CATECHU…

CATECHU

Catechu nigrum; Black Catechu, Pegu Catechu, Cutch, Terra Japonica; F. Cachou, Cachou brun ou noir; G. Catechu.

=Botanical Origin=—The trees from which this drug is manufactured are of two species, namely:—

1. Acacia Catechu Willd. (Mimosa Catechu L. fil., M. Sundra Roxb.[923]), a tree 30 to 40 feet high, with a short, not very straight trunk4 to 6 feet in girth, straggling thorny branches, light feathery foliage, and dark grey or brown bark, reddish and fibrous internally.

[922] Flückiger, Pharm. Journ. x. (1869). 641.

[923] Some Indian botanists, as Beddome, regard Mimosa (Acacia) Sundra as distinct from A. Catechu.—Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, part 17.

It is common in most parts of India and Burma, where it is highly valued for its wood, which is used for posts and for various domestic purposes, as well as for making catechu and charcoal, while the astringent bark serves for tanning. It also grows in the hotter and drier parts of Ceylon. A. Catechu abounds in the forests of Tropical Eastern Africa; it is found in the Soudan, Sennaar, Abyssinia, the Noer country, and Mozambique, but in none of these regions is any astringent extract manufactured from its wood.

2. A. Suma Kurz[924] (Mimosa Suma Roxb.), a large tree with a red heartwood, but a white bark, nearly related to the preceding but not having so extensive a geographical range. It grows in the South of India (Mysore), Bengal and Gujerat. The bark is used in tanning, and catechu is made from the heartwood.

The extract of the wood of these two species of Acacia is Catechu in the true and original sense of the word, a substance not to be confounded with Gambier, which, though very similar in composition, is widely diverse in botanical origin, and always regarded in commerce as a distinct article.

=History=—Barbosa in his description of the East Indies in 1514[925] mentions a drug called Cacho as an article of export from Cambay to Malacca. This is the name for Catechu in some of the languages of Southern India.[926]

About fifty years later, Garcia de Orta gave a particular account of the same drug[927] under its Hindustani name of Kat, first describing the tree and then the method of preparing an extract from its wood. This latter substance was at that period made up with the flour of a cereal (Eleusine coracana Gärtn.) into tablets or lozenges, and apparently not sold in its simple state: compositions of this kind are still met with in India. In the time of Garcia de Orta the drug was an important article of traffic to Malacca and China, as well as to Arabia and Persia.

Notwithstanding these accounts, catechu remained unknown in Europe until the 17th century, when it began to be brought from Japan, or at least said to be exported from that country. It was known about 1641 to Johannes Schröder,[928] and is quoted at nearly the same time in several tariffs of German towns, being included in the samples of mineral origin.[929]

[924] Brandis, Forest Flora of North-Western and Central India, Lond. 1874. 187, from which excellent work we also borrow the description of A. Catechu.

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

[926] As Tamil and Canarese, in which according to modern spelling the word is written Káshu or Káchu.—Moodeen Sheriff, Suppl. to Pharmacopœia of India, 1879. 96.

[927] Aromatum Historia, ed. Clusius, 1574. 44.—He writes the word Cate.

[928] Pharmacopœia medico-physica, Ulmæ, 1649. lib. iii. 516. “Est et genus terræ exoticæ, colore purpureum, punctulis albis intertextum, ac si situm contraxisset, sapore austeriusculum, masticatum liquescens, subdulcemque post se relinquens saporem, Catechu vocant, seu Terram japonicam.... Particulam hujus obtinui a Pharmacopœo nostrate curiosissimo Dn. Matthia Bansa.” The preface is dated Frankfurt A.D. 1641.

[929] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1876) 1022.

In 1671, catechu was noticed as a useful medicine by G. W. Wedel of Jena,[930] who also called attention to the diversity of opinion as to its mineral or vegetable nature. Schröck[931] in 1677 combated the notion of its mineral origin, and gave reasons for considering it a vegetable substance. A few years later, Cleyer,[932] who had a personal knowledge of China, pointed out the enormous consumption of catechu for mastication in the East,—that it is imported into Japan,—that the best comes from Pegu, but some also from Surat, Malabar, Bengal, and Ceylon.

Catechu was received into the London Pharmacopœia of 1721, but was even then placed among “Terræ medicamentosæ.”

The wholesale price in London in 1776 was £16 16_s._ per cwt.; in 1780 £20; in 1793 £14 14_s._, from which it is easy to infer that the consumption could only have been very small.[933]

=Manufacture=—Cutch, commonly called in India Kát or Kut, is an aqueous extract made from the wood of the tree. The process for preparing it varies slightly in different districts.

The tree is reckoned to be of proper age when its trunk is about a foot in diameter. It is then cut down, and the whole of the woody part, with the exception of the smaller branches and the bark, is chopped into chips. Some accounts state that only the darker heartwood is thus used. The chips are then placed with water in earthen jars, a series of which is arranged over a mud-built fireplace, usually in the open air. Here the water is made to boil, the liquor as it becomes thick and strong being decanted into another vessel, in which the evaporation is continued until the extract is sufficiently inspissated, when it is poured into moulds made of clay, or of leaves pinned together in the shape of cups, or in some districts on to a mat covered with the ashes of cow-dung, the drying in each case being completed by exposure to the sun and air. The product is a dark brown extract, which is the usual form in which cutch is known in Europe.

In Kumaon in the north of India,[934] a slight modification of the process affords a drug of very different appearance. Instead of evaporating the decoction to the condition of an extract, the inspissation is stopped at a certain point and the liquor allowed to cool, “coagulate,” and crystallize over twigs and leaves thrown into the pots for the purpose. How this drug is finished off we do not exactly know, but we are told that by this process there is obtained from each pot about 2 lb. of “Kath” or catechu, of an ashy whitish appearance, which is quite in accordance with the specimens we have received and of which we shall speak further on.

In Burma the manufacture and export of cutch form, next to the sale of timber, the most important item of forest revenue. According to a report by the Commissioner of the Prome Division, the trade returns of 1869-70 show that the quantity of cutch exported from the province during the year was 10,782 tons, valued at £193,602, of which nearly one-half was the produce of manufactories situated in the British territory. Vast quantities of the wood are consumed as fuel, especially for the steamers on the Irrawadi.[935]

[930] Usus novus Catechu seu Terræ Japonicæ,—Ephemerides Nat. Cur. Dec. i. ann. 2 (1671) 209.

[931] Ibid. Dec. i. ann. 8 (1677) 88.

[932] Ibid. Dec. ii. ann. 4 (1685) 6.

[933] Pegu Cutch is quoted in a London price current, March 1879, £1. 2_s._ per cwt.

[934] Madden in Journ. of Asiat. Soc. of Bengal, xvii. part i. (1848) 565; also private communication accompanied by specimens of tree, wood, and extract from Mr. F. E. G. Matthews, of the Kumaon Iron Works, Nynee Tal.

[935] Pearson (G. F.) Report of the Administration of the Forest Department in the several provinces under the Government of India, 1871-72, Calcutta, 1872, part 5. p. 22.

=Description=—Cutch is imported in mats, bags, or boxes. It is a dark brown, extractiform substance, hard and brittle on the surface of the mass, but soft and tenacious within, at least when newly imported. The large leaf of Dipterocarpus tuberculatus Roxb., the Ein or Engben of the Burmese, is often placed outside the blocks of extract.

Cutch when dry breaks easily, showing a shining but bubbly and slightly granular fracture. When it is soft and is pulled out into a thin film, it is seen to be translucent, granular and of a bright orange-brown. When further moistened and examined under the microscope, it exhibits an abundance of minute acicular crystals, precisely as seen in gambier. We have observed the same in numerous samples of the dry drug when rendered pulpy by the addition of water, or moistened with glycerin and viewed by polarized light.

The pale cutch referred to as manufactured in the north of India, is in the form of irregular fragments of a cake an inch or more thick, which has a laminated structure and appears to have been deposited in a round-bottomed vessel. It is a porous, opaque, earthly-looking substance of a pale pinkish-brown, light, and easily broken. Under the microscope it is seen to be a mass of needle-shaped crystals exactly like gambier, with which in all essential points it corresponds. We have received from India the same kind of cutch made into little round cakes like lozenges, with apparently no addition. The taste of cutch is astringent, followed by a sensation of sweetness by no means disagreeable.

=Chemical Composition=—Extractiform cutch, such as that of Pegu, which is the only sort common in Europe, when immersed in cold water turns whitish, softens and disintegrates, a small proportion of it dissolving and forming a deep brown solution. The insoluble part is Catechin in minute acicular crystals. If a little of the thick chocolate-like liquid made by macerating cutch in water, is heated to the boiling point, it is rendered quite transparent (mechanical impurities being absent), but becomes turbid on cooling. Ferric chloride forms with this solution a dark green precipitate, immediately changing to purple if common water or a trace of free alkali be used.

Ether extracts from cutch, catechin. This substance has been investigated by many chemists, but as yet with discrepant results. It agrees, according to Etti (1877), with the formula C₁₉H₁₈O₈, when dried at 80° C. By gently heating catechin, Catechu-tannic acid, C₃₈H₃₄O₁₅, is produced:

2(C₁₉H₁₈O₈)-OH₂ = C₃₆H₃₄O₁₅.

This is an undoubted acid, readily soluble in water, of decidedly tanning properties, precipitating also the alkaloids and albumin. Catechu-tannic acid being the first anhydride of catechin, there are several more substances of that class; one of them is called Catechuretin. This blackish brown almost insoluble substance is obtained by heating catechin with concentrated hydrochloric acid at 180°:

2(C₁₉H₁₈O₈)-4 OH₂ = C₃₈H₂₈O₁₂. Catechin, by melting it with caustic potash, affords Protocatechuic acid, C₆H₃(OH)₂COOH, and Phloroglucin, C₆H₃(OH)₃:

C₁₉H₁₈O₈ + 2 OH₂ = 4 H · C₇H₆O₄ · 2 C₆H₆O₃.

Gautier (1877) also obtained the two latter products, but he is of the opinion that they are due to a somewhat different reaction, the formula of catechin, as derived from his analyses, being C₂₁H₁₈O₈. He also asserts that the so-called catechin from Uncaria (see Gambier) is not identical with the substance under notice, nor with that found in the Mahogan wood, to which Gautier assigns the formula C₄₂H₃₄O₁₆.

Crystallized deposits of catechin are sometimes met with in fissures of the trunk of Acacia Catechu, and used medicinally in India under the name Keersal.[936]

Löwe (1873), by exhausting cutch with cold water and then agitating the solution with ether, obtained upon the evaporation of the latter a yellow crystalline substance which he ascertained to be Quercetin, C₂₇H₁₈O₁₂. Its solubility in water is probably favoured by the presence of catechin, water having but very little action upon pure quercetin. The amount of quercetin in cutch is exceedingly small.

When either cutch or gambier is subjected to dry distillation it yields, in common with many other substances, Pyrocatechin, C₆H₄(OH)₂.

=Commerce=—The importations of cutch into the United Kingdom from British India (excluding the Straits Settlements and Ceylon) were as under, almost the whole being from Bengal and Burma:—

1869 1870 1871 1872 2257 tons. 5252 tons. 4335 tons. 5240 tons.

The total value of the cutch imported in 1872 was estimated at £124,458.

=Uses=—Cutch under the name of Catechu, which name it shares with gambier, is employed in medicine as an astringent.

=Analogous Products=—See our articles Semen Arecæ and Gambier.

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ROSACEÆ

AMYGDALÆ DULCES.

Sweet Almonds; F. Amandes douces; G. Süsse Mandeln.

=Botanical Origin=—Prunus Amygdalus Baillon[937] var. β. dulcis (Amygdalus communis L. var. β. dulcis DC.)—The native country of the almond cannot be ascertained with precision. A. de Candolle,[938] after reviewing the statements of various authors concerning the occurrence of the tree in an apparently wild state, arrives at the conclusion that its original area possibly extended from Persia, westward to Asia Minor and Syria, and even to Algeria. The tree is found ascending to 4000 feet in the Antilebanon, to 3000 in Mesopotamia, and even to 9000 feet in the Avroman range, not far from Sulemānia, Southern Kurdistan.[939]

[936] Dymock, Ph. Journ. vii. (1876) 109.

[937] Hist. des Plantes (Monogr. des Rosacées, 1869) i. 415.

[938] Géographie Botanique, ii. (1855) 888.

[939] Boissier, Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 641.

At an early period the tree was spread throughout the entire Mediterranean region, and in favourable situations, far into the continent of Europe. It was apparently introduced into Italy from Greece, where according to Heldreich,[940] the bitter variety is truly wild. The almond-tree matures its fruit in the south of England, but is liable to destruction by frost in many parts of central Europe.

=History=—The earliest notice of the almond extant is that in the Book of Genesis,[941] where we read that the patriarch Israel commanded his sons to carry with them into Egypt a present consisting of the productions of Palestine, one of which is named as almonds.

From the copious references to the almond in the writings of Theophrastus, one cannot but conclude that in his day it was familiarly known.

In Italy, M. Porcius Cato[942] mentions towards the middle of the 2nd century B.C. Avellanæ Græcæ which we know from later authors signified almonds. Columella, who wrote about A.D.. 60, calls them Nuces Græcæ. Bitter almonds (“Amygdali amari”) are named about this latter period by Scribonius Largus.

As to more northern Europe, almonds are mentioned together with other groceries and spices as early as A.D. 716, in a charter granted by Chilperic II., King of France, to the monastery of Corbie in Normandy.[943] In 812 Charlemagne ordered the trees (Amandalarii) to be introduced on the imperial farms. In the later middle ages, the cultivation of the almond was carried on about Speier and in the Rhenish Palatinate. We learn from Marino Sanudo[944] that in the beginning of the 14th century, almonds had become an important item of the Venetian trade to Alexandria. They were doubtless in large part produced by the islands of the Greek Archipelago, then under Christian rule. In Cyprus for instance, the Knights Templar levied tithes in 1411 of almonds, honey, and sesamé seed.[945]

The consumption of almonds in mediæval cookery was enormous. An inventory made in 1372 of the effects of Jeanne d’Evreux, queen of France, enumerates only 20 lb. of sugar, but 500 lb. of almonds.[946]

In the Form of Cury, a manuscript written by the master cooks of King Richard II., A.D. 1390, are receipts for “Creme of Almand, Grewel of Almand, Cawdel of Almand Mylke, Jowt of Almand Mylke,” &c.[947]

Almonds were sold in England by the “hundred” i.e. 108 lb. Rogers[948] gives the average price between 1259 and 1350 as 2d., and between 1351 and 1400 as 3⅛d. per lb.

[940] Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, Athen, 1862. 67.

[941] Ch. xliii. v. 11; Num. xvii. 8.

[942] De Re Rustica, cap. viii.

[943] Pardessus, Diplomata Chartæ, etc., Paris, 1849. ii. 309.

[944] Liber Secretorum Fidelium, ed. Bongars, 1611. 24.

[945] De Mas Latrie, Hist. de l’île de Chypre, ii. (1852) 500.

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

[947] Published by Pegge, Lond. 1780.—Boorde in his Dyetary of Helth, 1542, mentions Almon Mylke and Almon Butter, the latter “a commendable dysshe, specyallye in Lent.”

[948] Agriculture and Prices in England, i. (1866) 641.

=Description=—The fruit of the almond tree is a drupe, with a velvety sarcocarp which at maturity dries, splits, and drops out leaving bare and still attached to the branch, an oblong, ovate pointed stone, pitted with irregular holes. The seed, about an inch in length, is ovate or oblong, more or less compressed, pointed at the upper, blunt at the lower end, coated with a scurfy, cinnamon-brown skin or testa. It is connected with the stone or putamen by a broad funicle, which runs along its edge for more than a third of its length from the apex; hence the raphe passes downwards to the rounded end of the seed, where a scar marks the chalaza. From this, a dozen or more ramifying veins run up the brown skin towards the pointed end. After an almond has been macerated in warm water, the skin is easily removed, bringing with it the closely attached translucent inner membrane or endopleura. As the seed is without albumen, the whole mass within the testa consists of embryo. This is formed of a pair of plano-convex cotyledons, within which lie the flat leafy plumule and thick radicle, the latter slightly projecting from the pointed or basal end of the seed.

Almonds have a bland, sweet, nutty flavour. When triturated with water, they afford a pure white, milk-like emulsion of agreeable taste.

=Varieties=—The different sorts of almond vary in form and size, and more particularly in the firmness of the shell. This in some varieties is tender and easily broken in the hand, in others so hard as to require a hammer to fracture it. The form and size of the kernel likewise exhibit some variation. The most esteemed are those of Malaga, known in trade as Jordan Almonds. They are usually imported without the shell, and differ from all other sorts in their oblong form and large size. The other kinds of sweet almonds known in the London market are distinguished in the order of value as Valencia, Sicily, and Barbary.[949]

=Microscopic Structure=—Three different parts are to be distinguished in the brown coat of an almond. First, a layer of very large (as much as ⅓ mm. in diameter) irregular cells, to which the scurfy surface is due. If these brittle cells are boiled with caustic soda, they make a brilliant object for microscopic examination in polarized light. The two inner layers of the skin are made up of much smaller cells, traversed by small fibro-vascular bundles. The brown coat assumes a bluish hue on addition of perchloride of iron, owing to the presence of tannic matter.

The cotyledons consist of thin-walled parenchyme, fibro-vascular bundles being not decidedly developed. This tissue is loaded with granular albuminous matter, some of which exhibits a crystalloid aspect, as may be ascertained in polarized light. Starch is altogether wanting in almonds.

=Chemical Composition=—The sweet almond contains fixed oil extractable by boiling ether to the extent of 50 to 55 per cent. A produce of 50 per cent. by the hydraulic press is by no means uncommon.

The oil (Oleum Amygdalæ) is a thin, light yellow fluid, of sp. gr. 0·92, which does not solidify till cooled to between -10 and-20° C. When fresh, it has a mild nutty taste, but soon becomes rancid by exposure to the air; it is not, however, one of the drying oils. It consists almost wholly of the glycerin compound of Oleic Acid, C₁₈H₃₄O₂.

[949] To be consulted for further information: Bianca, G. Manuale della Cultivazione del Mandorlo in Sicilia, Palermo, 1874 (444 pages).

Almonds easily yield to cold water a sugar tasting like honey, which reduces alkaline cupric tartrate even in the cold, and is therefore in part grape sugar. Pelouze however (1855) obtained from almonds 10 per cent. of cane-sugar. The amount of gum appears to be very small; Fleury (1865) found that the total amount of sugar, dextrin and mucilage was altogether only 6·29 per cent.

If almonds are kept for several days in alcohol, crystals of asparagine (see article Rad. Althææ, p. 93) make their appearance, as shown by Henschen (1872), and by Portes (1876).

The almond yields 3·7 per cent. of nitrogen, corresponding to about 24 per cent. of albuminoid matters. These have been elaborately examined by Robiquet (1837-38), Ortloff (1846), Bull (1849), and Ritthausen (1872).[950] The experiments tend to show that there exist in the almond two different protein substances; Robiquet termed one of these bodies Synaptase, while others applied to it the name Emulsin.[951] Commaille (1866) named the second albuminous substance Amandin; it is the Almond-legumin of Gmelin’s Chemistry, the Conglutin of Ritthausen. Emulsin has not yet been freed from earthly phosphates which, when it is precipitated by alcohol from any aqueous solution, often amount to a third of its weight. Amandin may be precipitated from its aqueous solution by acetic acid. According to Ritthausen, these bodies are to be regarded as modifications of one and the same substance, namely vegetable casein.

Blanched almonds comminuted yield, when slightly warmed with dilute potash, a small quantity of hydrocyanic acid and of ammonia; the former may be made manifest by means of Schönbein’s test pointed out at p. 250.

The ash of almonds, amounting to from 3 to nearly 5 per cent., consists chiefly of phosphates of potassium, magnesium and calcium.

=Production and Commerce=—The quantity of almonds imported into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 70,270 cwt., valued at £204,592. Of this quantity, Morocco supplied 33,500 cwt., and Spam with the Canary Islands 22,000 cwt., the remainder being made up by Italy, Portugal, France, and other countries. The imports into the United Kingdom in 1876 were 77,169 cwt., valued at £244,078. Almonds are largely shipped from the Persian Gulf: in the year 1872-73, there were imported thence into Bombay, 15,878 cwt., besides 3,049 cwt. from other countries.[952]

=Uses=—Sweet almonds may be used for the extraction of almond oil, yet they are but rarely so employed (at least in England) on account of the inferior value of the residual cake. The only other use of the sweet almond in medicine is for making the emulsion called Mistura Amygdalæ.

AMYGDALÆ AMARÆ.

Bitter Almonds; F. Amandes amères; G. Bittere Mandeln.

=Botanical Origin=—Prunus Amygdalus Baillon var. a. amara (Amygdalus communis L. var. a. amara DC.). The Bitter Almond tree is not distinguished from the sweet by any permanent botanical character, and its area of growth appears to be the same (see p. 244).

[950] Die Eiweisskörper der Getreidearten, Hülsenfrüchte und Oelsamen, Bonn, 1872. 199.

[951] Gmelin, Chemistry, xviii. (1871) 452.

[952] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Bombay for 1872-73, pt. ii. 31.

