory power in a column 50 mm. long, only 0°·1 to the right, differing consequently in this respect from that of cinnamon oil (p. 526).

Oil of cassia sometimes deposits a stearoptene, which when purified is a colourless, inodorous substance, crystallizing in shining brittle prisms.[1967] We have never met with it.

[1967] Rochleder and Schwarz (1850) in Gmelin’s Chemistry, xvii. 395.

If thin sections of cassia bark are moistened with a dilate solution of perchloride of iron, the contents of the parenchymatous part of the whole tissue assume a dingy brown colour; in the outer layers the starch granules even are coloured. Tannic matter is consequently one of the chief constituents of the bark; the very cell-walls are also imbued with it. A decoction of the bark is turned blackish-green by a persalt of iron.

If cassia bark (or Ceylon cinnamon) is exhausted by cold water, the clear liquid becomes turbid on addition of iodine; the same occurs if a concentrated solution of iodide of potassium is added. An abundant precipitate is produced by addition of iodine dissolved in the potassium salt. The colour of iodine then disappears. There is consequently a substance present which unites with iodine; and in fact, if to a decoction of cassia or cinnamon the said solution of iodine is added, it strikes a bright blue coloration, due to starch. But the colour quickly disappears, and becomes permanent only after much of the test has been added. We have not ascertained the nature of the substance that thus modifies the action of iodine: it can hardly be tannic matter, as we have found the reaction to be the same when we used bark that had been previously repeatedly treated with spirit of wine and then several times with boiling ether.

The mucilage contained in the gum-cells of the thinner quills of cassia is easily dissolved by cold water, and may be precipitated together with tannin by neutral acetate of lead, but not by alcohol. In the thicker barks it appears less soluble, merely swelling into a slimy jelly.

=Commerce=—Cassia lignea is exported from Canton in enormous and increasing quantities. The shipments which in 1864 amounted to 13,800 peculs, reached 40,600 in 1869,[1968] 61,220 in 1871, and 76,464 peculs (10,195,200 lb.) value £267,703, in 1872.[1969] In 1874 the exports were 54,268 peculs (1 pecul = 133⅓ lb.) and 58,313 peculs in 1878; from the other ports of China cassia is not shipped to any extent. England usually receives no more than about 1,000,000 lb. of cassia, of which only 40,000 lb. appear to be consumed in the country. Hamburg imports about 2,000,000 lb. annually immediately from China. Yet in 1878 the quantity imported into London was 26,744 peculs (3,500,000 lb.), that received at Hamburg 13,548 peculs.

Cassia lignea is exported in chests containing 2 peculs each.

Oil of cassia was shipped from the south of China to the United Kingdom, to the extent in 1869 of 47,517 lb.; in 1870, of 28,389 lb.[1970] Hamburg is also a very important place for this oil; in the official statistics of that port for 1875 the imports from China are stated to have amounted to 30,000 lb., besides 10,000 lb. imported from Great Britain; in 1876 Hamburg imported 5,900 lb. from China and 17,000 lb. from England.

=Uses=—The same as those of cinnamon.

[1968] Canton Trade Report for 1869.

[1969] Commercial Reports from H. M. Consuls in China, presented to Parliament 1873,—(Consul Robertson).

[1970] Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the United Kingdom for 1870. 290.—66,650 were exported in 1877 from Pakhoi.

Allied Products.

Cassia Twigs—The branches of the cassia trees, alluded to at page 529, would appear to be collected from the same trees which yield the cassia lignea. Garnier (l.c. at p. 528) says that the youngest branches are made into fagots, adding that they have the odour of bugs.

Cassia twigs are not as yet exported to Europe, but they constitute a very important article of the trade of the interior of China. In 1872 no less than 456,533 lb. of this Wood of Cassia or Cassia Twigs were shipped from Canton, for the most part to other Chinese ports.—The imports of Hankow, in 1874, of these twigs were 1925 peculs (259,667 lb.) valued at 5677 taels (1 tael about equal to 5_s._ 11_d._).[1971]

In the Paris Exhibition of 1878 we had the opportunity of examining some bundles of cassia twigs from western Kwangtung. The branches were as much as 2 feet in length and of the thickness of a finger. We found their bark to possess the usual flavour of cassia lignea.

Cassia Buds, Flores Cassiæ—These are the immature fruits of the tree yielding Chinese cassia lignea, and have been used in Europe since the middle ages. In the journal of expenses (A.D. 1359-60) of John, king of France, when a prisoner at Somerton Castle in England, there are several entries for the spice under the name of Flor de Canelle; it was very expensive, costing from 8_s._ to 13_s._ per lb., or more than double the price of mace or cloves. On one occasion two pounds of it had to be obtained for the king’s use from Bruges.[1972] From the Form of Cury[1973] written in 1390, it appears that cassia buds (“Flō de queynel”) were used in preparing the spiced wine called Hippocras.

Cassia buds are shipped from Canton, but the exports have much declined. Rondot, writing in 1848,[1974] estimated them as averaging 400 peculs (53,333 lb.) a year. In 1866 there were shipped from Canton only 233 peculs (31,066 lb.); in 1867, 165 peculs (22,000 lb.)[1975] The quantity of cassia buds imported into the United Kingdom in 1870 was 29,321 lb.;[1976] the spice is sold chiefly by grocers. The great market for this drug is Hamburg, where in 1876, according to the official statistics, 1324 cwt. of cassia buds were imported.

In Southern India, the more mature fruits of one of the varieties of Cinnamomum iners Reinw. are collected for use, but are very inferior to the Chinese cassia buds.

Folia Malabathri or Folia Indi—is the name given to the dried, aromatic leaves of certain Indian species of Cinnamomum, formerly employed[1977] in European medicine, but now obsolete. Under the name Taj-pat, the leaves are still used in India; they are collected in Mysore from wild trees.

Ishpingo—This is the designation in Quito of the calyx of a tree of the laurel tribe, used in Ecuador and Peru in the place of cinnamon. Though but little known in Europe, it has a remarkable history.

[1971] Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports in China for 1872, p. 34; for 1874, p. 7.

[1972] Doüet d’Arcq, Comptes de l’Argenterie des Rois de France, 1851. 206. 218. 222. 239. etc.

[1973] See p. 245, note 8.

[1974] Commerce d’exportation de la Chine, 45.

[1975] Reports on Trade at the Treaty Ports in China for 1867, Shanghai, 1868. 49.

[1976] Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the U.K. for 1870. 101.

[1977] For further information consult Heyd, Levantehandel, ii. (1879) 663.

The existence of a spice-yielding region in South America, having come to the ears of the Spanish conquerors, was regarded as a matter of interest. It would appear that cinnamon was enumerated in the earliest accounts among the precious products of the New World.[1978] Such high importance was attached to it that in Ecuador an expedition was fitted out. The direction of the enterprise was confided to Gonzalo Pizarro, who with 340 soldiers, and more than 4000 Indians, laden with supplies, quitted the city of Quito on Christmas Day, 1539. The expedition, which lasted two years, resulted in the most lamentable failure, only 130 Spaniards surviving the hardships of the journey. In the account of it given by Garcilasso de la Vega, the cinnamon tree is described as having large leaves like those of a laurel, with fruits resembling acorns growing in clusters.[1979] Fernandez de Oviedo[1980] has also given some particulars regarding the spice, together with a figure fairly representing its remarkable form; and the subject has been noticed by several other Spanish writers, including Monardes.[1981]

Notwithstanding the celebrity thus conferred on the spice, and the fact that the latter gives its name to a large tract of country,[1982] and is still the object of a considerable traffic, the tree itself is all but unknown to science. Meissner places it doubtfully under the genus Nectandra, with the specific name cinnamomoides, but confesses that its flowers and fruits are alike unknown.[1983]

The spice, for an ample specimen of which we have to thank Dr. Destruge, of Guayaquil, consists of the enlarged and matured woody calyx, 1½ to 2 inches in diameter, having the shape of a shallow funnel, the open part of which is a smooth cup (like the cup of an acorn), surrounded by a broad, irregular margin, usually recurved. The outer surface is rough and veiny, and the whole calyx is dark brown, and has a strong, sweet, aromatic taste, like cinnamon, for which in Ecuador it is the common substitute.

Dr. Destruge has also furnished us with a specimen of the bark, which is in very small uncoated quills, exactly simulating true cinnamon. We are not aware whether the bark is thus prepared in quantity.

[1978] Account of Petrus Martyr d’Angleria to Cardinal Ascanio Sforza, in Michael Herr’s Die neue Welt, etc., Strassburg, 1534. fol. 175.

[1979] Travels of Pedro de Cieza de Leon, A.D. 1532-50, translated by Markham (Hakluyt Society) Lond. 1864. chap. 39-40; also Expedition of Gonzalo Pizarro to the Land of Cinnamon, by Garcilasso Inca de la Vega, forming part of the same volume.

[1980] Historia de las Indias, Madrid, i. (1851) 357. (lib. ix. c. 31).

[1981] De la Canela de nuestras Indias.—Historia de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales, Sevilla, 1574. 98.

[1982] The village of San José de Canelos, which may be considered as the centre of the cinnamon region, was determined by Mr. Spruce to be in lat. 1° 20 S., long. 77° 45 W., and at an altitude above the sea of 1590 feet. The forest of canelos, he tells us, has no definite boundaries; but the term is popularly assigned to all the upper region of the Pastasa and its tributaries, from a height of 4000 to 7000 feet on the slopes of the Andes, down to the Amazonian plain, and the confluence of the Bombonasa and Pastasa.

[1983] De Candolle, Prodromus, xv. sect. i. 167.

CORTEX BIBIRU.

Cortex Nectandræ; Greenheart Bark, Bibiru or Bebeeru Bark.

=Botanical Origin=—Nectandra Rodiæi Schomburgk—The Bibiru or Greenheart is a large forest tree,[1984] growing on rocky soils in British Guiana, twenty to fifty miles inland. It is found in abundance on the hill sides which skirt the rivers Essequibo, Cuyuni, Demerara, Pomeroon and Berbice. The tree attains a height of 80 to 90 feet, with an undivided erect trunk, furnishing an excellent timber which is ranked in England as one of the eight first-class woods for shipbuilding, and is to be had in beams of from 60 to 70 feet long.

=History=—In 1769 Bancroft, in his History of Guiana, called attention to the excellent timber afforded by the Greenheart or Sipeira. About the year 1835 it became known that Hugh Rodie, a navy surgeon who had settled in Demerara some twenty years previously, had discovered an alkaloid of considerable efficacy as a febrifuge, in the bark of this tree.[1985] In 1843 this alkaloid, to which Rodie had given the name Bebeerine, was examined by Dr. Douglas Maclagan; and the following year the tree was described by Schomburgk under the name of Nectandra Rodiæi.[1986]

=Description=—Greenheart bark occurs in long heavy flat pieces, not unfrequently 4 inches broad and ³/₁₀ of an inch thick, externally of a light greyish brown, with the inner surface of a more uniform cinnamon hue and with strong longitudinal striæ. It is hard and brittle; the fracture coarse-grained, slightly foliaceous, and only fibrous in the inner layer. The grey suberous coat is always thin, often forming small warts, and leaving when removed longitudinal depressions analogous to the digital furrows of Flat Calisaya Bark (p. 353), but mostly longer. Greenheart bark has a strong bitter taste, but is not aromatic. Its watery infusion is of a very pale cinnamon brown.

=Microscopic Structure=—The general features of this bark are very uniform, almost the whole tissue having been changed into thick-walled cells. Even the cells of the corky layer show secondary deposits; the primary envelope has entirely disappeared, and no transition from the suberous coat to liber is obvious.

The prevalent forms of the tissue are the stone-cells and very short liber-fibres, intersected by small medullary rays and crossed transversely by parenchyme or small prosenchyme cells with walls a little less thickened, so as to appear in a transverse section as irregular squares or groups. The only cells of a peculiar character are the sharp-pointed fibres of the inner liber, which are curiously saw-shaped, being provided with numerous protuberances and sinuosities.

[1984] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic. Plants, part 26 (1877).

[1985] Halliday, On the Bebeeru tree of British Guiana, and Sulphate of Bebeerine, the former a substitute for Cinchona, the latter for Sulphate of Quinine.—Edinburgh Med. and Surg. Journ. vol. xl. 1835.

[1986] Hooker’s Journ. of Bot. 1844. 624.

The very small lumen of the thick-walled cells contains a dark brown mass which is coloured greenish-black by sulphate of iron; the same coloration takes place throughout the less dense tissue surrounding the groups of stone-cells, and may in each case be due to tannic matter.

=Chemical Composition=—Greenheart bark contains an alkaloid which has long been regarded as peculiar, under the name of Bibirine or Bebirine. It was however shown by Walz in 1860 to be apparently identical with Buxine, a substance discovered as early as 1830 in the bark and leaves of the Common Box, Buxus sempervirens L. In 1869 the observation of Walz was to some extent confirmed by one of us,[1987] who further demonstrated that Pelosine, an alkaloid occurring in the stems and roots of Cissampelos Pareira L. and Chondodendron tomentosum Ruiz et Pavon (p. 28), is undistinguishable from the alkaloids of greenheart and box.

The alkaloid of bibiru bark, which may be conveniently prepared from the crude sulphate used in medicine under the name of Sulphate of Bibirine, is a colourless amorphous substance, the composition of which is indicated by the formula C₁₈H₂₁NO₃. It is soluble in 5 parts of absolute alcohol, in 13 of ether, and in 1400 (1800, Walz) of boiling water, the solution in each case having a decidedly alkaline reaction on litmus. It dissolves readily in bisulphide of carbon, as well as in dilute acids. The salts hitherto known are uncrystallizable. The solution of a neutral acetate affords an abundant white precipitate on the addition of an alkaline phosphate, nitrate or iodide, of iodohydrargyrate or platino-cyanide of potassium, perchloride of mercury, or of nitric or iodic acid.

Maclagan, one of the earliest investigators of greenheart, has obtained in co-operation with Gamgee[1988] certain alkaloids from the wood of the tree, to one of which these chemists have assigned the formula C₂₀H₂₃NO₄ and the name Nectandria. Two other alkaloids, the characters of which have not yet been fully investigated, are stated to have been obtained from the same source.

Bibiric Acid, which Maclagan obtained from the seeds, is described as a colourless, crystalline, deliquescent substance, fusing at 150° C. and volatile at 200° C., then forming needle-shaped groups.

=Commerce=—The supplies of greenheart bark are extremely uncertain, and the drug is scarcely to be found in the market. It has been imported in barrels containing 80 to 84 lb. each, or in bags holding ½ to ¾ cwt.

=Uses=—The bark has been recommended as a bitter tonic and febrifuge, but is hardly ever employed except in the form of what is called Sulphate of Bibirine, which, as we have said, is crude Sulphate of Buxine.[1989] It is a dark amorphous substance which, having while in a syrupy state been spread out on glazed plates, is obtained in thin translucent laminæ. We find it to yield scarcely one-third of its weight of the pure alkaloid.

[1987] Flückiger, Neues Jahrbuch für Pharmacie, xxxi. (1869) 257; Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 192.

[1988] Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 19.

[1989] Mr. W. H. Campbell, of Georgetown, Demerara, has assured me that neither the bark nor its alkaloid is held in esteem in the colony.—D. H.

Spotted a typo or a problem in this chapter? Tell us

RADIX SASSAFRAS

Sassafras Root; F. Bois de Sassafras, Lignum Sassafras; G. Sassafrasholz.

=Botanical Origin=—Sassafras officinalis Nees (Laurus Sassafras L.), a tree growing in North America, from Canada, southward to Florida and Missouri. In the north it is only a shrub, or a small tree 20 to 30 feet high, but in the Middle and Southern United States, and especially in Virginia and Carolina, it attains a height of 40 to 100 feet. The leaves are of different forms, some being ovate and entire, and others two- or three-lobed, the former, it is said, appearing earlier than the latter.

=History=—Monardes relates that the French during their expedition to Florida (1562-1564) cured their sick with the wood and root of a tree called Sassafras, the use of which they had learnt from the Indians.[1990] Laudonnière, who was a member of that expedition, and diligently set forth the wonders of Florida, observes that, among forest trees, the most remarkable for its timber and especially for its fragrant bark, is that called by the savages Pavame and by the French Sassafras.[1991]

The drug was known in Germany, at least since 1582, under the above names or also by that of Lignum Floridum or Fennel-wood, Xylomarathrum.[1992]

The sassafras tree had been introduced into England in the time of Gerarde (circa 1597), who speaks of a specimen growing at Bow. At that period the wood and bark of the root were used chiefly in the treatment of ague.

In 1610, a paper of instructions from the Government of England to that of the new colony of Virginia, mentions among commodities to be sent home, “Small sassafras Rootes” which are “to be drawen in the winter and dryed and none to be medled with in the somer;—and yet is worthe £50 and better per tonne.”[1993] The shipments were afterwards much overdone, for in 1622 complaint is made that other things than tobacco and sassafras[1994] were neglected to be shipped.

Angelus Sala, an Italian chemist living in Germany about the year 1610-1630, in distilling sassafras noticed that the oil was heavier than water;[1995] it was quoted in 1683 in the tariff of the apothecary of the elector of Saxony, at Dresden.[1996] John Maud in 1738 obtained crystals of safrol as long as 4 inches;[1997] in 1844 they were examined by Saint-Evre.

=Description=—Sassafras is imported in large branching logs, which often include the lower portion of the stem, 6 to 12 inches in diameter.[1998]

[1990] Historia medicinal de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales, (Sevilla, 1574) 51.

[1991] De Laet, Novus Orbis, 1633. 215.—René de Laudonnière, Histoire notable de la Floride. 1586.

[1992] Pharm. Journ. v. (1876) 1023.

[1993] Colonial Papers, vol. i. No. 23 (MS. in the Record Office, London).

[1994] Colonial Papers, vol. ii. No. 4.

[1995] Opera medico-chymica, Francofurti, 1682, p. 83.

[1996] Flückiger, Documente (quoted at p. 404, note 7) 70.

[1997] Phil. Trans. R. Soc. of London, viii. (1809) 243.

[1998] The sassafras logs met with in English trade often include a considerable portion of trunk-wood, which, as well as the bark that covers it, is inert, and should be sawn off and rejected before the wood is rasped.

The roots proper, which diminish in size down to the thickness of a quill, are covered with a dull, rough, spongy bark. This bark has an inert, soft corky layer, beneath which is a firmer inner bark of brighter hue, rich in essential oil. The wood of the root is light and easily cut, in colour of a dull reddish-brown, and with a fragrant odour and spicy taste similar to that of the bark but less strong. It is usually sold in the shops rasped into shavings.

The bark of the root (Cortex sassafras) is a separate article of commerce, but not much used in England. It consists of channelled, flattish, or curled, irregular fragments seldom exceeding 4 inches long by 3 inches broad and generally much smaller, and from ¹/₁₆ to ¼ of an inch in thickness. The inert outer layer has been carefully removed, leaving a scarred, exfoliating surface. The inner surface is finely striated and exhibits very minute shining crystals. The bark has a short, corky fracture, and in colour is a bright cinnamon brown of various shades. It has a strong and agreeable smell, with an astringent, aromatic, bitterish taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The wood of the root exhibits, in transverse section, concentric rings transversed by narrow medullary rays. Each ring contains a number of large vessels in its inner part, and more densely packed cells in its outer. The prevailing part of the wood consists of prosenchyme cells. Globular cells, loaded with yellow essential oil, are distributed among the woody prosenchyme. The latter as well as the medullary rays abounds in starch.

