CUBEBÆ…

CUBEBÆ

Fructus vel Baccæ vel Piper Cubebæ[2181]; Cubebs; F. Cubèbes; G. Cubeben.

=Botanical Origin=—Piper Cubeba Linn. f. (Cubeba officinalis Miq.), a climbing, woody, diœcious shrub, indigenous to Java, Southern Borneo and Sumatra.[2182]

=History=—Cubebs have been introduced into medicine by the Arabian physicians of the middle ages, who describe them as having the form, colour, and properties of pepper. Masudi[2183] in the 10th century stated them to be a production of Java. Edrisi,[2184] the geographer, in A.D. 1153 enumerated them among the imports of Aden.

Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus of Salerno was acquainted with this drug as early as the 11th century; and in the beginning of the 13th its virtues were noticed in the writings of the Abbess Hildegard in Germany, and even in those of Henrik Harpestreng in Denmark.[2185]

Cubebs are mentioned as a production of Java (“grant isle de Javva”) by Marco Polo; and by Odoric, an Italian friar, who visited the island about forty years later. In the 13th century the drug was an article of European trade, and would appear to have already been regularly imported into London.[2186] Duty was levied upon them as Cubebas silvestres at Barcelona in 1271.[2187] They are mentioned about this period as sold in the fairs of Champagne in France, the price being 4 sous per lb.[2188] They were also sold in England: in accounts under date 1284 they are enumerated with almonds, saffron, raisins, white pepper, grains [of paradise], mace, galangal, and gingerbread, and entered as costing 2_s._ per lb. In 1285—2_s._ 6_d._ to 3_s._ per lb.; while in 1307, 1 lb. purchased for the King’s Wardrobe cost 9_s._[2189]

[2179] Blue Book of the Straits Settlements for 1871.

[2180] Already in the Rāmāyana.

[2181] Cubeba from the Arabic Kabábah.

[2182] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 27 (1877).

[2183] Les Prairies d’or, i. 341.

[2184] Géographie, trad. par Jaubert, i. 51. 89.

[2185] Meyer, Geschichte der Botanik, iii. 537.

[2186] Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis; Liber albus, i. (1859, State papers) 230.

[2187] Capmany, Memorias sobre la Marina, etc., de Barcelona, i. (Madrid, 1779) 44.

[2188] Bourquelot, Etudes sur les foires de la Champagne, Mémoires etc. de l’Institut, v. (1865) 288.

[2189] Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, i. 627-8, ii. 544.—To get some idea of the relative value of commodities then and now, multiply the ancient prices by 8.

From the journal of expenses of John, king of France, while in England during 1359-60, it is evident that cubebs were in frequent use as a spice. Among those who could command such luxuries, they were eaten in powder with meat, or they were candied whole. A patent of pontage granted in 1305 by Edward I., to aid in repairing and sustaining the Bridge of London, and authorizing toll on various articles, mentions among groceries and spices, cubebs as liable to impost.[2190] Cubebs occur in the German lists of medicines of Frankfort and Nördlingen, about 1450 and 1480;[2191] they are also mentioned in the Confectbuch of Hans Folcz of Nuremberg, dating about 1480.[2192]

It cannot however be said that cubebs were a common spice, at all comparable with pepper or ginger, or even in such frequent use as grains of paradise or galangal. Garcia de Orta (1563) speaks of them as but seldom used in Europe; yet they are named by Saladinus as necessary to be kept in every apotheca.[2193] In a list of drugs to be sold in the apothecaries’ shops of the city of Ulm, A.D. 1596, cubebs are mentioned as Fructus carpesiorum vel cubebarum, the price for half an ounce being quoted as 8 kreuzers, the same as that of opium, best manna, and amber, while black and white pepper are priced at 2 kreuzers.[2194]

Although it was always well known that the cubebs were a product of Java and that island is stated to have exported in 1775 as much as 10,000 lb. of this spice,[2195] its mother plant was made known only in 1781 by the younger Linnæus.

The action of cubebs on the urino-genital organs was known to the old Arabian physicians. Yet modern writers on materia medica even at the commencement of the present century, mentioned the drug simply as an aromatic stimulant resembling pepper, but inferior to that spice and rarely employed,[2196]—in fact it had so far fallen into disuse that it was omitted from the London Pharmacopœia of 1809. According to Crawfurd, its importation into Europe, which had long been discontinued, recommenced in 1815, in consequence of its medicinal virtues having been brought to the knowledge of the English medical officers serving in Java, by their Hindu servants.[2197]

[2190] Liber niger Scaccarii, Lond. 1771, i. 478.—A translation may be found in the Chronicles of London Bridge, 1827, 155.

[2191] Archiv der Pharmacie, 201 (1872) 441 and 211 (1877) 101.

[2192] Choulant, Macer Floridus, etc., Lips. 1832, 188.

[2193] Compendium aromatariorum, Bonon., 1488.

[2194] Richard, Beiträge zur Geschichte der Apotheken, 1825. 124.

[2195] Miquel, Commentarii phytographici, i. (Lugd. Bat., 1839).

[2196] In Duncan’s Edinburgh New Dispensatory, ed. 2. 1804, Piper Cubeba is very briefly described, but with no allusion to its possessing any special medicinal properties. In the 6th edition of the same work (1811) it was altogether omitted. See also Murray’s System of Mat. Med. and Pharm. i. (1810) 266.

[2197] Dictionary of the Indian Islands, 1856. 117.—Mr. Crawfurd himself communicated to the Edinburgh Medical and Surgical Journal of 1818 (xiv. 32) a paper making known the “wonderful success” with which cubebs had been used in gonorrhœa.

=Cultivation and Production=[2198]—Cubebs are cultivated in small special plantations and also in coffee plantations, in the district of Banjoemas in the south of Java. The fruits are bought by Chinese who carry them to Batavia. They are likewise produced in Eastern Java and about Bantam and Soebang in the north-west; and extensively in the Lampong country in Sumatra. There has of late been a large distribution of plants among the European coffee planters.

[2198] We are indebted for some particulars under this head to our friends Mr. Binnendyk, of the Buitenzorg Botanical Garden near Batavia, and Dr. De Vry.

The cultivation of cubebs is easy. In the coffee estates certain trees are required for shade: against these Piper Cubeba is planted, and climbing to a height of 18 to 20 feet, forms a large bush.

=Description=—The cubebs of commerce consist of the dry globose fruits, gathered when full-grown, but before they have arrived at maturity. The fruit is about ⅕ of an inch in diameter, when very young sessile, but subsequently elevated on a straight thin stalk, a little longer or even twice as long as itself. By this stalk the fruit is attached in considerable numbers (sometimes more than 50) to a common thickened stalk or rachis, about 1½ inch long.

Commercial cubebs are spherical, sometimes depressed at the base, very slightly pointed at the apex, strongly wrinkled by the shrinking of the fleshy pericarp; they are of a greyish-brown or blackish hue, frequently covered with an ashy-grey bloom. The stalk is the elongated base of the fruit, and remains permanently attached. The common axis or rachis, which is almost devoid of essential oil, is also frequently mixed with the drug.

The skin of the fruit covers a hard, smooth brown shell containing the seed, which latter when developed has a compressed spherical form, a smooth surface, and adheres to the pericarp only at the base; its apex either projects slightly or is pressed inwards. The albumen is solid, whitish, oily, and encloses a small embryo below the apex. In the cubebs of the shops, the seed is mostly undeveloped and shrunken, and the pericarp nearly empty.

Cubebs have a strong, aromatic, persistent taste, with some bitterness and acridity. Their smell is highly aromatic and by no means disagreeable.

=Microscopic Structure=—This exhibits some peculiarities. The skin of the fruit below the epidermis, is made up of small, cubic, thick-walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small cubic thick-walled cells, forming an interrupted row, and only half as large as in black pepper. The broad middle layer consists of small-celled undeveloped tissue containing drops of oil, granules of starch, and crystalline groups of cubebin, probably also fat. This middle layer is interrupted by very large oil-cells, which frequently enclose needle-shaped crystals of cubebin, united in concentric groups. The much narrower inner layer consists of about four rows of somewhat larger tangentially-extended soft cells, holding essential oil. Next to these comes the light yellow brittle shell, formed of a densely packed row of encrusted, radially-arranged, elongated thick-walled cells. Lastly, the embryo is covered with a thin brown membrane, and exhibits the structure and contents as that of Piper nigrum, excepting that in P. Cubeba the cells are rounder, and the crystals consist of cubebin and not of piperin.

=Chemical Composition=—The most obvious constituent of cubebs is the volatile oil, the proportion of which yielded by the drug varies from 4 to 13 per cent. The causes of this great variation may be found in the constitution of the drug itself, as well as in the alterability of the oil, and the fact that its prevailing constituents begin not to boil below 264° C. It is, as shown in 1875 by Oglialoro, a mixture of an oil C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at 158°-163°, which is present to a very small amount, and two oils of the formula C₁₃H₂₄, boiling at 262°-265° C. One of the latter deviates the plane of polarization strongly to the left, and yields the crystallized compound C₁₅H₂₄ 2 HCl, melting at 118° C. The other hydrocarbon is less lævogyrate and cannot be combined with HCl.

One part of oil of cubebs, diluted with about 20 parts of bisulphide of carbon, assumes at first a greenish, and afterwards a blue coloration, if one drop of a mixture of concentrated sulphuric and nitric acids (equal weight of each acid) is shaken with the solution.

The oil distilled from old cubebs on cooling at length deposits large, transparent, inodorous octohedra of camphor of cubebs, C₃₀H₄₈ + 2 OH₂, belonging to the rhombic system. They melt at 65° and may be sublimed at 148°. We have not succeeded in obtaining them by keeping the oil of fresh cubebs for two years in contact with water, to which a little alcohol and nitric acid was added.

Another constituent of cubebs is Cubebin, crystals of which may sometimes be seen in the pericarp even with a common lens. It was discovered by Soubeiran and Capitaine in 1839; it is an inodorous substance, crystallizing in small needles or scales, melting at 125°, having a bitter taste in alcoholic solution; it dissolves freely in boiling alcohol, but is mostly deposited upon cooling; it requires 30 parts of cold ether for solution, and is also abundantly soluble in chloroform. We found this solution to be slightly lævogyre; it turns red on addition of concentrated sulphuric acid. If the solution of cubebin in chloroform is shaken with dry pentoxide of phosphorus, it turns blue and gradually becomes red by the influence of moisture. Cubebin is nearly insoluble in cold, but slightly soluble in hot water. Bernatzik (1866) obtained from cubebs 0·40 per cent. of cubebin, Schmidt (1870) 2·5 per cent. The crystals, which are deposited in an alcoholic or ethereal extract of cubebs, consist of cubebin in an impure state. Cubebin is devoid of any remarkable therapeutic action. Its composition, according to Weidel (1877) answers to the formula C₁₀H₁₀O₃; by melting it with caustic potash, cubebin is resolved as follows:—

C₁₀H₁₀O₃ · 5 O = CO₂ · C₂H₄O₂ · C₆H₃(OH)₂COOH. Acetic Protocatechuic Acid. Acid.

The resin extracted from cubebs consists of an indifferent portion, nearly 3 per cent., and of Cubebic Acid, amounting to about 1 per cent. of the drug. Both are amorphous, and so, according to Schmidt, are the salts of cubebic acid. Bernatzik however, found some of them, as that of barium, to be crystallizable. Schulze (1873) prepared cubebic acid from the crystallized sodium-salt, but was unable to get it other than amorphous. The resins, the indifferent as well as the acid, possess the therapeutic properties of the drug.

Schmidt further pointed out the presence in cubebs, of gum (8 per cent.), fatty oil, and malates of magnesium and calcium.

=Commerce=—Cubebs were imported into Singapore in 1872 to the extent of 3062 cwt., of which amount 2348 cwt. were entered as from Netherlands India. The drug was re-shipped during the same year to the amount of 2766 cwt., the quantity exported to the United Kingdom being 1180 cwt., to the United States of America 1244 cwt., and to British India 104 cwt.[2199] In the previous year, a larger quantity was shipped to India than to Great Britain.

=Uses=—Cubebs are much employed in the treatment of gonorrhœa. The drug is usually administered in powder; less frequently in the form of ethereal or alcoholic extract, or essential oil.

Bernatzik and Schmidt, whose chemical and therapeutical experiments have thrown much light on the subject, have shown that the efficacy of cubebs being dependent on the indifferent resin and cubebic acid, preparations which contain the utmost amount of these bodies and exclude other constituents of the drug, are to be preferred. They would reject the essential oil, as they find its administration devoid of therapeutic effects.

The preparations which consequently are to be recommended, are the berries deprived of their essential oil and constituents soluble in water, and then dried and powdered; an alcoholic extract prepared from the same, or the purified resins.

=Adulteration=—Cubebs are not much subject to adulteration, though it is by no means rare that the imported drug contains an undue proportion of the inert stalks (rachis)[2200] that require to be picked out before the berries are ground. Dealers judge of cubebs by the oiliness and strong characteristic smell of the berries when crushed. Those which have a large proportion of the pale, smooth, ripe berries, which look dry when broken, are to be avoided.

We have occasionally found in the commercial drug a small, smooth two-celled fruit, of the size, shape, and colour of cubebs, but wanting the long pedicel. A slight examination suffices to recognize it as not being cubebs. We have also met with some cubebs of larger size than the ordinary sort, much shrivelled, with a stouter and flattened pedicel, one and a half times to twice as long as the berry. The drug has an agreeable odour different from that of common cubebs, and a very bitter taste. From a comparison with herbarium specimens, we judge that it may possibly be derived from Piper crassipes Korthals (Cubeba crassipes Miq.), a Sumatran species.

The fruits of Piper Lowong Bl. (Cubeba Lowong Miq.), a native of Java, and those of P. ribesioides Wall. (Cubeba Wallichii Miq.) are extremely cubeb-like.[2201] Those of Piper caninum A. Dietr. (Cubeba canina Miq.), a plant of wide distribution throughout the Malay Archipelago as far as Borneo, for a specimen of which we have to thank Mr. Binnendyk of Buitenzorg, are smaller than true cubebs, and have stalks only half the diameter of the berry.

[2199] Straits Settlements Blue Book for 1872. 294. 338.—There are no statistics for showing the total import of cubebs into the United Kingdom.

[2200] They yielded to Schmidt 1·7 per cent. of oil and 3 per cent. of resin.

[2201] Figured in Nees von Esenbeck, Plantæ medicinales, Düsseldorf, i. (1828), tab. 22. A different figure is given by Miquel, Comment. phytogr. (1839), tab. 3.

In the south of China the fruits of Laurus Cubeba Lour. have been frequently mistaken by Europeans for cubebs. The tree which affords them is unknown to modern botanists; Meissner refers it doubtfully to the genus Tetranthera.[2202]

Ashantee Pepper, African Cubebs, or West African Black Pepper.

This spice is the fruit of Piper Clusii Cas. DC. (Cubeba Clusii Miq.), a species of wide distribution in tropical Africa, most abundantly occurring in the country of the Niamniam, about 4° to 5° N. lat., and 28° to 29° E. long. Its splendid red fruit bunches are spoken of with admiration by Schweinfurth,[2203] who states that Piper Clusii is one of the characteristic and most conspicuous plants of those regions. The dried fruit is a round berry having a general resemblance to common cubebs but somewhat smaller, less rugose, attenuated into a slender pedicel once or twice as long as the berry and usually curved. The berries are crowded around a common stalk or rachis; they are of an ashy-grey tint, and have a hot taste and the odour of pepper. According to Stenhouse, they contain piperin and not cubebin.[2204]

The fruit of Piper Clusii was known as early as 1364 to the merchants of Rouen and Dieppe, who imported it from the Grain Coast, now Liberia,[2205] under the name of pepper. The Portuguese likewise exported it from Benin as far back as 1485, as Pimienta de rabo, i.e. tailed pepper, and attempted in vain to sell it in Flanders.[2206] Clusius received from London a specimen of this drug, of which he has left a good figure in his Exotica.[2207] He says that its importation was forbidden by the King of Portugal for fear it should depreciate the pepper of India. The spice was also known to Gerarde and Parkinson; in our times it has been afresh brought to notice by the late Dr. Daniell.[2208] In tropical Western Africa it is used as a condiment, and might easily be collected in large quantities, provided it should prove a good substitute for pepper.[2209]

[2202] De Candolle, Prod. xv. sect. i. 199; Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 205, with figure; also Science Papers, 247.

[2203] Im Herzen Afrikas, i. (1874) 507; ii. 399.

[2204] Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 363.

[2205] Margry, Les navigations françaises et la révolution maritime du XIVᵉ au XVIᵉ siècle, 1867. 26.

[2206] Giovanni di Barros, l’Asia, i. (Venet. 1561) 80.

[2207] Lib. i. c. 22, p. 184 (1605).

[2208] Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 198.

[2209] One cask of it was offered for sale in London as “Cubebs,” 11 Feb. 1858.

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HERBA MATICO

Matico.

=Botanical Origin=—Piper angustifolium[2210] Ruiz et Pavon (Artanthe elongata Miq.), a shrub growing in the moist woods of Bolivia, Peru, Brazil, New Granada and Venezuela, also cultivated in some localities. A slightly different, somewhat stouter form of the plant with leaves 7 to 8 inches long (var. α. cordulatum Cas. DC.), occurs in the Brazilian provinces of Bahia, Minas Geraes and Ceará, as well as in Peru and the northern parts of South America.

[2210] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 18 (1877).

=History=—The styptic properties of this plant are said to have been discovered by a Spanish soldier named Matico,[2211] who having applied some of the leaves to his wounds, observed that the bleeding was thereby arrested; hence the plant came to be called Yerba or Palo del Soldado (soldier’s herb or tree). The story is not very probable, but it is current in many parts of South America, and its allusion is not confined to the plant under notice.

The hæmostatic powers of matico, which are not noticed in the works of Ruiz and Pavon, were first recognized in Europe by Jeffreys,[2212] a physician of Liverpool, in 1839, but they had already attracted attention in North America as early as 1827.

=Description=—Matico, as it arrives in commerce, consists of a compressed, coherent, brittle mass of leaves and stems, of a light green hue and pleasant herby odour. More closely examined, it is seen to be made up of jointed stems bearing lanceolate, acuminate leaves, cordate and unequal at the base, and having very short stalks. The leaves are rather thick, with their whole upper surface traversed by a system of minute sunk veins, which divide it into squares and give it a tessellated appearance. On the under side, these squares form a corresponding series of depressions which are clothed with shaggy hairs. The leaves attain a length of about 6 inches by 1½ inches broad. The flower and fruit spikes which are often 4 to 5 inches long, are slender and cylindrical with the flowers or fruits densely packed. The leaves of matico have a bitterish aromatic taste; their tissue shows numerous cells, filled with essential oil.[2213]

=Chemical Composition=—The leaves yield on an average 27 per cent.[2214] of essential oil, which we find slightly[2215] dextrogyre; a large proportion of it distills at 180° to 200° C., the remainder becoming thickish. Both portions are lighter than water; but another specimen of the oil of matico which we had kept for some years, sinks in water. We have observed that in winter the oil deposits remarkable crystals of a camphor, more than half an inch in length, fusible at 103° C.; they belong to the hexagonal system, and have the odour and taste of the oil from which they separate.

Matico further affords, according to Marcotte (1864),[2216] a crystallizable acid, named Artanthic Acid, besides some tannin. The latter is made evident by the dark brown colour which the infusion assumes on addition of ferric chloride. The leaves likewise contain resin, but as shown by Stell in 1858, neither piperin, cubebin, nor any analogous principle such as the so-called Maticin formerly supposed to exist in them.

[2211] Matico is the diminutive of Mateo, the Spanish for Matthew.

[2212] Remarks on the efficacy of Matico as a styptic and astringent, 3rd ed., Lond. 1845.

[2213] Microscopic examination of the leaves, Pocklington, Pharm. Journ. v. (1874) 301.

[2214] As Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, kindly informed me.—F. A. F..

[2215] Deviating only 0.7° in a column 50 mm. long.

[2216] Guibourt (et Planchon), Hist. des Drogues, ii. (1869) 278.—We are not acquainted with “artanthic acid.”

=Commerce=—The drug is imported in bales and serons by way of Panama. Among the exports of the Peruvian port of Arica in 1877, we noticed 195 quintales (19,773 lb) of Matico.

=Uses=—Matico leaves, previously softened in water, or in a state of powder, are sometimes employed to arrest the bleeding of a wound. The infusion is taken for the cure of internal hæmorrhage.

=Substitutes=—Several plants have at times been brought into the market under the name of matico. One of these is Piper aduncum L.[2217] (Artanthe adunca Miq.), of which a quantity was imported into London from Central America in 1863, and first recognized by Bentley (1864). In colour, odour, and shape of leaf it nearly agrees with ordinary matico; but differs in that the leaves are marked beneath by much more prominent ascending parallel nerves, the spaces between which are not rugose but comparatively smooth and nearly glabrous. In chemical characters, the leaves of P. aduncum appear to accord with those of P. angustifolium.

Piper aduncum is a plant of wide distribution throughout Tropical America. Under the name of Nhandi or Piper longum it was mentioned by Piso in 1648[2218] on account of the stimulant action of its leaves and roots,—a property which causes it to be still used in Brazil, where however no particular styptic virtues seem to be ascribed to it.[2219] The fruits are there employed in the place of cubebs. Sloane’s figure[2220] of “Piper longum, arbor folio latissimo” also shows Piper aduncum.

According to Triana, Piper lanceæfolium HBK. (Artanthe Miq.), and another species not recognized, yield matico in New Granada.[2221] Waltheria glomerata Presl (Sterculiaceæ) is called Palo del Soldado at Panama and its leaves are used as a vulnerary.[2222] In Riobamba and Quito, Eupatorium glutinosum Lamarck, is also called Chusalonga or Matico.[2223]

[2217] For a good figure, see Jacquin, Icones II. (1781-1793) tab. 210.

[2218] De Medicinâ Brasiliensi, lib. 4. c. 57.

[2219] Langgaard, Diccionario de Medicina domestica e popular, Rio de Janeiro, ii. (1865) 44.

[2220] Voyage to Jamaica I. (1707) 135, and tab. 88.

[2221] Exposition de 1867—Catalogue de M. José Triana, p. 14.

[2222] Seemann, Botany of the Herald, 1852-57. 85.

[2223] Bentham, Plantæ Hartwegianæ, Lon. 1839. 198.

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ARISTOLOCHIACEÆ

RADIX SERPENTARIÆ.

Radix Serpentariæ Virginianæ; Virginian Snake-root, Serpentary Root; F. Serpentaire de Virginie; G. Schlangenwurzel.

=Botanical Origin=—Aristolochia Serpentaria L., a perennial herb, commonly under a foot high, with simple or slightly branched, flexuose stems, producing small, solitary, dull purple flowers, close to the ground. It grows in shady woods in the United States, from Missouri and Indiana to Florida and Virginia,—abundantly in the Alleghanies and in the Cumberland Mountains, less frequently in New York, Michigan and the other Northern States. The plant varies exceedingly in the shape of its leaves.

=History=—The botanists of the 16th century, being fond of appellations alluding to the animal kingdom, gave the names of Serpentaria or Colubrina, i.e. snake-root, to the rhizome of Polygonum Bistorta L. In America it was not the appearance, but the application of the drug under notice to which it owes the name snake-root.

The earliest account of Virginian snake-root is that of Thomas Johnson, an apothecary of London who published an edition of Gerarde’s Herbal in 1636. It is evident however that Johnson confounded a species of Aristolochia from Crete with what he calls “that snake-weed that was brought from Virginia and grew with Mr. John Tradescant at South Lambeth, anno 1632.” It was very briefly noticed by Cornuti in his Canadensium Plantarum Historia (1635), and in a much more intelligent manner by Parkinson in 1640. These authors, as well as Dale (1693) and Geoffroy (1741), extol the virtues of the root as a remedy for the bite of the rattlesnake, or of a rabid dog. Serpentary was introduced into the London Pharmacopœia in 1650.