=History=—(See also preceding article.) Bitter almonds and their poisonous properties were well known in the antiquity, and used medicinally during the middle ages. Valerius Cordus prescribed them as an ingredient of trochisci.[953]

As early as the beginning of the present century, it was shown by the experiments of Bohm, a pharmaceutical assistant of Berlin, that the aqueous distillate of bitter almonds contains hydrocyanic acid and a peculiar oil which cannot be obtained from sweet almonds. It was then inferred that hydrocyanic acid itself might be poisonous, a fact which, strange to say, had not been noticed by Scheele, when he discovered that acid in 1782, as obtained by distilling potassium ferrocyanate with sulphuric acid. The dangerous action of hydrocyanic was then ascertained in 1802 and 1803 by Schaub and Schrader.[954]

=Description=—Bitter almonds agree in outward appearance, form, and structure with sweet almonds; they exist under several varieties, but there is none so far as we know that in size and form resembles the long sweet almond of Malaga.[955] In general, bitter almonds are of smaller size than sweet. Triturated with water, they afford the same white emulsion as sweet almonds, but it has a strong odour of hydrocyanic acid and a very bitter taste.

=Varieties=—These are distinguished in their order of goodness, as French, Sicilian, and Barbary.

=Microscopic Structure=—In this respect, no difference between sweet and bitter almonds can be pointed out. If thin slices of the latter are deprived of fat oil by means of benzol, and then kept for some years in glycerin, an abundance of crystals is slowly formed, of what we suppose to be amygdalin.

=Chemical Composition=—Bitter almonds, when comminuted and mixed with water, immediately evolve the odour of bitter almond oil. The more generally diffused substances are the same in both kinds of almond, and the fixed oil in particular of the bitter almond is identical with that of the sweet. Bitter almonds however contain on an average a somewhat lower proportion of oil than the sweet. In one instance that has come to our knowledge in which 28 cwt. of bitter almonds were submitted to pressure, the yield of oil was at the rate of 43·6 per cent. Mr. Umney, director of the laboratory of Messrs. Herrings and Co., where large quantities of bitter almonds are submitted to powerful hydraulic pressure, gives 44·2 as the average percentage of oil obtained during the years 1871-2.

[953] Dispensator., Paris, 1548. 336. 337. 343.

[954] J. B. Richter, Neuere Gegenstände der Chymie, Breslau, xi. (1802) 65. J. B. Trommsdorffs Journ. d. Pharm. xi. (Leipzig, 1803) 262. Preyer, Die Blausäure, Bonn, 1870. 152.

[955] Hence to avoid bitter almonds being used instead of sweet, the British Pharmacopœia directs that Jordan Almonds alone shall be employed for Confection of Almonds.

Robiquet and Boutron-Charland in 1830 prepared from bitter almonds a crystalline substance, Amygdalin, and found that bitter almond oil and hydrocyanic acid can no longer be obtained from bitter almonds, the amygdalin of which has been removed by alcohol. Liebig and Wöhler in 1837 showed that it is solely the decomposition of this body (under conditions to be explained presently), that occasions the formation of the two compounds above named. Disregarding secondary products (ammonia and formic acid), the reaction takes place as represented in the following equation:

C₂₀H₂₇NO₁₁ + 3 OH₂ = OH₂ · 2 (C₆H₁₂O₆) · NCH · C₇H₆O. Crystallized Anhydrous Hydro- Bitter Amygdalin. Dextro- cyanic Almond glucose. Acid. Oil.

This memorable investigation first brought under notice a body of the glucoside class, now so numerous.

Amygdalin may be obtained crystallized when almonds deprived of their oil are boiled with alcohol of 84 to 94 per cent. The product amounts at most to 2½ or 3 per cent. Amygdalin per se dissolves in 15 parts of water at 8-12° C., forming a neutral, bitter, inodorous liquid, quite destitute of poisonous properties.

It would appear from the investigations of Portes (1877) that in young almonds, amygdalin is formed before the emulsin.

When bitter almonds have been freed from amygdalin and fixed oil, cold water extracts from the residue chiefly emulsin and another albuminoid matter separable by acetic acid. The emulsin upon addition of alcohol falls down in thick flocks, which, after draining, form with cold water a slightly opalescent solution. This liquid added to an aqueous solution of amygdalin, renders it turbid, and developes in it bitter almond oil. The reaction takes place in the same manner, if the emulsin has not been previously purified by acetic acid and alcohol, or if an emulsion of sweet almonds used. But after boiling, an emulsion of almonds is no longer capable of decomposing amygdalin.

What alteration the emulsin itself undergoes in this reaction, or whether it suffers any alteration at all, has not been clearly made out. The reaction does not appear to take place necessarily in atomic proportions; it does not cease until the emulsin has decomposed about three times its own weight of amygdalin, provided always that sufficient water is present to hold all the products in solution.

The leaves of Prunus Lauro-cerasus L., the bark of P. Padus L., and the organs of many allied plants, also contain emulsin or a substance analogous to it, not yet isolated. In the seeds of various plants belonging to natural orders not botanically allied to the almond, as for example in those of mustard, hemp, and poppy, and even in yolk of egg, albuminous substances occur which are capable of acting upon amygdalin in the same manner. Boiling dilute hydrochloric acid induces the same decomposition, with the simultaneous production of formic acid.

The distillation of bitter almonds is known to offer some difficulties on account of the large quantity present of albuminous substances, which give rise to bumping and frothing. Michael Pettenkofer (1861) has found that these inconveniences may be avoided by immersing 12 parts of powdered almonds in boiling water, whereby the albuminous matters are coagulated, whereas the amygdalin is dissolved. On then adding an emulsion of only 1 part of almonds (sweet or bitter), the emulsin contained in it will suffice to effect the required decomposition at a temperature not exceeding 40° C. In this manner, Pettenkofer obtained in some experiments performed with small quantities of almonds, as much as 0·9 per cent. of essential oil. In the case alluded to on the opposite page, in which 28 cwt. of almonds were treated, the yield of essential oil amounted to 0·87 per cent. From data obligingly furnished to us by Messrs. Herrings and Co. of London, who distill large quantities of almond cake, it appears that the yield of essential oil is very variable. The yearly averages as taken from the books of this firm, show that it may be as low as 0·74, or as high as 1·67 per cent., which, assuming 57 pounds of cake as equivalent to 100 pounds of almonds, would represent a percentage from the latter of 0·42 and 0·95 per cent. respectively. Mr. Umney explains this enormous variation as due in part to natural variableness in the different kinds of bitter almond, and in part to their admixture with sweet almonds. He also states that the action of the emulsin on the amygdalin when in contact with water, is extremely rapid, and that 200 pounds of almond marc are thoroughly exhausted by a distillation of only three hours.

In the distillation, the hydrocyanic acid and bitter almond oil unite into an unstable compound. From this, the acid is gradually set free, and partly converted into cyanide of ammonium and formic acid. Supposing bitter almonds to contain 3·3 per cent. of Amygdalin, they must yield 0·2 per cent. of hydrocyanic acid. Pettenkofer obtained by experiment as much as 0·25 per cent., Feldhaus (1863) 0·17 per cent.

Some manufacturers apply bitter almond oil deprived of hydrocyanic acid, but such purified oil is very prone to oxidation, unless carefully deprived of water by being shaken with fused chloride of calcium. The sp. gr. of the original oil is 1·061-1·065; that of the purified oil (according to Umney) 1·049. The purification by the action of ferrous sulphate and lime, and re-distillation, as recommended by Maclagan (1853), occasions, we are informed, a loss of about 10 per cent.

Bitter almond oil, C₆H₅(COH), being the aldehyde of benzoic acid, C₆H₅(COOH), is easily converted in that acid by spontaneous or artificial oxidation. The oil boils at 180°C. and is a little soluble in water; 300 parts of water dissolve one part of the oil.

There are a great number of plants which if crushed, moistened with water, and submitted to distillation, yield both bitter almond oil and hydrocyanic acid. In many instances the amount of hydrocyanic acid is so extremely small, that its presence can only be revealed by the most delicate test,—that of Schönbein.[956]

Among plants capable of emitting hydrocyanic acid, probably always accompanied with bitter almond oil, the tribes Pruneæ and Pomeæ of the rosaceous order may be particularly mentioned.

The farinaceous rootstocks of the Bitter Cassava, Manihot utilissima, Pohl, of the order Euphorbiaceæ, the source of tapioca in Brazil, have long been known to yield hydrocyanic acid.

A composite, Chardinia xeranthemoides Desf., growing in the Caspian regions, has been shown by W. Eichler also to emit hydrocyanic acid.[957] The same has been observed by the French in Gaboon[958] with regard to the fruits of Ximenia americana L. of the order Olacineæ, and the fact has been confirmed by Ernst of Caracas,[959] near which place the plant abounds. Mr. Prestoe of the Botanical Garden, Trinidad, informs us (1874) that in that island a convolvulaceous plant, Ipomœa dissecta Willd., contains a juice with a strong prussic acid odour. According to Lösecke, a common mushroom, Agaricus oreades Bolt., emits hydrocyanic acid.[960]

[956] Applied in the following manner:—Let bibulous paper be imbued with a fresh tincture of the wood or resin of guaiacum, and after drying, let it be moistened with a solution composed of one part of sulphate of copper in 2000 of water. Such paper moistened with water will assume an intense blue coloration in the presence of hydrocyanic acid.

[957] Bull. de la Soc. imp. des nat. de Moscou, xxxv. (1862) ii. 444.

[958] Exposition Univers. de 1867.—Produits des Colonies Françaises, 92.

[959] Archiv der Pharmacie, 181 (1867) 222.

[960] Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann for 1871. 11.

This acid is consequently widely diffused throughout the vegetable kingdom. Yet amygdalin has thus far only been isolated from a few plants belonging to the genus Prunus or its near allies.[961] In all other plants in which hydrocyanic acid has been met with, we know nothing as to its origin. Ritthausen and Kreusler (1871) have proved the absence of amygdalin in the seeds of a Vicia, which yield bitter almond oil and hydrocyanic acid. These chemists followed the process which in the case of bitter almonds easily affords amygdalin.

=Commerce=—See preceding article.

=Uses=—Bitter almonds are used almost exclusively for the manufacture of Almond Oil, while from the residual cake is distilled Bitter Almond Oil. An emulsion of bitter almonds is sometimes prescribed as a lotion.

=Adulteration=—The adulteration of bitter almonds with sweet is a frequent source of loss and annoyance to the pressers of almond oil, whose profit largely depends on the amount of volatile oil they are able to extract from the residual cake.

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FRUCTUS PRUNI

Prunes; F. Pruneaux à médecine.

=Botanical Origin=—Prunus domestica L., var. ζ. Juliana DC.—It is from this tree, which is known as Prunier de St. Julien,[962] that the true Medicinal Prunes of English pharmacy are derived. The tree is largely cultivated in the valley of the Loire in France, especially about Bourgueil, a small town lying between Tours and Angers.

=History=—The plum-tree (P. domestica L.) from which it is supposed the numerous cultivated varieties have descended, is believed to occur in a truly wild state in Greece, the south-eastern shores of the Black Sea (Lazistan), the Caucasus, and the Elburz range in Northern Persia, from some of which countries it was introduced into Europe long before the Christian era. In the days of Pliny, numerous species of plum were already in cultivation, one of which afforded a fruit having laxative properties.

Dried prunes, especially those taking their name from Damascus (Pruna Damascena), are frequently mentioned in the writings of the Greek physicians, by whom as well as at a later period by the practitioners of the Schola Salernitana, they were much employed.

[961] Gmelin, Chemistry, vii. 389; xv. 422.

[962] Loiseleur-Deslongchamps et Michel, Nouveau Duhamel, ou Traité des arbres et arbustes que l’on cultive en France, v. (1812) 189, pl. 54. fig. 2, pl. 56. fig. 9.

In the older London pharmacopœias, many sorts of plum are enumerated, but in the reformed editions of 1746, 1788, and 1809, the French Prune (Prunum Gallicum) is specially ordered, its chief use being as an ingredient of the well-known Lenitive Electuary; and this fruit is still held by the grocers to be the legitimate prune. The same variety is regarded in France as the prune of medicine.

=Description=—The prune in its fresh state is an ovoid drupe of a deep purple hue, not depressed at the insertion of the stalk, and with a scarcely visible suture, and no furrow. The pulp is greenish and rather austere, unless the fruit is very ripe; it does not adhere to the stone. The stone is short (⁷/₁₀ to ⁸/₁₀ of an inch long, ⁵/₁₀ to ⁶/₁₀ broad), broadly rounded at the upper end and slightly mucronulate, narrowed somewhat stalk-like at the lower, and truncate; the ventral suture is broader and thicker than the dorsal.

The fruit is dried partly by solar and partly by fire-heat, that is to say, it is exposed alternately to the heat of an oven and to the open air. Thus prepared, it is about 1¼ inches long, black and shrivelled, but recovers its original size and form by digestion in warm water. The dried pulp or sarcocarp is brown and tough, with an acidulous, saccharine, fruity taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The skin of the prune is formed of small, densely packed cells, loaded with a dark solid substance; the pulp consists of larger shrunken cells, containing a brownish amorphous mass which is probably rich in sugar. This latter tissue is traversed by a few thin fibro-vascular bundles, and exhibits here and there crystals of oxalate of calcium. By perchloride of iron, the cell-walls, as well as the contents of the cells, acquire a dingy greenish hue.

=Chemical Composition=—We are not aware of any analysis having been made of the particular sort of plum under notice, nor that any attempt has been made to discover the source of the medicinal property it is reputed to possess. Some nearly allied varieties have been submitted to analysis in the laboratory of Fresenius, and shown to contain saccharine matters to the extent of 17 to 35 per cent., besides malic acid, and albuminoid and pectic substances.[963]

=Uses=—The only pharmaceutical preparation of which the pulp of prunes is an ingredient, is Confectio Sennæ, the Electuarium lenitivum of the old pharmacopœias. The fruit stewed and sweetened is often used as a domestic laxative.

=Substitute=—When French prunes are scarce, a very similar fruit, known in Germany as Zwetschen or Quetschen, is imported as a substitute.[964] It is the produce of a tree which most botanists regard as a form of Prunus domestica L., termed by De Candolle var. Pruneauliana. K. Koch,[965] however, is decidedly of opinion that it is a distinct species, and as such he has revived for it Borkhausen’s name of Prunus œconomica. The tree is widely cultivated in Germany for the sake of its fruit, which is used in the dried state as an article of food, but is not grown in England.

[963] Liebig’s Ann. der Chemie, ci. (1857) 228.

[964] This was especially the case in the winter of 1873-74.

[965] Dendrologie, part i. (1869) 94.

The dried fruit differs slightly from the ordinary prune in being rather larger and more elongated, and having a thicker skin; also in the stone being flatter, narrower, pointed at either end, with the ventral suture much more strongly curved than the dorsal. The fruits seem rather more prone to become covered with a saccharine efflorescence.

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CORTEX PRUNI SEROTINÆ

Cortex Pruni Virginianæ; Wild Black Cherry Bark.

=Botanical Origin=—Prunus serotina Ehrhart (P. virginiana Miller non Linn., Cerasus serotina DC.)—A shrub or tree, in favourable situations growing to a height of 60 feet, distributed over an immense extent of North America. It is found throughout Canada as far as 62° N. lat., and from Newfoundland and Hudson’s Bay in the east, to the valleys west of the Rocky Mountains.[966] It is also common in the United States.

The tree is often confounded with P. virginiana L., from which, indeed, it seems to be separated by no fixed character, though American botanists hold the two plants as distinct. It is also nearly allied to the well-known P. Padus L. of Europe, the bark of which had formerly a place in the Materia Medica.

=History=—Experiments on the medicinal value of Wild Cherry Bark were made in America about the end of the last century, at which time the drug was supposed to be useful in intermittent fevers.[967] The bark was introduced into the United States Pharmacopœia in 1820. An elaborate article by Bentley[968] published in 1863 contributed to bring it into notice in this country, but it is still much more employed in America than with us.

=Description=—The inner bark of the root or branches is said to be the most suitable for medicinal use. That which we have seen is evidently from the latter; it is in flattish or channelled pieces, ⅒ to ¹/₂₀ of an inch in thickness, ½ an inch to 2 inches broad, and seldom exceeding 5 inches in length. From many of the pieces, the outer suberous coat has been shaved off, in which case the whole bark is of a deep cinnamon brown; in others the corky layer remains, exhibiting a polished satiny surface, marked with long transverse scars. The inner surface is finely striated, or minutely fissured and reticulated. The bark breaks easily with a short granular fracture; it is nearly without smell, but if reduced to coarse powder and wetted with water it evolves a pleasant odour of bitter almonds. It has a decided but transient bitter taste.

The bark freshly cut from the stem is quite white, and has a strong odour of bitter almonds and hydrocyanic acid.

[966] Hooker, Flora Boreali-Americana, i. (1833) 169.

[967] Schöpf, Materia Medica Americana, Erlangæ 1787; 77.—Also Barton, Collections for Mat. Med. of U.S., Philad. 1798. 11.

[968] Pharm. Journ. v. (1864) 67.—Also Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 3; (1878).

=Microscopic Structure=—The chief mass of the tissue is made up of hard, thick-walled, white cells, the groups of which are separated by a brown fibrous prosenchyme. The liber is crossed in a radial direction by numerous broad medullary rays of the usual structure. The parenchymatous portion is loaded both with very large single crystals, and crystalline tufts of calcium oxalate. There is also an abundance of small starch granules, and brown particles of tannic matters. Thin slices of the bark moistened with perchloride of iron, assume a blackish coloration.

=Chemical Composition=—The bitterness and odour of the fresh bark depend no doubt on the presence of a substance analogous to amygdalin, which has not yet been examined. Hydrocyanic acid and essential oil are produced when the bark is distilled with water, and must be due to the mutual action of that substance alluded to, and some principle of the nature of emulsin. From the fact that an extract of the bark remained bitter although the whole of the essential oil and hydrocyanic acid had been removed, Proctor inferred the existence of another substance to which the tonic properties of the bark are perhaps due.

The fresh bark was found by Perot[969] to yield ½ per mille of hydrocyanic acid in April, 1 per mille in June, and 1·4 in October. The best time for collecting the bark is therefore the autumn.

=Uses=—In America, wild cherry bark is held in high estimation for its mildly tonic and sedative properties. It is administered most appropriately in the form of cold infusion or syrup, the latter being a strong cold infusion, sweetened; a fluid extract and a dry resinoid extract are also in use. The bark is said to deteriorate by keeping, and should be preferred when recently dried.

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FOLIA LAURO-CERASI

Common Laurel or Cherry-laurel Leaves; F. Feuilles de Laurier-cerise; G. Kirschlorbeerblätter.

=Botanical Origin=—Prunus Lauro-cerasus L., a handsome evergreen shrub, growing to the height of 18 or more feet, is a native of the Caucasian provinces of Russia (Mingrelia, Imeritia, Guriel), of the valleys of North-western Asia Minor, and Northern Persia. It has been introduced as a plant of ornament into all the more temperate regions of Europe, and flourishes well in England and other parts, where the winter is not severe and the summer not excessively hot and dry.

=History=—Pierre Belon, the French naturalist, who travelled in the East between 1546 and 1550, is stated by Clusius[970] to have discovered the cherry-laurel in the neighbourhood of Trebizond. Thirty years later, Clusius himself obtained the plant through the Imperial ambassador at Constantinople, and distributed it from Vienna to the gardens of Germany. Since it is mentioned by Gerarde[971] as a choice garden shrub, it must have been cultivated in England prior to 1597. Ray,[972] who like Gerarde calls the plant Cherry-bay, states that it is not known to possess medicinal properties.

[969] Pharm. Journ. xviii (1852) 109.

[970] Rariorum Plantarum Historia, 1601. 4.

[971] Herball (1636) 1603.

[972] Hist. Plant. ii. (1693) 1549.

In 1731, Madden of Dublin drew the attention of the Royal Society of London[973] to some cases of poisoning that had occurred by the use of a distilled water of the leaves. This water he states had been for many years in frequent use in Ireland among cooks, for flavouring puddings and creams, and also much in vogue with dram drinkers as an addition to brandy, without any ill effects from it having been noticed. The fatal cases thus brought forward occasioned much investigation, but the true nature of the poison was not understood till pointed out by Schrader in 1803 (see art. Amygdalæ amaræ, p. 248, note 2). Cherry-laurel water, though long used on the Continent, has never been much prescribed in Great Britain, and had no place in any British Pharmacopœia till 1839.

=Description=—The leaves are alternate, simple, of leathery texture and shining upper surface, 5 to 6 inches long by 1¾ to 2 inches wide, oblong or slightly obovate, attenuated towards either end. The thick leafstalk, scarcely half an inch in length, is prolonged as a stout midrib to the recurved apex. The margin, which is also recurved, is provided with sharp but very short serratures, and glandular teeth, which become more distant towards the base. The under side, which is of a paler colour and dull surface, is marked by 8 or 10 lateral veins, anastomosing towards the edge. Below the lower of these and close to the midrib, are from two to four shallow depressions or glands, which in spring exude a saccharine matter, and soon assume a brownish colour. By the glands with which the teeth of the serratures are provided, a rather resinous substance is secreted.[974]

The fresh leaves are inodorous until they are bruised or torn, when they instantly emit the smell of bitter almond oil and hydrocyanic acid. When chewed they taste rough, aromatic and bitter.

=Microscopic Structure=—The upper surface of the leaf is constituted of thin cuticle and the epidermis made up of large, nearly cubic cells. The middle layer of the interior tissue exhibits densely packed small cells, whereas the prevailing part of the whole tissue is formed of larger, loose cells. Most of them are loaded with chlorophyll; some enclose crystals of oxalate of calcium.