The bark is rich in oil-cells and also contains cells filled with mucilage; it owes its spongy appearance and exfoliation to the formation of secondary cork bands (rhytidoma) within the mesophlœum and even in the liber. The cortical tissue abounds in red colouring matter, and further contains starch and, less abundantly, oxalate of calcium.

=Chemical Composition=—The wood of the root yields 1 to 2 per cent. of volatile oil,[1999] and the root-bark twice as much. The stem and leaves of the tree contain but a very small quantity. The oil, which as found in commerce is all manufactured in America, has the specific odour of sassafras, and is colourless, yellow, or reddish-brown, according, as the distillers assert, to the character of the root employed. As the colour of the oil does not affect its flavour and market value, no effort is made to keep separate the different varieties of root.

Oil of Sassafras has a sp. gr. of 1·087 to 1·094, increasing somewhat by age (Procter). When cooled, it deposits crystals of Safrol or Sassafras Camphor. This body, which we obtained in the form of hard, four- or six-sided prisms with the odour of sassafras, often attaining more than 4 inches in length and 1 inch in diameter, belongs to the monosymmetric system, as shown by Arzruni.[2000] Safrol, C₁₀H₁₀O₂, liquefies at 8°·5 C. (47° F.), having at 12° C. a sp. gr. of 1·11; it boils at 232° C., and is devoid of rotatory power, nor is it soluble in alkalis. The researches of Grimaux and Ruotte (1869) show the oil to contain nine-tenths of its weight of Safrol which they observed only in the liquid state.

[1999] According to information obtained by Procter, 11 bushels of chips (the charge of a still) yields from 1 to 5 lb. of oil, the amount varying with the quality of the root and the proportion of bark it may contain.—Procter, Essay on Sassafras in the Proceedings of the American Pharm. Association, 1866. 217.

[2000] Poggendorff’s Annalen, clviii. (1876) 249, with figures of the crystals.

Another constituent of sassafras oil has been termed by Grimaux and Ruotte Safrene; it boils at 155° to 157° C., has a sp. gr. of 0·834 and the formula C₁₀H₁₆. It has the same odour as safrol, but deviates the plane of polarization to the right.

It was further found by the same observers that the crude oil contains an extremely small quantity of a substance of the phenol class, which can be removed by caustic lye and separated by an acid.

We succeeded in obtaining this substance by using that portion of the crude oil from which the safrol had separated. The phenol remains in the mother-liquor after it has again been cooled and has afforded a new crystallization of safrol. The phenol thus obtained assumes a beautiful greenish blue hue on addition of an alcoholic solution of perchloride of iron.

The Sassarubin and Sassafrin of Hare (1837) are impure products of the decomposition of sassafras oil by means of sulphuric acid.

The bark and also to some extent the wood, in both cases of the root, contain tannic acid which produces a blue colour with persalts of iron. By oxidation, we must suppose, it is converted into the red colouring matter deposited in the bark and, in smaller quantity, in the heartwood of old trees. The young wood is nearly white. The said red substance probably agrees with that to which Reinsch in 1845 and 1846 gave the name of Sassafrid, and is doubtless analogous to cinchona-red and ratanhia-red. Reinsch obtained it to the extent of 9·2 per cent.

=Production and Commerce=—Baltimore is the chief mart for sassafras root, bark and oil, which are brought thither from within a circuit of 300 miles. The roots are extracted from the ground by the help of levers, partly barked and partly sent untouched to the market, or are cut up into chips for distillation on the spot. Of the bark as much as 100,000 lb. were received in Baltimore in 1866. The quantity of oil annually produced previous to the war is estimated at 15,000 to 20,000 lb. There are isolated small distillers in Pennsylvania and West New Jersey, who are allowed by the owners of a “sassafras wilderness” to remove from the ground the roots and stumps without charge. Sassafras root is not medicinal in the United States, the more aromatic root-bark being reasonably preferred.[2001]

=Uses=—Sassafras is reputed to be sudorific and stimulant, but in British practice it is only given in combination with sarsaparilla and guaiacum. Shavings of the wood are sold to make Sassafras Tea.

In America the essential oil is used to give a pleasant flavour to effervescing drinks, tobacco and toilet soaps.[2002]

=Substitutes=—The odour of sassafras is common to several plants of the order Lauraceæ. Thus the bark of Mesphilodaphne Sassafras Meissn., a tree of Brazil, resembles in odour true sassafras. We have seen a very thick sassafras bark brought from India, the same we suppose as that which Mason[2003] describes as abundantly produced in Burma.

The bark of Atherosperma moschatum Labillardière, an Australian tree, is occasionally exported from Australia under the name of Sassafras bark. It has the odour of the true drug, but differs from it by its grey colour.

[2001] Besides this, the pith of sassafras is also there used as a popular remedy; it is entirely devoid of odour and taste, and is very slightly mucilaginous.

[2002] American Journ. of Pharm. 1871. 470.

[2003] Burmah, its people and natural productions, 1860. 497.

The large separate cotyledons of two lauraceous trees of the Rio Negro, doubtfully referred by Meissner to the genus Nectandra, furnish the so-called Sassafras Nuts or Puchury or Pilchurim Beans of Brazil, occasionally to be met with in old drug warehouses.

On the Orinoko and in Guiana an oleo-resin, called Sassafras Oil or Laurel Oil, is obtained by boring into the stem of Oreodaphne opifera Nees, which sometimes contains a cavity holding a large quantity of this fluid.[2004] A similar oil (Aceite de Sassafras) is afforded on the Rio Negro by Nectandra Cymbarum Nees.[2005]

[2004] Brit. Guiana at the Paris Exhibition, 1878, Sect. C. p. 7.

[2005] Spruce in Hooker’s Journ. of Bot. vii. (1855) 278.

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THYMELEÆ

CORTEX MEZEREI.

Mezereon Bark; F. Ecorce de Mézéréon, Bois gentil; G. Seidelbast-Rinde.

=Botanical Origin=—Daphne Mezereum L., an erect shrub, 1 to 3 feet high, the branches of which are crowded with purple flowers in the early spring, before the full expansion of the oblong, lanceolate, deciduous leaves. The flowers are succeeded by red berries. It is a native of the hilly parts of almost the whole of Europe, from Italy to the Arctic regions, and extends eastward to Siberia. In Britain it occurs here and there in a few of the southern and midland counties, and even reaches Yorkshire and Westmoreland, but there is reason to think it is not truly indigenous. Gerarde, who was well acquainted with it, did not regard it as a British plant.

=History=—The Arabian physicians used a plant called Mázariyún, the effects of which they compared to those of euphorbium; it was probably a species of Daphne. The word mázariyún is, we are told by competent Arabic scholars, not of Arabic origin, but in all probability derived from the Greek idiom, in which however we are unable to trace its origin. D. Mezereum was known to the early botanists of Europe, as Daphnoides Chamælæa, Thymelæa, Chamædaphne. Tragus described it and figured it in 1546 under the name of Mezereum Germanicum. The bark had a place in the German pharmacy of the 17th century under the name of cortex Coccognidii s. Mezerei; the berries were the Cocca gnidia s. knidia of the old pharmacy.

=Description=—Mezereon has a very tough and fibrous bark easily removed in long strips which curl inwards as they dry; it is collected in winter and made up into rolls or bundles. The bark, which rarely exceeds ¹/₂₀ of an inch in thickness, has an internal greyish or reddish-brown corky coat which is easily separable from a green inner layer, white and satiny on the side next the wood. That of younger branches is marked with prominent leaf-scars. The bark is too tough to be broken, but easily tears into fibrous strips. When fresh, it has an unpleasant odour which is lost in drying; its taste is persistently burning and acrid. Applied in a moist state to the skin, it occasions, after some hours, redness and even vesication.

=Microscopic Structure=—The cambial zone is formed of about ten rows of delicate unequal cells. The libre consists chiefly of simple fibres alternating with parenchymatous bundles, and traversed by medullary rays. The fibres are very long,—frequently more than 3 mm., and from 5 to 10 mkm. in diameter, their walls being always but little thickened. In the outer part of the liber there occur bundles of thick-walled bast-tubes, while chlorophyll and starch granules appear generally throughout the middle cortical layer. The suberous coat is made up of about 30 dense rows of thin-walled tabular cells, which examined in a tangential section, have an hexagonal outline. Small quantities of tannic matter are deposited in the cambial and suberous zones.

=Chemical Composition=—The acrid principle of mezereon is a resinoid substance contained in the inner bark; it has not yet been examined. The fruits were found by Martius (1862) to contain more than 40 per cent. of a fatty, vesicating oil, which appears to be likewise present in the bark.

The name Daphnin has been given to a crystallizable substance obtained by Vauquelin in 1808 from Daphne alpina, and afterwards found by C. G. Gmelin and Baer in the bark of D. Mezereum. Zwenger in 1860 ascertained it to be a glucoside of bitter taste, having the composition C₁₅H₁₆O₉ + 2 OH₂, the same as that of Æsculin, the fluorescing principle occurring in the bark of Æsculus Hippocastanum and the root-bark of Gelsemium nitidum Michaux (G. sempervirens Aiton).—Coccognin, isolated in 1870 by Casselmann from the fruits of D. Mezereum, appears to be closely allied to if not identical with daphnin.

When daphnin is boiled with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid, it furnishes Daphnetin, C₉H₆O₄ + OH₂, described by Zwenger as crystallizing in colourless prisms. By dry distillation of an alcoholic extract of mezereon bark, the same chemist obtained Umbelliferone (p. 322).

=Uses=—Mezereon taken internally is supposed to be alterative and sudorific, and useful in venereal, rheumatic and scrofulous complaints; but in English medicine it is never now given except as an ingredient of the Compound Decoction of Sarsaparilla. An ethereal extract of the bark has been introduced (1867) as an ingredient of a powerful stimulating liniment. On the Continent, the bark itself, soaked in vinegar and water, is applied with a bandage as a vesicant.

=Substitutes=—Owing to the difficulty of procuring the bark of the root of D. Mezereum, the herbalists who supply the London druggists have been long in the habit of substituting that of D. Laureola L., an evergreen species, not uncommon in woods and hedge-sides in several parts of England. The British Pharmacopœia (1864 and 1867) permits Cortex Mezerei to be obtained indiscriminately from either of these species, and does not follow the London College in insisting on the bark of the root alone. That of the stem of D. Laureola corresponds in structure with the bark of the true mezereon, but wants the prominent leaf-scars that mark the upper branches of the latter; it is reputed to be somewhat less acrid than mezereon bark. The mezereon bark of English trade is now mostly imported from Germany, and seems to be derived from D. Mezereum.

In France, use is made of the stem-bark of D. Gnidium L., a shrub growing throughout the whole Mediterranean region as far as Morocco. The bark is dark grey or brown, marked with numerous whitish leaf-scars, which display a very regular spiral arrangement. The leaves themselves, some of which are occasionally met with in the drug, are sharply mucronate and very narrow. As to structural peculiarities, the bark of D. Gnidium has the medullary rays more obvious and more loaded with tannic matters than those of D. Mezereum; but the middle cortical layer is less developed. The bark, which is called Ecorce de Gaoru, is employed as an epispastic.

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ARTOCARPACEÆ

CARICÆ.

Fructus Caricæ, Fici; Figs; F. Figues; G. Feigen.

=Botanical Origin=—Ficus Carica L., a deciduous tree, 15 to 20 feet in height, with large rough leaves, forming a handsome mass of foliage.

The native country of the fig stretches from the steppes of the Eastern Aral, along the south and south-west coast of the Caspian Sea (Ghilan, Mazanderan, and the Caucasus), through Kurdistan, to Asia Minor and Syria. In these countries the fig-tree ascends into the mountain region, growing undoubtedly wild in the Taurus at an elevation of 4,800 feet.[2006]

The fig-tree is repeatedly mentioned in the Scriptures, where with the vine it often stands as the symbol of peace and plenty. The fig was not known in Greece, the Archipelago, and the neighbouring coasts of Asia Minor during the Homeric age, though both were very common in the time of Plato. The fig-tree was early introduced into Italy, whence it reached Spain and Gaul. In the opinion of palæontologists the fig-tree was originally indigenous to the last named Mediterranean regions.

Charlemagne, A.D. 812, ordered its cultivation in Central Europe. It was brought to England in the reign of Henry VIII. by Cardinal Pole, whose trees still exist in the garden of Lambeth Palace. But it had certainly been in cultivation at a much earlier period, for the historian Matthew Paris relates[2007] that the year 1257 was so inclement that apples and pears were scarce in England, and that figs, cherries, and plums totally failed to ripen.

At the present day the fig-tree is found cultivated in most of the temperate countries both of the Old and New World.[2008] It is met with in the plains of north-western India, and in the outer hills of the north-western Himalaya as high as 5,000 feet; also in the Dekkan, and in Beluchistan and Afghanistan.

[2006] Ritter, Erdkunde von Asien, vii. (1844) 2. 544.

[2007] Eng. Hist., Bohn’s ed., iii. (1854) 255.

[2008] Introduced into Mexico by Cortez about A.D. 1560.

=History=—Figs were a valued article of food among the ancient Hebrews[2009] and Greeks, as they are to the present day in the warmer countries bordering the Mediterranean.[2010] In the time of Pliny many varieties were in cultivation. The Latin word Carica was first used to designate the dried fig of Caria, a strip of country in Asia Minor opposite Rhodes, an esteemed variety of the fruit corresponding to the Smyrna fig of modern times.

In a diploma granted by Chilperic II., king of the Franks, to the monastery of Corbie, A.D. 716, mention is made of “Karigas” in connection with dates, almonds and olives, by which we think dried figs (Caricæ) were intended.[2011] Dried figs were a regular article of trade during the middle ages, from the southern to the northern parts of Europe. In 1380 the citizens of Bruges, in regulating the duties which the “Lombards,” i.e. Italians, had to pay for their imports, quoted also figs from Cyprus and from Marbella, a place south-west of Malaga.[2012]

In England the average price between A.D. 1264 and 1398 was about 1¾_d._ per lb., raisins and currants being 2¾_d._[2013]

=Description=—A fig consists of a thick, fleshy, hollow receptacle of a pear-shaped form, on the inner face of which grow a multitude of minute fruits.[2014] This receptacle, which is provided with an orifice at the top, is at first green, tough and leathery, exuding when pricked a milky juice. The orifice is surrounded, and almost closed by a number of thick, fleshy scales, near which and within the fig, the male flowers are situated, but they are often wanting or are not fully developed. The female flowers stand further within the receptacle, in the body of which they are closely packed; they are stalked, have a 5-leafed perianth and a bipartite stigma. The ovary, which is generally one-celled, becomes when ripe a minute, dry, hard nut, popularly regarded as a seed.

[2009] See in particular 1 Sam. xxv. 18 and 1 Chron. xii. 40; where we read of large supplies of dried figs being provided for the use of fighting men. Also Num. xx. 5; Jer. xxiv. 2; 2 Reg. xx. 7.

[2010] On the Riviera of Genoa dried figs eaten with bread are a common winter food of the peasantry.

[2011] Pardessus, Diplomata, Chartæ, etc., ii. (1849) 309.

[2012] Recesse und andere Akten der Hansetage, ii. (Leipzig, 1872) 235.

[2013] Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, i. (1866) 632.

[2014] Albertus Magnus, in allusion to the peculiar growth of the fig, remarks that the tree “fructum autem profert sine flore.” Page 386 of the work quoted in the Appendix.

As the fig advances to maturity, the receptacle enlarges, becomes softer and more juicy, a saccharine fluid replacing the acrid milky sap. It also acquires a reddish hue, while its exterior becomes purple, brown, or yellow, though in some varieties it continues green. The fresh fig has an agreeable and extremely saccharine taste, but it wants the juiciness and refreshing acidity that characterize many other fruits.

If fig is not gathered its stalk loses its firmness, the fruit hangs pendulous from the branch, begins to shrivel and become more and more saccharine by loss of water, and ultimately, if the climate is favourable, it assumes the condition of a dried fig. On the large scale however, figs are not dried on the tree, but are gathered and exposed to the sun and air in light trays till they acquire the proper degree of dryness. They can only be preserved in those regions where the summer and autumn are very warm and dry.

Dried figs are termed by the dealers either natural or pulled. The first are those which have not been compressed in the packing, and still retain their original shape.[2015] The second are those which after drying have been made supple by squeezing and kneading, and in that state packed with pressure into drums and boxes.

Smyrna figs, which are the most esteemed sort, are of the latter kind. They are of irregular, flattened form, tough, translucent, covered with a saccharine efflorescence; they have a pleasant fruity smell and luscious taste. Figs of inferior quality, as those called in the market Greek Figs, differ chiefly in being smaller and less pulpy.

=Microscopic Structure=—The outer layer of a dried fig is made up of small, thick-walled and densely packed cells, so as to form a kind of skin. The inner lax parenchyme consists of larger thin-walled cells, traversed by vascular bundles and large, slightly branched, laticiferous vessels. The latter contain a granular substance not soluble in water. In the parenchyme, stellate crystals of oxalate of calcium occur, but in no considerable number.

=Chemical Composition=—The chemical changes which take place in the fig during maturation are important, but no researches have yet been made for their elucidation. The chief chemical substance in the ripe fig is grape sugar, which constitutes from 60 to 70 per cent. of the dried fruit. Gum and fatty matter appear to be present only in very small quantity. We have observed that unripe figs are rich in starch.

=Production and Commerce=—Dried figs were imported into the United Kingdom in 1872 to the amount of 141,847 cwt., of which 91,721 cwt. were shipped from Asiatic Turkey, the remainder being from Portugal, Spain, the Austrian territories and other countries. In 1876 the imports were 163,763 cwt., valued at £318,717.

Kalamata, in the Gulf of Messenia, Greece, and Cosenza in the Italian province of Calabria citeriore, are also particularly known as supplying figs to some parts of continental Europe. In 1876 the exports of Kalamata to Trieste were 9½ millions of kilogrammes.

=Uses=—Dried figs are thought to be slightly laxative, and as such are occasionally recommended in habitual constipation. They enter into the composition of Confectio Sennæ.

[2015] The word Eleme applied in the London shops to dried figs of superior quality (“Eleme Figs”) is probably a corruption of the Turkish ellémé, signifying hand-picked.

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MORACEÆ

FRUCTUS MORI.

Baccæ Mori, Mora; Mulberries; F. Mûres; G. Maulbeeren.

=Botanical Origin=—Morus nigra L., a handsome bushy tree, about 30 feet in height, growing wild in Northern Asia Minor, Armenia, and the southern Caucasian regions as far as Persia. In Italy, it was employed for feeding the silkworm until about the year 1434, when M. alba L. was introduced from the Levant,[2016] and has ever since been commonly preferred. Yet in Greece, in many of the Greek islands, Calabria and Corsica, the species planted for the silkworm is still M. nigra.