=Description=—The snake-root of commerce includes the rhizome, which is knotty, contorted, scarcely 1 inch in length by ⅛ of an inch in thickness, bearing on its upper side the short bases of the stems of previous years, and throwing off from the under, numerous, slender, matted, branching roots, 2 to 4 inches long. The rhizome is often still attached to portions of the weak, herbaceous stem, which sometimes bears the fruit,—more rarely flowers and leaves. The drug has a dull brown hue, an aromatic odour resembling valerian but less unpleasant, and a bitterish aromatic taste, calling to mind camphor, valerian and turpentine.

=Microscopic Structure=—In the rhizome, the outer layer of the bark consists of a single row of cuboid cells; the middle cortical portion (mesophlœum) of about six layers of larger cells. In the liber, which is built up of numerous layers of smaller cells, those belonging to the medullary rays are nearly cuboid with distinctly porous walls, those of the liber bundles being smaller and arranged in a somewhat crescent-shaped manner. Groups of short, reticulated or punctuated vessels alternate in the woody rays with long, porous, ligneous cells; those close to the pith having thick walls. The largest cells of all are those composing the pith; the latter, seen in transverse section, occupies not the very centre of the rootstock, but is found nearer to its upper side. The rootlets exhibit a central fibro-vascular bundle, surrounded by a nucleus-sheath. In the mesophlœum both of the rootstock and the rootlets, there occur a few cells containing a yellow essential oil. The other cells are loaded with starch.

=Chemical Composition=—Essential oil exists in the drug to the extent of about ½ per cent.; and resin in nearly the same proportion. The outer cortical layer, as well as the zone of the nucleus-sheath, contains a little tannin, and a watery infusion of the drug is coloured greenish by perchloride of iron. Neutral acetate of lead precipitates some mucilage as well as the bitter principle, which latter may also be obtained by means of tannic acid. It is an amorphous, bitter substance, which deserves further investigation. By an alkaline solution of tartrate of copper the presence in serpentary of sugar is made evident.

=Commerce=—Virginian snake-root is imported from New York and Boston, in bales, casks or bags.

=Uses=—The drug is employed in the form of an infusion or tincture as a stimulating tonic and diaphoretic; it is more often prescribed in combination with cinchona bark than by itself. Its ancient reputation for the cure of snake-bites is now disregarded.

=Adulteration and Substitution=—Virginian snake-root is said to be sometimes adulterated with the root of Spigelia marilandica L., which has neither its smell nor taste (see p. 433); or with that of Cypripedium pubescens L., which it scarcely at all resembles. It is not uncommon to find here and there in the serpentary of commerce, a root of Panax quinquefolium L. accidentally collected, but never added for the purpose of adulteration.

The root of Aristolochia reticulata Nutt., a plant of Louisiana and Arkansas, has been brought into commerce in considerable quantity as Texan or Red River Snake-root.[2224] We are indebted for an authentic specimen from the Cherokee country to Mr. Merrell, a large dealer in herbs at St. Louis, Missouri, who states that all the serpentary grown south-west of the Rocky Mountains is the produce of that species. The late Prof. Parrish of Philadelphia was kind enough to supply us with specimens of the same drug, as well as with reliable samples of true Virginian or Middle States Snake-root.

The Texan snake-root is somewhat thicker and less matted than that derived from A. Serpentaria, but has the odour and taste of the latter; some say it is less aromatic. The plant, portions of which are often present, may be easily distinguished by its leaves being coriaceous, sessile and strongly reticulated on their under surface.

[2224] Wiegand in American Journ. of Pharm. x. (1845) 10; also Proceedings of the Am. Pharm. Association, xxi. (1873) 441.

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CUPULIFERÆ

CORTEX QUERCUS.

Oak Bark; F. Ecorce de Chêne; G. Eichenrinde.

=Botanical Origin=—Quercus Robur L., a tree, native of almost the whole of Europe, from Portugal and the Greek Peninsula as far north as 58° N. lat. in Scotland, 62° in Norway, and 56° in the Ural Mountains.

There are two remarkable forms of this tree which are regarded by many botanists as distinct species, but which are classed by De Candolle[2225] as sub-species.

Sub-species I. pedunculata—with leaves sessile or shortly stalked, and acorns borne on a long peduncle, and acorns either sessile or growing on a short peduncle.

Sub-species II. sessiliflora—with leafstalks more or less elongated.

Both forms occur in Britain. The first is the common oak of the greater part of England and the lowlands of Scotland. The second is frequently scattered in woods in which the first variety prevails, but it rarely constitutes the mass of the oak woods in the south of England. In North Wales however, in the hilly parts of the north of England, and in Scotland, it is the commoner of the two forms (Bentham).

[2225] Prodromus, xvi. (1864) sect. 2. fasc. 1.

=History=—The astringent properties of all parts of the oak[2226] were well known to Dioscorides, who recommends a decoction of the inner bark in colic, dysentery and spitting of blood. Yet oak bark seems at no time to have been held in great esteem as a medicine, probably on account of its commonness; and it is now almost superseded by other astringents. For tanning leather it has always been largely employed.

[2226] Probably not Q. Robur L.

=Description=—For medicinal use the bark of the younger stems or branches is collected in the early spring. It varies somewhat in appearance according to the age of the wood from which it has been taken: that usually supplied to English druggists is in channelled pieces of variable length and a tenth of an inch or less in thickness, smooth, of a shining silvery grey, variegated with brown, dotted over with little scars. The inner surface is light rusty-brown, longitudinally striated. The fracture is tough and fibrous. A transverse section shows a thin, greenish cork-layer, within which is the brown parenchyme, marked with numerous rows of translucent colourless spots. The smell of dry oak bark is very faint; but when the bark is moistened the odour of tan becomes evident. The taste is astringent and in old barks slightly bitter.

=Microscopic Structure=—The outer layer of young oak bark consists of small flat cork-cells; the middle layer of larger thick-walled cells slightly extended in a tangential direction, and containing brown grains and chlorophyll. This tissue passes gradually into the softer narrower parenchyme of the inner bark, which is irregularly traversed by narrow medullary rays. It exhibits moreover a ring, but slightly interrupted, of thick-walled cells (sclerenchyme) and isolated shining bundles of liber-fibres.

Groups of crystals of calcium oxalate are frequent in the middle and inner bark, but the chief constituents of the cells are brown granules of colouring matter and tannin. As the thickness of the bark increases the liber is pushed more to the outside, the middle cortical layer being partly thrown off by secondary cork-formation (rhytidoma, see pp. 354 and 538). Hence the younger barks, which alone are medicinal, are widely different from the older in structure and appearance.

=Chemical Composition=—The most interesting constituent is a peculiar kind of tannin. Stenhouse pointed out in 1843 that the tannic acid of oak bark is not identical with that of nutgalls; and such many years afterwards was proved to be the case.

The first-named substance, now called Querci-tannic Acid, yields by destructive distillation pyrocatechin, and according to Johanson (1875) very little pyrogallol. By boiling it with dilute sulphuric acid querci-tannic acid is split up into a red derivative and sugar. A solution of gelatine is precipitated by querci-tannic acid as well as by gallo-tannic acid; yet the compound formed with the latter is very liable to putrefaction, whereas the tannin of oak bark, which is accompanied by a large amount of extractive matter, furnishes a stable compound, and is capable of forming good leather.

As querci-tannic acid has not yet been isolated in a pure state, the exact estimation of the strength of the tanning principle in oak bark has not been accomplished, although it is important from an economic as well as from a scientific point of view. The method of Neubauer (1873) depends upon the amount of permanganate of potassium decomposable by the extract of a given weight of oak bark. Neubauer found in the bark of young stems, as grown for tanning purposes, from 7 to 10 per cent. of querci-tannic acid, soluble in cold water.

Braconnot (1849) extracted from the seeds of the oaks under notice a crystallized sugar, which was shown in 1851 by Dessaignes to be a peculiar substance, which he termed Quercite. Prunier proved (1877-1878) that it agrees with the formula C₆H₇(OH)₅ + 4 OH₂, and is closely allied to kinic acid, C₆H₇(OH)₄COOH (see page 363). Quercite gives off water at 100°, melts at 225° C., and again losing water yields a crystallized anhydride. In the oak bark extremely small quantities of quercite appear also to be present, as pointed out by Johanson.

A colourless, crystallizable, bitter substance, soluble in water, but not in absolute alcohol or ether, was extracted from oak bark in 1843 by Gerber, and named Quercin. It requires further examination: Eckert (1864) could not detect its existence in young oak bark.

=Uses=—Occasionally employed as an astringent, chiefly for external application.

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GALLÆ HALEPENSES

Gallæ Turcicæ; Galls, Nutgalls, Oak Galls, Aleppo or Turkey Galls; F. Noix de Galle, Galle d’Alep; G. Levantische oder Aleppische Gallen, Galläpfel.

=Botanical Origin=—Quercus lusitanica Webb, var. infectoria (Q. infectoria Oliv.),[2227] a shrub or rarely a tree, found in Greece, Asia Minor, Cyprus and Syria. It is probable that other varieties of this oak, as well as allied species, contribute to furnish the Aleppo galls of commerce.

=History=—Oak galls are named by Theophrastus, and were well known to other ancient writers. Alexander Trallianus prescribed them as a remedy in diarrhœa.[2228]

The earliest accurate descriptions and figures of the oak and the insect producing the galls are due to Olivier.[2229] Pliny[2230] mentions the interesting fact that paper saturated with an infusion of galls may be used as a test for discovering sulphate of iron, when added as an adulteration to the more costly verdigris: this, according to Kopp, is the earliest instance of the scientific application of a chemical reaction.[2231] For tanning and dyeing, galls have been used from the earliest times, during the middle ages however they were not precisely an article of great importance, being then, no doubt, for a large part replaced by sumach.

Nutgalls have long been an object of commerce between Western Asia and China. Barbosa in his Description of the East Indies[2232] written in 1514 calls them Magican,[2233] and says they are brought from the Levant to Cambay by way of Mekka, and that they are worth a great deal in China and Java. From the statements of Porter Smith[2234] we learn that they are still prized by the Chinese.

[2227] De Candolle, Prodromus, xvi. sect. 2. fasc. i. 17.

[2228] Puschmann’s edition, quoted in the Appendix, i. 237.

[2229] Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, ii. (1801), pl. 14-15.

[2230] Lib. 34. c. 26.

[2231] Geschichte der Chemie, ii. (1844) 51.

[2232] Published by the Hakluyt Society, Lond. 1866. 191.

[2233] Nearly the same name is still used in the Tamil, Telugu, Malayalim and Canarese languages.

[2234] Mat. Med. and Nat. Hist. of China, 1871. 100.

=Formation=—Many plants are punctured by insects for the sake of depositing their eggs, which operation gives rise to those excrescences which bear the general name of gall.[2235]

Oaks are specially liable to be visited for this purpose by insects of the order Hymenoptera and the genus Cynips, one species of which, Cynips Gallæ tinctoriæ Olivier (Diplolepis Gallæ tinctoriæ Latreille), occasions the galls under notice.

The female of this little creature is furnished with a delicate borer or ovipositor, which she is able to protrude from the extremity of the abdomen; by means of it she pierces the tender shoot of the oak, and deposits therein one or more eggs. This minute operation occasions an abnormal affluence to the spot of the juices of the plant, the result of which is the growth of an excrescence often of great magnitude, in the centre of which (but not as it appears until the gall has become full-grown) the larva is hatched and undergoes its transformations.

When the larva has assumed its final development and become a winged insect, which requires a period of five to six months, the latter bores itself a cylindrical passage from the centre of the gall to its surface, and escapes.

In the best kind of gall found in commerce, this stage has not yet arrived, the gall having been gathered while the insect is still in the larval state. In splitting a number of galls, it is not difficult to find specimens in all stages, from those containing the scarcely distinguishable remains of the minute larva, to those which show the perfect insect to have perished when in the very act of escaping from its prison.

=Description=—Aleppo galls[2236] are spherical, and have a diameter of ⁴/₁₀ to ⁸/₁₀ of an inch. They have a smooth and rather shining surface, marked in the upper half of the gall by small pointed knobs and ridges, arranged very irregularly and wide apart; the lower half is more frequently smooth. The aperture by which the insect escapes is always near the middle. When not perforated, the galls are of a dark olive green, and comparatively heavy; but after the fly has bored its way out, they become of a yellowish-brown hue, and lighter in weight. Hence the distinction in commerce of Blue or Green Galls, and White Galls.

[2235] French writers, as Moquin-Tandon, distinguish the thick-walled galls of Cynips from the thin, capsular galls formed by Aphis, terming the former galles and the latter coques (shells).

[2236] There are many other varieties of oak gall, for descriptions of some of which, see Guibourt, Hist. des Drogues, ii. (1869) 292; and for information on the various gall-insects of the family Cynipsidæ and the excrescences they produce, consult a paper by Abl in Wittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift für prakt. Pharm. vi. (1857) 343-361.

Aleppo galls are hard and brittle, splitting under the hammer; they have an acidulous, very astringent taste followed by a slight sweetness, but have no marked odour. Their fractured surface is sometimes close-grained, with a waxy or resinous lustre; sometimes (especially towards the kernel-like centre) loosely granular, or sometimes again it exhibits a crystalline-looking radiated structure or is full of clefts. The colour of the interior varies from pale brown to a deep greenish yellow. The central cavity, sometimes nearly ¼ of an inch in diameter, which served as a dwelling for the insect, is lined with a thin hard shell. If the insect has perished while still very young, the central cavity and the aperture contain a mass of loose starchy cellular tissue, or its pulverulent remains: if the insect has not been developed at all, the centre of the gall is entirely composed of this tissue.

=Microscopic Structure=—The cellular tissue of the gall is formed in the middle layer of large spherical cells with rather thick porous walls, becoming considerably smaller towards the circumference. The outermost rows are built up of cells having but a very small lumen and comparatively thick walls, so that they form a sort of rind. Here and there throughout the entire tissue, there occur isolated bundles of vessels which pass through the stalk into the gall. Towards the kernel, the parenchyme gradually passes into radially-extended, wider, thin-walled cells, the walls of which are marked with spiral striæ. The hard shell of the chamber[2237] is composed of larger, radially-extended, thick-walled cells, with beautifully stratified porous walls. On the inner side of this shell there are found, after the escape of the insect, the remains of the starchy tissue already mentioned, which originally filled the chamber and had been consumed by the insect as nourishment.

[2237] Couche protectrice of Lacaze-Duthiers—Recherches pour servir à l’histoire des galles.—Ann. des Sciences Nat., Bot. xix. (1853) 273-354.

The parenchyme-cells outside the shell contain chlorophyll and tannin; the latter is in transparent, colourless, sharp-edged masses, insoluble in benzol, but dissolving slowly in water, quickly in alcohol. Thin slices soaked in glycerin appear after some time covered with beautiful crystals of gallic acid. The thick-walled cells (stone-cells) and the neighbouring striated cells, are rich in octahedra of calcium oxalate. The tissue of the gall situated within the shell of thick-walled cells contains starch in large, compressed, mostly spherical granules; also isolated masses of brown resin. Besides these, there appears to be in this part of the tissue an albuminoid compound.

=Chemical Composition=—The rough taste of galls is due to their chief constituent, Tannic or Gallo-tannic Acid, C₁₄H₁₀O₉, or

C₆H₂(OH)₂COOH} }O C₆H₂(OH)₂CO}

the type of a numerous family of substances to which vegetables owe their astringent properties. Tannic matter was long supposed to be of one kind, namely that found in the oak gall, but the researches of later years have proved the tannin of different plants to possess distinctive characters: hence the term gallo-tannic acid to distinguish that of galls, from which it is principally derived. It was however shown by Stenhouse as far back as the year 1843, again in 1861, as well as by still more recent unpublished experiments, that the tannic acid found in Sicilian sumach, the leaves of Rhus Coriaria L., is identical with that of oak galls. Löwe in 1873 came to the same conclusion. The best oak galls yield of this acid, from 60 to 70 per cent.

Gallic Acid is also contained in galls ready-formed to the extent of about 3 per cent. Free sugar, resin, protein-substances, have also been found. Neither gum nor dextrin is present.

=Commerce=—The introduction into dyeing of new chemical substances, and the increased employment of sumach and myrobalans, have caused the trade in nutgalls to decline considerably during the last few years. The province of Aleppo which used to export annually 10,000 to 12,000 quintals, exported in 1871 only 3000 quintals.[2238] A staple market for the galls which are collected in the mountains of Kurdistan is Diarbekir, whence they are sent to Trebizond for shipment. Galls are also shipped in some quantity at Bussorah, Bagdad, Bushire, and Smyrna.

There were imported into the United Kingdom from ports of Turkey and Persia during 1872, 6349 cwt. of galls, valued at £18,581.

=Uses=—Oak galls in their crude state are seldom used in medicine unless it be externally; but the tannic and gallic acids extracted from them are often administered.

Other kinds of Gall.

Chinese or Japanese Galls—The only kind of galls, besides those of the oak, which are of commercial importance. They are described at page 167.

Pistacia Galls—The genus Pistacia, which belongs to the same order as Rhus, is very liable to the attacks of Aphis, which produce upon its leaves and branches excrescences of exactly the same nature as Chinese galls. In the south of Europe, horn-like follicles, often several inches long,[2239] are frequently met with on the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus (page 165). These Gallæ vel Folliculi Pistacinæ, in Italian Carobbe di Giudea, were formerly used in medicine and in dyeing.[2240] They were noticed in 1555 by Belon, but already well known as early as the time of Theophrastus.

Another much smaller gall of different shape is formed (by the same insect?) on the ribs of the leaves of Pistacia Terebinthus; P. Lentiscus (page 161) affords also a similar small excrescence.

Again, another growth of the same character constitutes the small and very astringent galls known in the Indian bazaars by the names of Bazghanj and Gule-pistah, the latter signifying flower of pistachio; they have been termed in Europe Bokhara Galls. They were imported by sea into Bombay in the year 1872-73, to the extent of 184 cwt., chiefly from Sind;[2241] and are also carried into North-western India by way of Peshawar and by the Bolan Pass. Occasionally a package finds its way into a London drug sale.

Tamarisk Galls—These are roundish knotty excrescences of the size of a pea up to ½ an inch in diameter, found in North-western India on the branches of Tamarix orientalis L., a large, quick-growing tree, common on saline soils. The galls are used in India in the place of oak galls, and are mentioned as “non-officinal” in the Pharmacopœia of India, 1867. We are not aware that they have been the subject of any particular chemical research; their microscopic structure has been investigated by Vogl.[2242]

[2238] Consul Skene—Reports of H. M. Consuls, No. 1. 1872. 270.

[2239] For a figure, see Pharm. Journ. iii. (1844) 387. For the structure see Marchand, in the paper quoted at page 166, note 4, plate iii.

[2240] Analysis by Martius may be found in Liebig’s Ann. d. Pharm. xxi. (1837) 179.

[2241] From the returns quoted at page 333, note 3.

[2242] Zeitschrift des Oesterreichischen Apothekervereines, 1877. 14.

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SANTALACEÆ

LIGNUM SANTALI.

Lignum Santalinum album vel citrinum; Sandal-wood; F. Bois de Santal citrin; G. Weisses oder Gelbes Sandelholz.

=Botanical Origin=—Santalum album[2243] L., a small tree, 20 to 30 feet high, with a trunk 18 to 35 inches in girth, a native of the mountainous parts of the Indian peninsula, but especially of Mysore and parts of Coimbatore and North Canara, in the Madras Presidency; it grows in dry and open places, often in hedge-rows, not in forests. The same tree is also found in the islands of the Eastern Archipelago, notably of Sumba (otherwise called Chandane or Sandal-wood Island), and Timur.

In later times, sandal-wood has been extensively collected in the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands, where its existence was first pointed out about the year 1778, from Santalum Freycinetianum Gaud. and S. pyrularium A. Gray;[2244] in the Viti or Fiji Islands from S. Yasi Seem.; in New Caledonia from S. austro-caledonicum, Vieill;[2245] and in Western Australia from Fusanus spicatus Br. (Santalum spicatum DC., S. cygnorum Miq.).[2246] The mother plants of Japanese and West Indian sandal-wood are not known to us.

In India the sandal-wood tree is protected by Government, and is the source of a profitable commerce. In other countries it has been left to itself, and has usually been extirpated, at least from all accessible places, within a few years of its discovery.

=History=—Sandal-wood, the Sanskrit name for which, Chandana, has passed into many of the languages of India, is mentioned in the Nirukta or writings of Yaska, the oldest Vedic commentary extant, written not later than the 5th century B.C. The wood is also referred to in the ancient Sanskrit epic poems, the Rāmāyana and Mahabharata, parts of which may be of nearly as early date.

The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written about the middle of the 1st century, enumerates sandal-wood (Ξύλα σαγαλίνα) among the Indian commodities imported into Omana in the Persian Gulf.[2247]

The Τζανδάνα mentioned towards the middle of the 6th century by Cosmas Indicopleustes,[2248] as brought to Taprobane (Ceylon) from China and other emporia, was probably the wood under consideration. In Ceylon its essential oil was used as early as the 9th century in embalming the corpses of the princes.

[2243] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic. Plants, part 18 (1877).

[2244] Seemann, Flora Vitiensis, 1865-73. 210-215.

[2245] The natural woods having been nearly exhausted, the tree is now under culture in the island. Catalogue des produits des colonies françaises, Exposition de 1878, p. 332; they state there that the island of Nossi-bé, on the north-western coast of Madagascar, also supplies some sandal-wood.

[2246] Whether Santalum lanceolatum Br., a tree found throughout N. and E. Australia, and called sandal-wood by the colonists, is an object of trade, we know not.

[2247] Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, ii. (1807) 378.

[2248] Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus, series Græca, tom. 88. 446.

Sandal-wood is named by Masudi[2249] as one of the costly aromatics of the Eastern Archipelago. In India it was used in the most sacred buildings, of which a memorable example still exists in the famous gates of Somnath, supposed to be 1000 years old.[2250]

In the 11th century sandal-wood was found among the treasures of the Egyptian khalifs, as stated in our article on camphor at page 511.

Among European writers, Constantinus Africanus, who flourished at Salerno in the 11th century, was one of the earliest to mention Sandalum.[2251] Ebn Serabi, called Serapion the Younger, who lived about the same period, was acquainted with white, yellow, and red sandal-wood.[2252] All three kinds of sandal-wood also occur in a list of drugs[2253] in use at Frankfort, circa A.D. 1450; and in the Compendium Aromatariorum of Saladinus, published in 1488, we find mentioned as proper to be kept by the Italian apothecary,—“Sandali trium generum, scilicet albi, rubii et citrini.”

Whether the red sandal here coupled with white and yellow was the inodorous wood of Pterocarpus santalinus, now called Lignum santalinum rubrum or Red Sanders (see p. 199), is extremely doubtful. It may have meant real sandal wood, of which three shades, designated white, red, and yellow, are still recognized by the Indian traders.[2254]

On the other hand, we learn from Barbosa[2255] that about 1511 white and yellow sandal-wood were worth at Calicut on the Malabar Coast from eight to ten times as much as the red, which would show that in his day the red was not a mere variety of the other two, but something far cheaper, like the Red Sanders Wood of modern commerce.

In 1635 the subsidy levied on sandal-wood imported into England was 1_s._ per lb. on the white, and 2_s._ per lb. on the yellow.[2256]

[2249] I. 222 in the work quoted in the Appendix.