=Chemical Composition=—The leaves when cut to pieces and submitted to distillation with water, yield Bitter Almond Oil and Hydrocyanic Acid, produced by the decomposition of Laurocerasin. This is an amorphous yellowish substance isolated by Lehmann (1874) in Dragendorff’s laboratory. He extracted the leaves with boiling alcohol, and purified the liquid by gently warming it with hydroxide of lead. From the liquid, crude laurocerasin was precipitated on addition of ether; it was again dissolved repeatedly in alcohol and precipitated by ether. The yield of the leaves is about 1⅓ per cent. Laurocerasin is readily soluble in water, the solution deviates the plane of polarization to the left, yet not to the same amount as amygdalin. The molecule of laurocerasin, C₄₀H₆₇NO₃₀, would appear to include those of amygdalin, C₂₀H₂₇NO₁₁, amygdalic acid, C₂₀H₂₆O₁₂ and 7 OH₂.

[973] Phil. Trans. xxxvii. (for 1731-32) 84.

[974] Reinke, in Pringsheim’s Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Botanik, x. (1875) 129.

The proportion of hydrocyanic acid in the distilled water of the leaves has been the subject of many researches. Among the later are those of Broeker (1867), who distilled a given weight of the leaves grown in Holland under precisely similar circumstances, in each month of the year. The results proved that the product obtained during the winter and early spring was weaker in the acid in the proportion of 17 to 24, 28, or 30, the strongest water being that distilled in July and August. This chemist found that a stronger product was got when the leaves were chopped fine, than when they were used whole. According to Christison,[975] the buds and very young leaves yield ten times as much essential oil as the leaves one year old. We have ascertained that leaves collected in January when they were thoroughly frozen yielded a distillate containing about ten times less of hydrocyanic acid than in summer. The product obtained from the leaves collected in January, but previously dried for several days at 100° C. (212° F.), still proved to contain both essential oil and hydrocyanic acid.

The unwounded leaves of the cherry-laurel in vigorous vegetation have been shown by our friend Prof. Schaer, not to evolve naturally a trace of hydrocyanic acid, though they yield it on the slightest puncture. We are ignorant of the mode of distribution in the living tissue of the laurocerasin, and of the substances causing its decomposition, and how these two bodies are packed so as to prevent the slightest mutual reaction. The leaves may be even dried at 100° C. and powdered without the evolution of any odour of hydrocyanic acid, but the latter is at once developed by the addition of a little water; on distilling its presence is proved by means of all the usual tests in the first drops of the product.

Besides the substances concerned in the production of the essential oil, the leaves contain sugar which reduces cupric oxide in the cold, a small quantity of an iron-greening tannin, and a fatty or waxy substance.

Schoonbroodt (1868) treated the aqueous extract of the fresh leaves with alcoholic ether, which yielded ¼ per mille of bitter, acicular crystals; these quickly reduced cupric oxide, losing their bitterness.

Bougarel (1877) isolated from the leaves under notice and several others, Phyllinic acid, a crystalline powder melting at 170° C.

=Uses=—The leaves are only employed for making cherry-laurel water (Aqua Lauro-cerasi), the use of which in England is generally superseded by that of the more definite hydrocyanic acid.

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FLORES KOSO

Flores Brayeræ, Cusso, Kousso, Kosso.

=Botanical Origin=—Hagenia abyssinica Willd. (Brayera anthelminthica Kunth), a handsome tree growing to a height of 60 feet, found throughout the entire table-land of Abyssinia at an elevation of 3,000 to 8,000 feet above the sea-level.[976] We have never noticed it growing in any botanic garden. The tree[977] is remarkable for its abundant foliage and fine panicles of flowers, and is generally planted about the Abyssinian villages.

[975] Dispensatory, 1842. 592.

[976] The French section of the International African Association contributed Kousso from Madagascar to the Paris Exhibition of 1878.

[977] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 5 (1876).

=History=—The celebrated Bruce[978] during his journey to discover the source of the Nile, 1768-1773, found the koso tree in Abyssinia, observed the uses made of it by the natives, and published a figure of it in the narrative of his travels. It was also described in 1799 by Willdenow who called it Hagenia in honour of Dr. K. G. Hagen of Königsberg.

The anthelmintic virtues of koso were investigated by Brayer, a French physician of Constantinople, to which place parcels of the drug are occasionally brought by way of Egypt, and he published a small pamphlet on the subject.[979] Several scattered notices of koso appeared in 1839-41, but no supply of it reached Europe until about 1850, when a Frenchman who had been in Abyssinia obtained a large stock (1,400 lb., it was said), a portion of which he endeavoured to sell in London at 35_s._ per ounce! The absurd value set upon the drug produced the usual result: large quantities were imported, and the price gradually fell to 3_s._ or 4_s._ per lb. Koso was admitted a place in the British Pharmacopœia of 1864.

=Description=—The flowers grow in broad panicles, 10 to 12 inches in length. They are unisexual, but though male and female occur on the same tree, the latter are chiefly collected. The panicles are either loosely dried, often including a portion of stalk and sometimes a leaf, or they are made into cylindrical rolls, kept in form by transverse ligatures. Very often the panicles arrive quite broken up, and with the flowers in a very fragmentary state. They have a herby, somewhat tea-like smell, and a bitterish acrid taste.

The panicle consists of a zigzag stalk, which with its many branches is clothed with shaggy simple hairs, and also dotted over with minute stalked glands; it is provided at each ramification with a large sheathing bract. At the base of each flower are two or three rounded veiny membranous bracts, between which is the turbinate hairy calyx, having ten sepals arranged in a double series. In the male, the outer series consists of much smaller sepals than the inner; in the female, the outer in the ultimate development become enlarged, obovate and spreading, so that the whole flower measures fully ½ an inch across. In both, the sepals are veiny and leaf-like. The petals are minute and linear, inserted with the stamens in the throat of the calyx. These latter are 10 to 25 in number, with anthers in the female flower, effete. The carpels are two, included in the calycinal tube; and each surmounted by a hairy style. The fruit is an obovate one-seeded nut.

Koso as seen in commerce has a light brown hue, with a reddish tinge in the case of the female flowers, so that panicles of the latter are sometimes distinguished as Red Koso.

[978] Travels, v. (1790) 73.

[979] Notice sur une nouvelle plante de la famille des Rosacées, employée contre le Tænia, Paris, 1822. The reader should also consult the excellent notice by Pereira written when the drug was first offered for sale in London. Pharm. Journ. x. (1851) 15; reprinted in Pereira’s Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. part 2 (1853) 1815.—Also Meyer-Ahrens, Die Blüthen des Kossobaumes, Zürich, 1851. 90 pp.

=Chemical Composition=—Wittstein (1840) found in koso, together with the substances common to most vegetables (wax, sugar, and gum), 24 per cent. of tannin, and 6·25 of an acrid bitter resin, which was observed by Harms (1857) to possess acid properties.

The researches of Pavesi (1858), and still more those of Bedall[980] have made us acquainted with the active principle of the drug, which has been named Koussin or Kosin. It may be obtained by mixing the flowers with lime, exhausting them with alcohol and then with water; the solutions mixed, concentrated, and treated with acetic acid, deposit the kosin. We are indebted to Dr. Bedall for a specimen of it, which we find to consist chiefly of an amorphous, resinoid substance, from which we got a few yellow crystals by means of glacial acetic acid.

Mr. Merck favoured us with kosin prepared in his laboratory at Darmstadt. It is a tasteless substance of a yellow colour, forming fine crystals of the rhombic system,—readily soluble in benzol, bisulphide of carbon, chloroform or ether, less freely in glacial acetic acid, and insoluble in water. We found a solution of kosin in 20 parts of chloroform to be destitute of rotatory power. Of alcohol, sp. gr. 0·818, 1000 parts dissolve at 12° C. only 2·3 parts of this kosin. It is abundantly soluble in alkalis, caustic or carbonated, yet has nevertheless no acid reaction, and may be precipitated from these solutions by an acid without having undergone any alteration. It is then however a white amorphous mass, which yields the original yellow crystals by re-solution in boiling alcohol, in which it dissolves readily. The analysis which we have performed of kosin assigns it the formula C₃₁H₃₈O₁₀.

Kosin fuses at 142° C., and remains after cooling an amorphous, transparent yellow mass; but if touched with alcohol, it immediately assumes the form of stellate tufts of crystals. This may be repeated at pleasure, kosin not being altered by cautious fusion.

Kosin is not decomposed by boiling dilute acids. It dissolves in strong sulphuric acid, giving a yellow solution which becomes turbid by the addition of water, white amorphous kosin being thrown down. At the same time a well-marked odour exactly like that of Locust Beans, due to isobutyric acid, CH₃·CH₃·CH·COOH, is evolved. It would thus appear that in all probability kosin is a compound ether of that acid. It is very remarkable that the active principle of fern root, the filicic acid (see Rhizoma Filicis), by decomposition yields butyric acid. If the sulphuric solution of kosin is allowed to stand for a week, it gradually assumes a fine red; and then yields, on addition of much water, an amorphous red mass which after drying is not soluble in bisulphide of carbon, and may thus be purified. We have not succeeded in obtaining this red derivative of kosin in a crystalline state.[981]

In its anthelmintic action, kosin is nearly allied with filicic acid.[982]

Distillation with water separates from the flowers of koso a stearoptene-like oil having the odour of koso, and traces of valerianic and acetic acid. No such body as the Hagenic Acid of Viale and Latini (1852) could be detected by Bedall.

=Commerce=—Koso is brought to England by way of Aden or Bombay; some appears also to reach Leghorn, probably carried thither direct from Egypt.

[980] Wittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift für prakt. Pharm. viii. (1859) 481; xi. (1862) 207.

[981] Flückiger and Buri, Yearbook of Ph. 1875. 19.

[982] Buchheim, Archiv der Pharmacie, 208 (1876) 417.

=Uses=—The drug is employed solely as a vermifuge, and is effectual for the expulsion both of Tænia solium and of Bothriocephalus latus. The Abyssinian practice is to administer the flowers in substance in a very ample dose, which is sometimes attended with alarming and even fatal results.

The notion that the action of the drug is partially mechanical and due to the hairs of the plant, prevails in England, and has led to the use of an unstrained infusion of the coarsely powdered flowers. This remedy, from the quantity of branny powder (2 to 4 drachms) that has to be swallowed, is far from agreeable; and as it occasions strong purgation and sometimes vomiting, it is not often prescribed.[983]

The fruit of the koso tree, a small indehiscent achene, is stated by M. Th. von Heuglin[984] to act even more powerful than the flowers; he calls it (or the seed?) Kosála. It would appear that the fruits have been used as an anthelmintic two centuries ago in Abyssinia.[985] Dragendorff (1878) found them to be rich in fatty matters, but devoid of an alkaloid.

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PETALA ROSÆ GALLICÆ

Flores Rosæ rubræ; Red Rose Petals, Rose Leaves, True Provins Roses; F. Pétales de Roses rouges, Roses de Provins; G. Essigrosenblätter.

=Botanical Origin=—Rosa gallica L., a low-growing bush, with a creeping rhizome throwing up numerous stems. The wild form with single flowers occurs here and there in the warmer parts of Europe,[986] including Central and Southern Russia, and Greece; also in Asia Minor, Armenia, Kurdistan, and the Caucasus. But the plant passes into so many varieties, and has from a remote period been so widely cultivated, that its distribution cannot be ascertained with any exactness. As a garden plant it exists under a multitude of forms.

=History=—The use in medicine of the rose dates from a very remote period. Theophrastus[987] speaks of roses being of many kinds, including some with double flowers which were the most fragrant; and he also alludes to their use in the healing art. Succeeding writers of every age down to a recent period have discussed the virtues of the rose,[988] which however is scarcely now admitted to possess any special medicinal property.

[983] Johnston in his Travels in Southern Abyssinia (1844), speaking of koso, says its effects are “dreadfully severe.”—Even in Abyssinia, he adds, it is barely tolerated, and if any other remedy equally efficient for dislodging tapeworm were to be introduced, koso would be soon abandoned.

[984] Reise nach Abessinien, etc. Jena, 1868. 322.

[985] Jobi Ludolfi Historia æthiopica, Francofurti, 1681. lib. i. cap. ix.

[986] It has been found in quasi-wild state at Charlwood in Surrey.—Seemann’s Journ. of Bot. ix. (1871) 273.

[987] Hist. Plant. lib. vi. c. 6.

[988] Consult in particular the learned essay of D’Orbessan contained in his Mélanges historiques, ii. (1768) 297-337.

One of the varieties of R. gallica is the Provins Rose, so called from having been long cultivated at Provins, a small town about 60 miles south-east of Paris, where it is said to have been introduced from the East by Thibaut VI., Count of Champagne, on his return from the Crusades, A.D. 1241. But it appears that he went then to Navarre and in later times never resided in the Champagne. Be this as it may, Provins became much celebrated not only for its dried rose petals, but also for the conserve, syrup and honey of roses made from them,—compositions which were regarded in the light of valuable medicines.[989]

It is recorded that when, in A.D. 1310, Philippe de Marigny, archbishop of Sens, made a solemn entry into Provins, he was presented by the notables of the town with wine, spices, and Conserve of Roses; and presents of dried roses and of the conserve were not considered beneath the notice of Catherine de Medicis, and of Henry IV.[990]

We find that Charles Estienne, in 1536, mentions both the Rosæ purpureæ odoratissimæ, which he says are called Provinciales, and those known to the druggists as incarnatæ,—the latter we presume a pale rose.[991] Rosæ rubeæ are named as an ingredient of various compound medicines by Valerius Cordus.[992]

=Production=—The flowers are gathered while in bud and just before expansion, and the petals are cut off near the base, leaving the paler claws attached to the calyx. They are then carefully and rapidly dried by the heat of a stove, and having been gently sifted to remove loose stamens, are ready for sale. In some districts the petals are dried entire, but the drug thus produced is not so nice.

In England, the Red Rose is cultivated at Mitcham, though now only to the extent of about 10 acres. It is also grown for druggists’ use in Oxfordshire and Derbyshire. At Mitcham, it is now called Damask Rose, which is by no means a correct name. The English dried roses command a high price.

There is a much more extensive cultivation of this rose on the continent at Wassenaar and Noordwijk in Holland; in the vicinity of Hamburg and Nuremberg in Germany, and in the villages round Paris and Lyons. Roses are still, we believe, grown for medicinal use at Provins, but are no longer held in great esteem.

There appears to be a considerable production of dried roses in Persia, judging from the fact that in the year 1871-72, 1163 cwt. were exported from the Persian Gulf to Bombay.[993]

=Description=—The petals adhere together loosely in the form of little cones, or are more or less crumpled and separate. When well preserved, they are crisp and dry, with a velvety surface of an intense purplish crimson, a delicious rosy odour, and a mildly astringent taste. The white basal portion of the petals should be nearly absent. For making the confection, the petals are required in a fresh state.

=Chemical Composition=—Red rose petals impart to ether, without losing their colour, a soft yellow substance, which is a mixture of a solid fat and Quercitrin. Filhol has shown (1864) that it is the latter body, and not tannic acid, of which the petals contain but a trace, that produces the dark greenish precipitate with ferric salts. The same chemist found in the petals 20 per cent. (?) of glucose which, together with colouring matter and gallic acid, is extracted by alcohol after exhaustion by ether. According to Rochleder (1867), the gallic acid in red roses is accompanied by querci-tannic acid.

[989] Pomet, Hist. des Drogues, 1694, part i. 174-177, speaks of the roses of Provins being “hautes en couleur, c’est à dire d’un rouge noir, velouté ... très astringentes.”

[990] Assier, Légendes, curiosités et traditions de la Champagne et de la Brie, Paris. 1860. 191.

[991] Stephanus (Carolus), De re hortens libellus, Paris, 1536. 29 (in Brit. Mus.).

[992] Dispensatorium, 1548. 39. 52.

[993] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 43.

The colouring matter which is so striking a constituent of the petals, is according to Senier an acid, which appears to form crystallizable salts with potassium and sodium.[994] An infusion of the petals is pale red, but becomes immediately of a deep and brilliant crimson if we add to it an acid, such as sulphuric, hydrochloric, acetic, oxalic, or tartaric. An alkali changes the pale red, or the deep crimson in the case of the acidulated infusion, to bright green.

=Uses=—An infusion of red rose petals, acidulated with sulphuric acid and slightly sweetened, is a very common and agreeable vehicle for some other medicines. The confection made by beating up the petals with sugar, is also in use.

PETALA ROSÆ CENTIFOLIÆ.

Flores Rosæ pallidæ v. incarnatæ; Provence Rose, Cabbage Rose; F. Pétales de Roses pâles; G. Centifolienrosen.

=Botanical Origin=—Rosa centifolia L.—This rose grows in a wild state and with single flowers in the eastern part of the Caucasus.[995] Cultivated and with flowers more or less double, it is found under an infinity of varieties in all the temperate regions of the globe. The particular variety which is grown in England for medicinal use, is known in English gardens as the Cabbage Rose, but other varieties are cultivated for similar purposes on the Continent.

R. centifolia L. is very closely allied to R. gallica L.; though Boissier maintains the two species, there are other botanists who regard them as but one. The rose cultivated at Puteaux near Paris for druggists’ use, and hence called Rose de Puteaux, is the Rosa bifera of Redouté, placed by De Candolle though doubtfully under R. damascena.

=History=—We are unable to trace the history of the particular variety of rose under notice. That it is not of recent origin, seems evident from its occurrence chiefly in old gardens. The Rosa pallida of the older English writers on drugs[996] was called Damask Rose, but that name is now applied at Mitcham to Rosa gallica L., which has very deep-coloured flowers.

=Production=—The Cabbage Rose is cultivated in England to a very small extent, rose water, which is made from its flowers, being procurable of better quality and at a lower cost in other countries, especially in the south of France. At Mitcham, whence the London druggists have long been supplied, there are now (1873) only about 8 acres planted with this rose, but a supply is also derived from the market gardens of Putney, Hammersmith and Fulham.

[994] Yearbook of Pharm. 1877. 63; also Filhol in Journ. de Pharm. xxxviii. (1860) 21; Gmelin, Chemistry, xvi. (1864) 522.

[995] Boissier, Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 676.

[996] As Dale, Pharmacologia, 1693. 416.

=Description=—The Cabbage Rose is supplied to the druggists in the fresh state, full blown, and picked off close below the calyx. A complete description is scarcely required: we need only say that it is a large and very double rose, of a beautiful pink colour and of delicious odour. The calyx is covered with short setæ tipped with a fragrant, brown, viscid secretion. The petals are thin and delicate (not thick and leathery as in the Tea Roses), and turn brown on drying.

In making rose water, it is the custom in some laboratories to strip the petals from the calyx and to reject the latter; in others, the roses are distilled entire, and so far as we have observed, with equally good result.

=Chemical Composition=—In a chemical point of view, the petals of R. centifolia agree with those of R. gallica, even as to the colouring matter. Enz in 1867 obtained from the former, malic and tartaric acid, tannin, fat, resin, and sugar.

In the distillation of large quantities of the flowers, a little essential oil is obtained. It is a butyraceous substance, of weak rose-like, but not very agreeable odour. It contains a large proportion of inodorous stearoptene. For further particulars see remarks under the head Attar of Rose.

=Uses=—Cabbage roses are now scarcely employed in pharmacy for any other purpose than making rose water. A syrup used to be prepared from them, which was esteemed a mild laxative.

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OLEUM ROSÆ

Attar or Otto[997] of Rose, Rose Oil; F. Essence de Roses; G. Rosenöl.

=Botanical Origin=—Rosa damascena Miller, var.—This is the rose cultivated in Turkey for the production of attar of rose; it is a tall shrub with semi-double, light-red (rarely white) flowers, of moderate size, produced several on a branch, though not in clusters. Living specimens sent by Baur[998] which flowered at Tübingen, were examined by H. von Mohl and named as above.[999]

R. damascena is unknown in a wild state. Koch[1000] asserts that it was brought in remote times to Southern Italy, whence it spread northward. In the opinion of Baker[1001] Rosa damascena is to be referred to Rosa gallica (see p. 259 above); it must be granted that the Rose mentioned in footnote 2, as grown with one of us, approaches very much to Rosa gallica.

=History=—Much as roses were prized by the ancients, no preparation such as rose water or attar of rose was obtained from them. The liquid that bore the name of Rose Oil (ῤόδινον ἔλαιον) is stated by Dioscorides[1002] to be a fatty oil in which roses have been steeped. In Europe a similar preparation was in use down to the last century, Oleum rosarum, rosatum or rosaceum, signifying an infusion of roses in olive oil in the London Pharmacopœia of 1721.

[997] Attar or Otto is from the word itr signifying perfume or odour; the oil is called in Turkish Itr-yàghi i.e. Perfume-oil, and also Ghyùl-yàghi i.e. Rose oil.

[998] A living plant followed by excellent herbarium specimens has been kindly given to me by Dr. Baur of Blaubeuren, the father of Dr. Baur of Constantinople—D. H.

[999] Wiggers u. Husemann, Jahresbericht for 1867. 350.

[1000] Dendrologie, i. (1869) 250.

[1001] Journ. of Botany, Jan. 1875. 8.

[1002] Lib. i. c. 53.

The first allusion to the distillation of roses we have met with, is in the writings of Joannes Actuarius,[1003] who was physician to the Greek emperors at Constantinople towards the close of the 13th century. Rose water was distilled at an early date in Persia; and Nisibin, a town north-west of Mosul, was famous for it in the 14th century.[1004]

Kämpfer speaks[1005] with admiration of the roses he saw at Shiraz (1683-4), and says that the water distilled from them is exported to other parts of Persia, as well as to all India; and he adds as a singular fact, that there separates from it a certain fat-like butter, called Ættr gyl, of the most exquisite odour, and more valuable even than gold. The commerce to India, though much declining, still exists; and in the year 1872-73, 20,100 gallons of rose water, valued at 35,178 rupees (£3,517), were imported into Bombay from the Persian Gulf.[1006] Rose oil itself is no longer exported from Persia, as it still used to be from Shiraz in the time of Niebuhr (1778).