The mulberry tree is now cultivated throughout Europe, yet, excepting in the regions named, by no means abundantly. It ripens its fruit in England, as well as in Southern Sweden and Gottland, and in Christiania (Schübeler).

=History=—The mulberry tree is mentioned in the Old Testament,[2017] and by most of the early Greek and Roman writers. Among the large number of useful plants ordered by Charlemagne (A.D. 812) to be cultivated on the imperial farms, the mulberry tree (Morarius) did not escape notice.[2018] We meet with it also in a plan sketched A.D. 820, for the gardens of the monastery of St. Gall in Switzerland.[2019] The cultivation of the mulberry in Spain is implied by a reference to the preparation of Syrup of Mulberries in the Calendar of Cordova,[2020] which dates from the year 961.

A curious reference to mulberries, proving them to have been far more esteemed in ancient times than at present, occurs in the statutes of the abbey of Corbie of Normandy, in which we find a Brevis de Melle, showing how much honey the tenants of the monastic lands were required to pay annually, followed by a statement of the quantity of Mulberries which each farm was expected to supply.[2021]

=Description=—The tree bears unisexual catkins; the female, of an ovoid form, consists of numerous flowers with green four-lobed perianths and two linear stigmas. The lobes of the perianth overlapping each other become fleshy, and by their lateral aggregation form the spurious berry, which is shortly stalked, oblong, an inch in length, and, when ripe, of an intense purple. By detaching a single fruit, the lobes of the former perianth may be still discerned. Each fruit encloses a hard lenticular nucule, covering a pendulous seed with curved embryo and fleshy albumen.

Mulberries are extremely juicy and have a refreshing, subacid, saccharine taste; but they are devoid of the fine aroma that distinguishes many fruits of the order Rosaceæ.

=Chemical Composition=—In an analysis made by H. van Hees (1857) 100 parts of mulberries yielded the following constituents:—

Glucose and uncrystallizable sugar 9·19 Free acid (supposed to be malic) 1·86 Albuminous matter 0·39 Pectic matter, fat, salts, and gum 2·03 Ash 0·57 Insoluble matters (the seeds, pectose, cellulose, &c.) 1·25 Water 84·71

[2016] A. De Candolle, Géogr. botanique, ii. (1855) 856.

[2017] 2 Sam. v. 23, 24.

[2018] Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ historica, Leges, iii. (1835) 181.—Consult also Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, 1877.

[2019] F. Keller, Bauriss des Klosters S. Gallen, facsimile, Zürich, 1844.

[2020] Le Calendrier de Cordoue de l’année 961, publié par R. Dozy, Leyde, 1873. 67.

[2021] Guérard, Polyptique de l’Abbé Irminon, Paris, ii. 335.

With regard to the results of researches on other edible fruits, made about the same time in the laboratory of Fresenius, it would appear that the mulberry is one of the most saccharine, being only surpassed by the cherry (10·79 of sugar) and grape (10·6 to 19·0).[2022] It is richer in sugar than the following, namely:—

Raspberries, yielding 4 per cent. of sugar and 1·48 of (malic) acid. Strawberries ” 5·7 ” ” 1·31 ” ” Whortleberries ” 5·8 ” ” 1·34 ” ” Currants ” 6·1 ” ” 2·04 ” ”

The amount of free acid in the mulberry is not small, nor is it excessive. The small proportion of insoluble matters is worthy of notice in comparison, for instance with the whortleberry, which contains no less than 13 per cent. The colouring matter of the mulberry has not been examined. The acid is probably not simply malic, but in part tartaric.

=Uses=—The sole use in medicine of mulberries is for the preparation of a syrup employed to flavour or colour any other medicines. In Greece, the fruit is submitted to fermentation, thereby furnishing an inebriating beverage.

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CANNABINEÆ

HERBA CANNABIS.

Cannabis Indica; Indian Hemp; F. Chanvre Indien; G. Hanfkraut.

=Botanical Origin=—Cannabis sativa L., Common Hemp, an annual diœcious plant, native of Western and Central Asia, cultivated in temperate as well as in tropical countries.

It grows wild luxuriantly on the banks of the lower Ural and Volga near the Caspian Sea, extending thence to Persia, the Altai range, and Northern and Western China. It is found in Kashmir and on the Himalaya, growing 10 to 12 feet high, and thriving vigorously at an elevation of 6000 to 10,000 feet. It likewise occurs in Tropical Africa, on the eastern and western coasts as well as in the central tracts watered by the Congo and Zambesi, but whether truly indigenous is doubtful. It has been naturalized in Brazil, north of Rio de Janeiro, the seeds having been brought thither by the negroes from Western Africa. The cultivation of hemp is carried on in many parts of continental Europe, but especially in Central and Southern Russia.

The hemp plant grown in India exhibits certain differences as contrasted with that cultivated in Europe, which were noticed by Rumphius in the 17th century, and which (about A.D. 1790), induced Lamarck to claim for the former plant the rank of a distinct species, under the name of Cannabis indica. But the variations observed in the two plants are of so little botanical importance and are so inconstant, that the maintenance of C. indica as distinct from C. sativa has been abandoned by general consent.

[2022] The fig excepted, which is much more saccharine than any.

In a medicinal point of view, there is a wide dissimilarity between hemp grown in India and that produced in Europe, the former being vastly more potent. Yet even in India there is much variation, for, according to Jameson, the plant grown at altitudes of 6000 to 8000 feet affords the resin known as Charas, which cannot be obtained from that cultivated on the plains.[2023]

=History=—Hemp has been propagated on account of its textile fibre and oily seeds from a remote period.

The ancient Chinese herbal called Rh-ya, written about the 5th century B.C., notices the fact that the hemp plant is of two kinds, the one producing seeds, the other flowers only.[2024] In Susruta, Charaka and other early works on Hindu medicine, hemp (B’hanga) is mentioned as a remedy. Herodotus states that hemp grows in Scythia both wild and cultivated, and that the Thracians made garments from it which can hardly be distinguished from linen. He also describes how the Scythians expose themselves as in a bath to the vapour of the seeds thrown on hot coals.[2025]

The Greeks and Romans appear to have been unacquainted with the medicinal powers of hemp, unless indeed the care-destroying Νηπενθές should, as Royle has supposed, be referred to this plant. According to Stanislas Julien,[2026] anæsthetic powers were ascribed by the Chinese to preparations of hemp as early as the commencement of the 3rd century.

The employment of hemp both medical and dietetic appears to have spread slowly through India and Persia to the Arabians, amongst whom the plant was used in the early middle ages. The famous heretical sect of Mahomedans, whose murderous deeds struck terror into the hearts of the Crusaders during the 11th and 12th centuries, derived their name of Hashishin, or, as it is commonly written, assassins, from hashísh the Arabic for hemp,[2027] which in certain of their rites they used as an intoxicant.[2028] In 1286 of our era, the Sultan of Egypt, Bibars al Bondokdary, prohibited the sale of hashish, the monopoly of which had been leased before.[2029]

The use of hemp (bhang) in India was particularly noticed by Garcia de Orta[2030] (1563), and the plant was subsequently figured by Rheede, who described the drug as largely used on the Malabar coast. It would seem about this time to have been imported into Europe, at least occasionally, for Berlu in his Treasury of Drugs, 1690, describes it as coming from Bantam in the East Indies, and “of an infatuating quality and pernicious use.“

[2023] Journ. of the Agric. and Hortic. Soc. of India, viii. 167.

[2024] Bretschneider, On Chinese Botanical Works, 1870. 5. 10. Part of the Rh-ya was written in the 12th cent. B.C.

[2025] Rawlinson’s translation, iii. (1859) book 4, chap. 74-5.

[2026] Comptes Rendus, xxviii. (1849) 195.

[2027] Hence the words assassin and assassinate. Weil, however, is of opinion that the word assassin is more probably derived from sikkin, a dagger.—Geschichte der Chalifen, iv. (1860) 101.

[2028] The miscreant who assassinated Justice Norman at Calcutta, 20 Sept. 1871, is said to have acted under the influence of hashísh. Bellew (Indus to the Tigris, 1874. 218) states that the Afghan chief who murdered Dr. Forbes in 1842, had for some days previously been more or less intoxicated with Charas or Bhang.

[2029] Quatremère, Memoires sur l’Egypte ii. (1811) 504, according to Makrisi.

[2030] Colloquios dos simples e drogas e cousas medicinaes da India, ed. 2, Lisboa, 1872, 27.

It was Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt that was the means of again calling attention to the peculiar properties of hemp, by the accounts of De Sacy (1809) and Rouger (1810). But the introduction of the Indian drug into European medicine is of still more recent date, and is chiefly due to the experiments made in Calcutta by O’Shaughnessy in 1838-39.[2031] Although the astonishing effects produced in India by the administration of preparations of hemp are seldom witnessed in the cooler climate of Britain, the powers of the drug are sufficiently manifest to give it an established place in the pharmacopœia.

=Production=—Though hemp is grown in many parts of India, yet as a drug it is chiefly produced in a limited area in the districts of Bogra and Rājshāhi, north of Calcutta, where the plant is cultivated for the purpose in a systematic manner. The retail sale, like that of opium and spirits, is restricted by a license, which in 1871-2 produced to the Government of Bengal about £120,000, while upon opium (chiefly consumed in Assam) the amount raised was £310,000.[2032] Bhang is one of the principal commodities imported into India from Turkestan.

=Description=—The leaves of hemp have long stalks with small stipules at their bases, and are composed of 5 to 7 lanceolate-acuminate leaflets, sharply serrate at the margin. The loose panicles of male flowers, and the short spikes of female flowers, are produced on separate plants, from the axils of the leaves. The fruits, called Hemp-seeds, are small grey nuts or achenes, each containing a single oily seed. In common with other plants of the order, hemp abounds in silica which gives a roughness to its leaves and stems. In European medicine, the only hemp employed is that grown in India, which occurs in two principal forms, namely:—

1. =Bhang=, Siddhī or Sabzī (Hindustani); Hashish or Qinnaq (Arabic). This consists of the dried leaves and small stalks, which are of a dark green colour, coarsely broken, and mixed with here and there a few fruits. It has a peculiar but not unpleasant odour, and scarcely any taste. In India, it is smoked either with or without tobacco, but more commonly it is made up with flour and various additions into a sweetmeat or majun,[2033] of a green colour. Another form of taking it is that of an infusion, made by immersing the pounded leaves in cold water.

2. =Ganja= (Hindustani); Qinnab (Arabic); Guaza[2034] of the London drug-brokers. These are the flowering or fruiting shoots of the female plant, and consist in some samples of straight, stiff, woody stems some inches long, surrounded by the upward branching flower-stalks; in others of more succulent and much shorter shoots, 2 to 3 inches long, and of less regular form. In either case, the shoots have a compressed and glutinous appearance, are very brittle, and of a brownish-green hue. In odour and in the absence of taste ganja resembles bhang. It is said that after the leaves which constitute bhang have been gathered, little shoots sprout from the stem, and that these picked off and dried form what is called ganja.[2035]

[2031] For a notice of them, see O’Shaughnessy, On the preparation of the Indian Hemp or Gunjah, Calcutta, 1839; also Bengal Dispensatory, Calcutta, 1842. 579-604. An immense number of references to writers who have touched on the medicinal properties of hemp, will be found in the elaborate essay entitled Studien über den Hanf, by Dr. G. Martius (Erlangen, 1855).

[2032] Blue Book quoted at p. 52, note 1.

[2033] Magi-oun is the Persian name for electuaries, of which more than 70 are found, for instance, in the Pharmacopœia Persica (see Appendix, Angelus), p. 291 to 321.

[2034] This name is not used in India, but seems to be a corruption of ganja.

[2035] Powell, Economic Products of the Punjab, Roorkee, i. (1868) 293.

=Chemical Composition=—The most interesting constituents of hemp, from a medical point of view, are the resin and volatile oil.

The former was first obtained in a state of comparative purity by T. and H. Smith in 1846.[2036] It is a brown amorphous solid, burning with a bright white flame and leaving no ash. It has a very potent action when taken internally, two-thirds of a grain acting as a powerful narcotic, and one grain producing complete intoxication. From the experiments of Messrs. Smith, it seems to us impossible to doubt that to this resin the energetic effects of cannabis are mainly due.

When water is repeatedly distilled from considerable quantities of hemp, fresh lots of the latter being used for each operation, a volatile oil lighter than water is obtained, together with ammonia. This oil, according to the observations of Personne (1857), is amber-coloured, and has an oppressive hemp-like smell. It sometimes deposits an abundance of small crystals. With due precautions it may be separated into two bodies, the one of which, named by Personne Cannabene,[2037] is liquid and colourless, with the formula C₁₈H₂₀; the other, which is called Hydride of Cannabene, is a solid, separating from alcohol in platy crystals to which Personne assigns the formula C₁₈H₂₂. He asserts that cannabene has indubitably a physiological action, and even claims it as the sole active principle of hemp. Its vapour he states to produce when breathed a singular sensation of shuddering, a desire of locomotion, followed by prostration and sometimes by syncope.[2038] Bohlig in 1840 observed similar effects from the oil, which he obtained from the fresh herb, just after flowering, to the extent of 0·3 per cent.

It remains to be proved whether an alkaloid is present in hemp, as suggested by Preobraschensky.[2039]

The other constituents of hemp are those commonly occurring in other plants. The leaves yield nearly 20 per cent. of ash.

As to the resin of Indian hemp, Bolas and Francis in treating it with nitric acid, converted it into Oxycannabin, C₂₀H₂₀N₂O₇. This interesting substance may, they say, be obtained in large prisms from a solution in methylic alcohol. It melts at 176° C. and then evaporates without decomposition; it is neutral.[2040] One of us (F.) has endeavoured to obtain it from the purified resin of charas, but without success.

[2036] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1847) 171.

[2037] Journ. de Pharm. xxxix. (1857) 48; Canstatt’s Jahresbericht for 1857, i. 28.

[2038] Personne, though he admits the activity of the resin prepared by Smith’s process, contends that it is a mixed body, and that further purification deprives it of all volatile matter and renders it inert. This is not astonishing when one finds that the “purification” was effected by treatment with caustic lime or soda-lime, and exposure to a temperature of 300° C. (572° F.)! That the resin of the Edinburgh chemists does not owe its activity to volatile matter, is proved by their own experiment of exposing a small quantity in a very thin layer to 82° C. for 8 hours: the medicinal action of the resin so treated was found to be unimpaired.

[2039] Dragendorff’s Jahresbericht, 1876. 98.

[2040] Chemical News, xxiv. (1871) 77.

=Uses=—Hemp is employed as a soporific, anodyne, antispasmodic, and as a nervous stimulant. It is used in the form of alcoholic extract, administered either in a solid or liquid form. In the East it is consumed to an enormous extent by Hindus and Mahomedans, who either smoke it with tobacco, or swallow it in combination with other substances.[2041]

Charas.

No account of hemp as a drug would be complete without some notice of this substance, which is regarded as of great importance by Asiatic nations.

Charas or Churrus is the resin which exudes in minute drops from the yellow glands, with which the plant is provided in increasing number according to the elevated temperature (and altitude?) of the country where it grows. The varieties of hemp richest in resin, at least in the Laos country in the Malayan Peninsula, scarcely attain the height of 3 feet, and show densely curled leaves.[2042] Charas is collected in several ways:—one is by rubbing the tops of the plants in the hands when the seeds are ripe, and scraping from the fingers the adhering resin. Another is thus performed:—men clothed in leather garments walk about among growing hemp, in doing which the resin of the plant attaches itself to the leather, whence it is from time to time scraped off. A third method consists in collecting, with many precautions to avoid its poisonous effects, the dust which is caused when heaps of dry bhang are stirred about.[2043]

By whichever of these processes obtained, charas is of necessity a foul and crude drug, the use of which is properly excluded from civilized medicine. As before remarked (p. 547) it is not obtainable from hemp grown indiscriminately in any situation even in India, but is only to be got from plants produced at a certain elevation on the hills.

The best charas, which is that brought from Yarkand, is a brown, earthy-looking substance, forming compact yet friable, irregular masses of considerable size. Examined under a strong pocket lens, it appears to be made up of minute, transparent grains of brown resin, agglutinated with short hairs of the plant. It has a hemp-like odour, with but little taste even in alcoholic solution. A second and a third quality of Yarkand charas represent the substance in a less pure state. Charas viewed under the microscope exhibits a crystalline structure, due to inorganic matter. It yields from ¼ to ⅓ of its weight of an amorphous resin, which is readily dissolved by bisulphide of carbon or spirit of wine. The resin does not redden litmus, nor is it soluble in caustic potash. It has a dark brown colour, which we have not succeeded in removing by animal charcoal. The residual part of charas yields to water a little chloride of sodium, and consists in large proportion of carbonate of calcium and peroxide of iron. These results have been obtained in examining samples from Yarkand.[2044] Other specimens which we have also examined, have the aspect of a compact dark resin.

Charas is exported from Yarkand[2045] and Kashgar, the first of which places exported during 1867, 1830 maunds (146,400 lb.) to Lê, whence the commodity is carried to the Punjab and Kashmir. Smaller quantities are annually imported from Kandahar and Samarkand;[2046] some charas appears also (1876) to be exported from Mandshuria to China. The drug is mostly consumed by smoking with tobacco; it is not found in European commerce.

[2041] For further information, consult Cooke’s Seven Sisters of Sleep, Lond., chap. xv.-xvii; also Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann, 1872. 600.

[2042] Garnier, Voyage d’Exploration en Indo-Chine, ii. (1873) 410.

[2043] Powell, Economic Products of the Punjab, Roorkee, 1868. 293.

[2044] Obtained by Colonel H. Strachey, and now in the Kew Museum. It is by no means evident by what process they were collected.

[2045] Forsyth, Correspondence on Mission to Yarkand, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed, Feb. 28, 1871; also Henderson and Hume, Lahore to Yarkand, Lond. 1873. 334.

[2046] Stewart, Punjab Plants, Lahore, 1869. 216.

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STROBILI HUMULI

Humulus vel Lupulus; Hops; F. Houblon; G. Hopfen.

=Botanical Origin=—Humulus Lupulus L.,—a diœcious perennial plant, producing long annual twining stems which climb freely over trees and bushes. It is found wild, especially in thickets on the banks of rivers, throughout all Europe, from Spain, Sicily and Greece to Scandinavia; and extends also to the Caucasus, the South Caspian region, and through Central and Southern Siberia to the Altai mountains. It has been introduced into North America, Brazil (Rio Grande do Sul), and Australia.

=History=—Hops have been used from a remote period in the brewing of beer, of which they are now regarded as an indispensable ingredient. Hop gardens, under the name humularia or humuleta, are mentioned as existing in France and Germany in the 8th and 9th centuries; and Bohemian and Bavarian hops have been known as an esteemed kind since the 11th century. A grant alleged to have been made by William the Conqueror in 1069, of hops and hop-lands in the county of Salop,[2047] would indicate, were it free from doubt, a very early cultivation of the hop in England.