[2250] They are 11 feet high and 9 feet wide, and richly carved out of sandal-wood; they were constructed for the temple of Somnath in Guzerat, once esteemed the holiest temple in India. On its destruction in A.D. 1025, the gates were carried off to Ghuzni in Afghanistan, where they remained until the capture of that city by the English in 1842, when they were taken back to India. They are now preserved in the citadel of Agra. For a representation of the gates, see Archæeologia, xxx. (1844) pl. 14.

[2251] Opera, Basil. 1536-39, Lib. de Gradibus, 369.

[2252] Liber Serapionis aggregatus in medicinis simplicibus, 1473.

[2253] Flückiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, Halle, 1873. 11.

[2254] Thus Milburn in his Oriental Commerce (1813) says—“ ... the deeper the colour, the higher is the perfume; and hence the merchants sometimes divide sandal into red, yellow, and white, but these are all different shades of the same colour, and do not arise from any difference in the species of the tree.”—(i. 291.)

[2255] Ramusio, Navigationi et Viaggi, etc., Venet. 1554. fol. 357 b., Libro di Odoardo Barbosa Portoghese.

[2256] The Rates of Marchandizes, Lond. 1635.

The first figure and satisfactory description of Santalum album occur in the Herbarium Amboinense of Rumphius (ii. tab. 11).

=Production=—The dry tracts producing this valuable wood occupy patches of a strip of country lying chiefly in Mysore and Coimbatore, about 250 miles long, north and north-west of the Neilgherry Hills, and having Coorg and Canara between it and the Indian Ocean; also a piece of country further eastward in the districts of Salem and North Arcot, where the tree grows from the sea-level up to an elevation of 3000 feet. In Mysore, where sandal-wood is most extensively produced, the trees all belong to Government, and can only be felled by the proper officers. This privilege was conferred on the East India Company by a treaty with Hyder Ali, made 8 August 1770, and the monopoly has been maintained to the present day. The Mysore animal exports of sandal wood are about 700 tons, valued at £27,000.[2257] They are shipped from Mangalore.

A similar monopoly existed in the Madras Presidency until a few years ago, when it was abandoned. But sandal-wood is still a source of revenue to the Madras Government, which by the systematic management of the Forest Department has of late years been regularly increasing. The quantity of sandal-wood felled in the Reserved Forests during the year 1872-3 was returned as 15,329 maunds (547½ tons).[2258]

The sandal-wood tree, which is indigenous to the regions just mentioned, used to be reproduced by seeds sown spontaneously or by birds; but it is now being raised in regular plantations, the seeds being sown two or three in a hole with a chili (Capsicum) seed, the latter producing a quick-growing seedling which shades the sandal while young.[2259] It is probable that the nurse-plant affords sustenance, for it has been shown[2260] that Santalum is parasitic, its roots attaching themselves by tuber-like processes to those of many other plants; and it is also said that young sandal plants thrive best when grass is allowed to grow up in the seed-beds.

The trees attain their prime in 20 to 30 years, and have then trunks as much as a foot in diameter. A tree having been felled, the branches are lopped off, and the trunk allowed to lie on the ground for several months, during which time the white ants eat away the greater part of the inodorous sapwood. The trunk is then roughly trimmed, sawn into billets 2 to 2½ feet long, and taken to the forest depots. There the wood is weighed, subjected to a second and more careful trimming, and classified according to quality. In some parts it is customary not to fell but to dig the tree up; in others the root is dug up after the trunk has been cut down,—the root affording valuable wood, which with the chips and sawdust are preserved for distillation, or for burning in the native temples. The sap wood and branches are worthless.[2261]

[2257] B. H. Baden Powell, Report on the Administration of the Forest Department in the several provinces under the Government of India, 1872-73, Calcutta, 1874. vol i. 27.

[2258] Report of the Administration of the Madras Presidency during the year 1872-73, Madras, 1874. 18. 143.

[2259] Beddome, Flora Sylvatica for Southern India, 1872. 256.

[2260] Scott in Journ. of Agricult. and Horticult. Soc. of India, Calcutta, vol. ii. part 1 (1871) 287.

[2261] Elliot, Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore, ii. (1871) 237; also verbal information communicated by Capt. Campbell Walker, Deputy Conservator of Forests, Madras.

In 1863 a sort of sandal-wood afforded by Fusanus spicatus (p. 599) was one of the chief exports of Western Australia, whence it was shipped to China. A trifling payment for permission to cut growing timber of any kind was the only barrier placed on the felling of the trees. The farmers employed their teams during the dull season in bringing to Perth or Guildford the logs of sandal which had been felled and trimmed in the bush; and there was a flourishing trade so long as trees of a fair size could be obtained within 100 or even 150 miles of the towns, where the commodity was worth £6 to £6 10_s._ per ton. But the ill-regulated and improvident destruction of the trees in the more easily accessible districts has so reduced their numbers that the trade in that part of Australia soon came to an end.[2262] Australian sandal-wood appears however to be still an article of commerce, if one may draw such an inference from the fact that 47,904 cwt. of sandal wood were imported into Singapore from Australia in the year 1872. It was mostly re-shipped to China.[2263]

=Description=—sandal-wood is not much known in English commerce, and is by no means always to be found even in London. That which we have examined, and which we believe was Indian, was in cylindrical logs, mostly about 6 inches in diameter (the largest 8 inches—smallest 3: inches) and 3 to 4 feet long, extremely ponderous; the bark had been removed. A transverse section of sandal-wood exhibits it of a pale brown, marked with rather darker concentric zones and (when seen under a lens) numerous open pores. The tissue is traversed by medullary rays, also perceptible by the aid of a lens. The wood splits easily, emitting when comminuted an agreeable odour which is remarkably persistent; it has a strongish aromatic taste.

The varieties of sandal-wood are not classified by the few persons who deal in the article in London, and we are unable to point out characters by which they may be distinguished. In the price-currents of commercial houses in China three sorts of sandal-wood are enumerated, namely, South Sea Island, Timor, and Malabar; the last fetches three or four times as high a price as either of the others. Even the Indian sandal-wood may vary in an important manner. Beddome,[2264] conservator of forests in Madras, and an excellent observer, remarks that the finest sandal-wood is that which has grown slowly on rocky, dry and poor land; and that the trees found in a rich alluvial soil, though of very fine growth, produce no heartwood and are consequently valueless. A variety of the tree with more lanceolate leaves (var. β myrtifolium DC.), native of the eastern mountains of the Madras Presidency, affords a sandal-wood which is nearly inodorous.

=Microscopic Structure=—The woody rays or wedges show a breadth varying from 35 to 420 mkm., the primary being frequently divided by secondary medullary rays. These latter rays consist of one, often of two, rows of cells of the usual form. The woody tissue which they enclose is chiefly made up of small ligneous fibres with pointed ends, some larger parenchymatous cells, and thick-walled vessels. The resin and essential oil reside chiefly in the medullary rays, as shown by the darker colour of these latter.

=Chemical Composition=—The most important constituent is the essential oil, which the wood yields to the extent of from 2 to 5 per cent.[2265] In India, with imperfect stills, 2·5 per cent. of the oil are obtained; the roots yield the largest amount and the finest quality of it.[2266] It is a light yellow, thick liquid, possessing the characteristic odour of sandal; that which we examined had a sp. gr. of 0·963. We did not succeed in finding a fixed boiling point of the oil; it began to boil at 214° C., but the temperature quickly rose to 255°, the oil acquiring a darker hue. Oil of sandal-wood varies much in the strength and character of its aroma, according to the sort of wood from which it is produced.

[2262] Millett, An Australian Parsonage, Lond., 1872, 43. 95. 382.

[2263] Straits Settlements Blue Book for 1872, Singapore, 1873. 298. 347.—It is possible that the sandal-wood in question may have been the produce of the South Sea Islands, shipped from an Australian port.

[2264] Op. cit.

[2265] Information obligingly communicated by Messrs. Schimmel and Co., Leipzig (1878).

[2266] Dr. Bidie, in Pharmacopœia of India, 1868, p. 461.

The oil as largely prepared by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., in a column 100 millimetres long, deviates the plane of polarization 18·6° to the left. Oil of Venezuela sandal-wood, from the same distillers, examined in the same manner, deviates 6°·75 to the right.

From the wood, treated with boiling alcohol, we obtained about 7 per cent. of a blackish extract, from which a tannate was precipitated by alcoholic solution of acetate of lead. Decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, the tannate yielded a tannic acid having but little colour, and striking a greenish hue with a ferric salt. The extract also contained a dark resin.

=Commerce=—The greatest trade in sandal-wood is in China, which country in the year 1866 imported at the fourteen treaty ports then open 87,321 peculs, equivalent to 5,197 tons; of this vast quantity the city of Hankow on the river Yangtsze, received no less than 61,414 peculs, or more than seven times as much as any other port.[2267] The imports into Hankow have recently been much smaller, namely, 14,989 peculs in 1871 and 12,798 peculs in 1872.[2268] On the other hand, Shanghai lying near the mouth of the same great river, imported in 1872, 59,485 peculs of sandal-wood, the estimated value of which was about £100,000. In 1877 the imports of all China were 72,934 peculs.

A considerable trade in sandal-wood is done in Bombay, the quantity imported thither annually being about 650 tons, and the animal export about 400 tons.[2269]

Oil of sandal-wood is largely manufactured on the ghats between Mangalore and Mysore, where fuel for the stills is abundant. Official returns[2270] represent the quantity of the oil imported into Bombay in the year 1872-73 as 10,348 lbs., value £8,374; 4,500 lbs. were re-exported by sea.

=Uses=—The essential oil has of late been prescribed as a substitute for copaiba, otherwise sandal-wood has hardly any uses in modern European medicine. It is employed as a perfume and for the fabrication of small articles of ornament. Among the natives of India it is largely consumed in the celebration of sepulchral rites, wealthy Hindus showing their respect for a departed relative by adding sticks of sandal-wood to the funereal pile. The powder of the wood made into a paste with water is used for making the caste mark, and also for medicinal purposes. The consumption of sandal-wood in China appears to be principally for the incense used in the temples.

[2267] Reports on Trade at the ports in China open to foreign trade for 1866, published by order of the Inspector-General of Customs, Shanghai, 1867. 120. 121.—One pecul = 133⅓ lb.

[2268] Commercial Reports of H. M. Consuls in China for 1871 (p. 50) and 1872 (pp. 62. 159).

[2269] From the official document quoted at p. 601, note 1.

[2270] See p. 333, note 3.

Gymnosperms.

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CONIFERÆ

TEREBINTHINA VULGARIS.

Crude or Common Turpentine; F. Térebenthine commune; G. Gemeiner Terpenthin.

=Botanical Origin=—The trees which yield Common Turpentine may be considered in two groups, namely, European and American.

1. European—In Finland and Russia Proper, the Scotch Pine, Pinus sivestris L.; in Austria and Corsica, P. Laricio Poiret; and in South-western France, P. Pinaster Solander (P. maritima Poiret), extensively cultivated as the Pin maritime, yield turpentine in their respective countries.

2. American—In the United States, the conifers most important for terebinthinous products are the Swamp Pine, Pinus australis Michaux (P. palustris Mill.), and the Loblolly Pine, P. Tæda L.

=History=—The resin of pines and firs was well known to the ancients, who obtained it in much the same manner as that practised at the present day. The turpentine used in this country has for many years past been derived from North America. Up to the last century, both it and the substance called Common Frankincense were imported from France. The late civil war in the United States and the blockade of the Southern ports, occasioned a great scarcity of American turpentine; and terebinthinous substances from all other countries were poured into the London market. The actual supplies, however, were mainly furnished by France.

Kopp[2271] quotes a passage showing that the essential oil of turpentine was known to Marcus Græcus, who termed it Aqua ardens. This almost unknown personage is the reputed inventor of Greek Fire, a dreaded engine of destruction in mediæval warfare.

=Secretion=—The primary formation of resin-ducts in the bark of coniferous trees has been explained by Dippel,[2272] Müller,[2273] and Frank.[2274] The subsequent diffusion of the resinous juice through the heartwood, sapwood, and bark, has been elaborately investigated by Hugo von Mohl.[2275] From the various forms under which this diffusion exists in the different species have arisen the diverse methods of obtaining the terebinthinous resins.

[2271] Geschichte der Chemie, iv. (1847) 392.

[2272] Botanische Zeitung, 1863.

[2273] Pringsheim, Jahrb. für wissenschaftl. Botanik. 1866.

[2274] Beiträge zur Pflanzenphysiologie, Leipzig, 1868. 119.

[2275] Botanische Zeitung, 1859. 329.

Thus in the wood of the Silver Fir (Pinua Picea L.) resin-ducts are altogether wanting;—and led by experience, the Alpine peasant collects the turpentine of this tree by simply puncturing the little cavities which form under its bark. In the Scotch Pine (P. silvestris L.), they are more abundant in the wood than in the bark, a fact which might be anticipated by observing how rarely this tree exudes resin spontaneously.

Oil of turpentine, like volatile oils in general, undergoes on exposure to the air certain alterations giving rise to what is called resinification. The formic acid which is produced in small quantity during this change characterizes it as one of oxidation; the chief products however are not exactly known, and not one of them has been proved identical with any natural resin. The common assumption that resins are produced from volatile oils by simple oxidation, is consequently not yet entirely justified.

=Extraction=—In the United States[2276] turpentine is obtained to the largest extent from Pinus australis, of which tree there are vast forests, the piny woods or pine-barrens, extending from Virginia to the Mexican Gulf, especially through North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. But it is in North Carolina that the extraction of turpentine is principally carried on.

In the winter, i.e. from November to March, the negroes in a Turpentine Orchard, as the district of forest to be worked is called, are occupied in making in the trunks of the trees, cavities which are technically known as boxes. For this purpose a long narrow axe is used, and some skill is required to wield it properly. The boxes are made from 6 to 12 inches above the ground, and are shaped like a distended waistcoat-pocket, the bottom being about 4 inches below the lower lip, and 8 or 10 below the upper. On a tree of medium size, a box should be made to hold a quart. The less the axe approaches the centre of the tree the better, as vitality is the less endangered. An expert workman will make a box in less than 10 minutes. From one to four boxes are made in each tree, a few inches of bark being left between them. The greater number of trees from which turpentine is now obtained, are from 12 to 18 inches in diameter, and have three boxes each.

The boxes having been made, the bark and a little of the wood immediately beneath it, which are above the box, are hacked; and from this excoriation, the sap begins to flow about the middle of March, gradually filling the box. Each tree requires to be freshly hacked every 8 or 10 days, a very slight wound above the last being all that is needed. The hacking is carried on year after year, until it reaches 12 to 15 feet or more, ladders being used. The turpentine, which is called dip, is removed from the boxes by a spoon or ladle of peculiar form, and collected into barrels, which are made on the spot and are of very rude construction. The first year’s flow of a new tree, having but a small surface to traverse before it reaches the box, is of special goodness and is termed Virgin dip.

[2276] The account here given is taken from F. L. Olmsted’s Journey in the Seaboard Slave States, New York, 1856, p. 338, etc.

The turpentine which concretes upon the trunk is occasionally scraped off and barrelled by itself, and is known in the market as scrape, or by English druggists as Common Frankincense or Gum thus.

Although a large amount of turpentine is shipped to the northern ports for distillation, a still larger is distilled in the neighbourhood of the turpentine orchards. Copper stills are used, capable of containing 5 to 20 barrels of turpentine. The turpentine is distilled without water, the volatile oil as it flows from the worm being received in the barrel in which it is afterwards sent to market. When all the oil that can be profitably drawn off has been obtained, a spigot is removed from an opening in the bottom of the still, and the residual Rosin, appearing as a viscid fluid-like molasses, is allowed to flow out. Only the first qualities of rosin, as that obtained from Virgin dip, are generally considered worth saving, the less pure sorts being simply allowed to run to waste. When it is intended to save the rosin, the latter is drawn off into a vat of water, which separates the chips and other rubbish, and the rosin is then placed in barrels for the market. A North Carolina turpentine orchard will remain productive under ordinary treatment for fifty years.

The collection of turpentine in the departments of the Landes and Gironde in the south-west of France, is performed in a more rational manner than in America, inasmuch as the plan of making deep cavities in the tree for the purpose of receiving the resin, is avoided by the simple expedient of placing a suitable vessel beneath the lowest incision.[2277] The turpentine which concretes upon the stem is termed in France Galipot or Barras.

[2277] For further particulars, see Guibourt, Hist. des drog. ii. (1869) 259, also Curie, Produits résineux du Pin maritime. Paris 1874. 24 pages, 1 plate; Matthieu, Flore forestière 1860, p. 353.

=Description=—Common turpentine is chiefly of two varieties, namely, American and Bordeaux; the first alone is commonly found in the English market.

=American Turpentine=—A viscid honey-like fluid, of yellowish colour, somewhat opaque, but becoming transparent by exposure to the air; it has an agreeable odour and warm bitterish taste. When long kept in a bottle, it is seen to separate into two layers, the upper clear and faintly fluorescent, the lower somewhat turbid or granular. When the latter portion is examined under the microscope, it is found to consist mainly of minute crystals of peculiar curved or bluntly elliptic form. These crystals are abietic acid; when the turpentine is warmed, the crystals are speedily dissolved.

Bordeaux Turpentine—in all essential particulars agrees with American Turpentine; it appears to separate rather more readily than the latter into two layers,—a transparent and an opaque or crystalline.

=Chemical Composition=—The turpentines are mixtures of resin and essential oil. The latter, which amounts to from 15 to 30 per cent., consists for the greater part of various hydrocarbons, corresponding to the formula C₁₀H₁₆. Many of the crude turpentine oils, and some of them even after rectification, are energetically acted on by metallic sodium. This reaction proves the presence of a certain quantity of oxygenated oils, not one of which has thus far been isolated.

The turpentine oils, although agreeing in composition, exhibit a series of physical differences according to their origin. One and the same tree, indeed, yields from its several organs oils of different properties. The boiling point varies between 152° and 172° C. The sp. gr. at mean temperatures ranges from 0·856 to 0·870. Greater differences are exhibited in the optical properties, some varieties of the oil turning the plane of polarization to the right, others to the left. This rotatory power differs in many cases from that of the turpentine from which the oil was derived.[2278] The odour of oil of turpentine varies with the species from which it has been obtained.

When crude turpentine is distilled with water, nearly the whole of the oil passes over, while the resin remains. This resin is called Colophony or Rosin. When it still contains a little water, it is distinguished in English trade as Yellow Rosin; when fully deprived of water, it becomes what is called Transparent Rosin. That of deeper colour acquired by a still longer application of heat, bears the name of Black Rosin.

Colophony softens at 80° C., and melts completely at 100° into a clear liquid. At about 150° it forms a somewhat darker liquid, but without undergoing a loss in weight; at higher temperatures, it gradually decomposes. Pure colophony has a sp. gr. of 1·07, and is homogeneous, transparent, amorphous, and very brittle. At temperatures between 15° and 20° C., it requires for solution 8 parts of dilute alcohol (0·883). On addition of a caustic alkali, it dissolves in spirit much more freely. It is plentifully soluble in acetone or benzol.

The composition of colophony agrees with the formula C₄₄H₆₂O₄. By shaking coarsely powdered colophony with warm dilute alcohol, it is converted into a crystalline body, Abietic Acid, C₄₄H₆₄O₅,—a result due simply to hydration. Under such treatment, colophony yields 80 to 90 per cent. of abietic acid,[2279] and therefore consists chiefly of the anhydride of that acid. This is probably the case with the resins of other conifers. The living tree contains only the anhydride, for the fresh resinous juice is clear and amorphous after the expulsion of the oil; and when exposed to the air it loses oil, takes up water and solidifies as the crystalline acid,—a change which may easily be traced by the aid of the microscope, in drops taken direct from the trunk. Amorphous colophony retains its transparency even in a moist atmosphere, and appears to be capable of passing into the state of abietic acid, only when the assumption of the needful molecule of water is aided, in nature by the presence of the essential oil, or artificially by that of alcohol.

[2278] For some particulars, see my notice in the Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann for 1869, p. 36.—F. A. F.

[2279] Flückiger in loc. cit. 1867. 36.—Most chemists assign to this acid the formula C₂₀H₃₀O₂, and call it silvic acid.

Colophony when boiled with alkaline solutions forms greasy salts of abietic acid, the so-ccalled resin-soaps, which are used as additions to other soaps.

Siewert’s Silvic Acid is regarded by Maly (1864) as a product of the decomposition of abietic acid; and the Pimaric, Pinic and Silvic Acids of former investigators, as impure abietic acid. Pimaric acid however, which is the chief constituent of Galipot, appears to be decidedly different, so far as we can judge from the experiments of Duvernoy (1865) and of one of ourselves (F.).

Abietic acid, as well as the unaltered coniferous resins, deviate the ray of polarized light, whereas American colophony, dissolved in acetone, is devoid of optical power.

=Commerce=—The supplies of turpentine are chiefly derived from the United States, but the trade has undergone a great change, as shown by the following figures, which represent the quantities imported in the several years:—

1869 1870 1871 1872 60,468 cwt. 51,257 cwt. 2,231 cwt. 1,000 cwt.

This greatly diminished importation of the crude article is partially explained by a larger importation of Oil of Turpentine and Rosin; but the increase is by no means sufficient to account for the vast diminution indicated by the above figures. The quantities of these latter articles imported into the United Kingdom during the year 1872 were as follows:—Oil of Turpentine, 220,292 cwt., value £470,085, six-sevenths being furnished by the United States of America and the remainder chiefly by France. Rosin, 919,494 cwt., value £492,246; of this quantity, the United States supplied nine-tenths, and France the larger part of the remainder.[2280]

=Uses=—Turpentine, Common Frankincense and Colophony are ingredients of certain plasters and ointments. Oil of turpentine is occasionally administered internally as a vermifuge or diuretic, and applied externally as a stimulant. But these substances are immeasurably less important in medicine than in the arts.

Thus Americanum vel vulgare.

This substance, known among druggists as Common Frankincense or Gum Thus, is the resin which, as explained at p. 605, concretes upon the stems of the pines in the American turpentine orchards, and is there called Scrape. It corresponds to the Galipot or Barras of the French, which in old times supplied its place.

It is a semi-opaque, softish resin, of a pale yellow colour, smelling of turpentine; it is generally mixed with pine leaves, bits of wood and other impurities, so that it requires straining before it is used. By keeping, it becomes dry and brittle, of deeper colour and milder odour. Under the microscope, it exhibits a crystalline structure due to Abietic Acid, of which it chiefly consists. It is imported from America in barrels, but in insignificant quantities and only for the druggist’s use. Sometimes, however, it is distilled as common turpentine.

Dry pine resin, of which Common Frankincense is the type, evolves when heated an agreeable smell; hence in ancient times it was commonly used in English churches in place of the more costly olibanum. At present it is scarcely employed except in a few plasters.

[2280] Annual Statement of the Trade of the U.K. for 1872. pp. 53. 56. 60. 210.

TEREBINTHINA VENETA.

Terebinthina Laricina; Venice Turpentine, Larch Turpentine; F. _Térébenthine de Venise ou de Briançon_, _Térébenthine du mélèze_; G. Venetianischer Terpenthin, Lärchen-Terpenthin.

=Botanical Origin=—Pinus Larix L. (Larix europæa DC.), a tall forest tree of the mountains of Southern Central Europe, from Dauphiny through the Alps to Styria and the Carpathians, ascending to an elevation of 3000 to 5500 feet above the sea-level. It is largely grown in plantations in England and also, since 1738, in Scotland.