Rose water was much used in Europe during the middle ages, both in cookery and at the table. In some parts of France, vassals were compelled to furnish to their lords so many bushels of roses, which were consumed in the distillation of rose water.[1007]

The fact that a butyraceous oil of delicious fragrance is separable from rose water, was noticed by Geronimo Rossi[1008] of Ravenna in 1582 (or in 1574?) and by Giovanni Battista Porta[1009] of Naples in 1589; the latter in his work on distillation says—“Omnium difficillime extractionis est rosarum oleum atque in minima quantitate sed suavissimi odoris.”[1010] The oil was also known to the apothecaries of Germany in the beginning of the 17th century, and is quoted in official drug-tariffs of that time.[1011] Angelus Sala, about 1620, in describing the distillation of the oil speaks of it as being of “ ... candicante pinguedine instar Spermatis Ceti.” In Pomet’s time (1694) it was sold in Paris, though, on account of its high price, only in very small quantity. The mention of it by Homberg[1012] in 1700, and in a memoir by Aublet[1013] (1775) respecting the distillation of roses in the Isle of France, shows that the French perfumers of the last century were not unacquainted with true rose oil, but that it was a rare and very costly article.

The history of the discovery of the essence in India, is the subject of an interesting and learned pamphlet by Langlès,[1014] published in 1804. He tells us on the authority of oriental writers, how on the occasion of the marriage of the Mogul emperor Jehan Ghir with Nur-jehan, A.D. 1612, a canal in the garden of the palace was filled with rose water, and that the princess observing a certain scum on the surface, caused it to be collected and found it of admirable fragrance, on which account it received the name of Atar-jehanghiri, i.e. perfume of Jehan Ghir. In later times, Polier[1015] has shown that rose oil is prepared in India by simple distillation of the flowers with water. But this Indian oil has never been imported into Europe as an article of trade.

[1003] “ ... stillatitii rosarum liquoris libra una.” De Methodo Medendi, lib. v. c. 4.

[1004] Voyage d’Ibn Batoutah, trad. par Defrémery, ii. (1854) 140.

[1005] Amœnitates, 1712. 373.

[1006] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay for 1872-73, part ii. 52.

[1007] Le Grand d’Aussy, Hist. de la vie privée des François, ii. (1815) 250.

[1008] Hieronymi Rubei Rav. De Destillatione, Ravennæ, 1582. 102.

[1009] Magiæ Naturalis libri xx, Neap. 1589. 188.

[1010] De Distillatione, Romæ (1608) 75.

[1011] Flückiger, Documente zur Geschichte der Pharm. Halle, 1876. 37. 38. 40.

[1012] Observations sur les huiles des plantes—Mém. de l’Acad. des Sciences, 1700. 206.

[1013] Hist. des Plantes de la Guiane françoise, ii. Mémoires, p. 125.

[1014] Recherches sur la découverie de l’Essence de Rose, Paris, 1804.

[1015] Asiatick Researches, i. (1788) 332.

As already stated, the supplies at present come from European Turkey; but at what period the cultivation of the rose and manufacture of its oil were then introduced, is a question on which we are quite in the dark. There is no mention of attar in the account given by Savary[1016] in 1750 of the trade of Constantinople and Smyrna, but in the first years of the present century some rose oil was obtained in the Island of Chios as well as in Persia.[1017]

In English commerce, attar of rose was scarcely known until the commencement of the present century. It was first included in the British tariff in 1809, when the duty levied on it was 10_s._ per ounce. In 1813 the duty was raised to 11_s._ 10½_d._; in 1819 it was 6_s._, and in 1828, 2_s._ per ounce. In 1832 it was lowered to 1_s._ 4_d._ per lb., in 1842 to 1_s._ and in 1860 it was altogether removed.[1018]

On searching a file of the London Price Current, the first mention of “Otto of Rose” is in 1813, from which year it is regularly quoted. The price (in bond) from 1813 to 1815, varied from £3 to £5 5_s._ per ounce. The earliest notice of an importation is under date 1-8 July, 1813, when duty was paid on 232 ounces, shipped from Smyrna.

=Production=—The chief locality for attar of rose, and that by which European commerce is almost exclusively supplied, is a small tract of country on the southern side of the Balkan mountains, the “Tekne” of Kazanlik or Kisanlik, an undulated plain famous for its beauty, as picturesquely sketched by Kanitz[1019] and many other travellers. The principal seat of the trade is the town of Kizanlik, in the valley of the Tunja. The other important districts are those of Philippopli, Eski Zaghra, Yeni Zaghra, Tchirpan, Giopca, Karadsuh-Dagh, Kojun-Tepe, Pazandsik. North of the Balkans, there is only Travina to be mentioned as likewise producing attar. All these places with Kizanlik were estimated in 1859 to include 140 villages, having 2,500 stills.

The rose is cultivated by peasants in gardens and open fields, in which it is planted in rows as hedges, 3 to 4 feet high. The best localities are those occupying southern or south-eastern slopes. Plantations in high mountainous situations generally yield less, and the oil is of a quality that easily congeals. The flowers attain perfection in April and May, and are gathered before sunrise; those not wanted for immediate use are spread out in cellars, but are always used for distilling the same day. The apparatus is a copper still of the simplest description, connected with a straight tin tube, cooled by being passed through a tub fed by a stream of water. The largest establishment, “Fabrika,” at Kizanlik has 14 such stills. The charge for a still is 25 to 50 lb. of roses, from which the calyces are not removed. The first runnings are returned to the still; the second portion, which is received in glass flasks, is kept at a temperature not lower than 15° C. for a day or two, by which time most of the oil, bright and fluid, will have risen to the surface. From this, it is skimmed off by means of a small tin funnel having a fine orifice, and provided with a long handle. There are usually several stills together.

[1016] Dict. de Commerce, iv. 548.

[1017] Oliver, Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, etc. ii. (Paris, An 9) 139, v. (1807) 367.

[1018] Information obligingly communicated by Mr. Seldon of the Statistical Office of the Custom-house.

[1019] Donau-Bulgarien, ii. (1877) 103-123.—A figure of a still is given, p. 123. A good map of the Tekne of Kizanlik and environs will be found in Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Erdkunde zu Berlin, xi. (1876) Taf. 2.

The produce is extremely variable. According to Baur,[1020] whose interesting account of attar of rose is that of an eye-witness, it may be said to average 0·04 per cent. Another authority estimates the average yield as 0·037 per cent.

The harvest during the five years 1867-71 was reckoned to average somewhat below 400,000 meticals,[1021] or 4226 lb. avoirdupois; that of 1873, which was good, was estimated at 500,000 meticals, value about £70,000.[1022]

Roses are cultivated to a considerable extent about Grasse, Cannes and Nice in the south of France; and besides much rose water, which is largely exported to England, a little oil is produced. The latter, which commands a high price, fuses less easily than the Turkish.

There is a large cultivation of the rose for the purpose of making rose water and attar, at Ghazipur on the Ganges, Lahore, Amritsar and other places in India, but the produce is wholly consumed in the country. The species thus cultivated is stated by Brandis[1023] to be R. damascena. Medinet Fayum, south-west of Cairo, supplies the great demand of Egypt for rose vinegar and rose water.

Tunis has also some celebrity for similar products, which however do not reach Europe. A recent traveller[1024] states that the rose grown there, and from which attar is obtained, is Rosa canina L., which is extremely fragrant; 30 lb. of the flowers afford about 1½ drachms, worth 15_s._ When at Genoa, in 1874, one of us (F.) had the opportunity of ascertaining that excellent oil of rose is occasionally imported there from Tunis.

The butyraceous oil which may be collected in distilling roses in England for rose water is of no value as a perfume.

=Description=—Oil of rose is a light yellow liquid, of sp. gr. 0·87 to 0·89. By a reduction of temperature, it concretes owing to the separation of light, brilliant, platy crystals of a stearoptene, the proportion of which differs with the country in which the roses have been grown, the state of the weather during which the flowers were gathered, and other circumstances less well ascertained. The oil produced in the Balkans solidifies, according to Baur, at from 11 to 16° C. In some experiments made by one of us[1025] in 1859, the fusing point of true Turkish attar was found to vary from 16 to 18°; that of a sample from India was 20° C.; of oil distilled in the south of France, 21 to 23°, of an oil produced in Paris, 29°; of oil obtained in distilling roses for rose water in London, 30 to 32° C.

[1020] Pharm. Journ. ix. (1868) 286.

[1021] Consular Reports presented to Parliament, May, 1872.—The metical, miskal or midkal is equal to about 3 dwt. troy=4794 grammes.

[1022] Consular Reports presented to Parliament, Aug. 1873. 1090.

[1023] Forest Flora of North-western and Central India, 1874. 200.—D. Forbes Watson, Catal. of the Indian Department, Vienna exhibition, 1873. 98.

[1024] Von Maltzan, Reise in den Regentschaften Tunis und Tripolis, Leipzig, 1870.

[1025] Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. xviii. (1859). 504-509. Science Papers, 172.

From these data, it appears that a cool northern climate is not conducive to the production of a highly odorous oil; and even in Bulgaria experience shows that the oil of the mountain districts holds a larger proportion of stearoptene than that of the lowlands.

Turkish oil of rose is stated by Baur to deviate a ray of polarized light 4° to the right, when examined in a column of 100 mm. The oil from English roses which we examined exhibited no rotation.

=Chemical Composition=—Rose oil is a mixture of a liquid constituent containing oxygen, to which it owes its perfume, and the solid hydrocarbon or stearoptene already mentioned, which is entirely destitute of odour. The proportion which these bodies bear to each other is extremely variable. From the Turkish oil, it may be obtained to the extent of 18 per cent., and from French and English to 35, 42, 60 or even 68 per cent.

Though the stearoptene can be entirely freed from the oxygenated oil, no method is known for the complete isolation of the latter. As obtained by Gladstone[1026], it had a sp. gr. of 0·881 and a boiling point of 216° C.

With regard to the stearoptene of rose oil, the analyses of Théodore de Saussure (1820) and Blanchet (1833) long since showed its composition to accord with the formula CₙH₂ₙ. The experiments of one of us[1027] confirm this striking fact, which assigns to the stearoptene in question a very exceptional place among the hydrocarbons of volatile oils, all of which are less rich in hydrogen.

Rose stearoptene separates when attar of roses is mixed with alcohol. We have isolated it also from oil obtained from Mitcham roses, by diluting the oil with a little chloroform and precipitating with glacial acetic acid or spirit of wine, the process being several times repeated. The stearoptene was lastly maintained for some days at 100° C.; thus obtained, it is inodorous, but when heated evolves an offensive smell like that of heated wax or fat. At 32·5° it melts; at 150° vapour is evolved; at 272° C. it begins to boil, soon after which it turns brown and then blackish. Stains of the stearoptene on paper do not disappear by the heat of the water-bath and the relapse of some days.

If cautiously melted by the warmth of the sun, the stearoptene forms on cooling microscopic crystals of very peculiar shape. Most of them have the form of truncated hexahedral pyramids, not however belonging to the rhombohedric system, as the angles are evidently not equal; many of them are oddly curved, thus §. Examined under the polarizing microscope, these crystals from their refractive power make a brilliant object.

Rose stearoptene is a very stable body, yet by boiling it for some days with fuming nitric acid, it is slowly dissolved, and converted into various acids of the homologous series of fatty acids, and into oxalic acid. Among the former, we detected butyric and valerianic. The chief product is however succinic acid, which we obtained in pure crystals, showing all the well-known reactions.

[1026] Journ. of Chem. Soc. x. (1872) 12.

[1027] Flückiger, Pharm. Journ. x. (1869) 147.

The same products are obtained even much easier by treating paraffin with nitric acid; it yields however less of succinic acid. The general behaviour and appearance of paraffin is in fact nearly the same as that of rose stearoptene. But what is called paraffin, is a series of extremely similar hydrocarbons, answering to the general formula CₙH₍₂ₙ₊₂₎ (n being equal to more than 16), the separation of which has not yet been thoroughly effected. The fusion point of the different kinds of paraffin generally ranges from 42 to 60° C., yet one sort from the bituminous shale of Autun, prepared and examined by Laurent,[1028] melts at 33° C., and in this respect agrees with our stearoptene. It is therefore possible that the latter actually belongs to the paraffin series.

We have not ascertained the correctness of Baur’s strange experiments (1872, Jahresbericht der Pharm. p. 460), by which he believes to have converted the liquid part of rose oil into the stearoptene by means of a current of hydrogen.

=Commerce=—Formerly attar of rose came into commerce by way of Austria; it is now shipped from Constantinople. From the interior, it is transported in flattened round tin bottles called kunkumas, holding from 1 to 10 lb., which are sewed up in white woollen cloth. These sometimes reach this country, but more commonly the attar is transferred at Constantinople to small white glass bottles, ornamented with gilding, imported from Germany.

=Uses=—Attar of rose is of no medicinal importance, but serves occasionally as a scent for ointments. Rose water is sometimes made with it, but is not so good as that distilled from the flowers. Attar is much used in perfumery, but still more in the scenting of snuff.

=Adulteration=—No drug is more subject than attar of rose to adulteration, which is principally effected by the addition of the volatile oil of an Indian grass, Andropogon Schœnanthus L. This oil, which is called in Turkish Idris yàghi, and also Entershah, and is more or less known to Europeans as Geranium Oil, is imported into Turkey for this express purpose, and even submitted to a sort of purification before being used.[1029] It was formerly added to the attar only in Constantinople, but now the mixing takes place at the seat of the manufacture. It is said that in many places the roses are absolutely sprinkled with it before being placed in the still. As grass oil does not solidify by cold, its admixture with rose oil renders the latter less disposed to crystallize. Hence arises a preference among the dealers in Turkey for attar of the mountain districts, which, having a good proportion of stearoptene, will bear the larger dilution with grass oil without its tendency to crystallize becoming suspiciously small. Thus, in the circular of a commercial house in Constantinople, dated from Kizanlik, occur the phrases—“Extra strong oil,”—“Good strong congealing oil,”—“Strong good freezing oil;”—while the 3rd quality of attar is spoken of as a “not congealing oil.” The same circular states the belief of the writers, that in the season in which they wrote, “not a single metical of unadulterated oil” would be sent away.

The chief criteria, according to Baur, for the purity of rose oil are:—1. Temperature at which crystallization takes place: a good oil should congeal well in five minutes at a temperature of 12·5° C. 2. Manner of crystallizing.—The crystals should be light, feathery, shining plates, filling the whole liquid. Spermaceti, which has been sometimes used to replace the stearoptene, is liable to settle down in a solid cake, and is easily recognizable. Furthermore, it melts at 50° C. and so do most varieties of paraffin. The microscopic crystals of the latter are somewhat similar to those of rose stearoptene, yet they may be distinguished by an attentive comparative examination.

[1028] Ann. de Chim. et de Phys. liv. (1833) 394.

[1029] For particulars, see Baur (p. 262, note 3).

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FRUCTUS ROSÆ CANINÆ

Cynosbata; Fruit of the Dog-rose, Hips; F. Fruits de Cynorrhodon; G. Hagebutten.

=Botanical Origin=—Rosa canina L., a bush often 10 to 12 feet high, found in hedges and thickets throughout Europe except Lapland and Finland, and reaching the Canary Islands, Northern Africa, Persia and Siberia; universally dispersed throughout the British Islands.[1030]

=History=—The fruits of the wild rose, including other species besides R. canina L., have a scanty, orange, acid, edible pulp, on account of which they were collected in ancient times when garden fruits were few and scarce. Galen[1031] mentions them as gathered by country people in his day, as they still are in Europe. Gerarde in the 16th century remarks that the fruit when ripe—“maketh most pleasant meats and banqueting dishes, as tarts and such like.“ Though the pulp of hips preserved with sugar which is here alluded to, is no longer brought to table, at least in this country,[1032] it retains a place in pharmacy as a useful ingredient of pill-masses and electuaries.

=Description=—The fruit of a rose consists of the bottle-shaped calyx, become dilated and succulent by growth, and sometimes crowned with 5 leafy segments, enclosing numerous dry carpels or achenes, containing each one exalbuminous seed. The fruit of R. canina called a hip, is ovoid, about ¾ of an inch long, with a smooth, red, shining surface. It is of a dense, fleshy texture, becoming on maturity, especially after frost, soft and pulpy, the pulp within the shining skin being of an orange colour, and of an agreeable sweetish subacid taste. The large interior cavity contains numerous hard achenes, which, as well as the walls of the former, are covered with strong short hairs.

For medicinal use, the only part required is the soft orange pulp, which is separated by rubbing it through a hair sieve.

=Microscopic Structure=—The epidermis of the fruit is made up of tabular cells containing red granules, which are much more abundant in the pulp. The latter, as usual in many ripe fruits, consists of isolated cells no longer forming a coherent tissue. Besides these cells, there occur small fibro-vascular bundles. Some of the cells enclose tufted crystals of oxalate of calcium; most of them however are loaded with red granules, either globular or somewhat elongated. They assume a bluish hue on addition of perchloride of iron, and are turned blackish by iodine. The later colouration reminds one of that assumed by starch granules under similar circumstances; yet on addition of a very dilute solution of iodine, the granules always exhibit a blackish, not a blue tint, so that they are not to be considered as starch granules. The hairs of the pulp are formed of a single, thick-walled cell, straight or sometimes a little crooked.

[1030] Baker, Journ. of Linn. Soc. Bot. xi. (1869) 226.

[1031] De Alimentorum facultatibus, ii. c. 14. In the Amur country a much larger and better fruit is afforded by R. acicularis Lindl. and R. cinnamomea L.—Maximowicz, Primitiæ Floræ Amurensis, 1859. 100. 453.

[1032] In Switzerland and Alsace a very agreeable confiture of hips is still in use.

=Chemical Composition=—The pulp examined by Biltz (1824) was found to afford nearly 3 per cent. of citric acid, 7·7 of malic acid, besides citrates, malates and mineral salts, 25 per cent. of gum, and 30 of uncrystallizable sugar.

=Uses=—Hips are employed solely on account of their pulp, which mixed with twice its weight of sugar, constitutes the Confectio Rosæ caninæ of pharmacy.

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SEMEN CYDONIÆ

Quince Seeds, Quince Pips; F. Semences ou Pepins de Coings; G. Quittensamen.

=Botanical Origin=—Pirus Cydonia L. (Cydonia vulgaris Pers.), the quince tree, is supposed to be a true native of Western Asia, from the Caucasian provinces of Russia to the Hindu Kush range in Northern India. But it is now apparently wild also in many of the countries which surround the Mediterranean basin.

In a cultivated state, it flourishes throughout temperate Europe, but is far more productive in southern than in northern regions. Quinces ripen in the south of England, but not in Scotland, nor in St. Petersburg, or in Christiana.

=History=—The quince was held in high esteem by the ancients, who considered it an emblem of happiness and fertility; and, as such, it was dedicated to Venus, whose temples it was used to decorate. Some antiquarians maintain that quinces were the Golden Apples of the Hesperides. The name Cydonia alludes to the town of Kydon, now Canea, in Creta; in the Talmud quinces are called Cretan apples.

Porcius Cato in his graphic description of the management of a Roman farmhouse, alludes to the storing of quinces both cultivated and wild; and there is much other evidence to prove that from an early period the quince was abundantly grown throughout Italy. Charlemagne, A.D. 812, enjoined its cultivation in central Europe.[1033] At what period it was introduced into Britain is not evident, but we have observed that Baked Quinces are mentioned among the viands served at the famous installation feast of Nevill, archbishop of York in 1466.[1034]

The use of mucilage of quince seeds has come to us through the Arabians; it is still met with in Turkestan.

=Description=—The quince is a handsome fruit of a golden yellow, in shape and size resembling a pear. It has a very agreeable and powerful smell, but an austere, astringent taste, so that it is not eatable in the raw state. In structure, it differs from an apple or a pear in having many seeds in each cell, instead of only two.

[1033] Pertz, Monumenta Germaniæ historica, Legum, i. (1835) 187.

[1034] Leland, De rebus Britannicis Collectanea, vi. (1774) 5.

The fruit is, like an apple, 5-celled, with each cell containing a double row of closely-packed seeds, 8 to 14 in number, cohering by a soft mucilaginous membrane with which each is surrounded. By drying, they become hard, but remain agglutinated as in the cell. The seeds have an ovoid or obconic form, rather flattened and 3-sided by mutual pressure. From the hilum at the lower pointed end, the raphe passes as a straight ridge to the opposite extremity, which is slightly beaked and marked with a scar indicating the chalaza. The edge opposite the raphe is more or less arched according to the position of the individual seed in the cell. The testa encloses two thick, veined cotyledons, having a straight radicle directed towards the hilum.

Quince seeds have a mahogany-brown colour, and when unbroken a simply mucilaginous taste. But the kernels have the odour and taste of bitter almonds, and evolve hydrocyanic acid when comminuted and mixed with water.

=Microscopic Structure=—The epidermis of the seed consists of one row of cylindrical cells, the walls of which swell up in the presence of water and are dissolved, so as to yield an abundance of mucilage. This process can easily be observed, if thin sections of the seed are examined under glycerine, which acts on them but slowly.