As to the use made of hops in these early times, it would appear that they were regarded in somewhat of a medicinal aspect. In the Herbarium of Apuleius,[2048] an English manuscript written about A.D. 1050, it is said of the hop (hymele) that its good qualities are such that men put it in their usual drinks; and St. Hildegard,[2049] a century later, states that the hop (hoppho) is added to beverages, partly for its wholesome bitterness, and partly because it makes them keep.

Hops for brewing were among the produce which the tenants of the abbey of St. Germain in Paris[2050] had to furnish to the monastery in the beginning of the 9th century; yet in the middle of the 14th century, beer without such addition was still brewed in Paris.

[2047] Blount, Tenures of Land and Customs of Manors, edited by Hazlitt, 1874. 165.

[2048] Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, edited by Cockayne, i. (1864) 173; ii. (1865) ix.

[2049] Opera Omnia, accurante J. P. Migne, Paris, 1855. 1153.

[2050] Guérard, Polyptique de l’abbé Irminon, i. (1844) 714. 896.

The brewsters, bakers and millers of London were the subject of a mandate of Edward I. in A.D. 1298; but there is no reason for inferring that the manufacture of malt liquor at this period involved the use of hops. It is plain indeed that somewhat later, hops were not generally used, for in the 4th year of Henry VI. (1425-26), an information was laid against a person for putting into beer “an unwholesome weed called an hopp;”[2051] and in the same reign, Parliament was petitioned against “that wicked weed called hops.”

But it is evident that hops were soon found to possess good qualities, and that though their use was denounced, it was not suppressed. Thus in the regulations for the household of Henry VIII. (1530-31), there is an injunction that the brewer is “not to put any hops or brimstone into the ale”;[2052] while in the very same year (1530), hundreds of pounds of Flemish hops were purchased for the use of the noble family of L’Estranges of Hunstanton.[2053]

In 1552 the cultivation of hops in England was distinctly sanctioned by the 5th and 6th of Edward VI. c. 5, which directs that land formerly in tillage should again be so cultivated, excepting it should have been set with hops or saffron. Notwithstanding these facts, hops were for a long period hardly regarded an essential in brewing, as may be gathered from the remark of Gerarde (ob. A.D. 1607), who speaks of them as used “to season” beer or ale, explaining that notwithstanding their manifold virtues, they “rather make it a physical drinke to keepe the body in health, than an ordinary drinke for the quenching of our thirst.” In reality, other herbs were for a long period employed to impart to malt liquor a bitter or aromatic taste, as Ground Ivy (Nepeta Glechoma Benth.); anciently called Ale-hoof or Gill; Alecost (Balsamita vulgaris L.); Sweet Gale (Myrica Gale L.); and Sage (Salvia officinalis L.). Even Long Pepper and Bay Berries were used for the same purpose,[2054] but in addition to hops.

Though English hops were esteemed superior to foreign, and were extensively grown as early as 1603, as shown by an act of James I.,[2055] Flemish hops continued to be imported in considerable quantities down to 1693.

[2051] The authority for this statement is an isolated memorandum in a MS. volume (No. 980) by Thomas Gybbons, preserved in the Harleian collection in the British Museum.

[2052] Archæologia, iii. (1786) 157.

[2053] Ibid. xxv. (1834) 505.

[2054] Holinshed, Chronicles, vol. i. book 2. cap. 6.

[2055] 1 James I. (anno 1603) cap. 18.

=Structure=—The inflorescence of the male plant constitutes a large panicle; that of the female is less conspicuous, consisting of stalked catkins which by their growth develope large leafy imbricating bracts, ultimately forming an ovoid cone or strobile, which is the officinal part. This catkin consists of a short central zigzag stalk, bearing overlapping rudimentary leaflets, each represented by a pair of stipules. Between them are 4 female florets, each supported by a bract. After flowering, the stipules as well as the bracts are much enlarged, and then form the persistent, yellowish-green, pendulous strobile. At maturity, each bract infolds at its base a small lenticular closed fruit or nut, ⅒ of an inch in diameter. The nut is surrounded by a membranous, one-leafed perigone, and contains within its fragile, brown shell an exalbuminous seed. These fruits, as well as the axis and the base of all the leaf-like organs, are beset with numerous shining, translucent glands, to which the aromatic smell and taste of hops are due.

=Description=—Hops as found in commerce consist entirely of the fully developed strobiles or cones, more or less compressed. They have a greenish yellow colour, an agreeable and peculiar aroma, and a bitter aromatic burning taste. When rubbed in the hand they feel clammy, and emit a more powerful odour. By keeping, hops lose their greenish colour and become brown, at the same time acquiring an unpleasant odour, by reason of the formation of a little valerianic acid. Exposure to the vapour of sulphurous acid retards or prevents this alteration. For medicinal use, hops smelling of sulphurous acid should be avoided, though in reality the acid speedily becomes innocuous. Liebig has refuted the objections raised by brewers to the sulphuring of hops.

=Chemical Composition=—Besides the constituents of the glands which are described in the next article, hops contain according to Etti’s elaborate investigations (1876, 1878) humulotannic acid and phlobaphene. The former is a whitish amorphous mass, soluble in alcohol, hot water or acetic ether, not in ether. By heating the humulotannic acid at 130° C., or by boiling its aqueous or alcoholic solutions, it gives off water, and is transformed into phlobaphene, a dark red amorphous substance,

(C₂₅H₂₄O₁₃)₂ = OH₂ · C₅₀H₄₆O₂₅. humulotannic phlobaphene. acid.

The latter substance, on boiling it with dilute mineral acids, again loses water and furnishes glucose.

From raw phlobaphene ether removes the bitter principles of hops, a colourless crystallizable and a brown amorphous resin, besides chlorophyll and essential oil.

By distilling hops with water, 0·9 per cent. of essential oil are obtained. Personne (1854) stated it to contain Valerol,[2056] C₆H₁₀O, which passes into valerianic acid; the latter in fact occurs in the glands, yet according to Méhu[2057] only to the extent of 0·1 to 0·17 per cent. When distilled from the fresh strobiles the oil has a greenish colour, but a reddish-brown when old hops have been employed. We find it to be devoid of rotatory power, neutral to litmus paper, and not striking any remarkable coloration with concentrated sulphuric acid.

Griessmayer (1874) has shown that hops contain Trimethylamine, and in small proportion a liquid volatile alkaloid not yet analysed, which he terms Lupuline. The latter is stated to have the odour of conine, and to assume a violet hue when treated with chromate of potassium and sulphuric acid.

Lastly, Etti also found arabic (pectic) acid, phosphates, nitrates, malates, citrates, and also sulphates, chiefly of potassium, to occur in hops. The amount of ash afforded by hops dried at 100° C. would appear to be on an average about 6-7 per cent.

=Production and Commerce=—England was estimated as having in 1873, 63,276 acres under hops. The chief district for the cultivation is the county of Kent, where in that year 39,040 acres were devoted to this plant. Hops are grown to a much smaller extent in Sussex, and in still diminished quantity in Herefordshire, Hampshire, Worcestershire and Surrey. The other counties of England and the principality of Wales produce but a trifling amount, and Scotland none at all.

In continental Europe, hops are most largely produced in Bavaria and Württemberg, Belgium and France, but in each on a smaller scale than in England. France in 1872 is stated to have 9223 acres under hops.[2058]

[2056] A substance with which we are not acquainted.

[2057] Thèse, Montpellier, 1867.

[2058] Agricultural Returns of Great Britain, &c., 1873, presented to Parliament, 48. 49. 70. 71.

Notwithstanding the extensive production of hops in England, there is a large importation from other countries. The importation in 1872 was 135,965 cwt., valued at £679,276: of this quantity, Belgium supplied 66,630 cwt., Germany 36,612 cwt., Holland 16,675 cwt., the United States 10,414 cwt., France 5,328 cwt. During the same period hops were exported from the United Kingdom to the extent of 31,215 cwt.[2059]

=Uses=—Hops are administered medicinally as a tonic and sedative, chiefly in the form of tincture, infusion or extract.

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GLANDULÆ HUMULI

Lupulina; Lupulin, Lupulinic Grains; F. Lupuline; G. Hopfendrüsen, Hopfenstaub.

=Botanical Origin=—Humulus Lupulus L. (see preceding article). The minute, shining, translucent glands of the strobile constitute when detached therefrom the substance called Lupulin.

=History=—The glands of hop were separated and chemically examined by L. A. Planche, a pharmacien of Paris, whose observations were first briefly described by Loiseleur-Deslongchamps in 1819.[2060] In the following year, Dr. A. W. Ives of New York[2061] published an account of his experiments upon hops and their glands, to which latter he applied the name of Lupulin. Payen and Chevallier, Planche and others, made further experiments on the same subject, endorsing the recommendation of Ives that lupulin (or, as they preferred to call it, Lupuline) might be advantageously used in medicine in place of hops.

[2059] Annual Statement of the Trade of the United Kingdom for 1872. 49. 93.

[2060] Manuel des Plantes usuelles et indigènes, 1819. ii. 503.

[2061] Silliman’s Journ. of Science, ii. (1820) 302.

=Production=—Lupulin is obtained by stripping off the bracts of hops, and shaking and rubbing them; and then separating the powder by a sieve. The powder thus detached ought to be washed by decantation, so as to remove from it the sand or earth with which it is always contaminated; finally it should be dried, and stored in well-closed bottles. From the dried strobiles, 8 to 12 per cent. of lupulin may be obtained.

=Description=—Lupulin seen in quantity appears as a yellowish-brown granular powder, having an agreeable odour of hops and a bitter aromatic taste. It is gradually wetted by water, instantly by alcohol or ether, but not by potash or sulphuric acid. By trituration in a mortar the cells are ruptured so that it may be worked into a plastic mass. Thrown into the air and then ignited, it burns with a brilliant flame like lycopodium.

=Microscopic Structure=—The lupulinic gland or grain, like the generality of analogous organs, is formed by an intumescence of the cuticle of the nuculæ and bracts of hop (see p. 552). Each grain is originally attached by a very short stalk, which is no longer perceptible in the drug. The gland, exhausted by ether and macerated in water, is a globular or ovoid thin-walled sac, measuring from 140 to 240 mkm. It consists of two distinct, nearly hemispherical parts; that originally provided with the stalk is built up of tabular polyhedric cells, whilst the upper hemisphere shows a continuous delicate membrane. This part therefore easily collapses, and thus exhibits a variety of form, the greater also as the grains turn pole or equator to the observer.[2062]

The hop gland is filled with a thick, dark brown or yellowish liquid, which in the drug is contracted into one mass occupying the centre of the gland. It may be expelled in minute drops when the wall is made to burst by warming the grain in glycerin. The colouring matter, to which the wall owes its fine yellow colour, adheres more obstinately to the thinner hemisphere, and is more easily extracted from the thicker part by means of ether.

=Chemical Composition=—The odour of lupulinic grains resides in the essential oil, described in the previous article. The bitter principle formerly called Lupulin or Lupulite was first isolated by Lermer (1863) who called it the bitter acid of hops (Hopfenbittersäure). It crystallizes in large brittle rhombic prisms, and possesses in a high degree the peculiar bitter taste of beer, in which however it can be present only in very small proportion, it being nearly insoluble in water, though easily dissolved by many other liquids. The composition of this acid, C₃₂H₅₀O₇, appears to approximate it to absinthiin; it is contained in the glands in but small proportion. Still smaller is the amount of another crystallizable constituent, regarded by Lermer as an alkaloid.

The main contents of the hop gland consist of wax (Myricylic palmitate, according to Lermer), and resins, one of which is crystalline and unites with bases.

A good specimen of German lupulin, dried over sulphuric acid, yielded us 7·3 per cent. of ash. The same drug exhausted by boiling ether, afforded 76·8 per cent. of an extremely aromatic extract, which on exposure to the steam-bath for a week, lost 3·03 per cent., this loss corresponding to the volatile oil and acids. The residual part was soluble in glacial acetic acid and could therefore contain but very little fatty matter.

=Uses=—The drug has the properties of hops, but with less of astringency. It is not often prescribed.

=Adulteration=—Lupulin is apt to contain sand, and on incineration often leaves a large amount of ash. Other extraneous matters which are not unfrequent may be easily recognized by means of a lens. As the essential oil in lupulin is soon resinified, the latter should be preferred fresh, and should be kept excluded from the air.

[2062] For a full account of the formation of the glands, see Trécul, Annales des Sciences Nat., Bot., i. (1854) 299. An abstract may be found in Méhu’s Etude du Houblon et du Lupulin, Montpellier, 1867.

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ULMACEÆ

CORTEX ULMI.

Elm Bark; F. Ecorce d’Orme; G. Ulmenrinde, Rüsterrinde.

=Botanical Origin=—Ulmus campestris Smith, the Common Elm, a stately tree, widely diffused over Central, Southern and Eastern Europe, southward to Northern Africa and Asia Minor, and eastward as far as Amurland, Northern China, and Japan. It is probably not truly indigenous to Great Britain; but the Wych Elm, U. montana With., is certainly wild in the northern and western counties;[2063] the latter is, according to Schübeler, the only species indigenous to Norway.

History—The classical writers, and especially Dioscorides, were familiar with the astringent properties of the bark of πτελέα, by which name Ulmus campestris is understood. Imaginary virtues are ascribed by Pliny to the bark and leaves of Ulmus. Elm bark is frequently prescribed in the English Leech-books of the 11th century, at which period a great many plants of Southern Europe had already been introduced into Britain.[2064] Its use is also noticed in Turner’s Herbal (1568) and in Parkinson’s Theater of Plants (1640), the author of the latter remarking that “all the parts of the Elme are of much use in Physicke.”

In the Scandinavian antiquity the fibrous bark of Ulmus montana used to be made up into ropes.[2065]

=Description=—Elm bark for use in medicine should be removed from the tree in early spring, deprived of its rough corky outer coat, and then dried. Thus prepared, it is found in the shops in the form of broad flattish pieces, of a rusty yellowish colour, and striated surface especially on the inner side. It is tough and fibrous, nearly inodorous, and has a woody, slightly astringent taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The liber, which is the only officinal part, consists of thick-walled, tangentially-extended parenchyme, in which there are some large cells filled with mucilage, while the rest contain a red-brown colouring matter. The mucilage forms a stratified deposit within the cell. Large bast-bundles, arranged in irregular rows, alternate with the parenchyme, and are intersected by narrow, reddish, medullary rays consisting of 2 or 3 rows of cells. The bast-bundles contain numerous long tubes about 30 mkm. thick, with narrow cavities; and besides these, somewhat larger tubes with porous transverse walls (cribriform vessels). Each cubic cell of the neighbouring bast-parenchyme encloses a large crystal, seldom well defined, of oxalate of calcium.

[2063] On the word elm, Dr. Prior remarks that it is nearly identical in all the Germanic and Scandinavian dialects, yet does not find its root in any of them, but is an adaptation of the Latin Ulmus.—Popular Names of British Plants, ed. 2. 1870. 71.

[2064] Leechdoms, Wortcunning and Starcraft of Early England, edited by Rev. O. Cockayne, ii. (1865) pp. 53. 67. 79. 99. 127 and p. xii.—In the Anglo-Saxon recipes, both Elm and Wych Elm are named in the Welsh “Meddygon Myddfai” (see Appendix). Elmwydd or Ilwyf and “Ulmus romanus,” Ilwyf Rhufain, are met with.

[2065] Schübeler, Pflanzenwelt Norwegens, 1873-75, p. 216.

=Chemistry=—The chief soluble constituent of elm hark is mucilage with a small proportion of tannic acid, the latter, according to Johanson (1875), probably agreeing with that of oak bark and bark of willows. The concentrated infusion of elm bark yields a brown precipitate with perchloride of iron; the dilute assumes a green coloration with that test. Starch is wanting, or only occurs in the middle cortical layer, which is usually rejected.

Elms in summer-time frequently exude a gum which, by contact with the air, is converted into a brown insoluble mass, called Ulmin. This name has been extended to various decomposition-products of organic bodies, the nature and affinities of which are but little known.[2066]

=Uses=—Elm bark is prescribed in decoction as a weak mucilaginous astringent, but is almost obsolete.

CORTEX ULMI FULVÆ.

Slippery Elm Bark.

=Botanical Origin=—Ulmus fulva Michaux, the Red or Slippery Elm, a small or middle-sized tree,[2067] seldom more than 30 to 40 feet high, growing on the banks of streams in the central and northern United States from Western New England to Wisconsin and Kentucky, and found also in Canada.

=History=—The Indians of North America attributed medicinal virtues to the bark of the Slippery Elm, which they used as a healing application to wounds, and in decoction as a wash for skin diseases. It is the “Salve Bark” or “Cortex unguentarius” of Schöpf.[2068] Bigelow, writing in 1824, remarks that the mucilaginous qualities of the inner bark are well known.

=Description=—The Slippery Elm Bark used in medicine consists of the liber only. It forms large flat pieces, often 2 to 3 feet long by several inches broad, and usually ¹/₂₀ to ²/₂₀ of an inch thick, of an extremely tough and fibrous texture. It has a light reddish-brown colour, an odour resembling that of fenugreek (which is common to the leaves also), and a simply mucilaginous taste.

In collecting the bark the tree is destroyed, and no effort is made to replace it, the wood being nearly valueless. Thus the supply is diminishing year by year, and the collectors who formerly obtained large quantities of the bark in New York and other eastern states have now to go westward for supplies.[2069]

[2066] Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 458.

[2067] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 34 (1878).

[2068] Mat. Med. Americ., Erlangæ, 1787. 32.

[2069] Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association for 1873, xxi. 435.

=Microscopic Structure=—The transverse section shows a series of undulating layers of large yellowish bundles of soft liber-fibres, alternating with small brown parenchymatous bands. The whole tissue is traversed by numerous narrow medullary rays, and interrupted by large intercellular mucilage-ducts. In order to examine the latter, longitudinal sections ought to be moistened with benzol, aqueous liquids causing great alteration. In a longitudinal section, the mucilage-ducts are seen to be 70 to 100 mkm. long, and to contain colourless masses of mucilage, distinctly showing a series of layers. Crystals of calcium oxalate, as well as small starch grains, are very plentiful throughout the surrounding parenchyme.

=Chemical Composition=—The most interesting constituent of the bark is mucilage, which is imparted to either cold or hot water, but does not form a true solution. The bark moistened with 20 parts of water swells considerably, and becomes enveloped by a thick neutral mucilage, which is not altered either by iodine or perchloride of iron. This mucilage when diluted, even with a triple volume of water, will yield only a few drops when thrown on a paper filter. The liquid which drains out is precipitable by neutral acetate of lead. By addition of absolute alcohol, the concentrated mucilage is not rendered turbid, but forms a colourless transparent fluid deposit.

=Adulteration=—Farinaceous substances admixed to the powdered drug may be detected by means of the microscope.

=Uses=—Slippery Elm Bark is a demulcent like althæa or linseed. The powder is much used in America for making poultices; it is said to preserve lard from rancidity, if the latter is melted with it and kept in contact for a short time.

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EUPHORBIACEÆ

EUPHORBIUM.

Euphorbium, Gum Euphorbium; F. Gomme-résine d’Euphorbe; G. Euphorbium.