=History=—The turpentine of the larch was known to Dioscorides as imported from the Alpine regions of Gaul.[2281] Pliny also was acquainted with it, for he correctly remarks that it does not harden. Galen in the 2nd century also mentions it, admitting that it may well be substituted for Chian turpentine (see p. 165), the true, legitimate Terebinthina. Yet even in the beginning of the 17th century many pharmacologists complained of such a substitution. Mattioli[2282] gave an account of the method of collecting it about Trent in the Tirol, by boring the trees to the centre, which is true to the present day. It used formerly to be exported from Venice, then the great emporium for drugs of all kinds; the turpentine may even at times have been collected in the territories of the Venetian republic. We find it expressly called Terebinthina Veneta by Guintherus of Andernach.[2283]

The name larch seems to belong to the turpentine rather than to the tree. Dioscorides says the resin is called by the natives λάρικα, and a similar name is mentioned by Galen. In Pasi’s Tariffa de pesi e misure, 1521 (see Appendix), we find “Termentina sive Larga,”—and larga is still an Italian name for larch turpentine. The peasants of the Southern Tirol call it Lerget, and in Switzerland the common name in German is Lörtsch.

=Extraction=—Larch turpentine is collected in the Tirol, chiefly about Mals, Meran, Botzen and Trent. A very small amount is obtained occasionally in the Valais in Switzerland, and in localities in Piedmont and France where the larch is found. The resin is obtained from the heartwood, by making in the spring a narrow cavity reaching to the centre of the stem at about a foot from the ground. This is then stopped up until the autumn of the same or of the following year, when it is opened and the resin taken out with an iron spoon. If only one hole is thus made, the tree yields about half a pound yearly without appreciable detriment. But if on the other hand a number of wide holes are made, and especially if they are left open, as was formerly the practice in the Piedmontese and French Alps, a larger product amounting to as much as 8 lb. is obtained annually, but the tree ceases to yield after some years, and its wood is much impaired in value.

[2281] Lib. i. cap. 92.

[2282] Comment. in libr. i. Dioscoridis, Venetiis, 1565. 106.

[2283] De medicina veteri et nova etc., Basileæ, 1571. 183.

Mohl, who witnessed the collection of this turpentine in the Southern Tirol,[2284] observed that when a growing larch stem was sawn through, the resin flowed most abundantly from the heartwood, and in smaller quantity, though somewhat more quickly, from the sapwood, and that the bark contained but few resin-ducts. The practice of closing the cavities is adopted, not only for the sake of preserving the wood and for the greater convenience of removing the turpentine, but also because it tends to maintain the transparency and purity of the latter.

=Description=—Venice turpentine is a thick, honey-like fluid, slightly turbid, yet not granular and crystalline; it has a pale yellowish colour and exhibits a slight fluorescence. Its odour resembles that of common turpentine, but is less powerful; its taste is bitter and aromatic. When exposed to the air, it thickens but slowly to a clear varnish, and hardens but very slowly when mixed with magnesia. Larch turpentine, though common on the Continent, is seldom imported into England,[2285] and the article sold for it is almost always spurious.

=Chemical Composition=—Larch turpentine dissolves in spirit of wine, forming a clear liquid which reddens litmus; hot water agitated with it also acquires a faint acid reaction, due to formic and probably also to succinic acid. Glacial acetic acid, amylic alcohol, and acetone mix with it perfectly. By distillation it yields on an average 15 per cent. of essential oil of the composition, C₁₀H₁₆, which boils at 157° C., and when saturated with dry hydrochloric acid gas, easily produces crystals of the compound C₁₀H₁₆ + HCl. The residual resin is soluble in two parts of warm alcohol of 75 per cent., and more copiously in concentrated alcohol.

Two parts of the turpentine diluted with one of benzol or acetone deviate the ray of polarized light 9·5° to the right. The essential oil deviates 6·4° to the left; the resin perfectly freed from volatile oil and dissolved in half its weight of acetone, deviates 12·6° to the right in a column 50 mm. long.

We have not succeeded in preparing a crystallized acid from the resin of Venice turpentine, although its composition according to Maly (1864) is the same as that of American colophony, which is easily transformed into crystallized abietic acid.

=Uses=—Venice turpentine appears to possess no medicinal properties that are not equally found in other substances of the same class, and as a medicine it has fallen into disuse. But in name at least it is in frequent requisition for horse and cattle medicines.

=Adulteration=—Alston (1740-60) said of Venice turpentine[2286] that it is seldom found in the shops,—a remark equally true at the present day, for but few druggists trouble themselves to procure it genuine. The Venice turpentine usually sold is an artificial mixture of common resin and oil of turpentine, which may be easily distinguished from the product of the larch by the facility with which it dries when spread on a piece of paper,[2287] and by its stronger turpentine smell.

[2284] Botanische Zeitung, xvii. (1859) 329, abstracted in the Jahresbericht of Wiggers, 1859. 18.

[2285] On one occasion I observed Venice Turpentine in a public drug sale in London, 21 barrels imported from Trieste being offered, 14 July, 1864.—D. H.

[2286] Lectures on the Materia Medica, Lond. ii. (1770) 398.

[2287] Thus if a thin layer of true Venice turpentine and another of common turpentine be spread on two sheets of paper it will be found after the lapse of some weeks that the former cannot be touched without adhering to the fingers, while the latter will have become a dry, hard varnish.

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CORTEX LARICIS

Larch Bark.

=Botanical Origin=—Pinus Larix L.—see p. 609.

=History=—The bark of the larch has long been known to possess astringent properties; hence it has been used in tanning. Gerarde,[2288] who wrote near the close of the 16th century, likened it to that of the pine, which he described to be of a binding nature; but there is no evidence that it was an officinal drug.

About the year 1858 larch bark was recommended by Dr. Frizell of Dublin, and afterwards by other physicians, as a stimulating astringent and expectorant. In consequence of the favourable effects which have resulted from its use it has been included in the Additions to the Pharmacopœia of 1867.

=Description=—The bark that we have seen is in flattish pieces or large quills, externally reddish-brown. In those taken from older wood there is a large amount of an exfoliating corky coat, displaying as it is removed bright rosy tints, while the liber is of a different texture, slightly fibrous and whitish. The inner surface is smooth and of a pinkish-brown, or pale yellow. The bark breaks with a short fracture, exhaling an agreeable balsamic terebinthinous odour; it has a well-marked astringent taste. For medicinal use the inner bark is to be preferred.

=Microscopic Structure=—A transverse section exhibits resin-ducts, but far less numerous than in the bark of many allied trees. The medullary rays are not very distinct. Throughout the middle layer of the bark large isolated thick-walled cells of very irregular shape are scattered.

=Chemical Composition=—Larch bark has been examined by Stenhouse,[2289] who finds it to contain a considerable amount of a peculiar tannin, yielding olive-green precipitates with salts of iron. The same chemist also discovered[2290] in larch bark an interesting crystallizable substance called Larixin or Larixinic Acid, which has the composition C₁₀H₁₀O₅. It may be obtained by digesting the bark in water in 80° C. and evaporating the infusion to a syrupy consistence. From this, by still further cautious heating in a retort, the larixin may be distilled, during which operation some of it crystallizes on the inner surface of the receiver, the remainder being dissolved in the distilled liquor. From the latter it may be obtained in crystals by evaporation. The substance forms colourless crystals, sometimes as much as an inch long; it volatilizes even at 93° C., and melts at 153°. It requires about 88 parts of water for solution at 15° C., but more freely dissolves in boiling water or in alcohol. From ether, in which it is but sparingly soluble, it separates in brilliant crystals. The solutions have a bitterish astringent taste and a slightly acid reaction, and assume a purple hue on addition of ferric chloride. When a solution of baryta is added to a concentrated solution of larixin, the latter being in excess, a bulky gelatinous precipitate falls; it is readily soluble in boiling water and is deposited again on cooling. Stenhouse failed to obtain it either from the bark of Pinus Abies L., or from that of P. silvestris L.

[2288] Herball, enlarged by Johnson, Lond. 1636. 1366.

[2289] Proceedings of the Royal Society, xi. (1862) 404.

[2290] Phil. Trans., vol. 152 (1862) 53.—We write the name Larixin instead of Larixine, with the concurrence of Dr. Stenhouse.

=Uses=—Larch bark, chiefly in the form of tincture, has been prescribed to check profuse expectoration in cases of chronic bronchitis; it has also been found useful in arresting internal hæmorrhage.

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TEREBINTHINA CANADENSIS

Balsamum Canadense; Canada Balsam, Canadian Turpentine; F. Térébenthine ou Baume de Canada; G. Canada Balsam.

=Botanical Origin=—Pinus balsamea L. (Abies balsamea Marshall), the Balsam Fir or Balm of Gilead Fir, a handsome tree, 20 to 40 feet high, with a trunk 6 to 12 inches in diameter, sometimes attaining still larger dimensions, growing in profusion in the Northern and Western United States of America, Nova Scotia and Canada, but not observed beyond 62° N. lat. It resembles the Silver Fir of Europe (Pinus Picea L.), but has the bracts short-pointed and the cones more acute at each end.

Canada balsam is also furnished by Pinus Fraseri Pursh, the Small-fruited or Double Balsam Fir, a tree found on the mountains of Pennsylvania, Virginia, and southward on the highest of the Alleghanies.[2291]

Pinus canadensis L. (Abies canadensis Michx.), the Hemlock Spruce or Pérusse, a large tree abundant in the same countries as P. balsamea, and extending throughout British America to Alaska, is said to yield a similar turpentine, which however has not yet been sufficiently examined. The Hemlock Spruce is of considerable importance on account of the resin collected from its trunk, and the essential oil distilled from its foliage, the latter operation being performed on a large scale in Madison County, New York. The inner bark of the tree is a valuable material for tanning.

=History=—The French, in whose possession Canada remained until the year 1763, were probably acquainted with Canada balsam long before this period. Yet no mention of it is found in Pomet’s work, but in 1759 it was at Strassburg a current article of the pharmacy.[2292] As to England, Lewis, in his History of the Materia Medica published in 1761, says that “an elegant balsam,” obtained from the Canada Fir, is sometimes brought into Europe under the name of Balsamum Canadense. Canada balsam was first introduced into the London Pharmacopœia in 1788. From the books of a London druggist, J. Gurney Bevan, we find that its wholesale price in 1776 was 4_s._, in 1788, 5_s._ per lb.

=Description=—Canada balsam is a transparent resin of honey-like consistence, and of a light straw-colour with a greenish tint. By keeping, it slowly becomes thicker and of a somewhat darker hue, but always retains its transparency. When carefully examined in direct sunlight, it exhibits a slight greenish fluorescence in the same degree as other turpentines or as copaiba; this optical power appears to increase if the balsam is exposed to a heat of about 200° C.

[2291] Asa Gray, Botany of the Northern United States, New York, 1866. 422.

[2292] Flückiger, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1876), 1021.

Canada balsam has a pleasant aromatic odour and bitterish, feebly acrid, not disagreeable taste. On account of its flavour it is sometimes called Balm of Gilead, but erroneously, as this latter is derived from a tree of the genus Balsamodendron growing in Arabia. We found a good commercial balsam to have a sp. gr. of 0·998 at 14·5° C., water at the same temperature being 1·000. Four parts, mixed with one of benzol and examined in a column of 50 mm. in length, deviated a ray of polarized light 2° to the right. The balsam is perfectly soluble in any proportion in chloroform, benzol, ether, or warm amylic alcohol; and the solution in each case reddens litmus. With sulphate of carbon it mixes readily, but the mixture is somewhat turbid. Glacial acetic acid, acetone or absolute alcohol dissolve the balsam partially, leaving, after ebullition and cooling, a considerable amount of amorphous residue. Colophony and Venice turpentine are completely dissolved by the liquids in question, as well as by spirit of wine containing 70 to 75 per cent. of alcohol.

=Chemical Composition=—Like all analogous exudations of the Coniferæ, Canada turpentine is a mixture of resins with an essential oil. If the latter is allowed to evaporate, the former are left as a transparent, somewhat tough and elastic mass. The proportion of the components is within certain limits, variable in different samples. The specimen before mentioned lost after an exposure in a steam-bath during several days, no less than 20 per cent. of volatile oil, or even 24 per cent. if the experiment was made on a very small scale, as with 20 grammes or less in a thin layer.

By distillation with water, it is not easy to obtain more than 17 to 18 per cent. of essential oil. The resin in this case is a tough, elastic, non-transparent mass, retaining obstinately a large proportion of water, which can only be removed by keeping it for some time at a temperature of 100°-176° C.

The oil as obtained by distillation with water is colourless, and has the odour of common oil of turpentine rather than the agreeable smell of the balsam; it consists of an oil, C₁₀H₁₆, mixed with an insignificant proportion of an oxygenated oil, the presence of which may be proved by the slight evolution of hydrogen on addition of metallic sodium, after the oil has been freed from water by contact with fused chloride of calcium. After this treatment, a small proportion begins to distil at about 160°, but by far the larger part boils at 167° C., a small portion only distilling at last at 170° and above. The oil obtained at 167°, examined under the conditions already mentioned, has a sp. gr. of 0·863, and the power of rotating a ray of polarized light 5·6° to the left. The portion distilling at 160° does not differ in this respect; but that passing over at 170°, deviates the ray 7·2° to the left. The oil readily dissolves a large proportion of glacial acetic acid; an equal weight of each mixes perfectly at about 54° C., but some acetic acid separates on cooling.

The essential oil of Canada balsam, saturated with dry hydrochloric acid, does not yield a solid crystallizable compound; but this is easily obtained on addition of fuming nitric acid and gently heating, when the inside of the retort becomes covered by sublimed crystals of C₁₀H₁₆ + HCl.

Thus this oil in its general characters bears a close resemblance to the essential oils of the cones of Pinus Picea L., and of the leaves of P. Pumilio Hänke, and to most of the French varieties of oil of turpentine, rather than to the American turpentine oils, which rotate to the right, and combine immediately with HCl to form a solid crystalline compound.

On the other hand, the resin of Canada balsam is dextrogyre: two parts of it, entirely deprived of essential oil and dissolved in one of benzol, deviating the ray 8·5° to the right. The optical powers of the two components (oil and resin) are therefore antagonistic.

The resin of Canada balsam consists however of two different bodies, 78·7 per cent. of it being soluble in boiling absolute alcohol, and 21·3 (in our specimen) remaining as an amorphous mass, readily soluble in ether. Neither the alcoholic nor the ethereal solution yields a crystalline residue if allowed to evaporate. They redden litmus, but we did not succeed in obtaining any crystallized resinous acid, crystals of which are formed if common turpentine or colophony is digested with dilute alcohol. Glacial acetic acid acts upon the resins like absolute alcohol. Caustic alkalis do not dissolve either the balsam or the resin; the former however is considerably thickened by incorporation with ⅕ of its weight of recently calcined magnesia. If the mixture, moistened with dilute alcohol, is kept at 93° C. for some days and frequently stirred, a mass of hard consistence, finally translucent, results. Caustic ammonia heated with the balsam in a closed bottle, forms a thick milky jelly, which does not afterwards separate.

Hence, according to our investigations, 100 parts of Canada turpentine consist of

Essential oil, C₁₀H₁₆}, with a very small proportion of an oxygenated oil 24 Resin soluble in boiling alcohol 60 Resin soluble only in ether 16

The result of Wirzen’s examination of Canada balsam[2293] are not in complete accordance with those here stated. He found 16 per cent. of oil and three different amorphous resins, one of which had the composition of abietic acid.

[2293] De balsamis et præsertim de Balsamo Canadense, Helsingforsiæ, 1849,—abstracted in the Jahresbericht of Wiggers for 1849. 38.

=Production and Commerce=—Canada balsam is obtained either by puncturing the vesicles which form under the suberous envelope of the trunk and branches, and collecting their fluid contents in a bottle, or by making incisions. It is obtained principally in Lower Canada, and is shipped from Montreal and Quebec, in kegs or large barrels. In the neighbourhood of Quebec, about 2000 gallons (20,000 lb.) used to be collected annually; but in 1868, owing to distress among the farmers, the quantity obtained was unusually large, and it was estimated that nearly 7000 gallons would be exported to England and the United States.[2294] During a recent scarcity (1872-73) a sort of balsam from Oregon has been substituted in the American market for true Canada balsam.[2295]

=Uses=—The medicinal properties of Canada balsam resemble those of copaiba and other terebinthinous oleo-resins, yet it is now rarely employed as a remedy. The balsam is much valued for mounting objects for the microscope, as it remains constantly transparent and uncrystalline. It is also used for making varnish.

TEREBINTHINA ARGENTORATENSIS.

Strassburg Turpentine; F. Térébenthine d’Alsace ou de Strasbourg, Térébenthine du sapin; G. Strassburger Terpenthin.

=Botanical Origin=—Pinus Picea L. (Abies pectinata DC.), the Silver Fir,[2296] a large handsome tree, growing in the mountainous parts of Middle and Southern Europe from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, and extending under a slightly different form (var. β. cephalonica) into continental Greece and the islands of Eubœa and Cephalonia.

=History=—Belon in his treatise De Arboribus coniferis (1553) described this turpentine, which is also briefly yet accurately noticed by Samuel Dale,[2297] a learned apothecary of London and the friend of Sloane and Ray. It had a place in the London Pharmacopœia until 1788, when it was omitted from the materia medica.

=Extraction=—The oleo-resin of P. Picea, like that of P. balsamea, is contained in little swellings of the bark[2298] of young stems, and is extracted by the tedious process of puncturing them and receiving in a suitable vessel the one or two drops which exude from each. It is still collected near Mutzig and Barr, in the Vosges (1878), though only to a very small extent.

=Description=—An authentic sample collected for one of us by the Surveyor of Forests in the Bernese Jura, Switzerland, resembles very closely Canada balsam, but is devoid of any distinct fluorescence. It has a light yellow colour, a very fragrant odour,[2299] more agreeable than that of Canada balsam, and is devoid of the acrid bitterish taste of the latter.

We found our specimen to have sp. gr. of distilled water. It deviates a ray of polarized light 3° to the left, if examined either pure or diluted with a fourth of its weight of benzol, in the manner described at p. 610. Our drug is soluble in the same liquids as the Canadian, yet is miscible with glacial acetic acid, absolute alcohol and acetone, without leaving any considerable flocculent residue. It is even soluble in spirit of wine, the solution being but very little turbid. The solutions have an acid reaction.

[2294] From information obligingly communicated by Mr. N. Mercer of Montreal and Mr. H. Sugden Evans of London.—See also Proc. Am. Pharm. Assoc., 1877, page 337, abstracted in Ph. Jour. viii. (1878) 813.

[2295] Proceedings of the American Pharmaceutical Association, Philadelphia, 1873. 119—also 1874. 433.

[2296] Sapin in French; Weisstanne or Edeltanne in German.

[2297] Pharmacologia, Lond. 1693. 395.

[2298] See Morel, Ph. Jour. viii. (1877) 21.

[2299] Hence it is sometimes called in French Térébenthine au citron.

=Chemical Composition=—After the complete desiccation of a small quantity, there remained 72·4 per cent. of a brittle, transparent resin, soluble in glacial acetic acid, but not entirely in absolute alcohol or in acetone. By submitting half a pound of the turpentine to distillation with water, we obtained 24 per cent. of essential oil, the remaining resin being when cold perfectly friable. The fresh oil, purified by sodium, deviates the ray of polarized light to the left, whereas the remaining resin, dissolved in half its weight of benzol, shows a weak dextrogyre rotation. The oil boils at 163° C. After having kept it for two years and a half in a well-stopped bottle, we find that it has become considerably thicker and now deviates to the right. If saturated with dry hydrochloric acid, the oil does not yield a solid compound.

This oil has nearly the same agreeable odour as the crude oleo-resin, yet the essential oil of the cones of the same tree is still more fragrant. The latter is one of the most powerfully deviating oils, the rotation being 51° to the left, and it is consequently extremely different from the oil obtained from the turpentine of the stem, though its composition is represented by the same formula, C₁₀H₁₆.

A peculiar sugar called Abietite, nearly related to mannite but having the composition C₁₂H₁₆O₆, has been detected by Rochleder[2300] in the leaves of the Silver Fir.

=Uses=—Strassburg turpentine possesses the properties of common turpentine, with the advantage of a very agreeable odour. It was formerly held in great esteem, but has now become nearly forgotten.

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

PIX BURGUNDICA

Pix abietina; Burgundy Pitch; F. Poix de Bourgogne ou des Vosges, Poix jaune; G. Fichtenharz, Tannenharz.

=Botanical Origin=—Pinus Abies L. (Abies excelsa DC.), the Norway Spruce Fir,[2301] a noble tree attaining an elevation of 100-160 feet, widely distributed throughout Northern and the mountainous parts of Central Europe, but not indigenous to Great Britain, though extensively planted. In Russian Lapland it reaches at 68° N. lat. almost the extreme limit of tree-vegetation, while southward it extends to the Spanish Pyrenees. In the Alps it ascends to 6,000 feet above the level of the sea.

=History=—In accordance with the definition of the London Pharmacopœias and the custom of English druggists the name Burgundy Pitch is restricted to the product of the above-named species. The pharmacologists of France use an equivalent term with the same limitations; but in other parts of the Continent Pix Burgundica has a wider meaning, and is allowed to include the turpentines of other Coniferæ. We here employ it in the English sense.

Parkinson, an apothecary of London and herbarist to King Charles I., speaks of “Burgony Pitch” as a thing well known in his time.[2302] Dale in his Pharmacologia (1693) mentions Pix Burgundica as being imported into England from Germany, and it is also noticed by Salmon (1693), who says “it is brought to us out of Burgundy, Germany and other places near Strasburgh.”[2303]

[2300] Wiggers and Husemann, Jahresbericht, 1868. 53.

[2301] Pesse or Epicéa of the French; Fichte or Rothtanne of the Germans.

[2302] Theater of Plants, 1640. 1542.

[2303] Compleat English Physician, 1693. 1031.

Pomet, writing in Paris about the same period, discards the prefix Burgundy as a fiction, remarking that the best Poix grasse comes from Holland and Strassburg.[2304]

Whether this resin ever was collected in Burgundy we are unable to determine. It may probably have acquired the name through having been brought into commerce from Switzerland and Alsace by way of Franche Comté, otherwise called Comté de Bourgogne or Haute Bourgogne.[2305]

Burgundy pitch is enumerated among the materia medica of the London Pharmacopœia of 1677, and in every subsequent edition. In that of 1809 it was defined under the name of Pix arida, as the prepared resin of Pinus Abies.

=Production=—Burgundy pitch is produced in Finland, in the Black Forest in the Grand Duchy of Baden, Austria and Switzerland. On the estate of Baron Linder at Svarta near Helsingfors, it is obtained by melting the crude resin in contact with the vapour of water, and straining. The quantity annually produced there was stated in 1867 to be 35,000 kilogr. (689 cwt.);[2306] that afforded by an establishment at Ilm in the same country amounted to 80,000 kilogr. (1,575 cwt.).[2307]

In the neighbourhood of Oppenau and on the Kniebis mountain in the Grand Duchy of Baden the stems of the firs are wounded at equal distances by making perpendicular channels, 1½ inches wide and the same in depth. The resin which exudes from these channels is scraped off with an iron instrument made for the purpose, and purified by being melted in hot water and strained. This is performed in three or four small establishments at Oppenau and the neighbouring village of Löcherberg. In this state the resin, which is opaque and contains much moisture, is called Wasserharz. By further straining and evaporating a portion of the water its quality is improved.

The manufacture in that part of Germany is on the decline, partly in consequence of the timber being injured by the wounding of the trees, so that the collecting of resin is not permitted in the large forests belonging to the governments of Baden and Württemberg. We have had the opportunity of observing[2308] that in the establishments in question French turpentine or galipot, imported from Bordeaux, as well as American rosin or colophony, are used in quantities certainly exceeding that of the resin grown on the spot.