=Chemical Composition=—The mucilage of the epidermis is present in such quantity, that the seed easily coagulates forty times its weight of water. By complete exhaustion, the seeds afford about 20 per cent. of dry mucilage, containing considerable quantities of calcium salts and albuminous matter, of which it is not easily deprived. When treated with nitric acid, it yields oxalic acid. After a short treatment with strong sulphuric acid it is coloured blue by iodine. Tollens and Kirchner (1874) assign to it the formula C₁₈H₂₈O₁₄, regarding it as a compound of gum, C₁₂H₂₀O₁₀, and cellulose, C₆H₁₀O₅, less one molecule of water.

Quince mucilage has but little adhesive power, and is not thickened by borax. That portion of it which is really in a state of solution and which may be separated by filtration, is precipitable by metallic salts or by alcohol. The latter precipitate after it has been dried is no longer dissolved by water either cold or warm. Quince mucilage is, on the whole, to be regarded as a soluble modification of cellulose.

The seeds on distillation with water afford a little hydrocyanic acid, and, probably, bitter almond oil.

=Commerce=—Quince seeds reach England from Hamburg; and are frequently quoted in Hamburg price-currents as Russian; they are also brought from the south of France and from the Cape of Good Hope. They are largely imported into India from the Persian Gulf, and by land from Afghanistan.

=Uses=—A decoction of quince seeds is occasionally used as a demulcent external application in skin complaints. It is also sometimes added to eye-lotions. Quince seeds are in general use among the natives of India as a demulcent tonic and restorative. They have been found useful by Europeans in dysentery.

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HAMAMELIDEÆ

STYRAX LIQUIDUS.[1035]

Balsamum Styracis; Liquid Storax; F. Styrax liquide; G. Flüssiger Storax.

=Botanical Origin=—Liquidambar orientalis Miller (L. imberbe Aiton), a handsome, umbrageous tree resembling a plane, growing to the height of 30 to 40 feet or more,[1036] and forming forests in the extreme south-western part of Asia Minor. In this region the tree occurs in the district of Sighala near Melasso, about Budrum (the ancient Halicarnassus) and Moughla, also near Giova and Ullà in the Gulf of Giova, and lastly near Marmorizza and Isgengak opposite Rhodes. It also grows in the valley of the El-Asi (the ancient Orontes), as proved by a specimen in the Vienna herbarium, collected by Gödel, Austrian Consul at Alexandretta. In this locality it was seen by Kotschy in 1835, but mistaken for a plane. The same traveller informed one of us that he believed it to occur at Narkislik, a village near Alexandretta.

The tree is not known to grow in Cyprus, Candia, Rhodes, Kos, or indeed in any of the islands of the Mediterranean.[1037]

=History=—Two substances of different origin have been known from a remote period under the name of Styrax or Storax, namely the resin of Styrax officinalis L. (see further on), and that of Liquidambar orientalis Miller, the latter commonly distinguished as Liquid Storax.

According to Krinos of Athens, who has carefully investigated the history of the drug,[1038] the earliest allusions to Liquid Storax occur in the writings of Aëtius and of Paulus Ægineta,[1039] who name both Storax and Liquid Storax (πύρα ζυγρὸς). Of these Greek physicians, who lived respectively in the 6th and 7th centuries, the second also mentions the resin of Ζυγία, which is regarded by Krinos as synonymous with the latter substance.[1040]

[1035] The feminine gender of Styrax has been in use for a long time. In Greek it denotes the tree, as also does sometimes the masculine gender, the neutral being reserved to the resin. In Latin the resin is masculini generis (Dr. Rice).

[1036] For a good figure of L. orientalis, see Hooker’s Icones Plantarum (3rd series, 1867) pl. 1019, or Hanbury, Science Papers, 1876. 140; also Bentley and Trimen, Medicinal Plants, part 27 (1877).

[1037] The fine old trees existing at the convent of Antiphoniti on the north coast of Cyprus, and at that of Neophiti near Papho, specimens of which were distributed by Kotschy as Liquidambar imberbis Ait., agree in all points with the American L. stryaciflua L., and not with the Asiatic plant. Kotschy has told me that they have certainly been planted, and that no other examples exist in the island.—D. H. The same opinion is adopted by Boissier, Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 8319.

[1038] Περί Στύακοτ δίατριβὴ ϕαρμακογραϕικὴ ἐν Ἀθῆναιπ, 1862.—This pamphlet is also the subject of a paper of Prof. Planchon, Journ. de Pharm. 24 (1876) 172. 243.

[1039] Medicæ Artis Principes post Hippocratem et Galenum, Par. 1567.—Aëtii tetr. 4. serm. 4. c. 122; P. Ægineta, De re med. vii. 20.

[1040] The foliage of the Liquidambar much resembles that of the common maple (Acer campestre L.); hence the two trees as well as the plane (Platanus orientalis L.) are confounded under one name,—Ζυγὸς or Ζυγίᾳ. So Styrax officinalis L., from the resemblance of its leaves to those of Pirus Cydonia L., is known in Greece as Ζυγὸς κυδωνήα kydônêa, i.e. wild quince.

We find in fact the term Sigia frequently mentioned by Rhazes (10th century) as signifying Liquid Storax. This and other Arabian physicians were also familiar with the same substance under the name of Miha (may’a), and also knew how and whence it was obtained.[1041]

A curious account of the collecting of Liquid Storax from the tree Zygia, and from another tree called Stourika, is given in the travels through Asia Minor to Palestine of the Russian abbot of Tver in A.D. 1113-1115.[1042]

The wide exportation and ancient use of Liquid Storax are very remarkable: even in the first century, as appears by the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, Storax, by which term there can be but little doubt Liquid Storax was intended, was exported by the Red Sea to India. Whether the Storax and Storax Isaurica offered to the Church of Rome under St. Silvester, A.D. 314-335, by the emperor Constantine,[1043] was Liquid Storax or the more precious resin of Styrax officinalis L., is a point we cannot determine. That the Chinese used the drug was a fact known to Garcia de Orta (1535-63): Bretschneider[1044] has shown from Chinese sources that, together with olibanum and myrrh, it was imported by the Arabs into China during the Ming dynasty, A.D. 1368-1628. This trade is still carried on: the drug is conveyed by way of the Red Sea to Bombay, and thence shipped to China. Official returns show that the quantity thus exported from Bombay in the year 1856-57 was 13,328 lb. In the time of Kämpfer (1690-92), Liquid Storax was one of the most profitable articles of shipment to Japan.[1045]

Liquid Storax is known in the East, at least in the price-currents and trade statistics of Europeans, by the strange-sounding name of Rose Malloes (Rosa Mallas, Rosum Alloes, Rosmal), a designation for it in use in the time of Garcia de Orta. Clusius[1046] considered it to be Arabic, which, however, the scholars whom we have consulted do not allow. Others identify it with Rasamala, the Malay name for Altingia excelsa. (See further on.)

The botanical origin of Liquid Storax was long a perplexing question to pharmacologists. It was correctly determined by Krinos, but his information on the subject published in a Greek newspaper in 1841, and repeated by Kosté in 1855,[1047] attracted no attention in Western Europe. The question was also investigated by one of the authors of the present work, whose observations, together with a figure of Liquidambar orientalis Miller, were published in 1857.[1048]

[1041] Ibn Baytar, Sontheimer’s transl. ii. 539.

[1042] Noroff, Pèlerinage en Terre Sainte de l’Igoumène russe Daniel, St. Pétersb. 164.4°.—The passage has been kindly abstracted for us by Prof. Heyd of Stuttgart.

[1043] Vignolius, Liber Pontificalis, Romæ, i. (1724) 94.—The ancient Isauria was in Cilicia, the country of Styrax officinalis L.

[1044] On the knowledge possessed by the Chinese of the Arabs, etc., Lond. 1871. 19.

[1045] Hist. of Japan, ed. Scheuchzer, i. 353.

[1046] Exoticorum Libri, 245.

[1047] Ἐγχειρίδιον Φαρμακολογίας, ύπὸ Ν. Κωστῆ, 1855. 356.

[1048] Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. xvi. (1857) 417. 461, and iv. (1863) 436; Science Papers, 127-150.

=Method of Extraction=—The extraction of Liquid Storax is carried on in the forests of the south-west of Asia Minor, chiefly by a tribe of wandering Turcomans called Yuruks. The process has been described on the authority of Maltass and McCraith of Smyrna, and of Campbell, British Consul at Rhodes.[1049] The outer bark is said to be first removed from the trunk of the tree and rejected; the inner is then scraped off with a peculiar iron knife or scraper, and thrown into pits until a sufficient quantity has been collected. It is then boiled with water in a large copper, by which process the resin is separated, so that it can be skimmed off. This seems to be performed with sea water; some chloride of sodium can therefore be extracted from the drug. The boiled bark is put into hair bags and squeezed under a rude lever, hot water being added to assist in the separation of the resin, or as it is termed yagh, i.e. oil. Maltass states that the bark is pressed in the first instance per se, and afterwards treated with hot water. In either case the products obtained are the opaque, grey, semi-fluid resin known as Liquid Storax, and the fragrant cakes of foliaceous, brown bark, once common[1050] but now rare in European pharmacy, called Cortex Thymiamatis.

We are indebted to M. Felix Sahut of Montpellier for a specimen of the bark of Liquidambar orientalis, cut from the trunk of a fine tree on his property at the neighbouring village of Lattes. The bark which is covered with a very thick corky layer and soaked in its own fragrant resin, shows no tendency to exfoliate. The investigations of Unger[1051] in Cyprus are consequently to us inexplicable; he asserts that the bark scales off, like that of the plane, by continued exfoliation, which is not the case with that of M. Sahut’s tree.

[1049] Hanbury, l.c.

[1050] It is no doubt the “Cortex Olibani” met with in the tariff of 1571, in Flückiger, Documente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie, 26.

[1051] Unger u. Kotschy, Die Insel Cypern. Wien, 1865. 410.

=Description=—Liquid Storax is a soft viscid resin, usually of the consistence of honey, heavier than water, opaque and greyish brown. It always contains water, which by long standing rises to the surface. In one sample that had been kept more than 20 years, the resin at the bottom of the bottle formed a transparent layer of a pale golden brown. When liquid storax is heated, it becomes by the loss of water dark brown and transparent, the solid impurities settling to the bottom. Spread out in a very thin layer, it partially dries, but does not wholly lose its stickiness. When free from water (which reddens litmus) it dissolves in alcohol, spirit of wine, chloroform, ether, glacial acetic acid, bisulphide of carbon, and most of the essential oils, but not in the most volatile part of petroleum (“petroleum ether”). It has a pleasant balsamic smell, especially after it has been long kept; when recent, it is contaminated with an odour of bitumen or naphthalene that is far from agreeable. Its taste is sharply pungent, burning and aromatic.

When the opaque resin is subjected to microscopic examination, small brownish granules are observed in a viscid, colourless, transparent liquid, besides which large drops of a mobile watery liquid may be distinguished. In polarized light, numerous minute crystalline fragments with a few larger tabular crystals are obvious. But when thin layers of the resin are left on the object glass in a warm place, feathery or spicular crystals (styracin) shoot out on the edge of the clear liquid, while in the large, sharply-defined drops above mentioned, rectangular tables and short prisms (cinnamic acid) make their appearance. On applying more warmth after the water is evaporated, all the substances unite into a transparent, dark brown, thick liquid, which exhibits no crystalline structure on cooling, or only after a very long time. Among the fragments of the bark occurring in the crude resin, liber-fibres are frequently observable.

=Chemical Composition=—The most abundant constituent of Styrax is probably the Storesin, C₃₆H₅₅(OH)₃, discovered in 1877 by W. von Miller, or rather cinnamic ethers of it and of an isomeric substance. Storesin is an amorphous substance melting at 168° C., readily soluble in petroleum ether. Several other compound ethers have also been observed in the drug, as for instance cinnamic ether of phenylpropyl, cinnamic ether of ethyl, cinnamic ether of benzyl, and especially cinnamate of cinnamyl, C₉H₇O₂·C₉H₉, the so-called Styracin. This substance, discovered by Bonastre in 1827, can be removed by ether, benzol or alcohol, after the separation from the resin of the cinnamic acid; it is insoluble in water, and volatile only in super-heated steam. It crystallizes in tufts of long rectangular prisms, which melt at 38° C., but it frequently does not solidify in a crystalline form, or only after a long time, or remains as an oily liquid. In its pure state it is inodorous and tasteless. By concentrated solution of potash, it is resolved into a cinnamate, and cinnamic alcohol (Styrone) C₉H₁₀O, which latter is not present in Liquid Storax. The cinnamic acid may be extracted to a small extent by boiling water, more completely by means of a boiling solution of carbonate of sodium, as it is present in the drug partly in the free state. Its compound ethers may be decomposed by caustic lye. The yield of cinnamic acid accordingly varies from 6 to 12 per cent.—or even, according to Löwe, as much as 23 per cent. of crystallized cinnamic acid can be obtained. The acid dissolves abundantly in ether, alcohol, or hot water, slightly in cold water; it is inodorous, but has an acrid taste. It fuses at 133° C., and boils at 290° C.; at a dull red heat it is resolved into carbonic acid and styrol, which latter is therefore related to it in the same manner as benzol (benzene) to benzoic acid. Liquid styrax is in fact the best source of cinnamic acid.

Another constituent of styrax is a fragrant substance, perhaps ethylvanillin, occurring in but small quantity.

Laubenheimer (1872) has shown that probably Benzylic Alcohol, C₇H₈O, boiling at 206° C., likewise occurs in Liquid Storax; it has not been found by Miller. The latter chemist also showed that water removes from the drug a little benzoïc acid; he observed moreover a substance similar to caoutchouc among the constituents of liquid styrax.

There is further to be mentioned as having been met with in Liquid Storax a hydrocarbon, C₈H₈, first prepared by Simon in 1839, which exists in the resin as a liquid, and also in a polymeric form as a solid. The former called Styrol, Cinnamene, or Cinnamol, has a sp. gr. of 0·924, and a boiling point of 146° C. It is a colourless, mobile liquid which may be obtained by distilling with water liquid storax, the odour and burning taste of which it possesses. When heated for a considerable time to 100°, or for a shorter period to 200° C., it is converted without change of composition into the colourless, transparent solid Metastyrol, which, unlike styrol, is not soluble in alcohol or ether. It has a sp. gr. of 1·054, and may be cut with a knife. By prolonged heating, it can be converted into its original liquid form.

Styrol is to be regarded as phenylated ethylene; it can be artificially obtained by shaking powdered cinnamic acid with saturated hydrobromic acid, when crystalline hydrobromated cinnamic acid, C₆H₅·CH₂·CHBr·COOH, is formed. One part of the latter, 10 parts of water, and a little more carbonate of sodium than the quantity required for saturation are mixed. The bromhydrocinnamate of sodium partly splits up immediately, even at 0°, according to the following equation

C₆H₅·CH₂·CHBr·COONa = CO₂ + NaBr + C₆H₅·CH·CH₂. Bromhydrocinnamate Styrol. of sodium.

24 parts of bromhydrocinnamic acid, recrystallized from boiling bisulphide of carbon, yield about 7 parts of styrol; no other method affords as much as this.

Styrol has been discovered in Styrax, but is not regularly, and at all events to a minute amount only, found in the drug of the present day. We have no explanation for the strange fact that it was apparently more abundantly met with in former times.

Lastly there has been found in Liquid Storax, by J. H. van t’Hoff (1876), about 0·4 per cent. of an essential oil, probably C₁₀H₁₆O; Miller also pointed out a compound ether of probably the same (alcoholic) substance as occurring in styrax.

By the action of oxidizing agents, as nitric or chromic acids, or peroxide of lead, the cinnamyl compounds are easily reduced, carbonic acid and water being evolved; and at the same time benzoic acid, bitter almond oil, and hydrocyanic acid are produced. These compounds are in fact abundantly evolved when 6 parts of Liquid Storax are gently warmed with 1 p. of caustic soda, and then mixed with 3 p. of permanganate of potassium dissolved in 20 p. of water.

We have examined several samples of Liquid Storax of average quality, and found by exposure of small quantities to the heat of the steam bath, that it lost from 10 to 20 per cent. of water. The remainder treated with alcohol yielded a residue amounting to 13 to 18 per cent., consisting chiefly of fragments of bark and inorganic impurities. The percentage of the drug soluble in alcohol, to which is due its therapeutic value, thus amounts to 56 to 72. This part, as may be inferred from the foregoing statements, consists chiefly of storesin, the various compound ethers above mentioned, of cinnamic acid and of styracin, no doubt in greatly varying proportions.

=Commerce=—The annual production of Liquid Storax was estimated by Campbell in 1855 as about 490 cwt. for the districts of Giova and Ullá, and 300 cwt. for those of Marmorizza and Isgengak. The drug is exported in barrels to Constantinople, Smyrna, Syra and Alexandria. Some is also packed with a certain proportion of water in goatskins, and sent either by boats or overland to Smyrna, where it is transferred to barrels and shipped mostly to Trieste.

The chief consumption of Liquid Storax would appear to be in India and China. In the fiscal year 1866-67, Bombay imported 319 cwt. from the Red Sea. Liquid Storax is seldom seen in the London drug-sales.

=Uses=—Liquid Storax, which the British Pharmacopœia directs to be purified by solution in spirit of wine, is an ingredient in a few old-fashioned preparations but is hardly ever prescribed on its own account. It is stated to be expectorant and stimulant, and useful in chronic bronchial affections. It has been recommended by Pastau, Berlin (1865), as an external application for the cure of scabies, for which purpose it is mixed with linseed oil and now largely used.

=Adulteration=—The drug is occasionally mixed with sand, ashes, and other substances; these would be detected by solution in spirit of wine, as well as by the microscope.

Allied Substances.

Styrax Calamita (Storax en pain Guibourt)—The substance that now bears this name is by no means the Styrax Calamita of ancient times, but is an artificial compound made by mixing the residual Liquidambar bark called Cortex Thymiamatis (p. 273), coarsely powdered, with Liquid Storax in the proportions of 3 to 2. It is at first a clammy mass, acquiring after a few weeks an appearance of mouldiness, due to minute silky crystals of styracin. It is usually imported in wooden drums, and has a very sweet smell. When the bark is scarce, common sawdust is substituted for it, while qualities still inferior are made up with the help of olibanum, honey, and earthy substances. This drug is manufactured at Trieste, Venice and Marseilles.

Several other odoriferous compounds, of which Liquid Storax appears to be the chief ingredient, are made in the East and may still be found in old drug warehouses.[1052]

Resin of Styrax officinalis L.; =True Storax=—This was a solid resin somewhat resembling benzoin, of fragrant, balsamic odour, held in great estimation from the time of Dioscorides and Pliny down to the close of the last century. It was perhaps the “storace odorifero” exported in the 12th century from Pantellaria[1053] and Sicily. The drug was obtained from the stem of Styrax officinalis L. (Styraceæ), a native of Greece, Asia Minor and Syria, now found also in Italy and Southern France. This plant when permitted to grow freely for several years, forms a small tree, in which state alone it appears to be capable of affording a fragrant resin. But in most localities it has been reduced by ruthless lopping to a mere bush, the young stems of which yield not a trace of exudation. True storax has thus utterly disappeared.

Professor Krinos of Athens has informed us (1871) that about Adalia on the southern coast of Asia Minor, a sort of solid storax obtained from S. officinalis is still used as incense in the churches and mosques. The specimen of it which he has been good enough to send us, is not however resin, but sawdust; it is of a pale cinnamon-brown, and pleasant balsamic odour. By keeping, it emits an abundance of minute acicular crystals (styracin?). The substance is interesting in connection with the statement of Dioscorides, that the resin of Styrax is adulterated with the sawdust of the tree itself, and the fact that the region where this sawdust is still in use is one of the localities for the drug (Pisidia) which he mentions.

[1052] The Storax noir of Guibourt is one of these.

[1053] Quoted before, p. 163, note 3; in the same book “cotone storace e corallo“ occur as articles of export from Sicily.

Resin of Liquidambar styraciflua L.—a large and beautiful tree, native of North America from Connecticut and Illinois southward to Mexico and Guatemala. In the United States, where it is called Sweet Gum, the tree yields from natural fissures or by incision, small quantities of a balsamic resin, which is occasionally used for chewing. We have before us an excellent sample of it collected for Messrs. Wallace Brothers of Statesville, N. Carolina.[1054]

In Central America this exudation is far more freely produced; an authentic specimen from Guatemala in our possession is a pale yellow, opaque resin of honey-like consistence, becoming transparent, amber-coloured and brittle by exposure to the air. It has a rather terebinthinous, balsamic odour. In the mouth it softens like benzoin or mastich, and has but little taste. Another specimen also from Guatemala, a thick, fluid oleo-resin, of a golden brown hue, was contributed to the Paris Exhibition in 1878.

The resin of L. styraciflua L. has been ascertained by Procter[1055] to contain cinnamic, but not benzoic acid. Harrison[1056] found it to contain styracin and essential oil (styrol?).

Resin of Liquidambar formosana Hance—This tree, which we suppose may be the Styrax liquida folio minore, which Ray names[1057] as occurring in a collection of plants from Amoy, is a native of Formosa and Southern China, where it affords a dry terebinthinous resin, of agreeable fragrance when heated. Of this resin, which is used by the Chinese, a specimen collected in Formosa by Mr. Swinhoe has been presented to us by Dr. Hooker. A tree figured under the name of Fung-heang in the Pun-tsao[1058] is, we presume, this species.

Resin of Altingia excelsa Noronha (Liquidambar Altingiana Bl.) =Rasamala= of the Javanese and Malays—The Rasamala is a magnificent tree of the Indian Archipelago, Burma and Assam. In Java it yields by incisions in the trunk an odorous resin, yet only very slowly and in very small quantity; this resin is not, or at least not regularly, collected. In Burma, on the other hand, the tree affords a fragrant balsam, of which according to Waring[1059] there are two varieties, the one pellucid and of a light yellowish colour, obtained by simple incision; the other thick, dark, opaque, and of terebinthinous odour, procured by boring the stem and applying fire around the trunk.