=Botanical Origin=—Euphorbia resinifera Berg, a leafless, glaucous, perennial plant resembling a cactus, and attaining 6 or more feet in height. Its stems are ascending, fleshy and quadrangular, each side measuring about an inch. The angles of the stem are furnished at intervals with pairs of divergent, horizontal, straight spines about ¼ of an inch long, and confluent at the base into ovate, subtriangular discs. These spines represent stipules: above each pair of them is a depression, indicating a leaf-bud. The inflorescence is arranged at the summits of the branches, on stalks each bearing three flowers, the two outer of which are supported on pedicels. The fruit is tricoccous, ³/₁₀ of an inch wide, with each carpel slightly compressed and keeled.[2070]

The plant is a native of Morocco, growing on the lower slopes of the Atlas in the southern province of Suse. Dr. Hooker and his fellow-travellers met with it in 1870 at Netifa and Imsfuia,[2071] south-east of the city of Morocco, which appears to be its westward limit.

=History=—Euphorbium was known to the ancients. Dioscorides[2072] and Pliny[2073] both describe its collection on Mount Atlas in Africa, and notice its extreme acridity. According to the latter writer, the drug received its name in honour of Euphorbus, physician to Juba II., king of Mauritania. This monarch, who after a long reign died about A.D. 18, was distinguished for his literary attainments, and was the author of several books[2074] which included treatises on opium and euphorbium. The latter work was apparently extant in the time of Pliny.

[2070] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 24 (1877).

[2071] Or Mesfioua, according to Ball, who also quotes the province Demenet.—Journ. of the Linnean Soc. Bot. xvi. (1878) 662.

[2072] Lib. iii. c. 86.

[2073] Lib. v. c. 1; lib. xxv. c. 38.

[2074] Smith, Dict. of Greek and Roman Biography, ii. (1846) 636.

Euphorbium is mentioned by numerous other early writers on medicine, as Rufus Ephesius, who probably flourished during the reign of Trajan, by Galen in the 2nd century, and by Vindicianus and Oribasius in the 4th. Aëtius and Paulus Ægineta, who lived respectively in the 6th and 7th centuries, were likewise acquainted with it; and it was also known to the Arabian school of medicine. In describing the route from Aghmat to Fez, El-Bekri[2075] of Granada, in 1068, mentioned the numerous plants “El-forbioun” growing in the country of the Beni Ouareth, a tribe of the Sanhadja; the author noticed the spiny herbaceous stems of the shrub abounding in the purgative milky juice.

Höst[2076] (1760-1768) stated that the plant, which he also correctly compared with Opuntia, is growing near Agader, south of Mogador.

The plant yielding euphorbium was further described at the beginning of the present century by an English merchant named Jackson, who had resided many years in Morocco. From the figures he published,[2077] the species was doubtfully identified with Euphorbia canariensis L., a large cactus-like shrub, with quadrangular or hexagonal stems, abounding on scorched and arid rocks in the Canary Islands.

In the year 1749 it was pointed out in the (Admiralty) Manual of Scientific Enquiry, that the stems of which fragrants are found in commercial euphorbium, do not agree with those of E. canariensis. Berg carried the comparison further, and finally from the fragments in question drew up a botanical description, which with an excellent figure he published[2078] as Euphorbia resinifera. The correctness of his observations has been fully justified by specimens[2079] which were transmitted to the Royal Gardens, Kew, in 1870, and now form flourishing plants.

[2075] Description de l’Afrique septentrionale, traduite par M. de Slane, Journal asiatique, xiii. (Paris, 1859) 413.

[2076] Nachrichten von Marokos und Fes, Kopenhagen, 1781. 308.

[2077] Account of the Empire of Morocco and the district of Suse, Lond. 1809. 81. pl. 7.—The plate represents an entire plant, and also what purports to be a portion of a branch of the natural size. The latter is really the figure of a different species,—apparently that which has been recently named by Cosson Euphorbia Beaumierana.

[2078] Berg und Schmidt, Offizinelle Gewächse, iv. (1863) xxxiv. d.

[2079] They were procured by Mr. William Grace, and forwarded to England by Mr. C. F. Carstensen, British Vice-Consul at Mogador.

The drug has a place in all the early printed pharmacopœias.

=Collection=—Euphorbium is obtained by making incisions in the green fleshy branches of the plant. These incisions occasion an abundant exudation of milky juice which hardens by exposure to the air, encrusting the stems down which it flows; it is finally collected in the latter part of the summer. So great is the acridity of the exudation, that the collector is obliged to tie a cloth over his mouth and nostrils, to prevent the entrance of the irritating dust. The drug is said to be collected in districts lying east and south-east of the city of Morocco.

=Description=—The drug consists of irregular pieces, seldom more than an inch across and mostly smaller, of a dull yellow or brown waxy-looking substance, among which portions of the angular spiny stem of the plant may be met with. Many of the pieces encrust a tuft of spines or a flower-stalk or are hollow. The substance is brittle and translucent; splinters examined under the microscope exhibit no particular structure, even by the aid of polarized light; nor are starch granules visible.[2080] The odour is slightly aromatic, especially if heat is applied; but 10 lb. of the drug which we subjected to distillation afforded no essential oil. Euphorbium has a persistent and extremely acrid taste; its dust excites violent sneezing, and if inhaled, as when the drug is powdered, occasions alarming symptoms.

=Chemical Composition=—Analysis of euphorbium performed by one of us[2081] showed the composition of the drug to be as follows:—

Amorphous resin, C₁₀H₁₆O₂ 38 Euphorbon, C₁₃H₂₂O 22 Mucilage 18 Malates, chiefly of calcium and sodium 12 Mineral compounds 10 ------ 100

The amorphous resin is readily soluble in cold spirit of wine containing about 70 per cent. of alcohol. The solution has no acid reaction, but an extremely burning acrid taste: in fact it is to the amorphous indifferent resin that euphorbium owes its intense acridity. By evaporating the resin with alcoholic potash and neutralizing the residue with a dilute aqueous acid, a brown amorphous substance, the Euphorbic Acid of Buchheim,[2082] is precipitated. It is devoid of the acridity of the resin from which it originated, but has a bitterish taste.

From the drug deprived of the amorphous resin as above stated, ether (ether or petroleum) takes up the Euphorbon, which may be obtained in colourless, although not very distinct crystals, which are at first not free from acrid taste. But by repeated crystallizations and finally boiling in a weak solution of permanganate of potassium, they may be so far purified as to be entirely tasteless. Euphorbon is insoluble in water; it requires about 60 parts of alcohol, sp. gr. 0·830, for solution at the ordinary temperature. In boiling alcohol euphorbon dissolves abundantly, also in ether, benzol, amylic alcohol, chloroform, acetone, or glacial acetic acid.

Euphorbon melts at 116° C. (113° to 114°, Hesse) without emitting any odour. By dry distillation a brownish oily liquid is obtained, which claims further examination. If euphorbon dissolved in alcohol is allowed to form a thin film in a porcelain capsule, and is then moistened with a little concentrated sulphuric acid, a fine violet hue is produced in contact with strong nitric acid slowly added by means of a glass rod. The same reaction is displayed by Lactucerin (see Lactucarium), to which in its general characters euphorbon is closely allied.

[2080] By careful investigation a very few are found at last.

[2081] Flückiger in Wittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift für prakt. Pharmacie, xvii. (1868) 82-102.—The drug analysed consisted of selected fragrants, free from extraneous substances.

[2082] Wiggers and Husemann, Jahresbericht, 1873. 559.

Hesse (1878) assigns to euphorbon the formula C₁₅H₂₄O, and points out that its solutions in chloroform or ether are dextrogyrate.

As to the mucilage of euphorbium, it may be obtained from that portion of the drug which has been exhausted by cold alcohol and by ether. Neutral acetate of lead, as well as silicate or borate of sodium, precipitate this mucilage, which therefore does not agree with gum arabic.

If an aqueous extract of euphorbium is mixed with spirit of wine, and the liquid evaporated, the residual matter assumes a somewhat crystalline appearance, and exhibits the reactions of Malic Acid. Subjected to dry distillation, white scales and acicular crystals of Maleic and Fumaric Acids, produced by the decomposition of the malic acid, are sublimed into the neck of the retort. A sublimate of the same kind may sometimes be obtained directly by heating fragments of euphorbium. Among the mineral constituents of the drug, chloride of sodium and calcium are noticeable; scarcely any salt of potassium is present.

=Commerce=—The drug is shipped from Mogador. The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1870 is given in the Annual Statement of Trade as 12 cwt.

Uses—Euphorbium was formerly employed as an emetic and purgative, but as an internal remedy it is completely obsolete. We have been told that it is now in some demand as an ingredient of a paint for the preservation of ships’ bottoms.

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CORTEX CASCARILLÆ

Cortex Eleutheriæ; Cascarilla Bark, Sweet Wood Bark, Eleuthera[2083] Bark; F. Ecorce de Cascarille; G. Cascarill-Rinde.

=Botanical Origin=—Croton Eluteria Bennett,[2084] a shrub or small tree, exclusively native of the Bahama Islands.

=History=—It is not improbable that cascarilla bark was imported into Europe in the first half of the 17th century, as there was much intercourse subsequent to the year 1630 between England and the Bahamas.[2085] These islands were occupied in 1641 by the Spaniards, who became at that time acquainted with the Peruvian bark or Cascarilla (see page 346), as we have shown at page 343. The external appearance of the bark of Eluteria being somewhat similar to that of Cinchona quills, the former began soon to be known under the name of China nova. This drug occurs along with true Cinchona bark, China de China, in the tariff of the year 1691 of the pharmaceutical shops of the German town Minden, in Westphalia. There can be no doubt that the cheaper kind of “China,” called China nova, was really the bark under examination, for in many other tariffs a few years later distinct mention is made of Cortex Chinæ novæ seu Schacorillæ; and Savary, in his “Dictionnaire de Commerce” (1723, 1750), confirms the fact, adding that it was first seen in the great fair of Brunswick.[2086] Another early statement concerning Cascarilla bark likewise refers to the duchy of Brunswick. Stisser, a professor of anatomy, chemistry, and medicine in the University of Helmstedt in Brunswick, relates that he received the drug under the name of Cortex Eleuterii from a person who had returned from England, in which country, he was assured, it was customary to mix it with tobacco for the sake of correcting the smell of the latter when smoked. He also mentions that it had been confounded with Peruvian bark, from which however it was very distinct in odour, etc.[2087] Eleutheria bark was then frequently prescribed as a febrifuge in the place of Cinchona bark, then a more expensive medicine. Hence the name cascarilla, signifying in Spanish little bark, which was the customary designation of Peruvian bark, was erroneously applied to the Bahama bark, until at last it quite superseded the original and more correct appellation. That of China nova was subsequently applied to a quite different bark (see page 364). The drug under notice was first introduced into the London Pharmacopœia in 1746 as Eleutheriæ Cortex, which was its common name among druggists down to the end of the last century. In the Bahamas the name cascarilla is still hardly known, the bark being there called either Sweet Wood Bark or Eleuthera Bark.

[2083] From Eleuthera, one of the Bahama Islands, so named from the Greek ἐλεύθερος, signifying free or independent.

[2084] Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part i. (1875).

[2085] In that year a patent was granted by Charles I. for the incorporation of a Company for colonizing the Bahama Islands, and a complete record is extant of the proceedings of the Company for the first eleven years of its existence. In some of the documents, particular mention is made of the introduction, actual or attempted, of useful plants, as cotton, tobacco, fig, pepper, pomegranate, palma Christi, mulberry, flax, indigo, madder, and jalap; and there is also frequent allusion to the importation of the produce of the islands, but no mention of Cascarilla. See Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, edited by Sainsbury, Lond. 1860. pp. 146. 148. 149. 164. 168. 185. etc.

[2086] Flückiger, Pharm. Journ., vi. (1876) 1022, and “Documente” quoted there, pp. 74-77, etc.

[2087] Stisser (J. A.) Actorum Laboratorii Chemici specimen secundum, Helmestadi, 1693. c. ix. Stisser is said to have mentioned Cascarilla bark in his pamphlet “De machinis fumiductoriis,” Hamburg, 1686, but we found this to be incorrect. Nor have we seen the paper of Vincent Garcia Salat, “Unica quæstiuncula, in qua examinatur pulvis de Burango, vulgo Cascarilla, in curatione tertíanæ,” Valentiæ. 1692. It is quoted by Haller, Bibl. Bot. ii. (1772) 688, and several later authors, but appears to be extremely rare.

The plant affording cascarilla has been the subject of much discussion, arising chiefly from the circumstance that several nearly allied West Indian species of Croton yield aromatic barks resembling more or less the officinal drug. Catesby in 1754 figured a Bahama plant, Croton Cascarilla Bennett, from which the original Eleuthera Bark was probably derived, though it certainly affords none of the cascarilla of modern commerce. Woodville in 1794, and Lindley in 1838, both investigated the botany of the subject, the latter having the advantage of authentic specimens communicated by the Hon. J. C. Lees of New Providence, to whom one of us also is indebted for a similar favour. The question was not however finally set at rest until 1859, when J. J. Bennett by the aid of specimens collected in the Bahamas by Daniell in 1857-8, drew up lucid diagnoses of the several plants which had been confounded, and disentangled their intricate synonymy.[2088]

[2088] Journal of Proceedings of Linn. Soc. iv. (1860) Bot. 29.

=Description=—Cascarilla occurs in the form of tubular or channelled pieces of a dull brown colour, somewhat rough and irregular, rarely exceeding 4 inches in length by ½ an inch in diameter. The chief bulk of that at present imported is in very small thin quills and fragments, often scarcely an inch in length, and evidently stripped from very young wood. The younger bark has a thin suberous coat easily detached, blotched or entirely covered with the silvery white growth of a minute lichen (Verrucaria albissima Ach.), the perithecium of which appears as small black dots. The older bark is more rugose, irregularly tessellated by longitudinal cracks and less numerous transverse fissures. Beneath the corky envelope the bark is greyish-brown.

The bark breaks readily with a short fracture, the broken surface displaying a resinous appearance. It has a very fragrant odour, especially agreeable when several pounds of it are reduced to coarse powder and placed in a jar; it has a nauseous bitter taste. When burned it emits an aromatic smell, and hence is a common ingredient in fumigating pastilles.

=Microscopic Characters=—The suberous coat is made up of numerous rows of tabular cells, the outermost having their exterior walls much thickened. The mesophlœum exhibits the usual tissue, containing starch, chlorophyll, essential oil, crystals of oxalate of calcium, and a brown colouring matter. The latter assumes a dark bluish coloration on addition of a persalt of iron. In the inner portion of that layer ramified laticiferous vessels are also present. The liber consists of parenchyme and of fibrous bundles, intersected by small medullary rays. On the transverse section, the fibrous bundles show a wedge-shaped outline; they are for the most part built up, not of true liber-fibres, but of cylindrical cells having their transverse walls perforated sieve-like (vasa cribriformia). The contents of the parenchymatous part of the liber are the same as in the mesophlœum; as to the oxalate of calcium, the variety of its crystals is remarkable.[2089]

[2089] For more particulars see Pocklington, Pharm. Journ. iii. (1873) 664.

=Chemical Composition=—Cascarilla contains a volatile oil, which it yields to the extent of 1·1 per cent. According to Völckel (1840), it is a mixture of at least two oils, the more volatile of which is probably free from oxygen. Gladstone (1872) assigns to the hydrocarbon of cascarilla oil the composition of oil of turpentine. By examining the oil optically we found it to have a weak rotatory power—some samples deviated to the right, some to the left. The resin, in which cascarilla is rich, has not yet been examined more exactly.

The bitter principle was isolated in 1845 by Duval, and called Cascarillin. C. and E. Mylius (1873) have obtained it from a deposit in the officinal extract, in microscopic prisms readily soluble in ether or hot alcohol, very sparingly in water, chloroform or spirit of wine. It melts at 205° C., is not volatile, nor a glucoside. Its composition answers to the formula C₁₂H₁₈O₄.

=Commerce=—The bark is shipped from Nassau, the chief town of New Providence (Bahamas), and is usually packed in sacks. The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1870 was 12,261 cwt., valued at £16,482. The exports from the Bahamas were 676 cwt. in 1875, and 1,093 cwt. in 1876.

=Uses=—Cascarilla is prescribed as a tonic, usually in the form of a tincture or infusion.

=Adulteration=—A spurious cascarilla bark has lately been noticed in the London market; it was imported from the Bahamas mixed with the genuine, to which it bears a close similarity. The quills of it resemble the larger quills of cascarilla; though covered with a lichen, the latter has not the silvery whiteness of the Verrucaria of cascarilla. The spurious bark has a suberous coat that does not split off; its inner surface is pinkish-brown, and distinctly striated longitudinally. In microscopic structure the bark may be said to resemble cascarilla and still more copalchi. But it is at once distinguishable by its numerous roundish groups of sclerenchymatous cells, which become very evident when thin sections are moistened with ammonia, and then with solution of iodine in iodide of potassium. The bark has an astringent taste, without bitterness or aroma; its tincture is not rendered milky by addition of water, but is darkened by ferric chloride,—in these respects differing from a tincture of cascarilla. Mr. Holmes[2090] suggests that this spurious cascarilla is probably the bark of Croton lucidus L.

Copalchi Bark; Quina blanca of the Mexicans.

This drug is derived from Croton niveus[2091] Jacquin (C. Pseudo-China Schlechtendal), a shrub growing 10 feet high, native of the West Indian Islands, Mexico, Central America, New Granada and Venezuela. It has occasionally been imported into Europe, in quills a foot or two in length, much stouter and thicker than those of cascarilla, to which in odour and taste it nearly approximates. The bark has a thin, greyish, papery suberous layer, which when removed shows the surface marked with minute transverse pits, like the lines made by a file; it has a short fracture.[2092]

Copalchi bark was examined by J. Eliot Howard,[2093] and found to contain a minute proportion of a bitter alkaloid soluble in ether, which resembled quinine in yielding a deep green colour when treated with chlorine and ammonia, though it did not afford any characteristic compound with iodine. Mauch,[2094] who also analysed the bark, could not obtain from it any organic base. He extracted by distillation the essential oil, which he found to consist of a hydrocarbon and an organic acid,—the latter not examined; he likewise got from the bark an uncrystallizable bitter principle, which proved to be not a glucoside.

[2090] Pharm. Journ. iv. (1874) 810.

[2091] De Candolle’s Prodromus, xv. part 2. (1862) 518; beautifully figured in Hayne, Arzneigewächse, xiv. (1843) plate 2.

[2092] For more particulars see Oberlin and Schlagdenhauffen, Journ. de Pharm. 28 (1878) 248.

[2093] Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 319.

[2094] Wittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift für prakt. Pharm. xviii. (1869) 161.

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SEMEN TIGLII

Semen Crotonis; Croton Seeds; F. Graines de Tilly ou des Moluques, Petits Pignons d’Inde; G. Purgirkörner, Granatill.

=Botanical Origin=—Croton Tiglium[2095] L. (Tiglium officinale Klotzsch), a small tree, 15 to 20 feet high, indigenous to the Malabar Coast and Tavoy, cultivated in gardens in many parts of the East, from Mauritius to the India Archipelago. The tree has small inconspicuous flowers, and brown, capsular, three-celled fruits, each cell containing one seed. The leaves have a disagreeable smell and nauseous taste.