In the middle of the last century some Burgundy pitch was produced, according to Duhamel,[2309] in the present canton of Neuchâtel, but no such branch of industry is now pursued there, at least on a large scale. On the other hand, in the districts of Moutier and Delémont in the Bernese Jura this resin is still collected, though it is not known as Burgundy Pitch, but is termed simply Poix blanche (White Pitch). The surveyor of the forests of this district, which is one of the richest in Pinus Abies, has informed one of us that from 790 to 850 quintals are collected and exported to Basle, Zürich, Aarau and Vaud. The pitch is worth in loco (1868) 100 to 110 francs (£4 to £4 8_s._) the bosse of 6 quintals. The quantities collected in other parts of Switzerland are even less considerable.

[2304] Hist. des Drogues, Paris, 1694. part i. 287.

[2305] Chabræus in his Stirpium Sciagraphia (1666) remarks that he had seen the Pesse (P. Abies L.) in great plenty “in Burgundicis montibus,” yet makes no particular allusion to its yielding resin.

[2306] Pharm. Journ. ix. (1876) 164; also in Hanbury’s Science Papers, pp. 46 to 53.

[2307] Oesterreichischer Ausstellungs-Bericht, x. (Wien, 1868) 471.

[2308] I spent several days in the localities in 1873.—F. A. F.

[2309] Traité des Arbres, etc. i. (1775) 12.

=Description=—Pure Burgundy pitch, of which we have numerous authentic specimens, is a rather opaque, yellowish-brown substance, hard and brittle when cold, yet gradually taking the form of the vessel in which it is kept. It is strongly adhesive, breaks with a clear conchoidal fracture, and has a very agreeable, aromatic odour, especially when heated. It does not exhibit a crystalline structure, although, as we have frequently observed, the resin on the stem of the tree is distinctly crystalline.

Burgundy pitch is readily soluble in glacial acetic acid, acetone, absolute alcohol, and even in alcohol of 75 per cent. (sp. gr. 0·860), yet its solubility in these liquids is considerably altered by the presence of water or essential oil; and still more by the formation of abietic acid in the resin itself. The same influences also affect the melting point.

The crude resin of Pinus Abies,[2310] deprived of essential oil and dissolved in one part of absolute alcohol, was found to deviate a ray of polarized light 3° to the left, in a column of 50 mm.; the essential oil deviated 8·5° to the same direction. The oil contains a small amount of an oxygenated oil. After treatment with sodium the oil which remains does not form a solid compound if saturated with hydrochloric acid.

[2310] Collected by myself.—F. A. F.

=Chemical Composition=—The investigations of Maly mentioned at p. 607 afford a satisfactory elucidation of the chemical properties of the pinic resinous exudations. They all, according to that chemist, are mixtures of the same amorphous resin, C₄₄H₆₂O₄, with essential oils of the composition C₁₀H₁₆. These terebinthinous juices are collected and sold either in their natural state as turpentine, or deprived more or less completely of their volatile oil, in which condition they are represented by Burgundy Pitch, and finally by rosin or colophony.

The turpentines flowing down the stems of the trees gradually lose their transparency if allowed to dry slowly in the air, becoming at the same time harder and somewhat granular. This alteration is due to the incorporation of water, which at last is not only mixed with the components of the resinous juice, but to some extent combines chemically with the resin so as to transform it into a crystalline body having the characters of an acid. The fact is easily observed if clear drops of the turpentine of Pinus silvestris, P. Abies or P. Picea are collected in vials and kept perfectly dry. Thus treated these turpentines remain transparent, but the addition of water causes after a short time the formation of microscopic crystals of abietic acid, rendering them more or less opaque.

If turpentines are collected before they lose their essential oil by evaporation and oxidation, and before they have become crystalline, they can be retained perfectly transparent by distilling off the volatile oil without water. The distillation being most commonly carried on with water, the remaining resin is opaque.

Maly is of opinion that the same amorphous resin occurs in all the Coniferæ, and that it yields by hydration the same acid, namely Abietic, which has been described by former chemists as Pinic, Silvic, and Pimaric acids, all of which indeed are admitted to have the same composition. We must however remember that several sorts of turpentine, as Canada Balsam, appear incapable, according to our experiments, of yielding any crystalline resinoid compound whatever; and that their amorphous resin being but partially soluble is certainly not a homogeneous substance.

The crystals as formed naturally in the common turpentines do not exhibit precisely the same forms as those obtained artificially when the resins are agitated with warm diluted alcohol, as in the preparation of abietic acid. As to Pimaric Acid, we have prepared it in quantity from galipot, the resin of Pinus Pinaster, but have always found its crystalline character entirely different from that of abietic acid.[2311]

[2311] Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann for 1867. 37.

We are inclined, therefore, to think that the composition of the resins of Coniferæ is not so uniform as Maly suggests. The remarkable variety of their essential oils is a fact which seems in favour of our view.

=Uses=—Burgundy pitch is prescribed as an ingredient of plasters, and thus employed is useful as a mild stimulant. In Germany it has some economic applications, one of which is the lining of beer casks, for which purpose a composition is used called Brauerpech (brewers’ pitch), made by mixing it with colophony or galipot.

=Adulteration=—No drug is the subject of more adulteration than Burgundy pitch, so much so that the very name is understood by some pharmacologists to be that of a manufactured compound. The substance commonly sold in England is made by melting together colophony with palm oil or some other fat, water being stirred in to render the mixture opaque. In appearance it is very variable, different samples presenting different shades of bright or dull yellow or yellowish-brown. Many when broken exhibit numerous cavities containing air or water; all are more or less opaque, becoming in time transparent on the surface by the loss of water. Artificial Burgundy pitch is offered for sale in bladders; it has a weak terebinthinous odour, and is devoid of the peculiar fragrance of the genuine. The presence of a fatty oil is easily discovered by treatment with double its weight of glacial acetic acid, which forms a turbid mixture, separating by repose into two layers, the upper being oily.

PIX LIQUIDA.

Wood-Tar; F. Goudron végétal, Poix liquide; G. Holztheer, Fichtentheer.

=Botanical Origin=—Tar is obtained by submitting the wood of the stems and roots of coniferous trees to dry or destructive distillation. That found in commerce is produced in Northern Europe, chiefly from two species, namely Pinus silvestris L. and P. Ledebourii Endl. (Larix sibirica Ledeb.). These trees constitute the vast forests of Arctic Europe and Asia.

=History=—Theophrastus gives a circumstantial description of the preparation of tar, which applies with considerable accuracy to the processes still practised in those districts where no improved methods of manufacture have yet been introduced.

=Production=—The great bulk of the vegetable tar used in Europe, and known in commerce as Archangel or Stockholm Tar, is prepared in Finland, Central and Northern Russia, and Sweden.

The process is conducted in the following manner:—vast stacks of pine wood consisting chiefly of the roots and lower portions of the trunks (the more valuable parts of the trees being used as timber), and containing as much as 30,000 to 70,000 cubic feet, are carefully packed together, and then covered with a thick layer of turf, moss, and earth, beaten down with heavy stampers. The whole stack of billets is constructed over a conical or funnel-like cavity made in the ground, if possible on the side of a hill, this arrangement being adopted for the purpose of carrying on a downward distillation. Fire being applied the combustion of the mass of wood has to be carried on very slowly and without flame in order to obtain the due amount of tar and a charcoal of good quality. During its progress the products, chiefly tar, collect in the funnel-like cavity, from which they are discharged by a tube into a cast-iron pan placed beneath the stack, or simply into hollow tree trunks. The time required for combustion varies from one to four weeks, according to the size of the stack.

During the last few years this rude process has been improved and accelerated by the introduction of rationally constructed wrought-iron stills, furnished with refrigerating condensers, as proposed in Russia by Hessel in 1861. By this mode of manufacture the yield in tar of pine wood is about 14 per cent. from stems, dried by exposure to the open air; and 16 to 20 per cent. from roots. Large quantities of pyroligneous acid and oil of turpentine are at the same time secured. The wood of the beech and of other non-coniferous trees appears not to afford more than 10 per cent. of tar, while turf yields only from 3 to 9 per cent.

=Description=—The numerous empyreumatic products which result from the destructive distillation of pine wood, and which we call tar, constitute a dark brown or blackish semi-liquid substance, of peculiar odour and sharp taste. When deprived of water and seen in thin layers, tar is perfectly transparent. The magnifying glass shows some of the varieties to contain colourless crystals of Pyrocatechin, scattered throughout the dark viscid substance, and to these tar owes its occasionally granular, honey-like consistence.[2312] A gentle heat causes them to melt and mix with the other constituents.

[2312] Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann for 1867. 37.

True vegetable tar has always a decidedly acid reaction. It is readily miscible with alcohol, glacial acetic acid, ether, fixed and volatile oils, chloroform, benzol, amylic alcohol or acetone. It is soluble in caustic alkaline solutions, but not in pure water or watery liquids. The sp. gr. of tar from the roots of conifers is about 1·06 (Hessel) yet at a somewhat elevated temperature, it becomes lighter than warm water.

Water agitated with tar acquires a light yellowish tint, and the taste and odour of tar, as well as an acid reaction. On evaporation the solution becomes brown, and at last microscopic crystals are obtained with a brown residue like tar itself, which is no longer soluble in water. A microscopical examination of tar which has been exhausted with water, shows that all crystals have disappeared.

=Chemical Composition=—Dry wood may be heated to about 150° C. without decomposition; but at a more elevated temperature, it commences to undergo a change, yielding a large number of products, the nature and comparative quantity of which depend upon circumstances. If the process is carried on in a closed vessel, a residue will be got which has more or less resemblance to coal. By heating fir-wood enclosed with some water to 400° C., Daubrée (1857) obtained a coal-like substance, which yielded by a subsequent increase of temperature scarcely any volatile products.

The results are widely different if a process is followed which permits the formation of volatile bodies; and these substances are formed in largest proportion, if the heat acts quickly and intensely. At lower degrees of heat, more charcoal results and more water is evolved.

Among the volatile products of destructive distillation, those alone which are condensed at the ordinary temperature of the air are of pharmaceutical interest; and of these, chiefly the portion not soluble in water, or that which is called Tar or Liquid Pitch. The aqueous portion of the products consist principally of empyreumatic acetic acid, to which tar owes its acid reaction.

The tissue of wood is chiefly formed of cellulose, intimately combined with a saccharine substance, which may be separated if the wood is boiled with dilute acids. The remaining cellulose is however not yet pure, but is still united to a substance which, as shown by Erdmann,[2313] is capable of yielding pyrocatechin.

[2313] Liebig, Annalen der Chemie u. Pharmacie, Suppl. v. (1867) 229.

It is well known that sugar subjected to an elevated temperature, yields a series of pyrogenous products; and the same fact is observed if purified cellulose is heated in similar manner. But for tar-making, wood is preferred which is impregnated with resins and essential oils, and these latter furnish another series of empyreumatic products. From these circumstances, the components of wood-tar are of an extremely complicated character, which is still more the case when other woods than those of conifers form part of the material submitted to distillation. In the case of beech-wood, Creasote is formed, which is obtained only in very small quantity from the Coniferæ. Volatile alkaloids and carbolic acid, which are largely produced in the destructive distillation of coal, appear not to be present in wood-tar.

The components of the latter may be considered under two heads:—first, the lighter aqueous portion, which separates from the other products of distillation, forming what is called Impure Pyroligneous Acid. This contains chiefly acetic acid and Methyl Alcohol or Wood Naphtha, CH₄O; Acetone, C₃H₆O; besides other liquid products abundantly soluble in water and acetic acid. In this portion, some pyrocatechin also occurs.

The second class of pyrogenous products of wood consists of a homologous series of liquid hydrocarbons, sparingly soluble in water, and which therefore are chiefly retained in the heavy layer below the pyroligneous acid, forming the proper wood-tar. The liquid in question furnishes Toluol or Toluene, C₇H₈ (boiling point 114° C.), Xylole C₈H₁₀, and several other analogous substances.

If tar is redistilled, an elevated temperature being used towards the end of the process, some crystallizable solid bodies are obtained, the most important of which is that called Paraffin, having the formula CₙH₍₂ₙ₊₂₎, n varying from 20 to 24.

The crystals already mentioned as occurring in tar are Pyrocatechin. They are easily sublimed at some degrees above their fusing point (104° C.), or removed by acetic acid, in which as well as in water they are readily soluble. Hence in some sorts of tar this substance does not occur, it having probably been removed by water.

Pyrocatechin, C₆H₄(OH)₂, can be obtained by the destructive distillation of many other substances, as catechu, kino, the extracts of rhatany and bearberry leaves, and other extracts rich in that form of tannin which produces greenish (not blue-black) precipitates in salts of iron. It is extracted from the granular sorts of wood-tar, by exposing them at a proper temperature to a current of heated dry air, or by exhausting them with water. Ether when shaken with the concentrated aqueous solution and left to evaporate, leaves colourless crystals of pyrocatechin which after purification are devoid of acid reaction. They have a peculiar burning persistent taste, and are very pungent and irritating when allowed to evaporate. A solution of pyrocatechin yields with perchloride of iron a dark green coloration changing to black after a few moments, and becoming red on the addition of potash. This mixture finally acquires a magnificent violet hue, like a solution of alkaline permanganate. No alteration is produced in a solution of pyrocatechin by protosalts of iron.

Among the few medicinal preparations of tar, is Tar Water, called Aqua vel Liquor Picis, made by agitating wood-tar with water. The presence in it of pyrocatechin is easily proved by the above-mentioned reactions, or by a few drops of red chromate of potassium, which produces a brownish black colouration. It may hence be inferred that pyrocatechin is perhaps the active ingredient in tar-water, and that for making this liquid the granular, crystalline sorts of tar should be preferred.[2314]

=Commerce=—Tar as well as pitch is manufactured in Finland, and shipped from various ports in the Gulf of Bothnia, as Uleaborg, Gamla Carleby, Jacobstad, Ny Carleby and Christinestad; also from Archangel and Onega on the White Sea. Some tar is also produced in Volhynia, and finds its way by the Dnieper to the Black Sea.

The North of Sweden likewise produces tar, chiefly about Umea and Lulea, the distillation being now performed in well-constructed apparatus of iron.

The pine forests of North America afford tar and pitch. Wilmington in North Carolina exported in 1871, 25,260 barrels of tar, and 3788 barrels of pitch.[2315]

[2314] We may suppose that the authors of the French Codex were not of this opinion, inasmuch as in making Eau de Goudron, they order that the liquid obtained by the first maceration of the tar, shall be thrown away.

[2315] Consul Walker, Report on the Trade of North and South Carolina—Consular Reports presented to Parliament, May, 1872.

The imports of tar into the United Kingdom in 1872, were 189,291 barrels, valued at £218,339. Of this quantity 145,483 barrels were shipped from the northern ports of Russia.

The barrels in which tar arrives hold about 30 gallons. Smaller sized vessels termed half-barrels are also used, though less frequently.

=Uses=—In medicine of no great importance: an ointment of tar is a common remedy in cutaneous diseases, and tar water is sometimes taken internally. The consumption of tar in shipbuilding and for the preservation of fences, sufficiently explains the large importations.

Other Varieties of Tar.

Juniper Tar, Pyroleum Oxycedri, Oleum Juniperi empyreumaticum, Oleum Cadinum, Huile de Cade.—This is a tar originally obtained by the destructive distillation of the wood of the Cade, Juniperus Oxycedrus L., a shrub or small tree, native of the countries bordering the Mediterranean. It was for centuries used in the South of France as an external remedy, chiefly for domestic animals, but had fallen into complete oblivion until ten years ago, when it began to be prescribed in skin complaints.

The Huile de Cade now in use, is transparent and devoid of crystals. It is somewhat thinner than Swedish tar, but closely agrees with it in other respects. It is imported from the Continent, but where made and from what wood we know not. Huile de Cade is mentioned by Olivier de Serres,[2316] a celebrated French writer on agriculture of the 16th century; it is named by Parkinson[2317] in 1640; also by Pomet,[2318] in whose time (1694) it was rarely genuine, common tar being sold in its place.

[2316] Théâtre d’Agriculture, Paris, 1600. 941.

[2317] Theatrum Botanicum, 1033.

[2318] Hist. des Drogues, Paris, 1694. part i. chap. xii. xiv.

Beech Tar—Tar is also manufactured from the wood of the beech, Fagus silvatica L., and has a place in some pharmacopœias as the best source of creasote.

Birch Tar—is made to a small extent in Russia, where it is called Dagget, from the wood of Betula alba L. It contains an abundance of pyrocatechin, and is esteemed on account of its peculiar odour well known in the Russia leather. A purified oil of birch tar is sold by the Leipzig distillers.

PIX NIGRA.

Pix sicca vel solida vel navalis; Pitch, Black Pitch; F. Poix noire; G. Schiffspech, Schusterpech, Schwarzes Pech.

=Botanical Origin=—see Pix liquida.

=Production=—When the crude products of the dry distillation of pine wood, as described in the previous article, are submitted to re-distillation, the following results are obtained. The first 10 to 15 per cent. of volatile matter consists chiefly of methylic alcohol and acetone. A higher temperature causes the vaporization of the acetic acid, while the still retains the tar. This last, subjected to a further distillation, may be separated into a liquid portion called Oil of Tar (Oleum Picis liquidæ), and a residuum which, on cooling, hardens and forms the product under notice, namely Black Pitch. Again heated to a very elevated temperature, it is capable of yielding paraffin, anthracene and naphthalene.

=Description=—Pitch is an opaque-looking, black substance, breaking with a shining conchoidal fracture, the fragments showing at the thin translucent edges a brownish colour. No trace of distinct crystallization is observable when very thin fragments are examined, even by polarized light. Pitch has a peculiar disagreeable odour, rather different from that of tar. Its alcoholic solution has a feeble taste somewhat like that of tar, but pitch itself when masticated is almost tasteless. It softens by the warmth of the hand, and may then be kneaded. It readily dissolves in those liquids which are solvents of tar. Alcohol of 75 per cent. acts freely on it, leaving behind in small proportion a dark viscid residue. The brown solution reddens litmus paper, and yields a dingy brownish precipitate with perchloride of iron, and whitish precipitates with alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead, or with pure water. Pitch dissolves in solution of caustic potash, evolving an offensive odour.

=Chemical Composition=—From the method in which pitch is prepared, we may infer that it contains some of the less volatile and less crystallizable compounds found in tar. Ekstrand (1875) extracted from it Retene, C₁₈H₁₈, a colourless, inodorous crystalline substance, melting at 90° C.

The pitch of beech-wood boiled with a caustic alkali, yields a fœtid volatile oil; when this solution is acidulated, fatty volatile acids are evolved. These principles however have not yet been isolated either from the pitch of pine or beech. The whitish compound formed by acetate of lead in an alcoholic solution of pitch deserves investigation, and perhaps might be the starting point for acquiring a better knowledge of the chemistry of this substance.

=Commerce=—The same countries that produce tar produce also pitch. The quantity of the latter imported into the United Kingdom during 1872 was 35,482 cwt., four-fifths of which were supplied by Russia. Pitch is also manufactured from tar in Great Britain.

=Uses=—Pitch is occasionally administered in the form of pills, or externally as an ointment; but its medicinal properties are, to say the least, very questionable.

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FRUCTUS JUNIPERI

Baccæ Galbuli Juniperi; Juniper Berries; F. Baies de Genièvre; G. Wacholderbeeren, Kaddigbeeren.

=Botanical Origin=—Juniperis communis L., a diœcious evergreen, occurring in Europe from the Mediterranean to the Arctic regions, throughout Russian Asia as far as Sachalin, and in the north-western Himalaya, where it is ascending in Kashmir at 5400 feet, in Lahoul to 12,500, on the upper Biās and in Gurhwal to 14,000 feet. It abounds in the islands of Newfoundland, Saint Pierre, and Miquelon, and is also found in Continental North America. Dispersed over this vast area the Common Juniper presents several varieties. In England and in the greater part of Europe it forms a bushy shrub from 2 to 6 feet high, but in the interior of Norway and Sweden it becomes a small forest tree of 30 to 36 feet, often attaining an age of hundreds of years.[2319] In high mountain regions of temperate Europe and in Arctic countries it assumes a decumbent habit (Juniperus nana Willd.), rising only a few inches above the soil.

=History=—The fruits of Juniper, though by no means exclusively those of J. communis, were commonly used in medicine by the Greek and Roman as well as by the Arabian physicians; they had a place among the drugs of the Welsh “physicians of Myddvai” (see Appendix), and are mentioned in some of the earliest printed herbals. The oil was distilled by Schnellenberg[2320] as early as 1546.

Popular uses were formerly assigned in various parts of Europe to Juniper berries. They were employed as a spice to food;[2321] and a spirit, of which wormwood was an ingredient, was obtained from them by fermentation and distillation. The spirit called in French Genièvre became known in English as Geneva, a name subsequently contracted into Gin.[2322]

[2319] Schübeler, Culturpflanzen Norwegens, Christiania, 1873-1875. 140, with fig.

[2320] Artsneybuch, Königsberg, 1556. 35.

[2321] Valmont de Bomare, Dict. d’Hist. nat. ii. (1775) 45.

[2322] The gin distilled in Holland is flavoured with Juniper berries, yet, as we are told, but very slightly, only 2 lb. being used to 100 gallons.

=Description=—The flowers form minute axillary catkins; those of the female plant consist of 3 to 5 whorls of imbricated bracts. Of these the uppermost three soon become fleshy and scale-like, and alternate with three upright ovules having an open pore at the apex. After the flowers have faded these three fleshy bracts grow together to form a berry-like fruit termed a galbulus, which encloses three seeds. The three points and sutures of the fruit-scales are conspicuous in the upper part of the young fruit; but after maturity the sutures alone are visible, forming a depressed mark at its summit. A small point, surrounded by two or three trios of minute bracts, indicates the base of the fruit.

This fruit or pseudo-berry remains ovate and green during its first year, and it is not until the second autumn that it becomes ripe. It is then spherical, ³/₁₀ to ⁴/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, of a deep purplish colour, with a blue-grey bloom. Its internal structure may be thus described:—beneath the thin epicarp there is a loose yellowish-brown sarcocarp, enclosing large cavities, the oil-ducts; the three hard seeds lying close together, triangular and sharp-edged at the top, are attached to the sarcocarp at their outer sides, and only as far as the lower half. The upper half, which is free, is covered by a thin membrane. In the longitudinal furrows of the hard testa towards the lower half of the seed are small prominent sacs growing out into the sarcocarp. Each seed bears on its inner side 1 or 2, and on its convex outer surface 4 to 8 of these sacs, which in old fruits contain the resinified oil in an amorphous colourless state.

Juniper berries when crushed have an aromatic odour, and a spicy, sweetish, terebinthinous taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The outer layer of the fruit consists of a colourless transparent cuticle, which covers a few rows of large cubic or tabular cells having thick, brown, porous walls. These cells contain a dark granular substance and masses of resin. The sarcocarp, which in the ripe state consists of large, elliptic, thin-walled, loosely coherent cells, contains chlorophyll, drops of essential oil, and a crystalline substance soluble in alcohol,—no doubt a stearoptene. Before maturity it likewise contains starch granules and large oil-cells. This tissue is traversed by very small vascular bundles containing annulated and dotted vessels.

=Chemical Composition=—The most important constituent of juniper berries is the volatile oil, obtainable to the extent of 0·4 to 1·2 per cent. The latter amount is obtained from Hungarian, 0·7 per cent. from German fruits.[2323] It is a mixture of levogyre oils, the one of which having the composition C₁₀H₁₆ boils at 155° C.; the prevailing portion of the oil, boiling at about 200°, consists of hydrocarbons, which are polymeric with terpene, C₁₀H₁₆. The crude oil as distilled by us deviated 3°·5 to the left in a column of 50 mm.

[2323] According to Messrs. Schimmel & Co. (see p. 306, note 2.)