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MYRTACEÆ

OLEUM CAJUPUTI.

Oil of Cajuput, Kayu-puti Oil; F. Essence de Cajuput; G. Cajeputöl.

=Botanical Origin=—Melaleuca Leucadendron L., a tree often attaining a considerable size, with a thick spongy bark peeling off in layers, and slender, often pendulous branches. It is widely spread, and abundant in the Indian Archipelago and Malayan peninsula, and is also found in Northern Australia, Queensland, and New South Wales.

[1054] Obligingly presented to me by our friend, Dr. Squibb, Brooklyn (1879).—F. A. F.

[1055] Proceedings of the Am. Pharm. Asso. 1865. 160.

[1056] Am. Journ. of Pharm. 1874. 161.—In the same periodical (1876, 335) 300 lbs. are stated to have been collected at Dyersburg, Tenn.

[1057] Hist. Plant. iii. (1704), appendix p. 233.

[1058] Chap. 34. sec. 5. § 1. Aromatic Trees. For a modern fig., see Hooker’s Icones Plant. 3rd series, i. tab. 1020.

[1059] Pharm. of India, 1868. 88.

The tree, according to Bentham,[1060] varies exceedingly in the size, shape, and texture of the leaves, in the young shoots being silky, and the spikes silky-villous or woolly, or the whole quite glabrous, in the short and dense, or long and interrupted spikes, in the size of the flower, and in the greenish yellow, whitish, pink, or purple stamens, so that it is difficult to believe all can be forms of a single species. Yet upon examination, none of these variations are sufficiently constant or so combined, as to allow of the definition of distinct races.

The variety growing in Bouro, where the oil of cajuput has been distilled ever since the time of Rumphius, and known as M. minor Smith, is described by Lesson, who visited the island in 1823, as a tree resembling an aged olive, with flowers in little globose white heads, and a trunk the stout bark of which is composed of numerous satiny layers.

=History=—Rumphius, who passed nearly fifty years in the Dutch possessions in the East Indies and died at Amboyna in 1702, is the first to give an account of the oil under notice, and of the tree from which it is obtained.[1061] From what he says, it appears that the aromatic properties of the tree are well known to the Malays and Javanese, who were in the habit of steeping its leaves in oil which they then impregnated with the smoke of benzoin and other aromatics, so obtaining an odorous liquid for anointing their heads. They likewise used cushions stuffed with the leaves, and also laid the latter in chests to keep away insects.

The fragrance of the foliage having thus attracted the attention of the Dutch, probably suggested submitting the leaves to distillation. Rumphius narrates how the oil was obtained in very small quantities, and was regarded as a powerful sudorific.

In Europe it appears to have been first noticed by J. M. Lochner,[1062] of Nürnberg, physician to the German Emperor. About the same time (1717), a ship’s surgeon, returning from the east, sold a provision of the oil to the distinguished apothecary Johann Heinrich Link at Leipzig, who published a notice on it and sold it.[1063] It began then to be quoted in the tariffs of other German apothecaries,[1064] although it was still reputed a very rare article in 1726.[1065] Somewhat larger quantities appear to have been soon imported by Amsterdam druggists.[1066] In Germany the oil took the name of Oleum Wittnebianum, from the recommendations bestowed on it by M. von Wittneben, of Wolfenbüttel, who was much engaged in natural sciences and long resident in Batavia.[1067] In France and England, it was however scarcely known till the commencement of the present century, though it had a place in the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia of 1788. In the London Price Current, we do not find it quoted earlier than 1813, when the price given is 3_s._ to 3_s._ 6_d._ per ounce, with a duty of 2_s._ 4½_d._ per ounce.

[1060] Flora Australiensis, iii. (1866) 142.

[1061] Herb. Amboinense, ii. (1741) cap. 26.

[1062] Acad. Nat. Curios. Ephemerid. Cent. v. vi. (Nürnberget, 1717) 157.

[1063] Sammlung von Natur und Medicin ... Geschichten, Leipzig, 1719. 257.

[1064] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1876) 1023.

[1065] Vater, Catalog. varior. exoticor. rarissimor.... Wittenbergæ, 1726.

[1066] Schendus van der Beck, De Indiæ rarioribus, Act. Nat. Cur. i., appendix (1725) 123.

[1067] Goetz, Olei Caieput historia—Commercium Litterarium, 1731. 3; Martini, De Oleo Wittnebiano dissertatio, 1751.

=Manufacture=—In the island of Bouro, in the Molucca Sea, the leaves of the Kayu-puti or Aij-puti, i.e. White-wood trees, are submitted to distillation with water, the operation being conducted in the most primitive manner, as already witnessed, about the year 1792, by Labillardière in his celebrated voyage with Lapérouse. Bickmore,[1068] an American traveller who passed three months in the island in 1865, states that it produces about 8,000 bottles of the oil annually, and that this is almost its only export. The Trade Returns of the Straight Settlements published at Singapore, show that the largest quantity is shipped from Celebes, the great island lying west of Bouro.

[1068] Travels in the East Indian Archipelago, Lond. 1868. 282.

=Description=—Oil of Cajuput is a transparent mobile fluid, of a light bluish-green hue, a fragrant camphoraceous odour, and bitterish aromatic taste. It has a sp. gr. of 0·926, and remains liquid even at (8°·6 F.)-13° C. It deviates the ray of polarized light to the left. On diluting it with bisulphide of carbon it becomes turbid.

=Chemical Composition=—The researches of Schmidl (1860) and of Gladstone (1872) have shown that cajuput oil consists chiefly of Hydrate of Cajuputene or Cajuputol, C₁₀H₁₆, H₂O, which may be obtained from the crude oil by fractional distillation at 174° C. If it is repeatedly distilled from anhydrous phosphoric acid, Cajuputene, C₁₀H₁₆, passes over at 160-165° C.; it has an agreeable odour of hyacinths. After the cajuputene, Isocajuputene distils at 177°, and Paracajuputene at 310-316°, both agreeing in composition with cajuputene.

Like most essential oils having the formula C₁₀H₁₆, crude cajuput oil is capable of forming the crystallized compound C₁₀H₁₆, 3OH₂. This we have abundantly obtained by mixing 4 parts of the oil with 1 of alcohol 0·830 sp. gr., and one part of nitric acid 1·20 sp. gr.; the mixture should be allowed to stand in shallow dishes. By adding 1 vol. of absolute alcohol to 3 vol. of cajuput oil, and saturating it with anhydrous hydrochloric gas, crystals of the compound C₁₀H₁₆(HCl)₂ may be obtained. By vapour of bromine the oil acquires a beautiful green colour.

If 1 part of iodine be gradually dissolved in cajuput oil, the temperature being maintained at 50° C., fine green crystals of (C₁₀H₁₆HI)₂OH₂ are formed. They may be recrystallized from very little glacial acetic acid, but will not keep for more than a few weeks.

The green tint of the oil is due to copper, a minute proportion of which metal is usually present in all that is imported. It may be made evident by agitating the oil with water acidulated by a little hydrochloric acid. The compounds of copper with inorganic acids being comparatively of a fainter colour than the cupric salts of organic acids, the aqueous solution of chloride of copper now formed displays no longer the fine green tint. To the solution, after it has been put into a platinum capsule, a little zinc should be added, when the copper will be immediately deposited on the platinum. The liquid may be then poured off and the copper dissolved and tested. When the oil is rectified, it is obtained colourless, but it readily becomes green if in contact for a short time with metallic copper. The presence of the metal in the oil may also be shown at once by a scrap of paper which has been impregnated with fresh tincture of guaiacum wood and dried. If it is then moistened with water containing 1 per cent. of sulphocyanate of potassium, the paper turns intensely blue by the contact with the oil provided the latter contains copper.

Guibourt[1069] has however proved by experiment that the volatile oil obtained by the distillation of the leaves of several species of Melaleuca, Metrosideros and Eucalyptus, has naturally a fine green hue. It is not improbable that this hue is transient, and that the contamination with copper is intentional in order to obtain a permanent green.

=Commerce=—The oil is imported from Singapore and Batavia, packed in glass beer or wine bottles. From official statements[1070] it appears that the imports into Singapore during 1871 were as under:—

From Java 445 gallons ” Manilla 200 ” ” Celebes 3,895 ” ” other places 350 ” ----- Total 4,890 ” -----

Of this large quantity, the greater portion was re-shipped to Bombay, Calcutta, and Cochin China.

=Uses=—Cajuput oil is occasionally administered internally as a stimulant, antispasmodic and diaphoretic: externally as a rubefacient it is in frequent use.

=Substitutes=—The oil of Eucalyptus oleosa F. Muell. has, we find, the odour of cajuput; and according to Gladstone it agrees, as well as the oils of Melaleuca ericifolia Sm. and M. linariifolia Sm., almost entirely with cajuput oil, except in optical properties. The same is probably the case with the oil of Eucalyptus globulus Labill, which Cloez (1870) states to be dextrogyre. These oils are shipped to some extent from Australia to Europe, probably as adulterants of other essential oils.

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

CARYOPHYLLI

Cloves; F. Girofles, Clous de Girofles; G. Gewürznelken.

=Botanical Origin=—Eugenia caryophyllata Thunberg (Caryophyllus aromaticus L.), a beautiful evergreen tree, 30 to 40 feet high, resembling a gigantic myrtle, bearing numerous flowers grouped in small terminal tricotomous cymes. The flower has an inferior ovary about ½ an inch long, cylindrical, of a crimson colour, dividing at the top into 4 sepals; and 4 round concave petals larger than the calyx, imbricated in the bud like a globe, but at length spreading and soon dropping off.

The clove-tree is said to be strictly indigenous only in the five small islands constituting the proper Moluccas, namely Tarnati, Tidor, Mortir, Makiyan and Bachian.[1071] These form a chain on the west side of the large island of Jilolo, where, strange to say, the tree appears not to exist in a wild state (Crawfurd). According to Rumphius, it was introduced into Amboyna before the arrival of the Portuguese, and is still cultivated there and in the neighbouring islands of Haruku, Saparua and Nusalaut, also in Sumatra and Penang. It is likewise now found in Malacca, the Mascarene Islands, the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on the eastern coast of Africa, and the West Indies.

[1069] Hist. des Drog. iii. (1869) 278.

[1070] Blue Book of the Colony of the Straits Settlements for 1871, Singapore, 1872.

[1071] Though these are the original Moluccas or Clove Islands, the name has been extended to all islands east of Celebes and west of New Guinea.

The tree which is grown for the spice appears to be a cultivated variety, of lower stature and more aromatic than the wild form.

=History=[1072]—The Greek name Καρυόϕυλλον is supposed to refer to the ball-like petals of the bud, which, as above described, might be compared to a small nut (κάρυον). But the name is very variably written, as γαροῦμϕουλ, καρϕούϕουλ, γαρόϕαλα,[1073] whence it becomes probable that it is not really Greek, but an Asiatic word hellenized.

Cloves have been long known to the Chinese. Mr. Mayers, late Chinese Secretary to the British Legation at Pekin, has communicated to us the interesting fact that they are mentioned by several Chinese writers as in use under the Han dynasty, B.C. 266 to A.D. 220, during which period it was customary for the officers of the court to hold the spice in the mouth before addressing the sovereign, in order that their breath might have an agreeable odour.[1074]

The Sanskrit name is “Lavanga,” whence the vernacular Hindustani “Laung.”

The first European author to mention Caryophyllon is Pliny, who describes it, after pepper, as a grain resembling that spice but longer and more brittle, produced in India, and imported for the sake of its odour. It is doubtful whether this description really refers to cloves.

By the 4th century, cloves must have become well known in Europe, if credence can be placed in a remarkable record preserved by Vignoli,[1075] which states that the emperor Constantine presented to St. Silvester, bishop of Rome, A.D. 314-335, numerous vessels of gold and silver, incense and spices, among which last were 150 pounds of Cloves—a vast quantity for the period.

Kosmas Indicopleustes,[1076] in his Topographia Christiana written about A.D. 547, states in the account of Taprobane (Ceylon) that silk, aloes [-wood], cloves (Καρυόϕυλλον) and sandal-wood, besides other productions, are imported thither from China, and other emporia, and transmitted to distant regions. Alexander Trallianus,[1077] who was a friend of Kosmos and a pupil of his father, prescribed in several receipts 5 or 8 cloves, καρυοϕυλλου κόκκους, from which fact it may be inferred that at his time (at Rome?) cloves were a very rare article. A century later, Paulus Ægineta[1078] distinctly described cloves as Caryophyllon—ex India, veluti flores cujusdam arboris.. odorati, acres ... and much used for a condiment and in medicine.

[1072] For the history of the oil see our article Cortex Cinnamon, chemical composition.

[1073] Langkavel, Botanik der späteren Griechen, Berlin, 1866. 19.

[1074] At this period, the clove was called Ki shêh hiang, i.e. fowl’s tongue spice. The modern name Ting hiang, i.e. nail-scent or-spice, was in use in the 5th or 6th century of our era.

[1075] Liber Pontificalis, seu de Gestis Romanorum Pontificum, Romæ, i. (1724) 94.

[1076] Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus, series Græca, lxxxviii. (1860) 446.

[1077] Puschman’s edition (quoted in the appendix) i. 435. 580. Alexander dedicated his work to his teacher, the father of Cosmas.

[1078] De re medica, lib. vii. c. 3.

In the beginning of the 8th century, the same spice is noticed by Benedictus Crispus,[1079] archbishop of Milan, who calls it Cariophylus ater; and in A.D. 716, it is enumerated with other commodities in the diploma granted by Chilperic II. to the monastery of Corbie in Normandy.[1080]

We find cloves among the wares on which duty was levied at Acon (the modern Acre) in Palestine at the end of the 12th century, at which period that city was a great emporium of Mediterranean trade.[1081] They are likewise enumerated in the tariff of Marseilles of A.D. 1228,[1082] in that of Barcelona of 1252[1083] and of Paris, 1296.[1084]

These facts show that the spice was a regular object of commerce at this period. But it was very costly: the Household Book of the Countess of Leicester, A.D. 1265,[1085] gives its price as 10_s._ to 12_s._ per lb., exactly the same as that of saffron. Several other examples of the high cost of the spice might be adduced.

Of the place of growth of cloves, the first distinct notice seems to be that of the Arabian geographer Ibn Khurdádbah,[1086] A.D. 869-885, who names the spice, with cocoa-nuts, sugar, and sandal-wood as produced in Java. Doubtless he was misinformed, for the clove-tree had not come so far west at that period. Marco Polo[1087] made the same mistake four centuries later: finding the spice in Java, he supposed it the growth of the island.

Nicolo Conti,[1088] a Venetian merchant who lived from A.D. 1424 to 1448 in the Indian Archipelago, learned that cloves are brought to Java from the island of Banda, fifteen days’ sail further east. With the arrival of the Portuguese at the commencement of the 16th century, more accurate accounts of the Spice Islands began to reach Europe; and Pigafetta,[1089] the companion of Magellan, gave a very good description of the clove-tree as he observed it in 1521.

The Portuguese had the principal share in the clove trade for nearly a century. In 1605 they were expelled by the Dutch, who took exclusive possession of the Moluccas and adopted extraordinary measures for keeping the traffic in their own hands. Yet notwithstanding this, large supplies of cloves reached England direct. In 1609 a ship of the East India Company called the Consent arrived with 112,000 lb., the duty on which amounted to £1400 and the impost to as much more. The spice ungarbled was sold at 5_s._ 6_d._ and 5_s._ 9_d._ per lb.—of course, in bond.[1090]

[1079] Poematium Medicum—Migne, Patrologiæ Cursus, lxxxix. (1850) 374.

[1080] Pardessus, Diplomata, Chartæ, etc., ii. (1849) 309.

[1081] Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Lois, (1843) 173.

[1082] Méry et Guindon, Hist. des Actes ... de la municipalité de Marseille, 1841. 373.

[1083] Capmany, Memorias sobre la marina etc. de Barcelona, iii. 170.

[1084] Douet d’Arcq, Revue archéologique, ix. (1852) 213.

[1085] Manners and Household Expenses in England (Roxburgh Club), 1841. lii.

[1086] Le Livre des routes et des provinces, traduit par C. Barbier de Meynard, Journ. Asiat. sér. 6. tome v. (1865) 227.

[1087] Yule, Marco Polo, ii. (1871) 217.—It should however be borne in mind that the name Java was applied in a general sense by the Arab geographers to the islands of the Archipelago.

[1088] Kunstmann, Die Kenntniss Indiens im XVᵗᵉⁿ Jahrhundert, München, 1863. 46.

[1089] Ramusio, Delle navigationi et viaggi, Venetia, 1554, fol. 404b.

[1090] Calendar of State Papers, Colonial series, East Indies, 1862. 181.

To effect their purpose, the Dutch endeavoured to extirpate the clove-tree from its native islands, and even instituted periodical expeditions for the purpose of destroying any young trees that might have accidentally sprung up. This policy, the object of which was to confine the growth of the spice to a group of small islands of which Amboyna is the largest, has but very recently been abandoned: though the cultivation of the spice was free in all other localities, the clove parks of the Amboyna islands remained the property of the Dutch Government. The original Moluccas or Clove Islands now produce no cloves at all.

The enterprise of Poivre, the French governor of Mauritius and Bourbon, so far eluded the vigilance of the Dutch, that both clove and nutmeg-trees were introduced into those islands in the year 1770.[1091] The clove-tree was carried thence to Cayenne in 1793, and to Zanzibar about the end of the century.

Crawfurd,[1092] in an excellent article of which we have made free use, aptly remarks that it is difficult to understand how the clove first came to the notice of foreign nations, considering the well ascertained fact that it has never been used as a condiment or in any other way by the inhabitants of the islands of which it is a native. We may observe however that there were some singular superstitions among the islanders with regard to the so-called Royal Clove (p. 287), a tree of which on the island of Makiyan was long supposed to be unique.

=Collection=—The flower-buds of the clove-tree when young are nearly white, but afterwards become green and lastly bright red, when they must at once be gathered. This in Zanzibar is done by hand; each clove is picked singly, a moveable stage the height of the tree being used to enable the labourers to reach the upper branches. The buds are then simply dried in the sun, by which they acquire the familiar dark brown tint of the commercial article. The gathering takes place twice a year; in the Moluccas where the harvest occurs in June and December, the cloves are partly gathered by hand, and partly beaten off the tree by bamboos on to cloths spread beneath. The annual yield of a good tree is about 4½ pounds, but sometimes reaches double that quantity.

=Description=—Cloves are about ⁶/₁₀ of an inch in length, and consist of a long cylindrical calyx dividing above into 4 pointed spreading sepals which surround 4 petals, closely imbricated as a globular bud about ²/₁₀ of an inch in diameter.

The petals which are of lighter colour than the rest of the drug and somewhat translucent from numerous oil-cells, spring from the base of a 4-sided epigynous disc, the angles of which are directed towards the lobes of the calyx. The stamens which are very numerous, are inserted at the base of the petals and are arched over the style. The latter which is short and subulate, rises from a depression in the centre of the disc. Immediately below it and united with the upper portion of the calyx is the ovary, which is 2-celled and contains many ovules. The lower end of the calyx (hypanthium) has a compressed form; it is solid but has its internal tissue far more porous than the walls. The whole calyx is of a deep rich brown, has a dull wrinkled surface, a dense fleshy texture, and abounds in essential oil which exudes on simple pressure with the nail. Cloves have an agreeable spicy odour, and a strong biting aromatic taste.

[1091] Tessier, _Sur l’importation du Giroflier des Moluques aux Isles de France, de Bourbon et de Sechelles, et de ces isles à Cayenne_.—Observations sur la physique, Paris, Juillet, 1779.

[1092] Dictionary of the Indian Islands, 1856, article Clove.

The varieties of cloves occurring in commerce do not exhibit any structural differences. Inferior kinds are distinguished by being less plump, less bright in tint, and less rich in essential oil. In London price-currents, cloves are enumerated in the order of value thus: Penang, Bencoolen, Amboyna, Zanzibar.

=Microscopic Structure=—A transverse section of the lower part of a clove shows a dark rhomboid zone, the tissue on either side of which is of a lighter hue. The outer layer beneath the epidermis exhibits a large number of oil-cells, frequently as much as 300 mkm. in diameter. About 200 oil-cells may be counted in one transverse section, so that the large amount of essential oil in the drug is well shown by its microscopic characters. The above-mentioned zone is chiefly made up of about 30 fibro-vascular bundles, another stronger bundle traversing the centre of the clove. The fibro-vascular bundles, as well as the tissue bordering the oil-cells, assume a greenish black hue by alcoholic perchloride of iron. Oil-cells are also largely distributed in the leaves, petals and even the stamens of Eugenia.

=Chemical Composition=—Few plants possess any organ so rich in essential oil as the drug under consideration. The oil known in pharmacy as Oleum Caryophylli, which is the important constituent of cloves, is obtainable to the extent of 16 to 20 per cent. But to extract the whole, the distillation must be long continued, the water being returned to the same material.

The oil is a colourless or yellowish liquid with a powerful odour and taste of cloves, sp. gr. 1·046 to 1·058. It is a mixture of a hydrocarbon, and an oxygenated oil called Eugenol, in variable proportions. The former which is termed light oil of cloves and comes over in the first period of the distillation, has the composition C₁₅H₂₄, a sp. gr. of 0·918 and boils at 251° C. It deviates the plane of polarization slightly to the left, and is not coloured on addition of ferric chloride; it is of a rather terebinthinaceous odour.