=History=—In Europe, the seeds and wood of the tree were first described in 1578 by Christoval Acosta—the former, with a figure of the plant, appearing under the name of Piñones de Maluco.[2096] The plant was also described and figured by Rheede (1679)[2097] and Rumphius (1743).[2098] The seeds, which were officinal in the 17th century, but had become obsolete, were recommended about 1812 by English medical officers in India,[2099] and the expressed oil by Perry, Frost, Conwell and others about 1821-24. The oil then in use was imported from India, and was often of doubtful purity, so that some druggists felt it necessary to press the seeds for themselves.[2100]

[2095] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic. Plants, part 1 (1875).

[2096] Tractado, etc., Burgos, 1578. c. 48.—After speaking of the virtues of the seeds, he adds—“tambien las buenas mugeres de aquellas partes, amigas de sus maridos, les dă hasta quatro destos por la boca, para embiar a los pobretos al otro mundo”!

[2097] Hortus Malabaricus, ii. tab. 33.

[2098] Herbarium Amboinense, iv. tab. 42.

[2099] Ainslie, Mat. Med. of Hindoostan, 1813. 292.

[2100] The oil was very expensive. I find by the books of Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, that the seeds cost in 1824, 10s., and in 1827, 18s. per lb. The oil was purchased in 1826 by the same house at 8_s._ to 10_s._ per ounce.—D. H.

=Description=—Croton seeds are about half an inch long, by nearly ⅖ of an inch broad, ovoid or bluntly oblong, divided longitudinally into two unequal parts, of which the more arched constitutes the dorsal and the flatter the ventral side. From the hilum, a fine raised line (raphe) passes to the other end of the seed, terminating in a darker point, indicating the chalaza. The surface of the seed is more or less covered with a bright cinnamon-brown coat, which when scraped shows the thin, brittle, black testa filled with a whitish, oily kernel, invested with a delicate seed-coat. The kernel is easily split into two halves consisting of oily albumen, between which lie the large, veined, leafy cotyledons and the radicle. The taste of the seed is at first merely oleaginous, but soon becomes unpleasantly and persistently acrid.

=Microscopic Structure=—The testa consists of an outer layer of radially arranged, much elongated and thick-walled cells; the inner parenchymatous layer contains small vascular bundles. The soft tissue of the albumen is loaded with drops of fatty oil. If this is removed by means of ether and weak potash lye, there remain small granules of albuminoid matter, the so-called Aleuron, and crystals of oxalate of calcium.

=Chemical Composition=—The principal constituent of croton seeds is the fatty oil, the Oleum Crotonis or Oleum Tiglii of pharmacy of which the kernels afford from 50 to 60 per cent. That used in England is for the most part expressed in London, and justly regarded as more reliable than that imported from India, with which the market was formerly supplied. It is a transparent, sherry-coloured, viscid liquid, slightly fluorescent, and having a slight rancid smell and an oily, acrid taste. Its solubility in alcohol (·794) appears to depend in great measure on the age of the oil, and the greater or less freshness of the seeds from which it was expressed,—oxidized or resinified oil dissolving the most readily.[2101] We found the oil which one of us had extracted by means of bisulphide of carbon to be levogyre.

Croton oil consists chiefly of the glycerinic ethers of the common fatty acids, such as stearic, palmitic, myristic and lauric acids. They partly separate in the cold; the acids also may partly be obtained by passing nitrous acid through croton oil. There are also present in the latter, in the form of glycerinic ethers, the more volatile acids, as formic, acetic, isobutyric and one of the valerianic acids.[2102] The volatile part of the acids yielded by croton oil contains moreover an acid which was regarded by Schlippe (1858) as angelic acid, C₅H₈O₂. Yet in 1869 it was shown by Geuther and Frölich to be a peculiar acid, which they called Tiglinic acid. Its composition answers to the same formula, C₄H₇COOH, as that of angelic acid; but the melting points (angelic acid 45°, tiglinic 64° C.) and boiling points (angelic acid 185°, tiglinic 198°·5) are different. Both these acids have been mentioned in our article on Flores Anthemidis, at page 386. Tiglinic acid may also be obtained artificially; it is the methylcrotonic acid of Frankland and Duppa (1865).

Schlippe also stated croton oil to afford a peculiar liquid acid termed Crotonic Acid, C₄H₆O₂. According to Geuther and Frölich, however, an acid of this formula does not occur at all in croton oil. By synthetic methods three different acids of that composition are obtainable.

The drastic principle of croton oil has not yet been isolated. Buchheim[2103] suggested that the action of the oil depends upon “Crotonoleic acid,” which however he failed in isolating satisfactorily. It is remarkable that the wood and leaves of Croton Tiglium appear to partake also of the drastic properties of the seeds.

Schlippe asserts that he has separated the vesicating matter of croton oil: if the oil be agitated with alcoholic soda, and afterwards with water, the supernatant liquor will be found free from acridity, while the alcoholic solution will yield, on addition of hydrochloric acid, a small quantity of a dark brown oil, called Crotonol, possessing vesicating properties. We have not succeeded in obtaining it, nor, so far as we know, has any other chemist except its discoverer.

The shells of the seeds (testa) yield upon incineration 2·6 per cent. of ash; the kernels dried at 100° C. 3·0 per cent.

=Commerce=—The shipments of croton seeds arrive chiefly from Cochin or Bombay, packed in cases, bales or robbins; but there are no statistics to show the extent of the trade.

[2101] Warrington, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 382-387.

[2102] Schmidt and Berendes, 1878.

[2103] In the Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann, 1873. 560.

=Uses=—Croton seeds are not administered. The oil is given internally as a powerful cathartic, and is applied externally as a rubefacient.

=Substitutes=—The seeds of Croton Pavanæ Hamilton, a native of Ava and Camrup (Assam), and those of C. oblongifolius Roxb., a small tree common about Calcutta, are said to resemble those of C. Tiglium L., but we have not compared them. Those of Baliospermum montanum Müll. Arg. (Croton polyandrus Roxb.) partake of the nature of croton seeds, and according to Roxburgh are used by the natives of India as a purgative.

SEMEN RICINI.

Semen Cataputiæ majoris; Castor Oil Seeds, Palma Christi Seeds; F. Semence de Ricin; G. Ricinussamen.

=Botanical Origin=—Ricinus communis L., the castor oil plant, is a native of India where it bears several ancient Sanskrit names.[2104] By cultivation, it has been distributed through all the tropical and many of the temperate countries of the globe. In the regions most favourable to its growth, it attains a height of 40 feet. In the Azores, and the warmer Mediterranean countries as Algeria, Egypt, Greece, and the Riviera, it becomes a small tree, 10 to 15 feet high; while in France, Germany, and the south of England, it is an annual herb of noble foliage, growing to a height of 4 or 5 feet. In good summers, it ripens seeds in England and even as far north as Christiania in Norway.

Ricinus communis exhibits a large number of varieties, several of which have been described and figured as distinct species. Müller, after a careful examination of the whole series, maintains them as a single species, of which he allows 16 forms, more or less well marked.[2105]

=History=—The castor oil plant was known to Herodotus who calls it Κίκι, and states that it furnishes an oil much used by the Egyptians, in whose ancient tombs seeds of Ricinus are, in fact, met with.[2106] At the period when Herodotus wrote, it would appear to have been already introduced into Greece, where it is cultivated to the present day under the same ancient name.[2107] The Kikajon of the Book of Jonah, rendered by the translators of the English Bible gourd, is believed to be the same plant. Κίκι is also mentioned by Strabo as a production of Egypt, the oil from which is used for burning in lamps and for unguents.

[2104] The most ancient and most usual is Eranda; this word has passed into several other Indian languages.

[2105] De Candolle, Prodr., xv. sect. 2. 1017.

[2106] Journ. of Botany, 1879, 54.

[2107] Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, Athen, 1862. 58.

Theophrastus and Nicander give the castor oil plant the name of Κρότων. Dioscorides, who calls it Κίκι or Κρότων, describes it as of the stature of a small fig-tree, with leaves like a plane, and seeds in a prickly pericarp, observing that the name Κρότων is applied to the seed on account of its resemblance to an insect [Ixodes Ricinus Latr.], known by that appellation. He also gives an account of the process for extracting castor oil (Κίκινον ἔλαιον), which he says is not fit for food, but is used externally in medicine; he represents the seeds as extremely purgative. There is a tolerably correct figure of Ricinus in the famous MS. Dioscorides which was executed for the Empress Juliana Anicia in A.D. 505, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna.

The castor oil plant was cultivated by Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, in the middle of the 13th century.[2108] It was well known as a garden plant in the time of Turner (1568), who mentions the oil as Oleum cicinum vel ricininum.[2109] Gerarde, at the end of the same century, was familiar with it under the name of Ricinus or Kik. The oil he says is called Oleum cicinum or Oleum de Cherua,[2110] and used externally in skin diseases.

After this period the oil seems to have fallen into complete neglect, and is not even noticed in the comprehensive and accurate Pharmacologia of Dale (1693). In the time of Hill (1751) and Lewis (1761) Palma Christi seeds were rarely found in the shops, and the oil from them was scarcely known.[2111]

In 1764 Peter Canvane, a physician who had practised many years in the West Indies, published a “Dissertation on the Oleum Palmæ Christi, sive Oleum Ricini; or (as it is commonly call’d) Castor Oil,”[2112] strongly recommending its use as a gentle purgative. This essay, which passed through two editions, and was translated into French, was followed by several others,[2113] thus thoroughly drawing attention to the value of the oil. Accordingly we find that the seeds of Ricinus were admitted to the London Pharmacopœia of 1788, and directions given for preparing oil from them. Woodville in his Medical Botany (1790) speaks of the oil as having “lately come into frequent use.”

At this period and for several years subsequently, the small supplies of the seeds and oil required for European medicine were obtained from Jamaica.[2114] This oil was gradually displaced in the market by that produced in the East Indies: the rapidity with which the consumption increased may be inferred from the following figures, representing the value of the Castor Oil shipped to Great Britain from Bengal in three several years, namely 1813-14, £610; 1815-16, £1269; 1819-20, £7102.[2115]

[2108] De Vegetabilibus, ed. Jessen, 1867. 347.

[2109] Turner’s Herbal, pt. ii. 116.

[2110] From the Arabic khirva, i.e. Palma Christi.

[2111] Hill, Hist. of the Mat. Med., Lond. 1751. 537.—Lewis, Hist. of the Mat. Med., Lond. 1761. 468.

[2112] The word castor in connection with the seeds and oil of Ricinus has come to us from Jamaica, in which island, by some strange mistake, the plant was once called Agnus Castus. The true Agnus Castus (Vitex Agnus castus L.) is a native of the Mediterranean countries and not of the West Indies.

[2113] For a list of which consult Mérat et De Lens, Dict. de Mat. Méd. vi. (1834) 95.

[2114] How small was the traffic in Castor Oil in those days, may be judged from the fact that the stock in 1777 of a London wholesale druggist (Joseph Gurney Bevan, predecessor of Allen and Hanburys) was 2 Bottles (1 Bottle = 18 to 20 ounces) valued at 8_s._ per bottle. The accounts of the same house show at stocktaking in 1782, 23 Bottles of the oil, which had cost 10_s._ per bottle. In 1799 Jamaica exported 236 Casks of Castor Oil and 10 Casks of seeds (Renny, Hist. of Jamaica, 1807. 235).

[2115] H. H. Wilson, Review of the External Commerce of Bengal from 1813 to 1828, Calcutta, 1830, tables pp. 14-15.

=Description=—The fruit of Ricinus is a tricoccous capsule, usually provided with weak prickles, containing one seed in each of its three cells. The seeds attain a length of ³/₁₀ to ⁶/₁₀, and a maximum breadth of ⁴/₁₀ of an inch, and are of a compressed ellipsoid form. The apex of the seed is prolonged into a short beak, on the inner side of which is a large tumid caruncle: from this latter proceeds the raphe as far as the lower end of the ventral surface, where it forks, its point of disappearance through the testa being marked by a minute protuberance. If the caruncle is broken off, a black scar, formed of two little depressions, remains.

The shining grey epidermis is beautifully marked with brownish bands and spots, and in this respect exhibits a great variety of colours and markings. It cannot be rubbed off, but may after maceration be peeled off in leathery strips. The black testa, grey within, is not thicker than in croton seed, but is much more brittle. The kernel or nucleus fills the testa completely, and is easily separated, still covered by the soft white inner membrane.

The kernel in respect to structure and situation of the embryo, agrees exactly with that of Croton Tiglium (p. 565), excepting that the somewhat gaping cotyledons of Ricinus are proportionately broader, and have their thick midrib provided with 2 or 3 pairs of lateral veins. If not rancid, the kernel has a bland taste, with but very slight acridity.

=Microscopic Structure=—The thin epidermis consists of pentagonal or hexagonal porous tabular cells, the walls of which are penetrated in certain spots by brownish colouring matter, whence the singular markings on the seed. It is these cells only that become blackened when a thin tangential slice is saturated with a solution of ferric chloride in alcohol.

Beneath these tabular cells there is found in the unripe seed[2116] a row of encrusted colourless cells, deposited in a radial direction on the testa. In the mature seed this layer of cells is not perceptible, and therefore appears to perish as the seed ripens. The testa itself is built up of cylindrical, densely packed cells, 300 to 320 mkm. long, and 6 to 10 mkm. in diameter. The kernel shares the structure of that of C. Tiglium, but is devoid of crystals of oxalate of calcium. If the endopleura of Ricinus is moistened with dilute sulphuric acid, acicular crystals of sulphate of calcium separate from it after a few hours.

When thin slices of the kernel are examined under concentrated glycerin, no drops of oil are visible, notwithstanding the abundance of this latter; and it becomes conspicuous only by addition of much water. Hence it is probable that the oil exists in the seed as a kind of compound with its albuminoid contents.[2117] As to the latter, they partly form in the albumen of Ricinus beautiful octohedra or tetrahedra, which are also found in many other seeds.[2118]

[2116] Gris, Annales des Sciences Nat., Bot., xv. (1861) 5-9.

[2117] Sachs, Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1874. 54.

[2118] For further particulars, see Trécul, Ann. des Sc. Nat., Bot., x.,(1858) 355; Radlkofer, Krystalle proteinartiger Körper, Leipzig, 1859. 61. and tab. 2 fig. 10; Pfeffer, Proteïnkörner in Pringsheim’s Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Botanik, viii. (1872) 429. 464.

=Chemical Composition=—The most important constituent of the seed is the fixed oil, called Castor Oil, of which the peeled kernels afford at most half of their weight.

The oil, if most carefully prepared from peeled and winnowed seeds by pressure without heat, has but a slightly acrid taste, and contains only a very small proportion of the still unknown drastic constituent of the seeds. Hence the seeds themselves, or an emulsion prepared with them, act much more strongly than a corresponding quantity of oil. Castor oil, extracted by absolute alcohol or by bisulphide of carbon, likewise purges much more vehemently than the pressed oil.

The castor oil of commerce has a sp. gr. of about 0·96, usually a pale yellow tint, a viscid consistence, and a very slight yet rather mawkish odour and taste. Exposed to cold, it does not in general entirely solidify until the temperature reaches -18° C. In thin layers it dries up to varnish-like film.

Castor oil is distinguished by its power of mixing in all proportions with glacial acetic acid or absolute alcohol. It is even soluble in four parts of spirit of wine (·838) at 15° C., and mixes without turbidity with an equal weight of the same solvent at 25° C. The commercial varieties of the oil however differ considerably in these as well as in some other respects.

The optical properties of the oil demand further investigation, as we have found that some samples deviate the ray of polarized light to the right and others to the left.

By saponification castor oil yields several fatty acids, one of which appears to be Palmitic Acid. The prevailing acid (peculiar to the oil) is Ricinoleic Acid, C₁₈H₃₄O₃; it is solid below 0° C., does not solidify in contact with the air by absorption of oxygen, and is not homologous with oleic or linoleic acid, neither of which is found in castor oil. Castor oil is nevertheless thickened if 6 parts of it are warmed with 1 part of starch and 5 of nitric acid (sp. gr. 1·25), Ricinelaïdin being thus formed. From this Ricinelaïdic Acid may easily be obtained in brilliant crystals.

As to the albuminoid matter of the seed, Fleury (1865) obtained 3·23 per cent. of nitrogen which would answer to about 20 per cent. of such substances. The same chemist further extracted 46·6 per cent. of fixed oil, 2·2 of sugar and mucilage, besides 18 per cent. of cellulose.

Tuson in 1864, by exhausting castor oil seeds with boiling water, obtained from them an alkaloid which he named Ricinine. He states that it crystallizes in rectangular prisms and tables, which when heated fuse, and upon cooling solidify as a crystalline mass; the crystals may even be sublimed. Ricinine dissolves readily in water or alcohol, less freely in ether or benzol. With mercuric chloride, it combines to form tufts of silky crystals, soluble in water or alcohol. Werner (1869) on repeating Tuson’s process on 30 lb. of Italian castor oil seeds, also obtained a crop of crystals, which in appearance and solubility had many of the characters ascribed to ricinine, but differed in the essential point that when incinerated they left a residuum of magnesia. Werner regarded them as the magnesium salt of a new acid. Tuson[2119] repudiates the suspicion that ricinine may be identical with Werner’s magnesium compound. E. S. Wayne of Cincinnati (1874) found in the leaves of Ricinus a substance apparently identical with Tuson’s ricinine; but he considers that it has no claim to be called an alkaloid.

[2119] Chemical News, xxii. (1870) 229.

The testa of castor oil seeds afforded us 10·7 per cent. of ash, one tenth of which we found to consist of silica. The ash of the kernel previously dried at 100 C. amounts to only 3·5 per cent.

=Production and Commerce=—Castor oil is most extensively produced in India, where two varieties of the seeds, the large and the small, are distinguished, the latter being considered to yield the better product. In manufacturing the oil, the seeds are gentry crushed between rollers, and freed by hand from husks and unsound grains. At Calcutta, 100 parts of seed yield on an average 70 parts of cleaned kernels, which by the hydraulic press afford 46 to 51 per cent. of their weight of oil; the oil is afterwards subjected to a very imperfect process of purification by heating it with water.[2120]

The exports of castor oil from Calcutta[2121] in the year 1870-71 amounted to 654,917 gallons, of which 214,959 gallons were shipped to the United Kingdom. The total imports of castor oil into the United Kingdom[2122] in the year 1870 were returned as 36,986 cwt. (about 416,000 gallons), valued at £82,490. Of this quantity, British India (chiefly Bengal) furnished about two-thirds; and Italy 11,856 cwt. (about 133,000 gallons), while a small remainder is entered as from “other parts.” In 1876 the imports were 79,677 cwt., valued at £133,838.