By passing nitrosyl chloride gas, NOCl, into it, Tilden (1877) obtained from the portion boiling below 160° the crystallized compound C₁₀H₁₆(NOCl), which is yielded by all the terpenes.

Another important constituent of juniper berries is the glucose, of which Trommsdorff (1822) obtained 33 per cent., while Donath (1873) found 41·9, and Ritthausen (1877) not more than 16 per cent. in the berries deprived of water. Of albuminoid substances about 5 per cent. are present, of inorganic matters 3 to 4 per cent. The fruit, moreover, contains also according to Donath small amounts of formic, acetic, and malic acids, besides resin.

=Collection and Commerce=—Juniper berries are largely collected in Savoy, and in the departments of the Doubs and Jura in France, whence they find their way to the hands of the Geneva druggists. They are also gathered in Austria, the South of France and Italy. In Hamburg price-currents they are quoted as German and Italian. The largest supplies are apparently furnished by Hungaria.

=Uses=—The berries and the essential oil obtained from them are reputed diuretic, yet are not often prescribed in English medicine.

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HERBA SABINÆ

Cacumina vel Summitates Sabinæ; Savin or Savine; F. Sabine; G. Sevenkraut.

=Botanical Origin=—Juniperus Sabina L., a woody evergreen shrub, usually of small size and low-growing, spreading habit, but in some localities erect and arborescent.

It occurs in the Southern Alps of Austria (Tirol) and Switzerland (Visp or Viège and Stalden in the Valais, also in Grisons and Vaud), and in the adjacent mountains of France and Piedmont, ascending to elevations of 4,000 to 5,000 feet. It is also found in the Pyrenees, Central Spain, Italy and the Crimea; likewise in the Caucasus, where it reaches 12,000 feet above the sea-level. Eastward it extends to the Elburs range, south of the Caspian, and throughout Southern Siberia, where it ascends in the Balkhasch and Alatau mountains to 8,600 feet. In North America it has been gathered on the banks of the river Saskatchewan, at Lake Huron, in Newfoundland, and in Saint Pierre and Miquelon. There are, however, a few very closely allied species which may occasionally have been confounded with savin.

=History=—Savin is mentioned as a veterinary drug by Marcus Porcius Cato,[2324] a Roman writer on husbandry who flourished in the second century B.C.; and it was well known to Dioscorides (under the name of βρἀθυ) and Pliny. The plant, which is frequently named in the early English leech-books written before the Norman Conquest,[2325] may probably have been introduced into Britain by the Romans. Charlemagne, A.D. 812, ordered that it should be cultivated on the imperial farms of Central Europe. Its virtues as a stimulating application to wounds and ulcers are noticed in the verses of Macer Floridus,[2326] composed in the 10th century.

=Description=—The medicinal part of savin is the young and tender green shoots, stripped from the more woody twigs and branches. These are clothed with minute scale-like rhomboid leaves, arranged alternately in opposite pairs. On the younger twigs they are closely adpressed, thick, concave, rounded on the back, in the middle of which is a conspicuous depressed oil gland. As the shoots grow older the leaves become more pointed and divergent from the stem. Savin evolves, when rubbed or bruised, a strong and not disagreeable odour. The blackish fruit or galbulus resembling a small berry, ²/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, grows on a short recurved stalk, and is covered with a blue bloom. It is globular, dry, but abounding in essential oil, and contains 1 to 4 little bony nuts.

To mycologists, Juniperus Sabina, at least in the cultivated state, is interesting on account of the parasitic fungus Podisoma fuscum Duby, the mycelium of which produces, on the leaves of the pear-trees, the so-called Roestelia cancellata Rebentisch.

=Chemistry=—The odour of savin is due to an essential oil, of which the fresh tops afford 2 to 4 per cent., and the berries about 10 per cent. Examined in a column 50 millimetres long it was found to deviate the ray of polarized light 27° to the right, the oil used having been distilled by one of us in London from the fresh plant cultivated at Mitcham. The same result was obtained from the oil abstracted ten years previously from savin collected wild on the Alps of the Canton de Vaud, Switzerland. We find that, by the prolonged action of the air, if the oil is kept in a vessel not carefully closed, the rotatory power after the lapse of years is greatly reduced. Savin oil, according to Tilden (1877), yields a small amount of an oil boiling at 160°, which answers to the formula C₁₀H₁₆O. The greater part of the oil was found by that chemist to boil above 200° C. Tilden asserts that no terpene is present in the oil of savin; we have not been able to obtain from it a crystallized hydrochloride. Savin tops contain traces of tannic matter.

[2324] Cap. lxx. (Bubus medicamentum).

[2325] Cockayne, Leechdoms, etc., of Early England, ii. (1865) xii.

[2326] Choulant, Macer Floridus de viribus herbarum, Lipsiæ, 1832. 48.... “Duplum si desunt cinnama poni in medicamentis iubet Oribasius auctor.”

=Uses=—Savin is a powerful uterine stimulant, producing in overdoses very serious effects. It is but rarely administered internally. An ointment of savin, which from the chlorophyll it contains is of a fine green colour, is used as a stimulating dressing for blisters.

=Substitutes=—There are several species of juniper which have a considerable resemblance to savin; and one of them, commonly grown in gardens and shrubberies, is sometimes mistaken for it. This is Juniperus virginiana L., the Red Cedar or Savin of North America. In its native country it is a tree, attaining a height of 50 feet or more, but in Britain it is seldom more than a large shrub, of loose spreading growth, very different from the low, compact habit of savin.[2327] The foliage is of two sorts, consisting either of minute, scale-like, rhomboid leaves like those of savin, more rarely of elongated, sharp, divergent leaves a quarter of an inch in length, resembling those of common Juniper. Both forms often occur on the same branch. The plant is much less rich in essential oil than true savin,[2328] for which it is sometimes substituted in the United States.

The foliage of Juniperus phœnicea L., a Mediterranean species, has some resemblance to savin for which it is said to be sometimes substituted,[2329] but it is quite destitute of the peculiar odour of the latter. The specific name of the former alludes to its red fruit, from ϕοινίκιος, purple.

[2327] We have examined numerous herbarium specimens (wild) of J. virginiana and J. Sabina, but except difference of stature and habit, can observe scarcely any characters for separating them as species. The fruit-stalk in J. virginiana is often pendulous as in J. Sabina. Each plant has two forms,—arboreous and fruticose.

[2328] This we ascertained by distilling under precisely similar conditions 6 lbs. 6 oz. of the fresh shoots of each of the two plants, Juniperus Sabina and J. virginiana: the first gave 9 drachms of essential oil, the second only ½ a drachm. The latter was of a distinct and more feeble odour, and a different dextrogyre power. In America the oil of J. virginiana is known as “Cedar Oil,” and used as a taenifuge. It contains a crystallizable oxygenated portion. This oil however is afforded by the wood. Red Cedar wood from Florida is stated by Messrs. Schimmel & Co. (see p. 306) to afford as much as 4 to 5 per cent. of that oil.

[2329] Bonplandia, x. (1862) 55.

Monocotyledons.

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CANNACEÆ

AMYLUM MARANTÆ.

Arrowroot.

=Botanical Origin=—Maranta arundinacea[2330] L.—An herbaceous branching plant, 4 to 6 feet high, with ovate-lanceolate, puberulous or nearly glabrous leaves, and small white flowers, solitary or in lax racemes. It is a native of the tropical parts of America from Mexico to Brazil, and of the West Indian Islands; and under the slightly different form known as M. indica Tussac, it occurs in Bengal, Java and the Philippines. This Asiatic variety is now found in the West Indies and Tropical America, but apparently as an introduced plant.[2331]

=History=—The history of arrowroot is comparatively recent. Passing over some early references of French writers on the West Indies to an Herbe aux flèches, which plant it is impossible to identify with Maranta, we find in Sloane’s catalogue of Jamaica plants (1696), Canna Indica radice alba alexipharmaca. This plant, discovered in Dominica, was sent thence to Barbadoes and subsequently to Jamaica, it being, says Sloane, “very much esteemed for its alexipharmack qualities.” It was observed, he adds, that the native Indians used the root of the plant with success against the poison of their arrows, “by only mashing and applying it to the poison’d wounds”: and further, that it cures the poison of the manchineel (Hippomane Mancinella L.), of the wasps of Guadaloupe, and even stops “a begun gangreen.”[2332]

[2330] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 23 (1877).

[2331] We accept the opinion of Körnicke (Monographiæ Marantaccarum Prodromus, Bull. de la Soc. imp. des Naturalistes de Moscou, xxxv. 1862, i.) that Maranta arundinacea L. and M. indica Tuss. are one and the same species. Grisebach maintains them as distinct (Flora of the British West Indian Islands, 1864, 605), allowing both to be natives of Tropical America; but he fails to point out any important character by which they may be distinguished from each other. According to Miquel (Linnæa, xviii. 1844. 71) the plant in the herbarium of Linnæus labelled M. arundinacea, is M. indica. We have ourselves made arrowroot from the fresh rhizomes of M. arundinacea, in order to compare it with an authentic specimen obtained in Java from M. indica: no difference could be found between them.

[2332] Sloane, Catal. plant. quæ in ins. Jamaica sponte proveniunt, vel vulgò coluntur, Lond. 1696. 122; also Hist. of Jamaica, i. (1707) 253.

Patrick Browne (1756) notices the reputed alexipharmic virtues of Maranta, which was then cultivated in many gardens in Jamaica, and says that the root “washed, pounded fine and bleached, makes a fine flour and starch”—sometimes used as food when provisions are scarce.[2333]

Hughes, when writing of Barbadoes in 1750, describes arrowroot as a very useful plant, the juice mixed with water and drunk being regarded as “a preservative against any poison of an hot nature”; while from the root the finest starch is made, far excelling that of wheat.[2334] The properties of Maranta arundinacea as a counter-poison are insisted upon at some length by Lunan,[2335] who concludes his notice of the plant by detailing the process for extracting starch from the rhizome.

Arrowroot came into use in England about the commencement of the present century, the supplies being obtained, as it would appear, from Jamaica.[2336]

The statements of Sloane, which are confirmed by Browne and Lunan, plainly indicate the origin and meaning of the word arrowroot, and disprove the notion of the learned C. F. Ph. von Martius (1867) that the name is derived from that of the Arnac or Aroaquis Indians of South America, who call the finest sort of fecula they obtain from the Mandioc Aru-aru. It is true that Maranta arundinacea is known at the present day in Brazil as Araruta, but the name is certainly a corruption of the English word arrowroot, the plant according to general report having been introduced.[2337]

=Manufacture=—For the production of arrowroot, the rhizomes are dug up after the plant has attained its complete maturity, which in Georgia is at the beginning of winter. The scales which cover them are removed and the rhizomes washed; the latter are then ground in a mill, and the pulp is washed on sieves, or in washing machines constructed for the purpose, in order to remove from it the starch. This is allowed to settle down in pure water, is then drained and finally dried with a gentle heat. Instead of being crushed in a mill, the rhizomes are sometimes grated to a pulp by a rasping machine.

In all stages of the process for making arrowroot, nice precautions have to be taken to avoid contamination with dust, iron mould, insects, or anything which can impart colour or taste to the product. The rhizome contains about 68 per cent. of water, and yields about a fifth of its weight of starch.[2338]

[2333] Civil and Natural History of Jamaica, 1756. 112. 113.

[2334] Natural History of Barbados, 1750. 221.

[2335] Hortus Jamaicensis, i. (1814) 30.

[2336] Thus in 1799 there were exported from Jamaica 24 casks and boxes of “Indian Arrowroot.”—Renny, Hist. of Jamaica, 235.

[2337] Since the above was written, the following lines bearing on this question have been received from Mr. Spruce:—“ ... I know not Martius’ derivation of ‘arrowroot.’ On the Amazon it is called ‘ararúta’—plainly a corruption of the English name, and explained by the fact that it was first cultivated, as I was told, from tubers obtained in the East Indies.”

[2338] This was in the German colony of Blumenau in Southern Brazil—Eberhard, Arch. der Pharm. 134 (1868) 257.

=Description=—Arrowroot is a brilliant white, insipid, inodorous, powder, more or less aggregated into lumps which seldom exceed a pea in size; when pressed it emits a slight crackling sound. It exhibits the general properties of starch, consisting entirely of granules which are subspherical, or broadly and irregularly egg-shaped; when seen in water they show a distinct stratification in the form of fine concentric rings around a small star-like hilum. They have a diameter of 5 to 7 mkm. when observed in the air or under benzol. If the water in which they lie be cautiously heated on the object-stage of the microscope, the tumefaction of the granules will be found to begin exactly at 70° C. Heated to 100° C. with 20 parts of distilled water, arrowroot yields a semi-transparent jelly of somewhat earthy taste and smell. By hydrochloric acid of sp. gr. 1·06, arrowroot is but imperfectly dissolved at 40° C.

The specific gravity of all varieties of starch is affected by the water which they retain at the ordinary temperature of the air. Arrowroot after prolonged exposure to an atmosphere of average moisture, and then kept at 100° C. till its weight was constant, was found to have lost 13·3 per cent. of water. On subsequent exposure to the air, it regained its former proportion of water.

Weighed in any liquid which is entirely devoid of action on starch, as petroleum or benzol, the sp. gr. of arrowroot was found by one of us to be 1·504; but 1·565 when the powder had been previously dried at 100° C.

=Microscopic Structure of Arrowroot and of Starch in general=—The granules are built up of layers,—a structure which may be rendered evident by the gradual action of chloride of calcium, chromic acid, or an ammoniacal solution of cupric oxide. When one of these liquids in a proper state of dilution is made to act upon starch, or when for that purpose a liquid is chosen which does not act upon it energetically, such as diastase, bile, pepsin, or saliva, it is easy to obtain a residue, which according to Nägeli, is no longer capable of swelling up in boiling water, nor is immediately turned blue by iodine, except on the addition of sulphuric acid; but which is dissolved by ammoniacal cupric oxide. These are the essential properties of cellulose; and this residue has been regarded as such by Nägeli, while the dissolved portion has been distinguished as Granulose (Maschke, 1852).

C. Nägeli in his important monograph on starch[2339] has described the action of saliva when digested with starch for a day, at a temperature of 40° to 47° C.; he says that the residue is a skeleton, corresponding in form to the original grain but somewhat smaller, light, and very mobile in water. He concludes that its interstitial spaces must have been previously filled with granulose.

This experiment, which has been repeated by one of us (F.), does not in our opinion warrant all the inferences that Nägeli has drawn from it: it is true that many separate parts of the grain are dissolved by the saliva, while others have disappeared down to a mere film, and others again have been attacked in a very irregular manner. But we cannot agree with the statement that anything comparable to a skeleton of the grain has been left. After longer action at a higher temperature, which however must not exceed 65° C., a more copious dissolution of the starch, either by saliva or by bile, takes place; but in no case is it complete.[2340]

[2339] Die Stärkekörner, Zürich, 1858. 4°, also W. Nägeli, Stärkegruppe, etc., Leipzig, 1874.

[2340] Further particulars on this question may be found in my paper Ueber Stärke und Cellulose—Archiv der Pharmacie, 196 (1871) 7.—F. A. F.

=Chemistry of Starch=—Its composition answers to the formula (C₆H₁₀O₅)₂+3 OH₂, or when dried at 100° C., C₆H₁₀O₅. Musculus however showed, in 1861, that by the action of dilute acids or of Diastase, starch is resolved into Dextrin, C₁₂H₂₀O₁₀, and Dextrose, C₆H₁₂O₆, with which decomposition, the formula, C₁₈H₃₀O₁₅, would be more in accord. Sachsse (1877) on the other hand advocates the formula C₃₀H₆₂O₃₁ + 12 OH₂.

Cold water is not without action on starch; if the latter be continuously triturated with it, the filtrate, in which no particles can be detected by the microscope, will assume a blue colour on addition of iodine, without the formation of a precipitate. The proportion of starch thus brought into solution is infinitely small, and always at the expense of the integrity of the grains. It is even probable that the solution in this case is due to the minute amount of heat, which must of necessity be developed by the trituration.

Certain reagents capable of attacking starch act upon it in very different ways. The action in the cold of concentrated aqueous solutions of easily soluble neutral salts or of chloral hydrate is remarkable. Potassium bromide or iodide, or calcium chloride for instance, cause the grains to swell, and render them soluble in cold water. At a certain degree of dilution a perfectly clear liquid is formed, which at first contains neither dextrin nor sugar; it is coloured blue, but is not precipitated by iodine water; and starch can be thrown down from it by alcohol. This precipitate, though entirely devoid of the structural peculiarity of starch, still exhibits some of the leading properties of that substance; it is coloured in the same manner by iodine, does not dissolve even when fresh in ammoniacal cupric oxide, and after drying is insoluble in water, whether cold or boiling. The progress of the solvent is most easily traced when calcium chloride is used, as this salt acts more slowly than the others we have mentioned. It leaves scarcely any perceptible residue. This fact in our opinion militates against the notion that starch is composed of a peculiar amylaceous substance, deposited within a skeleton of cellulose.

The remarkable action of iodine upon starch was discovered in 1814 by Colin and Gaultier de Claubry. It is extremely different in degree, according to the peculiar kind of starch, the proportion of iodine, and the nature of the substance the grains are impregnated with, before or after their treatment with iodine. The action is even entirely arrested (no blue colour being produced) by the presence in certain proportion of quinine, tannin, Aqua Picis, and of other bodies.

The combination of iodine with starch does not take place in equivalent proportions, and is moreover easily overcome by heat. The iodine combined with starch amounts at the utmost to 7·5 per cent. The compound is most readily formed in the presence of water, and then produces a deep indigo-blue. Almost all other substances capable of penetrating starch grains, weaken the colour of the iodine compound to violet, reddish yellow, yellow, or greenish blue. These different shades, the production of which has been described by Nägeli with great diffuseness, are merely the colours which belong to iodine itself in the solid, liquid, or gaseous form. They must be referred to the fact that the particles of iodine diffuse themselves in a peculiar but hitherto unexplained manner within the grain or in the swollen and dissolved starch.

=Commerce of Arrowroot=—The chief kinds of arrowroot found in commerce are known as Bermuda, St. Vincent, and Natal; but that of Jamaica and other West India Islands, of Brazil, Sierra Leone, and the East Indies, are quoted in price-currents, at least occasionally. Of these the Bermuda enjoys the highest reputation and commands by far the highest price; but its good quality is shared by the arrowroot of other localities, from which, when equally pure, it can in nowise be distinguished. Greenish,[2341] however, points out that in Natal arrowroot the layers (or laminæ) are more obvious than in other varieties, although it appears that the former is also produced by Maranta.

The importations of arrowroot into the United Kingdom during the year 1870 amounted to 21,770 cwt., value £33,063. Of this quantity the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies furnished nearly 17,000 cwt., and the colony of Natal about 3000 cwt. The exports from St. Vincent in 1874 were 2,608,100 lb, those of the Bermudas in 1876 only 45,520 lb.[2342] The shipments from the colony of Natal during the years 1866 to 1876 varied from 1,076 cwt. in 1873 to 4,305 cwt. in 1867.[2343]

[2341] Yearbook of Pharm. (1875) 529.

[2342] Papers relating to H.M. Colonial Possessions. Reports for 1875-76. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, July 1877. 54. 4.

[2343] Statist. Abstr. for the several Colonial and other Possessions of the United Kingdom, 14th number, 1878. p. 60.

=Uses=—Arrowroot boiled with water or milk is a much-valued food in the sick-room. It is also an agreeable article of diet in the form of pudding or blancmange.

=Adulteration=—Other starches than that of Maranta are occasionally sold under the name of Arrowroot. Their recognition is only possible by the aid of the microscope.

Substitutes for Arrowroot.

Potato Starch—This substance, known in trade as Farina or Potato Flour, is made from the tubers of the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) by a process analogous to that followed in the preparation of arrowroot. It has the following characters:—examined under the microscope, the granules are seen to be chiefly of two sorts, the first small and spherical, the second of much larger size, often 100 mkm. in length, having an irregularly circular, oval or egg-shaped outline, finely marked with concentric rings round a minute inconspicuous hilum. When heated in water, the grains swell considerably even at 60° C. Hydrochloric acid, sp. gr. 1·06, dissolves them at 40° quickly and almost completely, the granules being no longer deposited, as in the case of arrowroot similarly treated. The mixture of arrowroot and hydrochloric acid is inodorous, but that of potato starch has a peculiar though not powerful odour.

Canna Starch, Tous-les-Mois,[2344] Toulema, Tolomane—A species of Canna is cultivated in the West India Islands, especially St. Kitts, for the sake of a peculiar starch which, since about the year 1836, has been extracted from its rhizomes by a process similar to that adopted in making arrowroot. The specific name of the plant is still undetermined; it is said to agree with Canna edulis Ker (C. indica Ruiz et Pavon).[2345]

[2344] It is commonly stated that the name Tous-les-mois was given in consequence of the plant flowering all the year round. But this explanation appears improbable: no such name is mentioned by Rochefort, Aublet, or Descourtilz, who all describe the Balisier or Canna. It seems more likely that the term is the result of an attempt to confer a meaning on an ancient name—perhaps Touloula, which is one of the Carib designations for Canna and Calathea.

[2345] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic. Plants, part 8 (1876).

The starch, which bears the same name as the plant, is a dull white powder, having a peculiar satiny or lustrous aspect, by reason of the extraordinary magnitude of the starch granules of which it is composed. These granules examined under the microscope are seen to be flattened and of irregular form, as circular, oval, oblong, or oval-truncate. The centre of the numerous concentric rings with which each granule is marked, is usually at one end rather than in the centre of a granule. The hilum is inconspicuous. The granules though far larger than those of the potato, are of the same density as the smaller forms of that starch, and, like them, float perfectly on chloroform. When heated, they begin to burst at 72° C. Dilute hydrochloric acid acts upon them as it does on arrowroot.

Canna starch boiled with 20 times its weight of water affords a jelly less clear and more tenacious than that of arrowroot, yet applicable to exactly the same purposes. The starch is but little known and not much esteemed in Europe; it was exported in 1876 from St. Kitts to the amount of 51,873 lb, besides 5,300 lb arrowroot starch.[2346]

Curcuma Starch, Tikor—The pendulous, colourless tubers of some species of Curcuma, but especially of C. angustifolia Roxb. and C. leucorrhiza Roxb., have long been utilized in Southern India for the preparation of a sort of arrowroot, known by the Hindustani name of Tikor, or Tikhur, and sometimes called by Europeans East Indian Arrowroot.[2347] The granules of this substance much resemble those of Maranta, but they are neither spherical nor egg-shaped. On the contrary, they are rather to be described as flat discs, 5 to 7 mkm. thick, of elliptic or ovoid outline, sometimes truncate; many attain a length of 60 to 70 mkm. They are always beautifully stratified both on the face and on the edge. The hilum is generally situated at the narrower end. We have observed that when heated in water, the tumefaction of the grains commences at 72° C.

Curcuma starch, which in its general properties agrees with common arrowroot, is rather extensively manufactured in Travancore, Cochin and Canara on the south-western coast of India, but in a very rude manner. Drury[2348] states that it is a favourite article of diet among the natives, and that it is exported from Travancore and Madras; we can add that it is not known as a special kind in the English market, and that the article we have seen offered in the London drug sales as East Indian Arrowroot was the starch of Maranta.

[2346] Page 102 of the Reports quoted at p. 633, note 2.

[2347] Living roots of the plant used for making this arrowroot at Cochin, have been kindly forwarded to us by A. F. Sealy, Esq. of that place.

[2348] Useful Plants of India, ed. 2. 1873. 168.

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ZINGIBERACEÆ

RHIZOMA ZINGIBERIS.

Radix Zingiberis; Ginger; F. Gingembre; G. Ingwer.