Eugenol, sometimes called Eugenic Acid, has a sp. gr. of 1·087 at 0° C., and possesses the full taste and smell of cloves. Its boiling point is 247°·5 C. With alkalis, especially ammonia and baryta, it yields crystallizable salts. Eugenol may therefore be prepared by submitting the crude oil of cloves to distillation with caustic soda; the “light oil” distils then, the eugenol, being now combined with sodium, remains in the still. It will be obtained on addition of an acid and again distilling. Eugenol is devoid of rotatory power, whence the crude oil of cloves, of which eugenol is by far the prevailing constituent, is optically almost inactive. The constitution of eugenol is given by the

{OCH₃ formula C₆H₃ {OH . {CH·CH·CH₃

It belongs to the phenol class, and has also been met with in the fruits of Pimenta officinalis (see next article), in the Bay leaves, in Canella bark (see page 75), in the leaves and flower buds of Cinnamomum zeilanicum and in Brazilian clove-bark (Dicypellium caryophyllatum Nees).

Eugenol can be converted into Vanillin (see Fructus Vanillæ).

The water distilled from cloves is stated to contain, in addition to the essential oil, another body, Eugenin, which sometimes separates after a while in the form of tasteless, crystalline laminæ, having the same composition as eugenol.[1093] We have never met with it.

According to Scheuch (1863), oil of cloves also (sometimes) contains a little Salicylic acid,

{OH C₆H₄ { , {COOH

which may be removed by shaking the oil with a solution of carbonate of ammonium.

Caryophyllin, C₂₀H₃₂O, is a neutral, tasteless, inodorous substance, crystallizing in needle-shaped prisms. We have obtained it in small quantity, by treating with boiling ether cloves, which we had previously deprived of most of their essential oil by small quantities of alcohol. E. Mylius (1873) obtained from it by nitric acid, crystals of Caryophyllinic Acid, C₂₀H₃₂O₆.

Carmufellic Acid obtained in colourless crystals, C₁₂H₂₀O₁₆, in 1851 by Muspratt and Danson after digesting an aqueous extract of cloves with nitric acid, is a product of this treatment and not a natural constituent of cloves.

Cloves contain a considerable proportion of gum; also a tannic acid not yet particularly examined.

=Production and Commerce=—Of late years the principal locality for the production of cloves has been the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on the east coast of Africa, which until very recently were capable of producing a maximum crop of 10½ millions of pounds in a single season. On the 15th April 1872, Zanzibar was visited by a hurricane of extraordinary violence, by which about five-sixths of the clove-trees in the island were destroyed; and although the plantations are being renewed, many years must elapse before the crop can resume its former importance. Pemba, which is distant from Zanzibar 25 miles, and produced about half as much of the spice as that island, did not appreciably suffer from the storm.

The crop on these islands fluctuates, a good year alternating with a bad one. This is partly shown in the imports of Bombay, the great mart of Zanzibar produce, which have been as follows:—

1869-70 1870-71 1871-72 1872-73 45,642 cwt. 21,968 cwt. 43,891 cwt. 25,185 cwt.

The quantity of cloves shipped from Bombay to the United Kingdom is comparatively small, being in 1871-72, 3279 cwt.; in 1872-73, 3271 cwt.

The imports of cloves to the United Kingdom are from one million to four million pounds annually.

Cloves are also largely shipped direct from Zanzibar to the United States and Hamburg. A small amount is taken in native vessels to the Red Sea ports; these are packed in raw hides. Those for the European and American markets are shipped in mat bags made of split cocoa-nut leaf.

[1093] Gmelin, Chemistry, xiv. (1860) 201.

The clove trade of the Moluccas has been for many years in the hands of the Dutch Government, which, by its restrictive policy, assumed practically the position of growers, disposing of their produce through the Netherlands Trading Company at auctions held in Holland twice a year. This system having been abolished in 1872, has proved disastrous to the trade it was designed to protect, and to such a degree that the produce of cloves in the Moluccas is but a tenth of what it was in the early days of their intercourse with Europe. The crop of the four islands, Amboyna, Haruku, Saparua, and Nusalaut, the only Moluccas in which the tree is cultivated, was reckoned in 1854 as 510,912 lb.

The export of cloves from Java in 1871 was 1397 peculs[1094] (186,226 lb.). The French island of Réunion which from 1825 to 1849 used to produce annually as much as 800,000 kilogrammes (1,764,571 lb.), now yields almost none, owing chiefly to the frequent hurricanes.

=Uses=—As a remedy, cloves are unimportant, though in the form of infusion or distilled water they are useful in combination with other medicines. The essential oil which sometimes relieves toothache is a frequent ingredient of pill-masses. The chief consumption of cloves is as a culinary spice.

=Substitutes=—1. Clove Stalks—Festucœlvel Stipites Caryophylli, in French Griffes de Girofle, in German Nelkenstiele, were an article of import into Europe during the middle ages, when they were chiefly known by their low Latin name of fusti, or the Italian bastaroni. Thus under the statutes of Pisa,[1095] A.D. 1305, duty was levied not only on cloves (garofali), but also on Folia et fusti garofalorum. Pegolotti[1096] a little later names both as being articles of trade at Constantinople. Clove Leaves are enumerated[1097] as an import into Palestine in the 12th century; they are also mentioned in a list of the drugs sold at Frankfort[1098] about the year 1450; we are not aware that they are used in modern times.

As to Clove Stalks, they are still a considerable object of trade, especially from Zanzibar, where they are called by the natives Vikunia. They taste tolerably aromatic, and yield 4 to 6·4 per cent. of volatile levogyre oil; they are used for adulterating the Ground Cloves sold by grocers. Such an admixture may be detected by the microscope, especially if the powder after treatment with potash be examined in glycerin. If clove stalks have been ground, thick-walled or stone-cells will be found in the powder; such cells do not occur in cloves. Powdered allspice is also an adulterant of powdered cloves; it also contains stone-cells, but in addition numerous starch granules which are entirely wanting in cloves.

2. Mother Cloves, Anthophylli—are the fruits of the clove-tree, and are ovate-oblong berries about an inch in length and much less rich in essential oil than cloves. Though occasionally seen in the London drug sales in some quantity, they are not an article of regular import.[1099] As they contain very large starch granules, their presence as an adulteration of ground cloves would be revealed by the microscope.

[1094] Consular Reports, Aug. 1873. 952.

[1095] Bonaini, Statuti inediti della città di Pisa dal xii. al xiv. secolo, iii. (1857) 106.

[1096] See p. 235, note 2.

[1097] Recueil des Historiens des Croisades, Lois, ii. (1843) 173.

[1098] Flückiger, Die Frankfurter Liste, Halle, 1873. 11. 38.

[1099] We find in the fortnightly price current of a London drug-broker under date Nov. 27, 1873, the announcement of the sale of 1,050 bags of Mother Cloves at 2_d._ to 3_d._ per lb., besides 4,200 packages of Clove Stalks at 3_d._ to 4_d._ per lb.

3. =Royal Cloves=—Under this name or Caryophyllum regium, a curious monstrosity of the clove was formerly held in the highest reputation, on account of its rarity and the strange stories told respecting it.[1100] Specimens in our possession show it to be a very small clove, distinguished by an abnormal number of sepals and large bracts at the base of the calyx-tube, the corolla and internal organs being imperfectly developed.

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FRUCTUS PIMENTÆ

Semen Amomi; Pimento, Allspice, Jamaica Pepper; F. Poivre de la Jamaïque, Piment des Anglais, Toute-épice; G. Nelkenpfeffer, Nelkenköpfe, Neugewürz.

=Botanical Origin=—Pimenta officinalis Lindley[1101] (Myrtus Pimenta L., Eugenia Pimenta DC.), a beautiful evergreen tree, growing to about 30 feet in height, with a trunk 2 feet in circumference, common throughout the West India Islands. In Jamaica, it prefers limestone hills near the sea, and is especially plentiful on the north side of the island.

=History=—The high value placed on the spices of India sufficiently explains the interest with which aromatic and pungent plants were regarded by the early explorers of the New World; while the eager desire to obtain these lucrative commodities is shown by the names Pepper, Cinnamon, Balsam, Melegueta, Amomum, bestowed on productions totally distinct from those originally so designated.

Among the spices thus brought to the notice of Europe were the little dry berries of certain trees of the myrtle tribe, which had some resemblance in shape and flavour to peppercorns, and hence were named Pimienta,[1102] corrupted to Pimenta or Pimento. It was doubtless a drug of this kind, if not our veritable allspice, that was given to Clusius in 1601 by Garret, a druggist of London, and described and figured by the former in his Liber Exoticorum.[1103] A few years later it began to be imported into England, being, as Parkinson[1104] says, “obtruded for Amomum” (Round Cardamom), so that “some more audacious than wise ... put it in their compositions instead of the right.” Francesco Redi mentioned the fruits as Pimienta de Chapa; Chiapas, now the south-eastern department of Mexico, bordering Guatemala. Redi states that the spice was also called Pimienta de Tavasco from the adjoining department of Tabasco. According to Sloane[1105] (1691) it was commonly sold by druggists for Carpobalsamum. Ray (1693) distinguished the spice as a production of Jamaica under the name of Sweet-scented Jamaica Pepper or Allspice, and states it to be abundantly imported into England, and in frequent use as a condiment, though not employed in medicine. The spice had a place in the London Pharmacopœia as early as 1721.

[1100] Rumphius in his letter from Amboina, Sept. 20, 1696, to Dr. Schröck, in Ephemerides Acad. Cæs. Leopold. Decur. iii. Frankfurt and Leipzig. 1700. p. 308, with figure.—Also Rumphius, Herb. Amb. ii. (1742) 11. tab. 2.—See also Hasskarl, Neuer Schlüssel zu Rumph’s Herb. Amb., Halle, 1866; Berg, Linnæa, 1854. 137; Valmont de Bomare, Dict. d’Hist. Nat. iii. (1775) 70.

[1101] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 20 (1877).

[1102] Pimienta, the Spanish for pepper, is derived from pigmentum, a general name in mediæval Latin for spicery.—Malaguetta (see article Grana Paradisi) is also a name which has been transferred by the Spaniards and Portuguese to the drug under notice.

[1103] Lib. i. c. 17.

[1104] Theatrum Botanicum (1640) 1567.

[1105] Description of the Pimienta or Jamaica Pepper-tree.—Phil. Trans. xvii. No. 191.

The consumption of Pimento has been enormous. In the year 1804-5, the quantity shipped from the British West Indies was 2,257,000 lb., producing on import duty a net revenue of £38,063.[1106]

=Production and Commerce=—The spice found in commerce is furnished wholly by the island of Jamaica. A plantation, there called a Pimento walk, is a piece of natural woodland stocked with the trees, which require but little attention. The flowers appear in June, July, and August, and are quickly succeeded by the berries, which are gathered when of full size but still unripe. This is performed by breaking off the small twigs bearing the bunches. These are then spread out, and exposed to the sun and air for some days, after which the stalks are removed, and the berries are fit for being packed.

By an official document[1107] it appears that, in the year 1871, the amount of land in Jamaica cropped with pimento was 7,178 acres. In that year the island exported of the spice 6,857,838 lb., value £28,574. Of this quantity Great Britain took 4,287,551 lb., and the United States 2,266,950 lb. In 1875 the export was 57,500 cwts., valued at £40,250, of which 10,894 cwts. only went to the United States.

[1106] Parliamentary Return, March 1805, quoted in Young’s West India Commonplace Book, 1807. 79.

[1107] Blue Book for Jamaica, printed 1872.

=Description=—Allspice is a small, dry globular berry, rather variable in size, measuring ³/₁₀ to less than ²/₁₀ of an inch in diameter. It is crowned by a short style, seated in a depression, and surrounded by 4 short thick sepals; generally however the latter have been rubbed off, a scar-like raised ring marking their former position. The berry has a woody shell or pericarp, easily cut, of a dark ferruginous brown, and rugose by reason of minute tubercles filled with essential oil. It is two-celled, each cell containing a single, reniform, exalbuminous seed, having a large spirally curved embryo. The seed is aromatic, but less so than the pericarp.

Allspice has an agreeable, pungent, spicy flavour, much resembling that of cloves.

=Microscopic Structure=—The outer layer of the pericarp, immediately beneath the epidermis, contains numerous large cells filled with essential oil. The parenchyme further exhibits thick-walled cells loaded with resin, and smaller cells enclosing crystals of oxalate of calcium. The whole tissue is traversed by small fibro-vascular bundles. The seeds are also provided with a small number of oil-cells, and contain starch granules.

=Chemical Composition=—The composition of pimento resembles in many points that of cloves. The berries yield to the extent of 3 to 4½ per cent. a volatile oil, sp. gr. 1·037 (Gladstone), having the characteristic taste and odour of the spice, and known in the shops as Oleum Pimentæ. We have found it to deviate the ray of polarized light 2° to the left, when examined in a column of 50 mm.

Oeser (1864), whose experiments have been confirmed by Gladstone (1872), has shown that oil of pimento has substantially the same composition as oil of cloves; salicylic acid has not been found. Pimento is rich in tannin, striking with a persalt of iron an inky black. Its decoction is coloured deep blue by iodine, showing the presence of starch. Dragendorff (1871) pointed out the existence in allspice of an extremely small quantity of an alkaloid, having somewhat the odour of coniine.

=Uses=—Employed as an aromatic clove; a distilled water (Aqua Pimentæ) is frequently prescribed. The chief use of pimento is as a culinary spice.

=Substitute=—The Mexican spice called Pimienta de Tabasco (Piment Tabago Guibourt) is somewhat larger and less aromatic than Jamaica allspice. Analogous products are afforded by Pimenta acris Wight[1108] (Myrcia acris DC, Amomis acris Berg), the Bay-berry tree, and P. Pimento Griseb. The oil of bay-berry consists of eugenol and a hydrocarbon, possibly identical with the “light oil of cloves” (p. 284), but present in a larger amount. Bay rum, much used in the United States by the perfumers, is an alcoholic tincture flavoured with oil of bay-berry.

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GRANATEÆ

CORTEX GRANATI FRUCTUS.

Cortex Granati; Pomegranate Peel; F. Ecorce de Grenades; G. Granatschalen.

=Botanical Origin=—Punica Granatum L., a shrub or low tree, with small deciduous foliage and handsome scarlet flowers. It is indigenous to North-western India, and the counties south and south-west of the Caspian to the Persian Gulf and Palestine, and grows wild in the hills of Western Sindh in elevations of 4000 feet, in Balutchistan to 6000 feet, also in the east flank of Soliman range. The trunk is short, rarely over 20 feet high. The tree has long been cultivated, and is now found throughout the warm parts of Europe, and in the subtropical regions of both hemispheres.

=History=—The pomegranate has been highly prized by mankind from the remotest antiquity, as is shown by the references to it in the Scriptures,[1109] and by the numerous representations of the fruit in the sculptures of Persepolis and Assyria,[1110] and on the ancient monuments of Egypt.[1111] It was probably introduced into the south of Italy by Greek colonists, and is named as a common fruit-tree by Porcius Cato[1112] in the 3rd century B.C. The peel of the fruit was recognized as medicinal by the ancients, and among the Romans was in common use for tanning leather,[1113] as it still is in Tunis.

[1108] Figured in Bentley and Trimen, part 20.—The fruit of this species is easily distinguished, being crowned by 5-calyx lobes.

[1109] Exodus xxviii. 33, 34; Numbers xx. 2; Deut. viii 8; Cant. iv. 13; viii. 2.

[1110] Layard, Nineveh and its Remains, ed. 5, ii. (1849) 296.

[1111] Wilkinson, Ancient Egyptians, ii. (1837) 142.

[1112] Nisard’s edition, Paris, 1877, capp. 7. 127. 133.

[1113] See also Hehn, Kulturpflanzen, Berlin, 1877, 206.

=Description=—The fruit of the pomegranate tree is a spherical, somewhat flattened and obscurely six-sided berry, the size of a common orange and often much larger, crowned by the thick, tubular, 5-to 9-toothed calyx. It has a smooth, hard, coriaceous skin, which when the fruit is ripe, is of a brownish yellow tint, often finely shaded with red. Membranous dissepiments, about 6 in number meeting in the axis of the fruit, divide the upper and larger portion into equal cells. Below these a confused conical diaphragm separates the lower and smaller half, which in its turn is divided into 4 or 5 irregular cells. Each cell is filled with a large number of grains, crowded on thick spongy placentæ, which in the upper cells are parietal but in the lower appear to be central. The grains, which are about ½ an inch in length, are oblong or obconical and many-sided, and consist of a thin transparent vesicle containing an acid, saccharine, red, juicy pulp, surrounding an elongated angular seed.

The only part of the fruit used medicinally is the peel, Cortex Granati of the druggists, which in the fresh state is leathery. When dry as imported, it is in irregular, more or less concave fragments, some of which have the toothed, tubular calyx still enclosing the stamens and style. It is ⅒ to ¹/₂₀ of an inch thick, easily breaking with a short corky fracture; externally it is rather rough, of a yellowish-brown or reddish colour. Internally it is more or less brown or yellow, and honey-combed with depressions left by the seeds. It has hardly any odour, but has a strongly astringent taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The middle layer of the peel consists of large thin-walled and elongated, sometimes even branched cells, among which occur thick-walled cells and fibro-vascular bundles. Both the outer and the inner surface are made up of smaller, nearly cubic and densely packed cells. Small starch granules occur sparingly throughout the tissue, as well as crystals of oxalate of calcium.

=Chemical Composition=—The chief constituent is tannin, which in an aqueous infusion of the dried peel produces with perchloride of iron an abundant dark blue precipitate. The peel also contains sugar and a little gum. Dried at 100° C. and incinerated, it yielded us 5·9 per cent. of ash.

=Uses=—Pomegranate peel is an excellent astringent, now almost obsolete in British medicine. Waring[1114] asserts that when combined with opium and an aromatic, as cloves, it is a most useful remedy in the chronic dysentery of the natives of India, as well as in diarrhœa.

[1114] Pharm. of India, 1868. 93. 447.

CORTEX GRANATI RADICIS.

Pomegranate-root Bark; F. Ecorce de racine de Grenadier; G. Granatwurzelrinde.

=Botanical Origin=—Punica Granatum L., see page 289.

=History=—In addition to the particulars regarding the pomegranate tree given in the preceding article, the following which concern the drug under notice may be stated.

A decoction of the root of the pomegranate was recommended by Celsus,[1115] Dioscorides,[1116] and Pliny[1117] for the expulsion of tapeworm; but the remedy had fallen into complete oblivion, until its use among the Hindus attracted the notice of Buchanan[1118] at Calcutta about the year 1805. This physician pointed out the efficacy of the root-bark, which was further shown by Fleming and others. Pomegranate-root is known to have been long used for a similar purpose by the Chinese.[1119]

Though the medicine is admitted to be efficient, and is employed with advantage in India where it is easily procured both genuine and fresh, it is hardly ever administered in England, the extract of male-fern being generally preferred; but it has a place in several continental pharmacopœias.

=Description=—The bark occurs in rather thin quills or fragments, 3 to 4 inches long. Their outer surface is yellowish-grey, sometimes marked with fine longitudinal striations or reticulated wrinkles, but more often furrowed by bands of cork, running together in the thickest pieces into broad flat conchoidal scales. The inner surface, which is smooth or marked with fine striæ and is of a greyish yellow, has often strips of the tough whitish wood attached to it. The bark breaks short and granular; it has a purely astringent taste, but scarcely any odour.

=Microscopic Structure=—On a transverse section, the liber is seen to be the prevailing part of the cortical tissue. The former consists of alternating layers of two kinds of cells—one of them loaded with tufted crystals of oxalate of calcium, the other filled with starch granules and tannic matter. The bark is traversed by narrow medullary rays, and very large sclerenchymatous cells are scattered through the liber. Touched with a dilute solution of a persalt of iron, the bark assumes a dark blackish blue tint.

=Chemical Composition=—The bark contains, according to Wackenroder (1824), more than 22 per cent. of tannic acid, which Rembold (1867) has ascertained to consist for the most part of a peculiar variety called Punico-tannic Acid, C₂₀H₁₆O₁₃; when boiled with dilute sulphuric acid, it is resolved into Ellagic Acid, C₁₄H₈O₉, and sugar. Punico-tannic acid is accompanied by common tannic acid, yielding, by means of sulphuric acid, gallic acid, which appears sometimes to pre-exist in the bark. If a decoction of pomegranate bark is precipitated by acetate of lead, and the lead is separated from the filtered liquid, the latter on evaporation yields a considerable amount of mannite. This is probably the Punicin or Granatin of former observers.

[1115] De Medicina, lib. iv. c. 17.

[1116] Lib. i. c. 153.

[1117] Lib. xxiii. c. 60.

[1118] Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journ., iii. (1807) 22.

[1119] Debeaux, Pharmacie et Mat. Méd. des Chinois, 1865. 70.

The tænicide power is due, according to Tanret (1878) to Pelletierine, C₈H₁₅NO, a liquid dextrogyre alkaloid, boiling at 180° to 185° C. It can be obtained colourless by evaporating its ethereal solution in a vacuum, but in the open air becomes yellow. Pelletierine, so called in honour of Pelletier, is readily soluble in water, alcohol or chloroform, and has a somewhat aromatic odour. Several of its salts are crystallizable, yet extremely hygroscopic. The yield of the root-bark was about ½ per cent. of the alkaloid, or about 2 per cent. of crystallized sulphate from trees grown near Troyes, in the Champagne.