Italian Castor Oil, which has of late risen into some celebrity, is pressed from the seed of plants grown chiefly about Verona and Legnago, in the north of Italy. The manufactory of Mr. Bellino Valeri at the latter town produced in the year 1873, 1200 quintals of castor oil, entirely from Italian seed. Two varieties of Ricinus are cultivated in these localities, the black-seeded Egyptian and the red-seeded American; the latter yields the larger percentage, but the oil is not so pale in colour. The seeds are very carefully deprived of their integuments, and having been crushed, are submitted to pressure in powerful hydraulic presses, placed in a room which in winter is heated to about 21° C. The outflow of oil is further promoted by plates of iron warmed to 32-38° C. being placed between the press-bags. The peeled seeds yield about 40 per cent. of oil.[2123]

All the castor oil pressed in Italy is not pressed from Italian seed. By an official return[2124] it appears that in the year 1872-73 there were exported from Bombay to Genoa 1350 cwt. of castor oil seeds, besides 2452 gallons of castor oil. There are no data to show what was exported from the other presidencies of India in that year.

=Uses=—Castor oil is much valued as a mild and safe purgative; while the commoner qualities are used in soap-making, and in India for burning in lamps. The seeds are not now administered. The leaves of the plant applied in decoction to the breasts of women are said to promote or even to occasion the secretion of milk. This property, which has long been known to the inhabitants of the Cape Verd Islands,[2125] was particularly observed by Dr. M’William about the year 1850. It has even been found that the galactagogue powers of the plant are exerted when the leaves are administered internally.

[2120] Madras Exhibition of Raw Products, etc. of Southern India,—Reports by the Juries, Madras, 1856. 28.

[2121] Annual Volume of Trade and Navigation for the Bengal Presidency for 1870-71, Calcutta, 1871. 119.

[2122] Annual Statement of the Trade, etc. of the U.K. for 1870.—No later returns.

[2123] H. Groves, Pharm. Journ. viii (1867) 250.

[2124] Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay for 1872-73, part ii. 87. 88.

[2125] Frezier, Voyage to the South Seas, Lond. 1717. p. 13.—Turner in his Herbal (1568) gives the plant an opposite character, for the bruised leaves, says he, “swage the brestes or pappes swellinge wyth to muche plenty of milke.”

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KAMALA

Kamela, Glandulæ Rottleræ.

=Botanical Origin=—Mallotus philippinensis[2126] Müller Arg. (Croton philippensis Lam., Rottlera tinctoria Roxb., Echinus philippinensis Baillon), a large shrub, or small tree, attaining 20 or 45 feet in height, of very wide distribution. It grows in Abyssinia and Southern Arabia, throughout the Indian peninsulas, ascending the mountains to 5000 feet above the sea-level, in Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, the Loochoo islands, Formosa, Eastern China and in North Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.

The tricoccous fruits of many of the Euphorbiaceæ are clothed with prickles, stellate hairs, or easily removed glands. This is especially the case in the several species of Mallotus, most of which have the capsules covered with stellate hairs, together with small glands. In that under notice, the capsule is closely beset with ruby-like glands which, when removed by brushing and rubbing, constitute the powder known by the Bengali name of Kamala. These glands are not confined to the capsule, but are scattered over other parts of the plant, especially among the dense tomentum with which the under side of the leaf is covered.

=History=—In India the glands of Mallotus have been long known, for they have several ancient Sanskrit names: one of these is Kapila, which as well as the Telugu Kapila-podi, is sometimes used by Europeans, though not so frequently as the word Kamala or Kamela, which belongs to the Hindustani, Bengali and Guzratti languages. The Sanskrit word Kapila signifies tawny or dusky red, the Tamil Podi means the pollen of a flower or dust in general.

It does not appear that as a drug the glandular powder of Mallotus, or as it is more conveniently called, Kamala, attracted any particular notice in Europe until a very recent period, though it is named by Ainslie, Roxburgh, Royle and Buchanan, the last of whom gives an interesting account of its collection and uses.[2127] In 1852, specimens of it as found in the bazaar of Aden, under the old Arabic name of Wars, were sent to one of us by Port-Surgeon Vaughan, with information as to its properties as a dye for a silk and as a remedy in cutaneous diseases.[2128] But the real introduction of the drug as a useful medicine is due to Mackinnon, surgeon in the Bengal Medical Establishment, who administered it successively in numerous cases of tapeworm. Anderson of Calcutta, C. A. Gordon, and Corbyn in India, and Leared in London, confirmed the observations of Mackinnon, and fully established the fact that kamala is an efficient taenifuge.[2129] It was introduced into the British Pharmacopœia in 1864.

[2126] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part i. (1875.)—A beautiful figure in Roxburgh, Plants of the Coast of Coromandel, ii. (1798) tab. 168.

[2127] Journey through Mysore, Canara, etc., (Lond. 1807) i. 168. 204. 211, ii. 343.

[2128] Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. xii. (1853) 386. 589; or Science Papers, 73.

[2129] Ibid. xvii. (1858) 408; Science Papers, 75.

An analogous drug is mentioned by Paulus Ægineta[2130] in the 7th century as well as by the Arabian physicians[2131] as early as the 10th century, under the name of Kanbil or Wars. Ibn Khurdádbah, an Arab geographer, living A.D. 869-885, states that from Yemen come striped silks, ambergris, wars, and gum.[2132] It is described to be a reddish yellow powder like sand, which falls on the ground in the valleys of Yemen, and is a good remedy for tapeworm and cutaneous diseases. One writer compares it to powdered saffron; another speaks of two kinds,—an Abyssinian which is black (or violet), and an Indian which is red. Masudi,[2133] in the first half of the 10th century speaks of qinbil, which he says consists of sandy fruits of red hue. They are useful as an anthelminthic and for cutaneous diseases. A similar explanation of the qinbil is found in Qamus, a dictionary writer in the 13th century in Yemen. About the year 1216, a learned traveller, Abul Abbas Ahmad Annabati,[2134] (Annabati = the botanist) or Abul Abbas el-Nebáti, who was a native of Seville, remarks that the drug is known in the Hejaz and brought from Yemen, but that it is unknown in Andalusia and does not grow there.

Kazwini,[2135] nearly at the same period, was also acquainted with wars, a plant sown in Yemen and resembling Sesam; Constantinus Africanus likewise mentioned “huars.” Wars, Wors, Wurrus or Warras in Arabia properly signifies saffron.

In modern times, we find Niebuhr[2136] speaks of the same substance (as “wars”), stating it to be a dye-stuff, of which quantities are conveyed from Mokha to Oman.

=Production=—Kamala is one of the minor products of the Government forests in the Madras Presidency, but is also collected in many other parts of India. The following particulars have been communicated to us by a correspondent[2137] in the North-west Provinces:—

“ ... Enormous quantities of Rottlera tinctoria are found growing at the foot of these hills, and every season numbers of people, chiefly women and children, are engaged in collecting the powder for exportation to the plains. They gather the berries in large quantities and throw them into a great basket in which they roll them about, rubbing them with their hands so as to divest them of the powder, which falls through the basket as through a sieve, and is received below on a cloth spread for the purpose. This powder forms the Kamala of commerce, and is in great repute as an anthelminthic, but is most extensively used as a dye. The adulterations are chiefly the powdered leaves, and the fruit-stalks with a little earthy matter, but the percentage is not large. The operations of picking the fruit and rubbing off the powder commence here in the beginning of March and last about a month....”

[2130] Adams’ translat. iii. 457.

[2131] Quoted by Ibn Baytar,—see Sontheimer’s translation, ii. (1842) 326. 585.

[2132] Ibn Khordadbeh, Livre des routes etc.—Journ. Asiatique, v. (1865) 295.

[2133] Les Prairies d’or, i. (Paris, 1861) 367.

[2134] Quoted by Ibn Baytar.

[2135] Ed. Lichtenfels, i. (Göttingen, 1849).

[2136] Description de l’Arabie, 1774. 133.

[2137] F. E. G. Matthews, Esq., of Nainee Tal.

A similar powder is collected in Southern Arabia, whence it is shipped to the Persian Gulf and Bombay. It is also brought, under the name of Wars, from Hurrur, a town in Eastern Africa, which is a great trading station between the Galla countries and Berbera.[2138] Yet the Arabian and African drug consists in most cases not of kamala, but of those dark glands which we describe further on, at p. 575.

[2138] Burton, Journ. of R. Geogr. Society, xxv. (1855) 146. Haggenmacher, Reise in das Somaliland, in Petermann’s _Geogr. Mittheilungen_, Ergänzungsheft, xlvii. (1874) 39.

=Description=—Kamala is a fine, granular, mobile powder, consisting of transparent, crimson granules, the bright colour of which is mostly somewhat deadened by the admixture of grey stellate hairs, minute fragments of leaves and similar foreign matter. It is nearly destitute of taste and smell, but an alcoholic solution poured into water emits a melon-like odour. Kamala is scarcely acted on by water, even at a boiling heat; on the other hand, alcohol, ether, chloroform or benzol extract from it a splendid red resin. Neither sulphuric nor nitric acid acts upon it in the cold, nor does oil of turpentine become coloured by it unless warmed. It floats on water, but sinks in oil of turpentine. When sprinkled over a flame, it ignites after the manner of lycopodium. Heated alone, it emits a slight aromatic odour; if pure, it leaves after incineration about 1·37 per cent. of a grey ash.

=Microscopic Structure=—The granules of kamala are irregular spherical glands, 50 to 60 mkm. in diameter; they have a wavy surface, are somewhat flattened or depressed on one side, and enclose within their delicate yellowish membrane a structureless yellow mass in which are imbedded numerous, simple, club-shaped cells containing a homogeneous, transparent, red substance. These cells are grouped in a radiate manner around the centre of the flattened side, so that on the side next the observer, 10 to 30 of them may easily be counted, while the entire gland may contain 40 to 60. In a few cases, a very short stalk-cell is also seen at the centre of the base.

When the glands are exhausted by alcohol and potash, and broken by pressure between flat pieces of glass, they separate into individual cells which swell up slightly, while the membranous envelope is completely detached, and appears as a simple coherent film. After this treatment the cells, but not their membranous envelope, acquire by prolonged contact with strong sulphuric acid and iodine water a more or less brown or blue colour: the walls of the cells alone correspond therefore to cellulose. Vogl (1864) supposes that a cell of the epidermis of the fruit first develops a young cellule, which by partition is resolved into the stalk-cell and the true mother-cell of the small clavate resin-cellules. At first, the contents of the latter do not differ from the mass in which they are imbedded, and perhaps pass gradually into resin by metamorphosis of the cellular substance.

The glands of kamala are always accompanied by colourless or brownish, thick-walled, stellate hairs, two or three times as long as the glands, often containing air, which do not exhibit any peculiarity of form, but resemble the hairs of other plants, as Verbascum or Althæa.

=Chemical Composition=—Kamala has been analysed by Anderson of Glasgow (1855) and by Leube (1860). From the labours of these chemists, it appears that the powder yields to alcohol or ether nearly 80 per cent. of resin. We find it to be soluble also in glacial acetic acid or in bisulphide of carbon, not in petroleum ether. By treatment of the resin extracted by ether with cold alcohol, Leube resolved it into two brittle reddish yellow resins, of which the one is more easily soluble and fuses at 80° C., and the other dissolves less readily and fuses at 191°. Both dissolve in alkaline solutions, and can be precipitated by acids without apparent change.

Anderson found that a concentrated ethereal solution of kamala allowed to stand for a few days, solidified into a mass of granular crystals, which by repeated solution and crystallization in ether were obtained in a state of purity. This substance, named by Anderson Rottlerin,[2139] forms minute, platy, yellow crystals of a fine satiny lustre, readily soluble in ether, sparingly in cold alcohol, more so in hot, and insoluble in water. The mean of four analyses gave the composition of rottlerin as C₂₂H₂₀O₆.

We have been able to confirm the foregoing observations so far as that we have obtained an abundance of minute acicular crystals, by allowing an ethereal solution of kamala to evaporate spontaneously to a syrupy state. But the purification of these crystals, which was also attempted by our friend Mr. T. B. Groves,[2140] was unsuccessful, for when freed from the protecting mother-liquor, they underwent a change and assumed an amorphous form. We have, on the other hand, succeeded in isolating the crystals from the “Kamalin,” as sold by E. Merck of Darmstadt. By fusing them with caustic potash we obtained paraoxy-benzoic acid (see page 408).

=Uses=—The drug is administered for the expulsion of tapeworm; it has also been used as an external application in herpes circinnatus. In India it is employed for dyeing silk a rich orange-brown.

=Adulteration=—Kamala is very liable to adulteration with earthy substances, even to the extent of 60 per cent. This contamination may easily be known by the grittiness of the drug, and by a portion of it sinking when it is stirred up with water, but in the most decisive manner by incineration. Sometimes kamala contains an undue proportion of foreign vegetable matter, as remains of the capsules, leaves, etc., which can partly be separated by a lawn sieve. We have met with a large quantity of very impure Kamala in the London market (1878), which was offered for cleaning polished metallic surfaces.

=Substitute=—A very remarkable form of so-called kamala was imported in 1867 from Aden by Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, druggists, of London.[2141] It arrived neatly packed in oblong, white calico bags, of three sizes, each inscribed with Arabic characters, indicating with the name of the vendor or collector, a native of Hurrur, the net weight, which was either 100, 50, or 25 Turkish ounces. No more than two supplies, in all 136 lb., could be obtained.

[2139] See Science Papers, 78.

[2140] Yearbook of Pharmacy, 1872. 599.

[2141] It has been particularly described by one of us in Pharm. Journ. ix. (1868) 279, with woodcuts.

The drug was in coarser particles than kamala, of a deep purple, and had a distinct odour resembling that which is produced when a tincture of kamala is poured into water. It had been carefully collected and was free from earthy admixture, yet it left upon incineration 12 per cent. of ash. Under the microscope it presented still greater differences, the grains being cylindrical or subconical, 170 to 200 mkm. long, by 70 to 100 mkm. broad, with oblong resin-cells, arranged perpendicularly in three or four storeys; mixed with the grains were a few long, simple hairs. Another fact of some interest is, that at a temperature of 93° to 100° C., this drug becomes quite black, while kamala undergoes no change of colour.

In 1878 our friend Professor Schär was informed by a Swiss firm, Messrs. Furrer and Escher of Aden, that Kanbil, Qinbil or Kamala are unknown there. But they sent under the name of Vars a powder, which Prof. Schär as well as one of us (F.) find identical with the drug which had been imported by Messrs. Allen and Hanbury. Prof. Schär was also informed that Vars is used chiefly in the coast districts of Mascat (Oman) and Hadramaut, in skin diseases, for expelling the tape worm and as a dye.

Thus the appellation Wurrus or Waras is to be restricted to the dark purple or violet glands occurring in eastern Africa and Yemen, although the Waras sent to one of us[2142] by Vaughan was kamala.

As to the mother plant of Waras[2143] we have no information to offer; we attempted in vain to ascertain its origin. It is evident that it is the “black Abyssinian” powder already alluded to at page 573.

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PIPERACEÆ

FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRI.

Piper nigrum; Black Pepper; F. Poivre noir; G. Schwarzer Pfeffer.

=Botanical Origin=—Piper nigrum L.—The pepper plant is a perennial climbing shrub, with jointed stems branching dichotomously, and broadly ovate, 5-to 7-nerved, stalked leaves. The slender flower-spikes are opposite the leaves, stalked, and from 3 to 6 inches long; and the fruits are sessile and fleshy.

Piper nigrum is indigenous to the forests of Travancore and Malabar, whence it has been introduced into Sumatra, Java, Borneo, the Malay Peninsula, Siam, the Philippines and the West Indies.

=History=—Pepper[2144] is one of the spices earliest used by mankind, and although now a commodity of but small importance in comparison with sugar, coffee, and cotton, it was for many ages the staple article of trade between Europe and India. It would require in fact a volume to give a full idea of the prominent importance of pepper during the middle ages.

In the 4th century B.C., Theophrastus noticed the existence of two kinds of pepper (πέπερι), probably the Black Pepper and Long Pepper of modern times. Dioscorides stated pepper to be a production of India, and was acquainted with White Pepper (λευκὸν πέπερι). Pliny’s information on the same subject is curious; he tells us that in his time a pound of long pepper was worth 15, of white 7, and of black pepper 4 denarii; and expresses his astonishment that mankind should so highly esteem pepper, which was neither a sweet taste nor attractive appearance, or any desirable quality besides a certain pungency.

[2142] Hanbury, Science Papers, 73.

[2143] Some information will be met with in Capt. Hunter’s Account of Aden, 1877. p. 107. In 1875-1876 there were exported from Aden 42,975 lb. of Waras.

[2144] The word pepper, which with slight varieties has passed into almost all languages, comes from the Sanskrit name for Long Pepper, pippali, the change of the l into r having been made by the Persians, in whose ancient language the l is wanting.

In the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about A.D. 64, it is stated that pepper is exported from Baraké, the shipping place of Nelkunda, in which region, and there only, it grows in great quantity. These have been identified with places on the Malabar Coast between Mangalore and Calicut.[2145]

Long pepper and Black pepper are among the Indian spices on which the Romans levied duty at Alexandria about A.D. 176.[2146]

Cosmas Indicopleustes,[2147] a merchant, and in later life a monk, who wrote about A.D. 540, appears to have visited the Malabar Coast, or at all events had some information about the pepper plant from an eye-witness. It is he who furnishes the first particulars about it, stating that it is a climbing plant, sticking close to high trees like a vine. Its native country he calls Male.[2148] The Arabian authors of the middle ages, as Ibn Khurdádbah (circa A.D. 869-885), Edrisi in the middle of the 12th, and Ibn Batuta in the 14th century, furnished nearly similar accounts.

Among Europeans who described the pepper plant with some exactness, one of the first was Benjamin of Tudela, who visited the Malabar Coast in A.D. 1166. Another was the Catalan friar, Jordanus,[2149] about 1330; he described the plant as something like ivy, climbing trees and forming fruit, like that of the wild vine. “This fruit,” he says, “is at first green, then, when it comes to maturity, black.” Nearly the same statements are repeated by Nicolo Conti, a Venetian, who at the beginning of the 15th century, spent twenty-five years in the East. He observed the plant in Sumatra, and also described it as resembling ivy.[2150]

In Europe, pepper during the middle ages was the most esteemed and important of all spices, and the very symbol of the spice trade, to which Venice,[2151] Genoa, and the commercial cities of Central Europe were indebted for a large part of their wealth; and its importance as a means of promoting commercial activity during the middle ages, and the civilizing intercourse of nation with nation, can scarcely be overrated.

[2145] Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, ii. (1807) 458.

[2146] Vincent, op. cit. ii. 754; also Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, ii. (1865) 167.

[2147] Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus, series Græca, lxxxviii. (1860) 443. 446.

[2148] Bar (as in Malabar) merely signifies in Arabic, coast.

[2149] Mirabilia descripta by Friar Jordanus, translated by Col. Yule. London, Hakluyt Society, 1863. 27.

[2150] “Piperis arbor persimilis est ederæ, grana ejus viridia ad formam grani juniperi, quæ modico cinere aspersa torrentur ad solem.”—Kunstmann, Kenntniss Indiens im xv. Jahrhundert, München (1863) 40.

[2151] In the beginning of the 15th century the great emporium of the trade in pepper appears to have been the vicinity of the Church S. Giacomo de Rialto at Venice. In the “capitolare dei Visdomini del fontego dei Todeschi (German court) in Venezia,” edit. of Thomas, Berlin, 1874, the chapter 228, page 116, is devoted to “La mercadantia del pevere.”