=Botanical Origin=—Zingiber officinale Roscoe (Amomum Zingiber L.), a reed-like plant, with annual leafy stems, 3 to 4 feet high, and flowers in cone-shaped spikes borne on other stems thrown up from the rhizome. It is a native of Asia, in the warmer countries of which it is universally cultivated,[2349] but not known in a wild state. It has been introduced into most tropical countries, and is now found in the West Indies, South America, Tropical Western Africa, and Queensland in Australia.

=History=—Ginger is known in India under the old name of Sringavera, derived possibly from the Greek Ζιγγίβερι. As a spice it was used among the Greeks and Romans, who appear to have received it by way of the Red Sea, inasmuch as they considered it to be a production of Southern Arabia.

In the list of imports from the Red Sea into Alexandria, which in the second century of our era were there liable to the Roman fiscal duty (vectigal), Zingiber occurs among other Indian spices.[2350] During the middle ages it is frequently mentioned in similar lists, and evidently constituted an important item in the commercial relations between Europe and the East. Ginger thus appears in the tariff of duties levied at Acre in Palestine about A.D. 1173;[2351] in that of Barcelona[2352] in 1221; Marseilles[2353] in 1228; and Paris[2354] in 1296. The Tarif des Péages, or customs tariff, of the Counts of Provence in the middle of the 13th century, provides for the levying of duty at the towns of Aix, Digne, Valensole, Tarascon, Avignon, Orgon, Arles, &c., on various commodities imported from the East. These included spices, as pepper, ginger, cloves, zedoary, galangal, cubebs, saffron, canella, cumin, anise; dye-stuffs, such as lac, indigo, Brazil wood, and especially alum from Castilia and Volcano; and groceries, as racalicia (liquorice), sugar and dates.[2355]

In England ginger must have been tolerably well known even prior to the Norman Conquest, for it is frequently named in the Anglo-Saxon leech-books of the 11th century, as well as in the Welsh “Physicians of Myddvai” (see Appendix). During the 13th and 14th centuries it was, next to pepper, the commonest of spices, costing on an average nearly 1_s._ 7_d._ per lb., or about the price of a sheep.[2356]

[2349] The mode of cultivation is described by Buchanan, Journey from Madras through Mysore, etc. ii. (1807) 469.—Fig. of the plant in Bentley and Trimen’s Medic. Plants, part 32 (1878).

[2350] Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, ii. (1807) 695.

[2351] Recueil des Historiens des Croisades; Lois, ii. (1843) 176.

[2352] Capmany, Memorias sobre la Marina, etc. de Barcelona, Madrid, ii. (1779) 3.

[2353] Méry et Guindon, Hist. des Actes ... de la Municipalité de Marseille, i. (1841) 372.

[2354] Revue archéologique, ix. (1852) 213.

[2355] Collection de Cartulaires de France, Paris, viii. (1857) pp. lxxiii-xci., Abbaye de St. Victor, Marseilles.

[2356] Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, i. (1866) 629.

The merchants of Italy, about the middle of the 14th century, knew three kinds of ginger, called respectively Belledi, Colombino, and Micchino. These terms may be explained thus:—Belledi or Baladi is an Arabic word, which, as applied to ginger, would signify country or wild, i.e. common ginger. Colombino refers to Columbum, Kolam or Quilon, a port in Travancore frequently mentioned in the middle ages. Ginger termed Micchino denotes that the spice had been brought from or by way of Mecca.[2357]

Ginger preserved in syrup, and sometimes called Green Ginger, was also imported during the middle ages, and regarded as a delicacy of the choicest kind.

The plant affording ginger must have been known to Marco Polo (circa 1280-90), who speaks of observing it both in China and India. John of Montecorvino, who visited India about 1292 (see p. 521), describes ginger as a plant like a flag, the root of which can be dug up and transported. Nicolo Conti also gave some description of the plant and of the collection of the root, as witnessed by him in India.[2358]

The Venetians received ginger by way of Egypt; yet some of the superior kinds were conveyed from India overland by the Black Sea, as stated by Marino Sanudo[2359] about 1306.

Ginger was introduced into America by Francisco de Mendoça, who took it from the East Indies to New Spain.[2360] It was shipped for commercial purposes from the Island of St. Domingo as early at least as 1585; and from Barbados in 1654.[2361] According to Renny,[2362] 22,053 cwt. were exported from the West Indies to Spain in 1547.

[2357] Yule, Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) 316.—See, however, Heyd, Levantehandel, II. (1879) 601.

[2358] See Appendix.

[2359] Marinus Sanutus, Liber secretorum fidelium crucis, Hanoviæ (1611) 22.

[2360] Monardes, Historia de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales, Sevilla, (1574) 99.

[2361] Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, Lond. 1860, p. 4; see also pp. 414, 434.

[2362] Renny, Hist. of Jamaica, Lond. 1807. 154.

=Description=—Ginger is known in two forms, namely the rhizome dried with its epidermis, in which case it is called coated; or deprived of epidermis, and then termed scraped or uncoated. The pieces, which are called by the spice-dealers races or hands, rarely exceed 4 inches in length, and have a somewhat palmate form, being made up of a series of short, laterally compressed, lobe-like shoots or knobs, the summit of each of which is marked by a depression indicating the former attachment of the leafy stem.

To produce the uncoated ginger, which is that preferred for medicinal use, the fresh rhizome is scraped, washed, and then dried in the sun.

Thus prepared, it has a pale buff hue, and a striated, somewhat fibrous surface. It breaks easily, exhibiting a short and farinaceous fracture with numerous bristle-like fibres. When cut with a knife the younger or terminal portion of the rhizome appears pale yellow, soft and amylaceous, while the older part is flinty, hard and resinous.

Coated ginger, or that which has been dried without the removal of the epidermis, is covered with a wrinkled, striated brown integument, which imparts to it a somewhat coarse and crude appearance, which is usually remarkably less developed on the flat parts of the rhizome. Internally, it is usually of a less bright and delicate hue than ginger from which the cortical part has been removed. Much of it indeed is dark, horny and resinous.

Ginger has an agreeable aromatic odour with a strong pungent taste.

=Varieties=—Those at present found in the London market are distinguished as Jamaica, Cochin, Bengal, and African. The first three are scraped gingers; the last named is a coated ginger, that is to say, it still retains its epidermis. Jamaica Ginger is the sort most esteemed; and next to it the Cochin. But of each kind there are several qualities, presenting considerable variation inter se.

Scraped or decorticated ginger is often bleached, either by being subjected to the fumes of burning sulphur, or by immersion for a short time in solution of chlorinated lime. Much of that seen in the grocers’ shops looks as if it had been whitewashed, and in fact is slightly coated with calcareous matter,—either sulphate or carbonate of calcium.[2363]

[2363] Mr. Garside (Pharm. Journ. April 18, 1874) found both. We have not observed the carbonate to be used.

=Microscopic Structure=—A transverse section of coated ginger exhibits a brown, horny external layer, about one millimètre broad, separated by a fine line from the whitish mealy interior portion, through the tissue of which numerous vascular bundles and resin-cells are irregularly scattered. The external tissue consists of a loose outer layer, and an inner composed of tabular cells: these are followed by peculiar short prosenchymatous cells, the walls of which are sinuous on transverse section and partially thickened, imparting a horny appearance. This delicate felted tissue forms the striated surface of scraped ginger, and is the principal seat of the resin and volatile oil, which here fill large spaces. The large-celled parenchyme which succeeds is loaded with starch, and likewise contains numerous masses of resin and drops of oil. The starch granules are irregularly spherical, attaining at the utmost 40 mkm. Certain varieties of ginger, owing to the starch having been rendered gelatinous by scalding, are throughout horny and translucent. The circle of vascular bundles which separates the outer layers and the central portion is narrow, and has the structure of the corresponding circle or nucleus-sheath in turmeric.

=Chemical Composition=—Ginger contains a volatile oil which is the only constituent of the drug that has hitherto been investigated. By distilling 112 lb. of Jamaica ginger with water in the usual way, we obtained 4½ ounces of this oil, or about ¼ per cent. It is a pale yellow liquid of sp. gr. 0·878, having the peculiar odour of ginger, but not its pungent taste. It dissolves but sparingly in alcohol (0·83); and deviates the ray of polarized light 21°.6 to the left, when examined in a column 50 mm. long. We learn from kind information given us (1878) by Messrs. Schimmel & Co. at Leipzig, that they obtain as much as 2·2 per cent. of oil from good ginger.

The burning taste of ginger is due to a resin which we have not examined, but which well deserves careful analysis. Protocatechuic acid, which is so commonly afforded by resins (see page 243), is also produced by melting the resin of ginger with caustic potash, as shown in 1877 by Stenhouse and Groves.

=Commerce=—Great Britain imported of ginger as follows:—

1868 1869 1870 1871 1872 52,194 cwt. 34,535 cwt. 33,854 cwt. 32,723 cwt. 32,174 cwt.

In 1876 the imports were 62,164 cwt., valued at £169,252.

The drug was received in 1872 thus:—

From Egypt 4,923 cwt. ” Sierra Leone 6,167 ” ” British India 13,310 ” ” British West Indies 7,543 ” ” other countries 231 ” ------ Total 32,174

The shipments from Jamaica during the years 1866 to 1876 varied from 599,786 lb. in 1872 to 1,728,075 in 1867. In 1876 there were exported 1,603,764 lb., valued at £28,882.[2364]

=Uses=—Ginger is an agreeable aromatic and stomachic, and as such is often a valuable addition to other medicines. It is much more largely employed as a condiment than as a drug.

RHIZOMA CURCUMÆ.

Radix Curcumæ;[2365] Turmeric; F. Curcuma; G. Gelbwurzel, Kurkuma.

=Botanical Origin=—Curcuma longa[2366] L.—Turmeric is indigenous to Southern Asia, and is there largely cultivated both on the continent and in the islands.

=History=—Dioscorides mentions an Indian plant as a kind of Cyperus (Κύπειρος) resembling ginger, but having when chewed a yellow colour and bitter taste: probably turmeric was intended. Garcia de Orta (1563), as well as Fragoso (1572), describe turmeric as Crocus indicus. A list of drugs sold in the city of Frankfort about the year 1450, names Curcuma along with zedoary and ginger.[2367]

In its native countries, it has from remote times been highly esteemed both as a condiment and a dye-stuff; in Europe, it has always been less appreciated than the allied spices of the ginger tribe. In an inventory of the effects of a Yorkshire tradesman, dated 20th Sept., 1578, we find enumerated—“x. owncis of turmeracke, x d.”[2368]

[2364] Statist. Abstract (as quoted p. 633, note 3), p. 71.

[2365] Curcuma from the Persian kurkum, a name applied also to saffron. The origin of the word Turmeric is not known to us; Terra merita seems to be a corruption of it.

[2366] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 9. (1876).

[2367] Flückiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, Halle, 1873. 11.

[2368] Raine, Wills and Inventories of the Archdeaconry of Richmond (Surtees Society), 1853. 277.

=Description=—The base of the scrape thickens in the first year into an ovate rootstock; this afterwards throws out shoots, forming lateral or secondary rhizomes, each emitting roots, which branch into fibres or are sometimes enlarged as colourless spindle-shaped tubers, rich in starch. The lateral rhizomes are doubtless in a condition to develope themselves as independent plants when separated from the parent. The central rhizomes formerly known as Curcuma rotunda, and the elongated lateral ones as Curcuma longa, were regarded by Linnæus as the production of distinct species.

The radical tubers of some species of Curcuma, as C. angustifolia Roxb., are used for making a sort of arrowroot (p. 637). Sometimes they are dried, and constitute the peculiar kind of turmeric which the Chinese call Yuh-kin.[2369]

The turmeric of commerce consists of the two sorts of rhizome just mentioned, namely, the central or round and the lateral or long. The former are ovate, pyriform or subspherical, sometimes pointed at the upper end and crowned with the remains of leaves, while the sides are beset with those of roots and marked with concentric ridges. The diameter is very variable, but is seldom less than ¾ of an inch, and is frequently much more. They are often cut and usually scalded in order to destroy their vitality and facilitate drying.

The lateral rhizomes are subcylindrical, attenuated towards either end, generally curved, covered with a rugose skin, and marked more or less plainly with transverse rings. Sometimes one, two or more short knobs or shoots grow out on one side. The rhizomes, whether round or long, are very hard and firm, exhibiting when broken a dull, waxy, resinous surface, of an orange or orange-brown hue, more or less brilliant. They have a peculiar aromatic odour and taste.

Several varieties of turmeric distinguished by the names of the countries or districts in which they are produced, are found in the English market: but although they present differences which are sufficiently appreciable to the eye of the experienced dealer, the characters of each sort are scarcely so marked or so constant as to be recognizable by mere verbal description. The principal sorts now in commerce are known as China, Madras, Bengal, Java, and Cochin. Of these the first-named is the most esteemed, but it is seldom to be met with in the European market.[2370]

Madras Turmeric is a fine sort in large, bold pieces. Sometimes packages of it contain exclusively round rhizomes, while others are made up entirely of the long or lateral.

Bengal Turmeric differs from the other varieties chiefly in its deeper tint, and hence is the sort preferred for dyeing purposes.

Java Turmeric presents no very distinctive features; it is dusted with its own powder, and does not show when broken a very brilliant colour. Judging by the low price at which it is quoted it is not in great esteem. It is the produce of Curcuma longa var. β. minor[2371] Hassk.

[2369] Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 206; also Science Papers, 254, fig. 11.—It is not wholly devoid of yellow colouring matter.

[2370] A good deal is exported from Takow in Formosa, but mostly to Chinese ports.—Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports of China for 1872. p. 106.

[2371] From information communicated by Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical Garden, Buitenzorg, Java.

=Microscopic Structure=—The suberous coat is made up of 8 to 10 rows of tabular cells; the parenchyme of the middle cortical layer of large roundish polyhedral cells. Towards the centre the transverse section exhibits a coherent ring of fibro-vascular bundles representing a kind of medullary sheath. The parenchyme enclosed by this ring is traversed by scattered bundles of vessels, and in most of its cells contains starch in amorphous, angular, or roundish masses, which are so far disorganized that they no longer exhibit the usual appearance in polarized light, but are nevertheless turned blue by iodine. The starch has been reduced to this condition by scalding.

Resin likewise occurs in separate cells, forming dark yellowish-red particles. The entire tissue is penetrated with yellow colouring matter, and shows numerous drops of essential oil, which in the fresh rhizome is no doubt contained in peculiar cells.

=Chemical Composition=—The drug yielded us (1876) one per cent. of a yellow essential oil, which contains a portion boiling at 250° C., answering to the formula C₁₀H₁₄O; this liquid differs from carvol (p. 306) by being unable to combine with SH₂. The other constituents of curcuma oil boil at temperatures much above 250°; we found the crude oil and its different portions slightly dextrogyrate.

The aqueous extract of the drug tastes bitter, and is precipitated by tannic acid.

The colouring matter, Curcumin, C₁₀H₁₁₀O₃, may be obtained to the amount of ⅓ per cent. by depriving first the drug of fat and essential oil. The powder, after that treatment with bisulphide of carbon, is gradually exhausted, according to Daube (1871), with warm petroleum (boiling point 80°-90° C.). On cooling chiefly the last portions of petroleum deposit the crystalline curcumin. Its alcoholic solution is purified by mixing it cautiously with basic acetate of lead, not allowing the liquid to assume a decidedly acid reaction. The red precipitate thus formed is collected, washed with alcohol, immersed in water, and decomposed with sulphuretted hydrogen. From the dried mixture of sulphide of lead and curcumin the latter is lastly removed by boiling alcohol.

By Ivanow-Gajewsky (1873) the best produce of curcumin is stated to be obtained by washing an ethereal extract of turmeric with weak ammonia, dissolving the residue in boiling concentrated ammonia, and passing into the solution carbonic acid, by which the curcumin is precipitated in flakes.

After due recrystallization from alcohol curcumin forms yellow crystals, having an odour of vanilla, and exhibiting a fine blue in reflected light. They melt at 165° C. Curcumin is scarcely soluble, even in boiling water, but dissolves readily on addition of an alkali either caustic or carbonate. On acidulating these solutions, a yellow powder of curcumin is precipitated. Curcumin is not abundantly dissolved by ether, very sparingly by benzol or bisulphide of carbon. It is not volatile; heated with zinc dust it yields an oil boiling at 290°; fused with caustic potash, curcumin affords protocatechuic acid (page 243).

Paper tinged with an alcoholic solution of curcumin displays on addition of an alkali a brownish-red coloration, becoming violet on drying. Boracic acid produces an orange tint, turning blue by addition of an alkaline solution.[2372] This behaviour of (impure) curcumin was pointed out by Vogel as early as 1815, and has since that time been utilized as a chemical test.

[2372] The following is a striking experiment, showing some of these changes of colour:—Place a little crushed turmeric or the powder on blotting paper, and moisten it repeatedly with chloroform, allowing the latter to evaporate. There will thus be formed on the paper a yellow stain, which on addition of a slightly acidulated solution of borax and drying assumes a purple hue. If the paper is now sprinkled with dilute ammonia it will acquire a transient blue. This reaction enables one to recognize the presence of turmeric in powdered rhubarb or mustard.

Borax added to an alcoholic solution of curcumin gives rise to a crystallizable substance, which Ivanow-Gajewsky (1870) isolated by heating an alcoholic extract of turmeric with boracic and sulphuric acids. It forms a purple crystalline powder with a metallic green lustre, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol. Its solution is coloured dark blue by an alkali.

According to the same chemist there also exists in curcuma an alkaloid in very small quantity. Kachler (1870) found in the aqueous decoction an abundance of bioxalate of potassium.

=Commerce=—In the year 1869 there were imported into the United Kingdom 64,280 cwt. of turmeric; in 1870, 44,900 cwt.,—a very large proportion being furnished by Bengal and Pegu. The export from Calcutta[2373] in the year 1870-71 was 59,352 cwt.

Bombay exported in the year 1871-72, 29,780 cwt., of which the greater portion was shipped to Sind and the Persian Gulf, and only 910 cwt. to Europe.[2374]

=Uses=—Turmeric is employed as a condiment in the shape of curry powder, and as such is often sold by druggists; but as a medicine it is obsolete. It is largely consumed in dyeing.

=Substitute=—Cochin Turmeric is the produce of some other species of Curcuma than C. longa. It consists exclusively of a bulb-shaped rhizome of large dimensions, cut transversely or longitudinally into slices or segments. The cortical part is dull brown; the inner substance is horny and of a deep orange-brown, or when in thin shavings of a brilliant yellow. Mr. A. Forbes Sealy of Cochin has been good enough to send us (1873) living rhizomes of this Curcuma, which he states is mostly grown at Alwaye, north-east of Cochin, and is never used in the country as turmeric, though its starchy tubers are employed for making arrowroot. The rhizomes sent are thick, short, conical, and of enormous size, some attaining as much as 2½ inches in diameter. Internally they are of a bright orange-yellow.

The beautiful figures of Roscoe[2375] show several species of Curcuma and Zingiber provided with yellow tubers or rhizomes, all probably containing curcumin.

[2373] Returns quoted at p. 571, note 2.

[2374] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 95.

[2375] Monandrous Plants of the order Scitamineæ, Liverpool, 1828, especially Zingiber Cossumunar.

RHIZOMA GALANGÆ.

Radix Galangæ[2376] minoris; Galangal; F. Racine de Galanga; G. Galgant.

=Botanical Origin=—Alpinia officinarum Hance,[2377] a flag-like plant, with stems about 4 feet high, clothed with narrow lanceolate leaves, and terminating in short and simple racemes of elegant white flowers, shaded and veined with dull red. It grows cultivated in the island of Hainan in the south of China, and, as is supposed, in some of the southern provinces of the Chinese Empire.

[2376] Galanga appears to be derived from the Arabic name Khulanjan, which in turn comes from the Chinese Kau-liang Kiang, signifying, as Dr. F. Porter Smith has informed us, Kau-liang ginger. Kau-liang is the ancient name of a district in the province of Kwangtung.

[2377] Journ. of Linnean Society, Botany, xiii. (1871) 1; also Trimen’s Journ. of Bot., ii. (1873) 175; Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 31 (1878).—Dr. Thwaites of Ceylon, who has the plant in cultivation, has been good enough to send us a fine coloured drawing of it in flower.

=History=—The earliest reference to galangal we have met with occurs in the writings of the Arabian geographer Ibn Khurdádbah[2378] about A.D. 869-885, who in enumerating the productions of a country called Sila, names galangal together with musk, aloes, camphor, silk, and cassia. Edrisi,[2379] three hundred years later, is more explicit, for he mentions it with many other productions of the far East, as brought from India and China to Aden, then a great emporium of the trade of Asia with Egypt and Europe. The physician Alkindi,[2380] who lived at Bassora and Bagdad in the second half of the 9th century, and somewhat later Rhazes and Avicenna, notice galangal, the use of which was introduced into Europe[2381] through the medical system promulgated by them and other writers of the same school. As to Great Britain, galingal, as it was frequently spelt, also occurs in the Welsh “Meddygon Myddfai” (see Appendix).

Many notices exist showing that galangal was imported with pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmegs, cardamoms and zedoary; and that during the middle ages it was used in common with these substances as a culinary spice, which it is still held to be in certain parts of Europe.[2382] The plant affording the drug was unknown until the year 1870, when a description of it was communicated to the Linnean Society of London by Dr. H. F. Hance, from specimens collected by Mr. E. C. Taintor, near Hoihow in the north of Hainan.

[2378] Work quoted in the Appendix—tome v. 294.

[2379] Géographie, i. (1836) 51.

[2380] De Rerum gradibus, Argentorati, 1531. 162.

[2381] Macer Floridus (see p. 627), cap. 70, was already acquainted with it.

[2382] Hanbury, Historical Notes on the Radix Galangæ of pharmacy—Journ. of Linnean Society, Bot. xiii. (1871) 20; Pharm. Journ. Sept. 23, 1871. 248; Science Papers, 370.

=Description=—The drug consists of a cylindrical rhizome, having a maximum diameter of about ¾ of an inch, but for the most part considerably smaller. This rhizome has been cut while fresh into short pieces, 1½ to 3 inches in length, which are often branched, and are marked transversely at short intervals by narrow raised sinuous rings, indicating the former attachment of leaves or scales. The pieces are hard, tough and shrivelled, externally of a dark reddish-brown, displaying when cut transversely an internal substance of rather paler hue (but never white), with a darker central column. The drug exhales when comminuted an agreeable aroma, and has a strongly pungent, spicy taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The central portion of the rhizome is separated from the outer tissue by the nucleus-sheath, which appears as a well-defined darker line. Yet the central tissue does not differ much from that surrounding it, both being composed of uniform parenchyme cells, traversed by scattered vascular bundles. There also occur throughout the whole tissue isolated cells loaded with essential oil or resin. But the larger number of cells abound in large starch granules of an unusual club-shaped form. Some cells contain a brown substance, differing from resin in being insoluble in alcohol. The corky layer is remarkable from its cells having undulated walls.

=Chemical Composition=—The odour of galangal is due to an essential oil, which the rhizoma yields to the extent of only 0·7 per cent., and which we found to be very slightly deviating the plane of polarization to the left.

Brandes[2383] extracted from Galangal, by means of ether, an inodorous, tasteless, crystalline body called Kämpferid, which is worthy of further examination.

The pungent principle of the drug, which is probably analogous to that of ginger, has not been studied.

=Commerce=—Galangal is shipped from Canton to other ports of China, to India and Europe, but there are no general statistics to give an idea of the total production. From official returns quoted by Hance, the export of the year 1869, which seems to have been exceptionally large, amounted to 370,800 lb. From Kiung-chow, island of Hainan, 2,113 peculs (281,733 lb.) were exported in 1877.