Tribute was levied in pepper,[2152] and donations were made of this spice, which was often used as a medium of exchange when money was scarce. During the siege of Rome by Alaric, king of the Goths, A.D. 408, the ransom demanded from the city included among other things 5000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and 3000 pounds of pepper.[2153] After the conquest of Cæsarea in Palestine, A.D. 1101, by the Genoese, each of them received two pounds of pepper and 48 soldi for his part of the booty.[2154] Facts of this nature, of which a great number might be enumerated, sufficiently illustrate the part played by this spice in mediæval times.

The general prevalence during the middle ages of pepper-rents, which consisted in an obligation imposed upon a tenant to supply his lord with a certain quantity of pepper, generally a pound, at stated times, shows how acceptable was this favourite condiment, and how great the desire of the wealthier classes to secure a supply of it when the market was not always certain.[2155]

The earliest reference to a trade in pepper in England that we have met with, is in the Statutes of Ethelred, A.D. 978-1016,[2156] where it is enacted that the Easterlings coming with their ships to Billingsgate should pay at Christmas and Easter for the privilege of trading with London, a small tribute of cloth, five pairs of gloves, ten pounds of pepper,[2157] and two barrels of vinegar.

The merchants who trafficked in spices were called Piperarii,—in English Pepperers, in French Poivriers or Pebriers. As a fraternity or guild, they are mentioned as existing in London in the Reign of Henry II. (A.D. 1154-1189). They were subsequently incorporated as the Grocers’ Company, and had the oversight and control of the trade in spices, drugs, dye-stuffs, and even metals.[2158]

The price of pepper during the middle ages was always exorbitantly high, for the rulers of Egypt extorted a large revenue from all those who were engaged in the trade in it and other spices.[2159] Thus in England between A.D. 1263 and 1399, it averaged 1_s._ per lb., equivalent to about 8_s._ of our present money. It was however about 2_s._ per lb. (= 16_s._) between 1350 and 1360.[2160] In 1370 we find pepper in France valued 7 sous 6 deniers per lb. (= fr. 21. c. 30):—in 1542 at a price equal to fr. 11 per lb.[2161]

The high cost of this important condiment contributed to incite the Portuguese to seek for a sea-passage to India. It was some time after the discovery of this passage (A.D. 1498) that the price of pepper first experienced a considerable fall; while about the same period the cultivation of the plant was extended to the western islands of the Malay Archipelago. The trade in pepper continued to be a monopoly of the Crown of Portugal as late as the 18th century.

[2152] For some examples of this, see Histoire de la vie privée des Français, par le Grand d’Aussy, nouvelle éd., ii. (1815) 182.

[2153] Zosimus, Historia (Lips. 1784) lib. v. c. 41.

[2154] Belgrano, Vita privata dei Genovesi 1875. 152.

[2155] Rogers, Agriculture and Prices in England, i. (1866) 626. The term peppercorn rent, which has survived to our times, now only signifies a nominal payment.

[2156] Ancient Laws and Institutes of England, published by the Record Commission, i. (1840) 301.

[2157] A striking contrast to the announcement in a commercial paper, 27 Feb. 1874, that the stock of pepper in the public warehouses of London the previous week was 6035 tons!

[2158] Herbert, Hist. of the twelve great Livery Companies of London, Lond. 1834. 303, 310.

[2159] Reinaud, Nouveau Journal asiatique, 1829, Juillet, 22-51.

[2160] Rogers, op. cit. i. 641.

[2161] Leber, Appréciation de la fortune privée au moyen-âge, éd. 2, Paris, 1847. 95, 305.

The Venetians used every effort to retain the valued traffic in their own hands, but in vain; and it was a fact of general interest when on the 21st of January 1522 a Portuguese ship brought for the first time the spices of India direct to the city of Antwerp. Strange to say, they were received with great mistrust!

Pepper was heavily taxed in England. In 1623 the imposts levied on it amounted to 5_s._ per lb.; and even down to 1823 it was subject to a duty of 2_s._ 6_d._ per lb.

=Production=—In the south-west of India, the plant, or Pepper Vine as it is called, grows on the sides of the narrow valleys where the soil is rich and moist, producing lofty trees by which a constant, favourable coolness is maintained. In such places the pepper-vine runs along the ground and propagates itself by striking out roots into the soil. The natives tie up the end of the vines lying on the ground to the nearest tree, on the bark of which the stems put out roots so far as they have been tied, the shoots above that hanging down. The plant is capable of growing to a height of 20 or 30 feet, but for the sake of convenience it is usually kept low, and is often trained on poles. In places where no vines occur naturally, the plant is propagated by planting slips near the roots of the trees on which it is to climb.

The pepper plants if grown on a rich soil begin to bear even in the first year, and continue to increase in productiveness till about the fifth, when they yield 8 to 10 lb. of berries per plant, which is about the average produce up to the age of 15 to 20 years; after this they begin to decline.

When one or two berries at the base of the spike begin to turn red, the whole spike is pinched off. Next day the berries are rubbed off with the hands and picked clean; then dried for three days on mats, or on smooth hard ground, or on bamboo baskets near a gentle fire.

In Malabar the pepper-vine flowers in May and June, and the fruits become fit for gathering at the commencement of the following year.[2162]

The largest quantities of pepper are produced in the island of Rhio, near Singapore, in Djohor (in the south-eastern coast of the Malayan Peninsula), and in Penang. The latter island affords on an average about one-half of the total crop.

=Description=—The small, round, berry-like fruits grow somewhat loosely to the number of 20 to 30, on a common pendulous fruit-stalk. They are at first green, then become red, and if allowed to ripen, yellow; but they are gathered before complete maturity, and by drying in that state turn blackish grey or brown. If left until quite ripe they lose some of their pungency, and gradually fall off.

The berries after drying are spherical, about ⅕ inch in diameter, wrinkled on the surface, indistinctly pointed below by the remains of the very short pedicel, and crowned still more indistinctly by the 3-or 4-lobed stigma. The thin pericarp tightly encloses a single seed, the embryo of which in consequence of premature gathering is undeveloped, and merely replaced by a cavity situated below the apex. The seed itself contains within the thin red-brown testa a shining albumen, grey and horny without, and mealy within. The pungent taste and peculiar smell of pepper are familiar to all.

[2162] For a full account of the cultivation of pepper, see Buchanan, Journey from Madras through Mysore, Canara, and Malabar, ii. (1807) 455-520; iii. 158.

=Microscopic Structure=—The transverse section of a grain of black pepper exhibits a soft yellowish epidermis, covering the outer pericarp. This is formed of a closely-packed yellow layer of large, mostly radially arranged, thick-walled cells, each containing in its small cavity a mass of dark brown resin. The middle layer of the pericarp consists of soft, tangentially-extended parenchyme, containing an abundance of extremely small starch granules and drops of oil. The shrinking of this loose middle layer is the chief cause of the deep wrinkles on the surface of the berry. The next inner layer of the pericarp exhibits towards its circumference tangentially-arranged, soft parenchyme, the cells of which possess either spiral striation or spiral fibres, but towards the interior loose parenchyme, free from starch, and containing very large oil-cells.

The testa is formed in the first place of a row of small yellow thick-walled cells. Next to them follows the true testa, as a dense, dark brown layer of lignified cells, the individual outlines of which are undistinguishable.

The albumen of the seeds consists of angular, radially-arranged, large-celled parenchyme. Most of its cells are colourless and loaded with starch; others contain a soft yellow amorphous mass. If thin slices are kept under glycerin for some time, these masses are slowly transformed into needle-shaped crystals of piperin.

=Chemical Composition=—Pepper contains resin and essential oil, to the former of which its sharp pungent taste is due. The essential oil has more of the smell than of the taste of pepper.[2163] The drug yields from 1·6 to 2·2 per cent. of this volatile oil, which agrees with oil of turpentine in composition as well as in specific gravity and boiling point. We find it, in a column 50 mm. long, to deviate the ray of polarized light 1°·2 to 3°·4 to the left.

The most interesting constituent of pepper, Piperin, which pepper yields to the extent of 2 to 8 per cent., agrees in composition with the formula C₁₇H₁₉NO₃, like morphine. Piperin has no action on litmus paper; it is not capable of combining directly with an acid, yet unites with hydrochloric acid in the presence of mercuric and other metallic chlorides, forming crystallizable compounds. It is insoluble in water; when perfectly pure, its crystals are devoid of colour, taste and smell. Its alcoholic solution is without action on polarized light. Piperin may be resolved, as found by Anderson in 1850, into Piperic Acid, C₁₂H₁₀O₄, and Piperidine, C₅H₁₁N. The latter is a liquid colourless alkaloid, boiling at 106° C., having the odour of pepper and ammonia, and directly yielding crystallizable salts.

Besides these constituents, pepper also contains some fatty oil in the mesocarp. Of inorganic matter, it yields upon incineration from 4·1 to 5·7 per cent.

=Commerce=—Singapore is the great emporium for pepper, of which 197,478 peculs (26⅓ million lb.) were imported there in 1877. The largest part of it finds its way to England. The import of pepper into the United Kingdom during 1872, was 27,576,710 lb. valued at £753,970. Of this quantity, the Straits Settlements supplied 25,000,000 lb., and British India 256,000 lb. Of the quantity of 25,917,070 lb., imported in 1876 into Great Britain, the home consumption was 9 million lb.

[2163] As noticed by Rheede in 1688: “ ... oleum ex pipere destillatum levem piperis odorem spirans, saporis parum acris.”—Hort. Malab. vii. 24.—The oil was however obtained long before by Valerius Cordus, Guintherus Andernacensis and Porta (see our article Cortex Cinnamomi, page 526).

The exports of pepper from the United Kingdom in 1872 amounted to 17,891,620 lb., the largest quantity being taken by Germany (5,201,574 lb.) Then follows Italy (2,288,647 lb.); and Russia, Holland and Spain, each of which took more than a million pounds.[2164]

The varieties of pepper quoted in price-currents are Malabar, Aleppee and Cochin, Penang, Singapore, Siam.

A large quantity is also shipped from Singapore to China, the imports of that country in 1877 of both black and white pepper, being 53,844 peculs (7,179,200 lb.)

=Uses=—Pepper is not of much importance as a medicine, and is rarely if ever prescribed, except indirectly as an ingredient of some preparation.

=Adulteration=—Whole pepper is not, we believe, liable in Europe to adulteration;[2165] but the case is widely different as regards the pulverized spice. Notwithstanding the enormous penalty of £100, to which the manufacturer, possessor, or seller of adulterated pepper is liable,[2166] and the low cost of the article, ground pepper has hitherto been frequently sophisticated by the addition of the starches of cereals and potatoes, of sago, mustard husks, linseed and capsicum. The admixture of these substances may for the most part be readily detected, after some practice, by the microscope.[2167]

White Pepper.

This form of the spice is prepared from black pepper by removing its dark outer layer of pericarp, and thereby depriving it of a portion of its pungency. It is mentioned by Dioscorides, yet was evidently very little known in Europe even during the middle ages. In the time of Platearius,[2168] white pepper was supposed to be derived from a plant different from Piper nigrum.

Buchanan,[2169] referring to Travancore, remarks that white pepper is made by allowing the berries to ripen; the bunches are then gathered, and having been kept for three days in the house, are washed and bruised in a basket with the hand till all the stalks and pulp are removed.

The finest white pepper is obtained from Tellicherry, on the Malabar Coast, but only in small quantity. The more important places for its preparation are the Straits Settlements, chiefly Rhio. The export of white pepper from Singapore in 1877 was 48,460 peculs. Most of the spice finds its way to China, where it is highly esteemed. In Europe, pepper in its natural state is with good reason preferred.

[2164] Annual Statement of the Trade of the U.K. for 1872. 59., 125.

[2165] According to Moodeen Sheriff (Suppl. to Pharm. of India, 134) the berries of Embelia (Samara) Ribes, order Myrsineæ, are said to be sometimes used for adulterating black pepper in the Indian bazaars.

[2166] By the 59 George III. c. 53 § 22 (1819).

[2167] Consult, Hassall, Food and its Adulterations, Lond. 1855. 42; Evans, Pharm. Journ. i. (1860) 605.

[2168] Glossæ in antidotarium Nicolai., ccxlvi. verso.

[2169] In the work quoted, page 579, ii. 465, 533, and iii. 224.

The grains of white pepper are of rather larger size than those of black, and of a warm greyish tint. They are nearly spherical or a little flattened. At the base the skin of the fruit is thickened into a blunt prominence, whence about 12 light stripes run meridian-like towards the depressed summit. If the skin is scraped off, the dark brown testa is seen enclosing the hard translucent albumen. In anatomical structure, as well as in taste and smell, white pepper agrees with black, which in fact it represents in a rather more fully-grown state.

White pepper appears to afford on an average not more than 1·9 per cent. of essential oil, but to be richer in piperin, of which Cazeneuve and Caillol (1877) extracted as much as 9 per cent. The amount of ash yielded by white pepper is 1·1 per cent. on an average, that is to say, considerably less than by black pepper.

FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGI.

Piper longum; Long Pepper; F. Poivre long; G. Langer Pfeffer.

=Botanical Origin=—Piper officinarum C. DC. (Chavica[2170] officinarum Miq.), a diœcious shrubby plant, with ovate-oblong acuminate leaves, attenuated at the base, and having pinnate nerves. It is a native of the Indian Archipelago, as Java, Sumatra, Celebes and Timor. Long pepper is the fruit spike, collected and dried shortly before it reaches maturity.

Piper longum L.[2171] (Chavica Roxburghii Miq.), a shrub indigenous to Malabar, Ceylon, Eastern Bengal, Timor and the Philippines, also yields long pepper, for the sake of which it is cultivated along the eastern and western coasts of India. It may be distinguished from the previous species by its 5-nerved leaves, cordate at the base.[2172]

=History=—A drug termed Πέπερι μακρὸν, Piper longum, was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans, and may have been the same as the Long Pepper of modern times.

In the Latin verses bearing the name of Macer Floridus,[2173] which were probably written in the 10th century, mention is made of Black, White, and Long Pepper. The last named spice, or Macropiper, is named by Simon of Genoa,[2174] who was physician to Pope Nicolas IV. and chaplain to Boniface VIII. (A.D. 1288-1303), and travelled in the East for the study of plants. Piper longum is also met with in the list of drugs on which (A.D. 1305) duty was levied at Pisa.[2175] Nicolo Conti of Venice, who lived in India from 1419 to 1444, noticed Long Pepper.[2176] Saladinus[2177] in the middle of the 15th century enumerates long pepper among the drugs necessary to be kept by apothecaries and it has had a place in the pharmacopœias to the present time.

[2170] The genus Chavica separated from Piper by Miquel, has been re-united to it by Casimir de Candolle (Prod. xvi. s. 1). The latter genus is now composed of not fewer than 620 species!

[2171] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 18 (1877).

[2172] For good figures of the two plants, see Hayne’s Arzney-Gewächse, xiv. (1843) tab. 20. 21.

[2173] Choulant, Macer Floridus de Viribus Herbarum, Lipsiæ, 1832. 114.

[2174] Clavis Sanationis, Venet. 1510.

[2175] Bonaini, Statuti inediti della città di Pisa, iii. (1857) 492.

[2176] Kunstmann, Kenntniss Indiens im 15ᵗᵉⁿ Jahrhundert, München, 1863. 40.

[2177] See Appendix.

=Production=—In Bengal the plants are cultivated by suckers, and require to be grown on a rich, high and dry soil; they should be set about five feet asunder. An English acre will yield in the first year about three maunds (1 maund = 80 lbs.) of the pepper, in the second twelve, and in the third eighteen; after which, as the plant becomes less and less productive, the roots are grubbed up, dried, and sold as Pipli-múl, of which there is a large consumption in India as a medicine. The pepper is gathered in the month of January, when full grown, and exposed to the sun until perfectly dry. After the fruit has been collected, the stem and branches die down to the ground.[2178]

[2178] Roxburgh, Flora Indica, i. (1832) 155.

=Description=—Long pepper consists of a multitude of minute baccate fruits, closely packed around a common axis, the whole forming a spike of 1½ inch long and ¼ of an inch thick. The spike is supported on a stalk ½ an inch long; it is rounded above and below, and tapers slightly towards its upper end. The fruits are ovoid, ⅒ of an inch long, crowned with a nipple-like point (the remains of the stigma), and arranged spirally with a small peltate bract beneath each. A transverse section of a spike exhibits 8 to 10 separate fruits, disposed radially with their narrower end pointed towards the axis. Beneath the pericarp, the thin brown testa encloses a colourless albumen, of which the obtuser end is occupied by the small embryo.

The long pepper of the shops is greyish-white, and appears as if it had been rolled in some earthy powder. When washed, the spikes acquire their proper colour,—a deep reddish-brown. The drug has a burning aromatic taste, and an agreeable but not powerful odour.

The foregoing description applies to the long pepper of English commerce, which is now obtained chiefly from Java (see next page), where P. officinarum is the common species. In fact the fruits of this latter, as presented to us by Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical Garden, Buitenzorg, near Batavia, offer no characters by which we can distinguish them from the article found in the London shops. Those of P. Betle L. var. γ. densum are extremely similar, but we do not know that they are collected for use.

=Microscopic Structure=—The structure of the individual fruits resembles that of black pepper, exhibiting however some characteristic differences. The epicarp has on the outside, tangentially-extended, thick-walled, narrow cells, containing gum; the middle layer consists of wider, thin-walled, obviously porous parenchyme containing starch and drops of oil. In the outer and middle layers of the fruit numerous large thick-walled cells are scattered, as in the external pericarp of Piper nigrum; in long pepper, however, they do not form a close circle. The inner pericarp is formed of a row of large, cubic or elongated, radially-arranged cells, filled with volatile oil. A row of smaller tangentially-extended cells separates these oil-cells from the compact brown-red testa, which consists of lignified cells like the inner layer of the testa of black pepper, but without the thick-walled cells peculiar to the latter. The albumen of long pepper is distinguished from that of black pepper by the absence of volatile oil.

=Chemical Constituents=—The constituents of long pepper appear to be the same as those of black pepper. We ascertained the presence of piperin; 8 pounds of the drug were not sufficient to afford us an appreciable quantity of the volatile oil. The resin and volatile oil reside exclusively in the pericarp. Long pepper, according to Blyth (1874), yields 8⅓ per cent. of ash.

=Commerce=—Long pepper is at present exported from Penang and Singapore, whither it is brought chiefly from Java, and to a much smaller extent from Rhio. The quantity exported from Singapore in 1871 amounted to 3,366 cwt., of which only 447 cwt. were shipped to the United Kingdom, the remainder being sent chiefly to British India.[2179] The export from Penang is from 2,000 to 3,000 peculs annually. There is also a considerable export of long pepper from Calcutta.

=Uses=—Long pepper is scarcely used as a medicine, black pepper having been substituted in the few preparations in which it was formerly ordered, but it is employed as a spice and in veterinary medicine.

The aromatic root of Piper longum, called in Sanskrit Pippali-mula[2180] (whence the modern name pipli-múl), is a favourite remedy of the Hindus and also known to the Persians and Arabs.

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