=Uses=—The drug is an aromatic stimulant of the nature of ginger, now nearly obsolete in British medicine. It is still a popular remedy and spice in Livonia, Esthonia and central Russia, and by the Tartars is taken with tea. It is also in some requisition in Russia among brewers, and the manufacturers of vinegar and cordials, and finally as a cattle medicine.

=Substitute=—The rhizoma of Alpina Galanga Willd., a plant of Java, constitutes the drug known as Radix Galangæ majoris or Greater Galangal, packages of which occasionally appear in the London drug sales. It may be at once distinguished from the Chinese drug by its much larger size and the pale buff hue of its internal substance, the latter in strong contrast with the orange-brown outer skin.

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FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI

Semina Cardamomi minoris; Cardamoms, Malabar Cardamoms; F. Cardamomes; G. Cardamomen.

=Botanical Origin=—Elettaria[2384] Cardamomum Maton (Alpinia Cardamomum Roxb.), a flag-like perennial plant, 6 to 12 feet high, with large lanceolate leaves on long sheathing stalks, and flowers in lax flexuose horizontal scapes, 6 to 18 inches in length, which are thrown out to the number of 3 or 4, close to the ground. The fruit is ovoid, three-sided, plump and smooth, with a fleshy green pericarp.

The Cardamom plant grows abundantly, both wild and under cultivation, in the moist shady mountain forests of North Canara, Coorg and Wynaad on the Malabar Coast; at an elevation of 2500 to 5000 feet above the sea. It is truly wild in Canara and in the Anamalai, Cochin and Travancore forests.[2385] The cardamom region has a mean temperature of 22° C. (72° F.), and a mean rainfall of 121 inches.

[2383] Archiv der Pharm. xix. (1839) 52.

[2384] From Elettari, the Mallyalim name of the plant.—Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s Med. Plants, part 24 (1877).

[2385] The small “Cardamom“ island in the Laccadive group, west of Malabar, is inhabited by Moplahs, known (as we are informed by Dr. King, Calcutta) in the south of India as dealers in cardamoms.

A well-marked variety, differing chiefly in the elongated form and large size of its fruits, is found wild in the forests of the central and southern provinces of Ceylon. It was formerly regarded as a distinct species under the name of Elettaria major, but careful observation of growing specimens has shown that it possesses no characters to warrant it being considered more than a variety of the typical plant, and it is therefore now called E. Cardamomum var. β. It is only known to occur in Ceylon, where the ordinary cardamom of Malabar is not found except as a cultivated plant.[2386]

=History=—Cardamoms, Elā, are mentioned in the writings of Susruta, and hence may have been used in India from a remote period. It is not unlikely that in common with ginger and pepper they reached Europe in classical times, although it is not possible from the descriptions that have come down to determine exactly what was the Καρδάμωμον of Theophrastus and Dioscorides, or the Ἄμωμον of the last named writer. The Amomum, Amomis and Cardamomum of Pliny are also doubtful, the description he gives of the last being unintelligible as applied to anything now known by that name.

In the list of Indian spices liable to duty at Alexandria, circa A.D. 176-180 (see Appendix, A), Amomum as well as Cardamomum is mentioned. St. Jerome names Amomum together with musk, as perfumes in use among the voluptuous ecclesiastics of the 4th century.[2387]

Cardamoms are named by Edrisi[2388] about A.D. 1154 as a production of Ceylon, and also as an article of trade from China to Aden; and in the same century they are mentioned together with cinnamon and cloves (p. 282) as an import in Palestine by way of Acre, then a trading city of the Levant.[2389]

The first writer who definitely and correctly states the country of the cardamom appears to be the Portuguese navigator Barbosa[2390] (1514), who frequently names it as a production of the Malabar coast. Garcia de Orta[2391] mentions the shipment of the drug to Europe; he also ascertained that the larger sort was produced in Ceylon. The Malabar cardamon plant was figured by Rheede under its indigenous name of Elettari.[2392]

[2386] Thwaites, Enumeratio Plantarum Zeylaniæ, 1864. 318.

[2387] S. Hieronymi Opera Omnia, ed. Migne, ii. (1845) 297, in Patrologiæ cursus completus, vol. xxii.

[2388] In the work quoted in the Appendix, i. (1836) 73, 51.—It is questionable whether Elettaria is intended at p. 51.

[2389] A long and curious article on cardamoms, by a pharmacist of Cairo, 13th century, named Abul Mena, is quoted by Leclerc, Histoire de la Médecine arabe, ii. (Paris, 1876) 215.

[2390] Description of the Coasts of East Africa and Malabar, Hakluyt Society, 1866. 59. 64, 147. 154. etc.

[2391] In the work quoted at p. 547, note 8.

[2392] Hortus Malabaricus, xi. (1692) tab. 4-5.

The essential oil of cardamoms was distilled before 1544 by Valerius Cordus (see p. 526, note 1).

=Cultivation and Production=—Although the cardamom plant grows wild in the forests of Southern India, where it is commonly called Ilāchi, its fruits are largely obtained from cultivated plants. The methods of cultivation, which vary in the different districts, may be thus described:—

1. Previous to the commencement of the rains the cultivators ascend the mountain sides, and seek in the shady evergreen forests a spot where some cardamom plants are growing. Here they make small clearings, in which the admission of light occasions the plant to develope in abundance. The cardamom plants attain 2 to 3 feet in height during the following monsoon, after which the ground is again cleared of weeds, protected with a fence, and left to itself for a year. About two years after the first clearing the plants begin to flower, and five months later ripen some fruits, but a full crop is not got till at least a year after. The plants continue productive six or seven years. A garden, 484 square yards in area, four of which may be made in an acre of forest, will give on an average an annual crop of 12½ lbs. of garbled cardamoms.[2393] Ludlow, an Assistant Conservator of Forests, reckons that not more than 28 lbs. can be got from an acre of forest. From what he says, it further appears that the plants which come up on clearings of the Coorg forests are mainly seedlings, which make their appearance in the same quasi-spontaneous manner as certain plants in the clearings of a wood in Europe. He says they commence to bear in about 3½ years after their first appearance.[2394] The plan of cultivation above described is that pursued in the forests of Travancore, Coorg and Wynaad.

2. On the lower range of the Pulney Hills, near Dindigul, at an elevation of about 5,000 feet above the sea, the cardamom plant is cultivated in the shade. The natives burn down the underwood, and clear away the small trees of the dense moist forests called sholas, which are damp all the year round. The cardamoms are then sown, and when a few inches high are planted out, either singly or in twos, under the shade of the large trees. They take five years before they bear fruit: “in October,” remarks our informant,[2395] “I saw the plants in full flower and also in fruit,—the latter not however ripe.”

[2393] Report on the Administration of Coorg for the year 1872-73, Bangalore, 1873. 44.

[2394] Elliot, Experiences of a Planter in the Jungles of Mysore, Lond. ii. (1871) 201, 209.

[2395] Col. Beddome, Conservator of Forests, Madras. We have likewise to acknowledge information on this head from Dr. Brandia, Inspector-General of Forests in India, and Dr. King, Director of the Botanic Garden, Calcutta.

3. In North Canara and Western Mysore the cardamom is cultivated in the betel-nut plantations. The plants, which are raised from seed, are planted between the palms, from which and from plantains they derive a certain amount of shade. They are said to produce fruit in their third year.

Cardamoms begin to ripen in October, and the gathering continues during dry weather for two or three months. All the fruits on a scape do not become ripe at the same time, yet too generally the whole scape is gathered at once and dried,—to the manifest detriment of the drug. This is done partly to save the fruit from being eaten by snakes, frogs and squirrels, and partly to avoid the capsules splitting, which they do when quite mature. In some plantations however the cardamoms are gathered in a more reasonable fashion. As they are collected the fruits are carried to the houses, laid out for a few days on mats, then stripped from their scapes, and the drying completed by a gentle fire-heat. In Coorg the fruit is stripped from the scape before drying, and the drying is sometimes effected wholly by sun-heat.

In the native states of Cochin and Travancore cardamoms are a monopoly of the respective governments. The rajah of the latter state requires that all the produce shall be sold to his officials, who forward it to the main depôt at Alapalli or Aleppi, a port in Travancore, where his commercial agent resides. The rajah is tenacious of his rights, and inserts a clause in the leases he grants to European coffee-planters, of whom a great many have settled in his territory, requiring that cardamoms shall not be grown.

The cardamoms at Aleppi are sold by auction, and bought chiefly by Moplah merchants for transport to different parts of India, and also, through third parties, to England. All the lower qualities are consumed in India, and the finer alone shipped to Europe.

In the forests belonging to the British Government cardamoms are mostly reckoned among the miscellaneous items of produce; but in Coorg, the cardamom forests are now let at a rental of £3,000 per annum under a lease which will expire in 1878.[2396]

Dr. Cleghorn, late Conservator of Forests in the Madras Presidency, observes in a letter to one of us, that the rapid extension of coffee culture along the slopes of the Malabar mountains has tended to lessen the production of cardamoms, and has encroached considerably upon the area of their indigenous growth. A recent writer[2397] has shown from his own experience that the cultivation of the cardamom is a branch of industry worth the attention of Europeans, and has given many valuable details for insuring successful results.

[2396] Report quoted at p. 645. note 1.

[2397] Elliot, op. cit., chap. 12.

=Description=—The fruit of the Malabar cardamom as found in commerce is an ovoid or oblong, three-sided, three-valved capsule, containing numerous seeds arranged in three cells. It is rounded at the base, and often retains a small stalk; towards the apex it is more or less contracted, and terminates in a short beak. The longitudinally-striated, inodorous, tasteless pericarp is of a pale greyish-yellow, or buff, or brown when fully ripe, of a thin papery consistence, splitting lengthwise into three valves. From the middle of the inner side of each valve a thin partition projects towards the axis, thereby producing three cells, each of which encloses 5 to 7 dark brown, aromatic seeds, arranged in two rows and attached in the central angle.

The seeds, which are about two lines long, are irregularly angular, transversely rugose, and have a depressed hilum and a deeply channelled raphe. Each seed is enclosed in a thin colourless aril.

Cardamoms vary in size, shape, colour and flavour: those which are shortly ovoid or nearly globular, and ⁴/₁₀ to ⁶/₁₀ of an inch in length, are termed in trade language shorts; while those of a more elongated form, pointed at each end, and ⁷/₁₀ to ⁹/₁₀ of an inch long, are called short-longs. They are further distinguished by the names of localities, as Malabar (or Mangalore), Aleppi, and Madras. The Malabar Cardamoms, which are the most esteemed, are of full colour, and occur of both forms, namely shorts and short-longs; they are brought to Europe viâ Bombay. Those terms Aleppi are generally shorts, plump, beaked and of a peculiar greenish tint; they are imported from Calicut, and sometimes from Aleppi. The Madras are chiefly of elongated form (short-longs) and of a more pallid hue; they are shipped at Madras and Pondicherry.

Cardamoms are esteemed in proportion to their plumpness and heaviness, and the sound and mature condition of the seeds they contain. Good samples afford about three-fourths of their weight of seeds.[2398]

The fruits of the second form (var. β) of Elettaria Cardamomum, known in trade as Ceylon Cardamoms, are from 1 to 2 inches in length, and ³/₁₀ to ⁴/₁₀ of an inch in breadth, distinctly three-sided, often arched, and always of a dark greyish-brown. The seeds are larger and more numerous than those of the Malabar plant, and somewhat different in odour and taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The testa of the seed consists of three distinct layers, namely an exterior of thick-walled, spirally-striated cells, somewhat longitudinally extended, and exhibiting on transverse section, square, not very large, cavities; then a row of large cells with thin transverse walls; and finally, an internal layer of deep brown, radially-arranged cells, the walls of which have so thick a deposit that at the most only small cavities remain.

The granular, colourless, sac-shaped albumen encloses a horny endosperm, in which the embryo is inserted the projecting radicle being directed towards the hilum. The cells of the albumen have the form of elongated polyhedra, almost entirely filled with very small starch granules. Besides them, there occur in most of the cells, somewhat larger masses of albuminoid matter having a rhombohedric form, distinctly observable when thin slices of the seed are examined under almond oil in polarized light. These remarkable crystalloid bodies resemble those occurring in the seeds of cumin (p. 332).

=Chemical Composition=—The parenchyme of the albumen and embryo is loaded with fatty oil and essential oil, the former existing in the seed to the extent of about 10 per cent.

The percentage of essential oil is stated by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, to be equal to 5 in the Madras Cardamoms, and to 3·5 in the Ceylon. We found the latter to be dextrogyrate; the same gentlemen presented us (1876) with a crystallized deposit from the latter oil, which appears to be identical with common camphor. Its alcoholic solution deviates the plane of polarization to the right, apparently to the same amount as that of common camphor (see also oil of spike, p. 479).

Dumas and Péligot (1834) state to have obtained from the essential oil of cardamoms (inodorous?) crystals of terpin, C₁₀H₁₆ + 3 OH₂. The ash of cardamoms, in common with that of several other plants of the same order, is remarkably rich in manganese.[2399]

=Commerce=—There are no statistics to show the production of cardamoms in the south of India or even the quantity exported. The shipments in the year 1872-73 from Bombay, to which port the drug is largely sent from the Madras Presidency, amounted to 1,650 cwt., of which 1,055 cwt. were exported to the United Kingdom.[2400]

Cardamoms, the produce of Ceylon and therefore of the large variety, were exported from that island in 1872 to the extent of 9,273 lb.—the whole quantity being shipped to the United Kingdom.[2401]

[2398] Thus 202 lb. shelled at various times during 10 years, afforded 154½ lb. of seeds. (Information from the laboratory accounts of Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, Plough Court, Lombard Str.).

[2399] Pharm. Journ. iii. (1872) 208.

[2400] Statement of the Trade, etc. of Bombay for 1872-73. ii. 58. 90.

[2401] Ceylon Blue Book for 1872, Colombo, 1873. 543.

=Uses=—Cardamoms are an agreeable aromatic, often administered in conjunction with other medicines. As an ingredient in curry powder, they have also some use as a condiment. But the consumption in England is small in comparison with what it is in Russia, Sweden, Norway and parts of Germany, where they are constantly employed as a spice for the flavouring of cakes. In these countries Ceylon cardamoms are also used, but exclusively for the manufacture of liqueurs. In India, cardamoms, besides being used in medicine, are employed as a condiment and for chewing with betel.

Other sorts of Cardamom.

The fruits of several other plants of the order Zingiberaceæ have at various times been employed in pharmacy under the common name of Cardamom. We shall here notice only those which have some importance in European or Indian commerce.[2402]

Round or Cluster Cardamom—Amomum Cardamomum L., the mother plant of this drug, is a native of Cambodia, Siam, Sumatra and Java.

During the intercourse with Siam, which was frequent in the early part of the 17th century, this drug, which is there in common use, occasionally found its way into Europe. Clusius received a specimen of it in 1605 as the true Amomum of the ancients, and figured it as a great rarity.[2403] As Amomum verum it had a place in the pharmacopœias of this period. Parkinson (1640), who figures it as Amomum genuinum, says that “of late days it hath been sent to Venice from the East Indies.” Dale (1693) and Pomet (1694) both regarded it as a rare drug; the latter says it is brought from Holland, and that it is the only thing that ought to be used when Amomum is ordered. In 1751 it was so scarce that in making the Theriaca Andromachi some other drug had always to be substituted for it.[2404]

Thus it had completely disappeared, when about the year 1853 commercial relations were re-opened with Siam; and among the commodities poured into the market were Round Cardamoms. They were not appreciated, and the importations becoming unprofitable, soon ceased.[2405] They are nevertheless an article of considerable traffic in Eastern Asia.

Round Cardamoms are produced in small compact bunches.[2406] Each fruit is globular, ⁵/₁₀ to ⁷/₁₀ of an inch in diameter, marked with longitudinal furrows, and sometimes distinctly three-lobed. The pericarp is thin, fragile, somewhat hairy, of a buff colour, enclosing a three-lobed mass of seeds, which are mostly shrivelled as if the fruit had been gathered unripe. The seeds, which have a general resemblance to those of the Malabar cardamom, have a strong camphoraceous, aromatic taste.

[2402] For additional information on the various sorts of Cardamom, consult Guibourt, Hist. des Drog. ii. (1869) 215-227; Pereira, Elements of Mat. Med. ii., part i. (1855) 243-263; Hanbury in Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 352. 416; Science Papers, 93-15.

[2403] Exoticorum Libri, 377. Yet it already occurs in the Dispensatorium of Valerius Cordus.

[2404] Hill, Hist. of the Mat. Med., Lond. (1751) 472.

[2405] Thus 43 bags, imported direct from Bangkok, were offered for sale in London, 26 March, 1857, and bought in at 1_s._ 6_d._ per lb.

[2406] Fig. in Guibourt, l. c. 215.

There is a large export from Siam of cardamoms of this and the following sort. The shipments from Bangkok in 1871 amounted to 4,678 peculs (623,733 lbs.), and were all to Singapore and China.[2407] In 1875 we noticed the export from Bangkok of 267 peculs of “true” cardamoms, valued at 45,140 dollars, and 3,267 peculs of “bastard” cardamoms, value 92,865 dollars; the latter no doubt refer to the following kind:[2408]—

Xanthioid Cardamom; Wild or Bastard Cardamom of Siam—This is afforded by Amomum xanthioides Wallich, a native of Tenasserim and Siam. During the past thirty years the seeds of this plant, deprived of their capsules, have often been imported into the London market, and they are now also common in the bazaars of India.[2409] They closely resemble the seeds of the Malabar cardamom, differing chiefly in flavour and in being rather more finely rugose. Occasionally they are imported still cohering in ovoid, three-lobed masses, as packed in the pericarp. Sometimes they are distinguished as Bastard or Wild, but are more generally termed simply Cardamom Seeds. They are a considerable article of trade in Siam.

The fruits of this species grow in round clusters and are remarkable for having the pericarp thickly beset with weak fleshy spines,[2410] which gives them some resemblance to the fruits of a Xanthium, and has suggested the specific name.

Bengal Cardamom—This drug, which with the next two has been hitherto confounded under one name,[2411] is afforded by Amomum subulatum Roxb.,[2412] a native of the Morung mountains, to the S.S.W. of Darjiling, in about 26°·30′ N. lat. The fruit is known by the name of Winged Bengal Cardamom, Morung Elachi or Buro Elachi. They average about an inch in length, and are of ovoid or slightly obconic form, and obscurely 3-sided; the lower end is rounded and usually devoid of stalk. The upper part of the fruit is provided with 9 narrow jagged wings or ridges, which become apparent after maceration; and the summit terminates in a truncate bristly nipple,—never protracted into a long tube. The pericarp is coarsely striated, and of a deep brown. It easily splits into 3 valves, inclosing a 3-lobed mass of seeds, 60 to 80 in number, agglutinated by a viscid saccharine pulp, due to the aril with which each seed is surrounded. The seeds are of roundish form, rendered angular by mutual pressure, and about ⅛ of an inch long; they have a highly aromatic, camphoraceous taste.

[2407] Commercial Report of H.M. Consul-General in Siam for 1871.

[2408] Science Papers, 102-103.

[2409] Moodeen Sheriff, Supplement to Pharmacopœia of India, Madras, 1869. 44. 270.

[2410] See figures in Pharm. Journ. xiv. (1855) 418; also Science Papers, 1876, p. 101-103.

[2411] As by Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1850) 1135.

[2412] According to Dr. King, in Sir Joseph Hooker’s Report on the Royal Gardens at Kew, 1877. 27.

Nepal Cardamom—The description of the Bengal cardamom applies in many points to this drug, to which it has a singularly close resemblance. The fruit is of the same size and form, and is also crowned in its upper part with thin jagged ridges, and marked in a similar manner with longitudinal striæ; and lastly, the seeds have the same shape and flavour. But it differs, firstly, in bearing on its summit a tubular calyx, which is as long or longer than the fruit itself; and, secondly, in the fruit being often attached to a short stalk. The fruits are borne on an ovoid scape, 3 to 4 inches long, densely crowded with overlapping bracts, which are remarkably broad and truncate with a sharp central claw,—very distinct from the much narrower ovate bracts of A. aromaticum, as shown in Roxburgh’s unpublished drawing of that plant.

The plant, which is unquestionably a species of Amomum, has not yet been identified with any published description. We have to thank Colonel Richard C. Lawrence, British Resident at Katmandu, for sending us a fruit-scape in alcohol, some dried leaves, and also the drug itself,—the last agreeing perfectly with specimens obtained through other channels.

The Nepal cardamom, the first account of which is due to Hamilton,[2413] is cultivated on the frontiers of Nepal, near Darjiling. The plant is stated by Col. Lawrence to attain 3 to 6 feet in height, and to be grown on well-watered slopes of the hills, under the shelter of trees. The fruit is exported to other parts of India.

Java Cardamom—A well-marked fruit, produced by Amomum maximum Roxb., a plant of Java. The fruits are arranged to the number of 30 to 40 on a short thick scape, and form a globose group, 4 inches in diameter. They are stalked, and of a conical or ovoid form, in the fresh state as much as 1½ inches long by 1 inch broad. Each fruit is provided with 9 to 10 prominent wings, ⅛ of an inch high, running from base to apex, and coarsely toothed except in their lowest part. The summit is crowned by a short, withered, calycinal tube.

Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical garden of Buitenzorg, in Java, who has kindly supplied us with fine specimens of A. maximum, as well as with an admirable coloured drawing, states that the plant is cultivated, and that its fruits are sold for the sake of their agreeable edible pulp. We do not know whether the dried fruits or the seeds are ever exported. Pereira confounded them with Bengal and Nepal cardamoms.

Korarima Cardamom—The Arab Physicians were acquainted with a sort of cardamom called Heil, which was later known in Europe, and is mentioned in the most ancient printed pharmacopœias as Cardamomum majus,[2414] a name occurring also in Valerius Cordus and Mattiolus. Like some other Eastern drugs, it gradually disappeared from European commerce, and its name came to be transferred to Grains of Paradise, which to the present day are known in the shops as Semina Cardamomi majoris.

[2413] Account of the Kingdom of Nepal, Edin. 1819. 74-75.

[2414] As the Tesaurus Aromatariorum, printed at Milan in 1496, in which it is called Heil or Gardamomum majus.

The true Cardamomum majus is a conical fruit,[2415] in size and shape not unlike a small fig reversed, containing roundish angular seeds, of an agreeable aromatic flavour, much resembling that of the Malabar cardamom, and quite devoid of the burning taste of grains of paradise. Each fruit is perforated, having been strung on a cord to dry; such strings of cardamoms are sometimes used by the Arabs as rosaries. The fruit in question is called in the Galla language Korarima, but it is also known as Gurági spice, and by its Arabic names of Heil and Habhal-habashi.[2416] According to Beke,[2417] it is conveyed to the market of Báso (10° N. lat.), in Southern Abyssinia, from Tumhé, a region lying in about 9° N. lat. and 35° E. long.; thence it is carried to Massowah, on the Red Sea, and shipped for India and Arabia. Von Heuglin[2418] speaks of it as brought from the Galla country. It is not improbable that it is the same fruit which Speke[2419] saw growing in 1862 at Uganda, in lat 0°, and which he says is strung like a necklace by the Wagonda people. Under the name of Heel Habashee, Korarima cardamoms were contributed in 1873 from Shoa to the Vienna exhibition; we have also been presented, in 1877, with an excellent specimen of them, recently imported, by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig.

Pereira proposed for the plant the name of Amomum Korarima, but it has never been botanically described. It would appear from the above statements that it must be indigenous to the whole mountainous region of Eastern Africa, from the Victoria Nyanza lake (Uganda) to the countries of Tumhé, Gurague, and Shoa, south and south-eastward of Abyssinia.

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