=Uses=—A decoction, followed by a purgative, is stated by Waring[1120] and others to be most efficient for the expulsion of the tapeworm. The fresh bark is said to be preferable to the dried.

=Adulterations=—The commercial drug frequently consists partly or entirely of the bark of the stem or branches, characterized by its less abundant cork-formation, which exhibits longitudinal bands or ridges of light brownish cork, but not conchoidal exfoliations. The middle cortical layer is somewhat more developed, and contains in the outer cells deposits of chlorophyll. The cambial zone is not distinctly observable. Such bark is reputed to be less active than that of the root, but we are not aware that the fact has ever been proved.

The bark of Buxus sempervirens and of Berberis vulgaris are somewhat similar to the drug under notice, but their decoctions are not affected by salts of iron.

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CUCURBITACEÆ

FRUCTUS ECBALLII.

Fructus Elaterii; Elaterium Fruit, Squirting Cucumber, Wild Cucumber; F. Concombre purgatif ou sauvage; G. Springgurke.

=Botanical Origin=—Ecballium[1121] Elaterium A. Richard (Momordica Elaterium L.), a coarse, hispid, fleshy, decumbent plant without tendrils, having a thick white perennial root. It is common throughout the Mediterranean region, extending eastward as far as Southern Russia and Persia, and westward to Portugal. It succeeds well in Central Europe, and is cultivated to a small extent for medicinal use at Mitcham and Hitchin in England.

=History=—Theophrastus mentions the plant under notice by the name of Σίκυος ἄγριος. It is also particularly noticed by Dioscorides, who explicitly describes the singular process for making elaterium (ἐλατήριον), which was almost exactly like that followed at the present day.

The Wild or Squirting Cucumber was well known and cultivated in gardens in England as early as the middle of the 16th century.[1122]

[1120] Indian Annals of Med. Science, vi. (1859); Pharmacopœia of India, 1868. 93.

[1121] Ecballium from ἐκβάλλω, I expel, in allusion to the expulsion of the seeds: often erroneously written Ecbalium.

[1122] Turner’s Herball, 1568, part i. 180.

=Description=—The fruit is ovoid-oblong, nodding, about 1½ inch long, hispid from numerous short fleshy prickles terminating in white elongated points. It is attached by a long scabrous peduncle, is fleshy and green while young, becoming slightly yellowish when mature; it is 3-celled and contains numerous oblong seeds lodged in a very bitter succulent pulp. The fruit when ripe separates suddenly from the stalk, and at the same moment the seeds and juice are forcibly expelled from the aperture left by the detached peduncle. This interesting phenomenon[1123] is due to the process of exosmosis, by which the juice of the outer part of the fruit gradually passes through the strong contractile tissue which lines the central cavity, until the pressure becomes so great that the cell gives way at its weakest point. This point is that at which the peduncle is articulated with the fruit; and it is the sudden and powerful contraction of the elastic tissue when relieved from pressure that occasions the violent expulsion of the contents of the central cavity.

For the preparation of the officinal elaterium, the fruit has to be employed while still somewhat immature, for the simple reason that it would be impossible to gather it so as to retain its all-important juice if left till quite ripe. When it is sliced longitudinally as in making elaterium, some of the juice is expelled by virtue of the endosmotic action already described, as can easily be seen on examining the contracted lining of the sliced fruit.

Pereira observes[1124] that if the juice of a fruit is received on a plate of glass, it is seen to be nearly colourless and transparent. In a few minutes however, by exposure to the air, it becomes slightly turbid, and small white coagula are formed in it. By slow evaporation, minute rhomboidal crystals make their appearance: these are elaterin.

Hot, dry weather favours the development of the active principle of the drug.[1125]

=Microscopic Structure=—The middle layer of the fruit is built up of large somewhat thick-walled cells, traversed by a few fibro-vascular bundles. The former abound in small starch grains, and also contain granules of albuminous matter.

=Chemical Composition=—The experiments of Clutterbuck (1819) proved that the active properties of the elaterium plant reside chiefly, though not exclusively, in the juice that surrounds the seeds; and it is to this juice and to the medicinal product which it yields, that the attention of chemists has been hitherto directed.

The juice obtained by lightly pressing the sliced fruits is at first greenish and slightly turbid. After having been set aside a few hours, it yields a deposit, which has to be collected on calico, rapidly drained with gentle pressure between layers of bibulous paper and porous bricks, and dried in a warm place. The substance thus obtained is the Elaterium of pharmacy.[1126] The method recommended by Clutterbuck[1127] involves no pressing. The juice of the sliced fruit is saved, and the pulp, scooped out by the thumb of the operator, is thrown on a sieve and slightly washed with pure water. From these liquors, elaterium is deposited.

[1123] I have not yet seen Yule’s paper on the dehiscence of this fruit in the Journ. of Anat. and Physiology, 1877. The structure of the testa of the seed is explained by Fickel, in the Botanische Zeitung, 1876. 774.—F. A. F..

[1124] Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1853) 1745.

[1125] Having had to procure elaterium fruits at Mitcham in the very fine summer of 1868, I was told that the people occupied in slicing the fruits had never suffered so severely from their work as in that year.—D. H.

[1126] There is a genus of Cucurbitaceæ founded by Linnæus, also called Elaterium.

[1127] Lond. Med. Repository, xii. (1820) 1.

Elaterium occurs in irregular cake-like fragments, light, friable, and opaque; when new, of a bright pale green, becoming by age greyish and exhibiting minute crystals on the surface. It has a herby tea-like odour and a very bitter taste. The produce is extremely small: 240 lb. of fruit gathered at Mitcham, 1Oth August 1868, yielded 4⅝ ounces of elaterium = 0·123 per cent.

Elaterium consists, according to Pereira, of Elaterin, to which the activity of the drug is due, contaminated with green colouring matter, cellular tissue, and starch, together with a little of the residue of the bitter liquor from which these substances were deposited. Yet, in our opinion, this description is not applicable to the best varieties of elaterium. We have examined elaterium carefully prepared in the laboratory of Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, London, and a fine specimen imported from Malta. Both are devoid of starch, as well as of cellular tissue, but were seen to be largely made up of crystals. The first sample contained 12 per cent. of water, and yielded after drying, 8·4 per cent. of ash.

The most interesting principle of elaterium is Elaterin, C₂₀H₂₈O₅, discovered about the year 1831 by Morries, and independently by Hennell. The best method of obtaining it, according to our experience, is to exhaust elaterium with chloroform. From this solution, a white crystalline deposit of elaterin is immediately separated by addition of ether. It should be washed with a little ether, and recrystallized from chloroform. We have thus obtained 33·6 per cent. of pure elaterin from the above-mentioned elaterium of London, and 27·6 per cent. from that of Malta. Elaterin crystallizes in hexagonal scales or prisms; it has an extremely bitter, somewhat acrid taste. It is readily soluble in boiling alcohol, amylic alcohol, bisulphide of carbon, or chloroform. Its alcoholic solutions are neutral and are not precipitated by tannin, nor by any metallic solution. It is but very little coloured by cold concentrated sulphuric acid.

Elaterin is the drastic principle of Ecballium; if to its boiling alcoholic solution, solid caustic potash is added, the liquid thus obtained is stated by Buchheim (1872) to be no longer precipitable by water. The elaterin is then in fact converted into an acid body, which may be separated by supersaturating the solution with a mineral acid. The principle thus obtained has been found by Buchheim to be devoid of drastic power.

The fresh juice of the fruits was found by Köhler (1869) to contain 95 per cent. of water, 3 to 3·5 of organic and 1 to 1·6 of inorganic constituents. The same chemist observed that the percentage of elaterin gradually diminished as the season advanced, until in the month of September he was unable to obtain any of it whatever.

Walz (1859) found in the juice of the fruits and herb of Ecballium, as well as in that of Cucumis Prophetarum L., a second crystallizable bitter principle, Prophetin, and the amorphous substances Ecballin or Elateric Acid, Hydro-elaterin, and Elateride, all of which require further examination.[1128] Prophetin is a glucoside,—not so the other principles. The four together constitute, according to Walz, 8·7 per cent. of elaterium, which moreover contains about the same percentage of pectic matter.

[1128] Gmelin’s Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 335-367.

=Uses=—Squirting cucumbers are only employed for making elaterium, which is a very powerful hydragogue cathartic.[1129] Elaterin is not employed in medicine, but seeing how much elaterium is liable to vary from climate or season, it might probably be introduced into use with advantage.

FRUCTUS COLOCYNTHIDIS.

Colocynth, Coloquintida, Bitter Apple; F. Coloquinte; G. Coloquinthe.

=Botanical Origin=—Citrullus Colocynthis Schrader (Cucumis Colocynthis L.)—The colocynth gourd is a slender scabrous plant with a perennial root, native of warm and dry regions in the Old World, over which it has an extensive area.

Commencing eastward, it occurs in abundance in the arid districts of the Punjab and Sind, in sandy places on the Coromandel coast, in Ceylon, Persia as far north as the Caspian, in Arabia (Aden), Syria, and in some of the Greek islands. It is found in immense quantities in Upper Egypt and Nubia, spreading itself over sand hillocks of the desert after each rainy season. It further extends throughout North Africa to Morocco and Senegambia, in the Cape de Verd Islands, and on maritime sands in the south-east of Spain and Portugal. Finally, it is said to have been collected in Japan.

=History=—Colocynth was familiar to the Greek and Roman, as well as to the Arabian physicians; it also occurs in Susruta (“Indravārunī”); and if we may judge by the mention of it in an Anglo-Saxon herbal of the 11th century,[1130] was not then unknown in Britain. The drug was collected in Spain at an early period, as is evident from an Arabic calendar of A.D. 961.[1131]

The plant has been long cultivated in Cyprus, and its fruit is mentioned in the 14th century as one of the more important products of the island.[1132] Tragus (1552) figured the plant, and stated that the fruit is imported from Alexandria.

=Description=—The colocynth plant bears a gourd of the size and shape of an orange, having a smooth, marbled-green surface. It is sometimes imported simply dried, in which case it is of a brown colour; but far more usually it is found in the market peeled with a knife and dried. It then forms light, pithy, nearly white balls, which consist of the dried internal pulp of the fruit with the seeds imbedded in it. This pulp is nearly inodorous, but has an intensely bitter taste, perceptible by reason of its dust when the drug is slightly handled. The balls are generally more or less broken; when dried too slowly they have a light brown colour.

[1129] Clutterbuck says ⅛ of a grain purges violently.

[1130] Cockayne, Leechdoms, etc., i. (1865) 325.

[1131] Le Calendrier de Cordoue, publié par R. Dozy, Leyde, 1873. 92.

[1132] De Mas Latrie, Hist. de l’ile de Chypre, iii. (1852-61) 498.

The seeds are disposed in vertical rows on 3 thick parietal placentæ, which project to the centre of the fruit, then divide and turn back, forming two branches directed towards one another. Owing to this structure, the fruit easily breaks up vertically into 3 wedges in each of which are lodged 2 rows of dark brown seeds. The seeds, of which a fruit contains from 200 to 300, are of flattened ovoid form, ³/₁₀ of an inch long by ²/₁₀ broad, not bordered. The testa which is hard and thick, having its surface minutely granulated, is marked on each side of its more pointed end by two furrows directed towards the hilum. The seed, as in other Cucurbitaceæ, is exalbuminous, and has thick oily cotyledons, enclosing an embryo with short straight radicle directed towards the hilum.

Colocynth fruits are mostly supplied by wholesale druggists, broken up and having the seeds removed, the drug in such case being called Colocynth Pulp or Pith.

=Microscopic Structure=—The pulp is made up of large thin-walled parenchymatous cells, their outer layer consisting of rows of smaller cells more densely packed. The tissue is irregularly traversed by fibro-vascular bundles, and also exhibits numerous large intercellular spaces. The cells contain but an insignificant amount of minute granules, to which neither iodine nor a persalt of iron imparts any coloration. The tissue is not much swollen by water, although one part of the pulp easily retains from 10 to 12 parts of water like a sponge.

=Chemical Composition=—The bitter principle has been isolated in 1847 by Hübschmann.[1133] He observed that alcohol removes from the fruit a large amount of resin. By submitting this solution to distillation, the bitter principle remains partly in the aqueous liquid, partly in the resin, from which the “Colocynthin” is to be extracted by boiling water. The whole solution was then concentrated and mixed with carbonate of potassium, when a thickish viscid liquid separated. Hübschmann dried it and redissolved it in a mixture of 1 part of strong alcohol and 8 parts of ether. After treatment with charcoal, the solvents were distilled and the remaining bitter principle removed by means of water. This on evaporating afforded 2 per cent. of the pulp of a yellow extremely bitter powder, readily soluble in water or alcohol, not in pure ether. Colocynthin is precipitated from its aqueous solution by carbonate of potassium. Colocynthin was further extracted by Lebourdais (1848) by evaporating the aqueous infusion of the fruit with charcoal, and exhausting the dried powder with boiling alcohol.

[1133] Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Pharmacie, 1858. 216.

Again, another method was followed by Walz (1858). He treated alcoholic extract of colocynth with water, and mixed the solution firstly with neutral acetate of lead, and subsequently with basic acetate of lead. From the filtered liquid the lead was separated by means of sulphuretted hydrogen, and then tannic acid added to it. The latter caused the colocynthin to be precipitated; the precipitate washed and dried was decomposed by oxide of lead, and finally the colocynthin was dissolved out by ether.

Walz thus obtained about ¼ per cent. of a yellowish mass or tufts, which he considered as possessing crystalline structure and to which he gave the name Colocynthin. He assigns to it the formula C₅₆H₈₄O₂₃, which in our opinion requires further investigation. Colocynthin is a violent purgative; it is decomposed according to Walz by boiling dilute hydrochloric acid, and then yields Colocyntheïn, C₄₄H₆₄O₁₃, and grape sugar. The same chemist termed Colocynthitin that part of the alcoholic extract of colocynth which is soluble in ether but not in water. Purified with boiling alcohol, colocynthitin forms a tasteless crystalline powder.

The pulp perfectly freed from seeds and dried at 100° C., afforded us 11 per cent. of ash; the seeds alone yield only 2·7 per cent. They have, even when crushed, but a faint bitter taste, and contain 17 per cent. of fat oil.

The fresh leaves of the plant if rubbed emit a very unpleasant smell.

=Commerce=—The drug is imported from Mogador, Spain and Syria.

=Uses=—In the form of an extract made with weak alcohol, and combined with aloes and scammony, colocynth is much employed as a purgative. The seeds, roasted or boiled, are the miserable food of some of the poorest tribes of the Sahara.[1134]

The people of the Berber upon the Nile make a curious application for the tar they obtain from the fruit. The latter is heated in an earthen vessel with a hole in it; the tar drips through to another vessel and is fit for smearing leather water-bags. The bad smell of the tar (and of the leaves) prevents the camels from cutting open the water-bags.[1135]

=Substitutes=—Cucumis trigonus Roxb. (C. Pseudo-colocynthis Royle), a plant of the plains of Northern India, with spherical or elongated, sometimes obscurely trigonous, bitter fruits, prostate rooting stems, and deeply divided leaves, resembles the colocynth gourd and has been mistaken for it. Another species named by Royle C. Hardwickii, and known to the natives of India as Hill Colocynth, has oval oblong bitter fruits, but leaves entirely unlike those of the Citrullus Colocynthis.

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UMBELLIFERÆ

HERBA HYDROCOTYLES.

Indian Hydrocotyle, Indian Pennywort; F. Bevilacqua.

=Botanical Origin=—Hydrocotyle asiatica L., a small creeping herb,[1136] with slender jointed stems, common in moist places throughout tropical Asia and Africa, ascending in Abyssinia to elevations of 6,000 feet. It also occurs in America from South Carolina to Valdivia, in the West Indies, the islands of the Pacific, New Zealand, and Australia.

=History=—Hydrocotyle is called in Sanskrit mandūka-parnī, in Hindi khulakhudi. The former name denotes various plants, but is thought to refer in Susruta to the plant under notice (Dr. Rice). It was known to Rheede[1137] by its Malyalim name of Codagam (or Kutakan), and also to Rumphius.[1138] It has been long used medicinally by the natives of Java and of the Coromandel coast. In 1852, Boileau, a French physician of Mauritius, pointed out its virtues in the treatment of leprosy,[1139] for which disease it was largely tried in the hospitals of Madras by Hunter[1140] in 1855. It has since been admitted to a place in the Pharmacopœia of India.

[1134] See my paper on Cucumis Colocynthis considered as a nutritive plant in the Archiv der Pharmacie, 201 (1872) 235.—F. A. F.

[1135] Col. Grant, Botany of the Speke and Grant expedition, Journ. Linn. Soc. xxix. pt. 2 (1873) 77.

[1136] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen. Med. Plants, pt. 24, 1877.

[1137] Hort. Mal. x. tab. 46.

[1138] Herb. Amboin. v. 169.

[1139] Bouton, Med. Plants of Mauritius, 1857. 73-83.

[1140] Medical Reports, Madras, 1855. 356.

=Description=[1141]—The peduncles and petioles are fasciculed; the latter are frequently 2½ inches long; the peduncles are shorter and bear a 3-or 4-flowered simple umbel with very short rays. The leaves are reniform, crenate, ½ to 2 inches in longest diameter, 7-nerved, glabrous, or when young somewhat hairy on the under side. The fruit is laterally compressed, orbicular, acute on the back; the mericarps reticulated, sometimes a little hairy, with 3 to 5 curved ribs; they are devoid of vittæ. The main root is an inch or two long, but roots are also thrown out by the procumbent stem.

When fresh, the herb is said to be aromatic and of a disagreeable bitter and pungent taste; but these qualities appear to be lost in drying.

=Chemical Composition=—An analysis of hydrocotyle has been made by Lépine, a pharmacien of Pondicherry,[1142] who found it to yield a somewhat peculiar body which he called Vellarin, from Valālrai, the Tamil name of the plant, and regarded as its active principle. Vellarin, which is said to be obtainable from the dry plant to the extent of 0·8 to 1·0 per cent., is an oily, non-volatile liquid with the smell and taste of fresh hydrocotyle, soluble in spirit of wine, ether, caustic ammonia, and partially also in hydrochloric acid. These singular properties do not enable us to rank vellarin in any well-characterized class of organic compounds.

By exhausting 3 ounces of the dried herb with rectified spirit, we did not obtain any thing like vellarin, but simply a green extract almost entirely soluble in warm water, and containing chiefly tannic acid, which produced an abundant green precipitate with salts of iron. With caustic potash, neither the herb nor its extract evolved any nauseous odour. The dried plant afforded Lépine 13 per cent. of ash.

=Uses=—As an alterative tonic, hydrocotyle is allowed to be of some utility, but the power claimed for it by Boileau of curing leprosy is generally denied. Dorvault[1143] regards it as belonging to the class of narcotico-acrid poisons such as hemlock, but we see no evidence to warrant such an opinion. Besides being administered internally, it is sometimes locally applied in the form of a poultice. Boileau says that the entire plant is preferable to the leaves alone.[1144]

=Substitutes (?)=—H. rotundifolia Roxb., another species common in India, may be known from H. asiatica by having 10 or more flowers in an umbel and much smaller fruits. The European H. vulgaris L., easily distinguishable from the allied tropical species just described, by having its leaves orbicular and peltate (not reniform), is said to possess deleterious properties.

[1141] Drawn up from Indian specimens.

[1142] Journ. de Pharm. xxviii. (1855) 47.

[1143] L’Officine (1872) 554.

[1144] It is probably by oversight that the leaves alone are ordered in the Pharmacopœia of India.

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FRUCTUS CONII

Hemlock fruits; F. Fruits de Ciguë; G. Schierlingsfrucht.

=Botanical Origin=—Conium maculatum L., an erect biennial herbaceous plant, flourishing by the sides of fields and streams, and in neglected spots of cultivated ground, throughout temperate Europe and Asia. It occurs in Asia Minor and the Mediterranean islands, and has been naturalized in North and South America. But the plant is very unevenly distributed, and in many districts is entirely wanting. It is found in most parts of Britain from Kent and Cornwall to the Orkneys.

=History=—Κώνειον, occurring as early as the fourth or fifth century B.C. in the Greek literature, was the plant under notice, at least in most cases. The famous hemlock potion of the Greeks by which criminals were put to death[1145] was essentially composed of the juice of this plant. The old Roman name of Conium was Cicuta; it prevails in the mediæval Latin literature, but was applied, about 1541, by Gesner (and probably before him by others) to Cicuta virosa L., another umbelliferous plant which is altogether wanting in Greece and in Southern Europe generally, and does not contain any poisonous alkaloid. To avoid the confusion arising from the same appellation given to these widely different and quite dissimilar plants, Linnæus, in 1737, restoring the classical Greek name, called it Conium maculatum.[1146]

Hemlock was used in Anglo-Saxon medicine. It is mentioned as early as the 1Oth century in the vocabulary of Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury, as “Cicuta, hemlic,”[1147] and also in the Meddygon Myddfai. Hemlock is derived from the Anglo-Saxon words “hem,” border, shore, and “leác” leek. Its use in modern medicine is due chiefly to the recommendation of Störck of Vienna, since whose time (1760) the plant has been much employed. The extreme uncertainty and even inertness of its preparations, which had long been known to physicians and had caused its rejection by many, have been recently investigated by Harley.[1148] The careful experiments of this physician show what are the real powers of the drug, and by what method its active properties may be utilized.

=Description=—The fruit has the structure usual to the order; it is broadly ovoid, somewhat compressed laterally, and constricted towards the commissure, attenuated towards the apex, which is crowned with a depressed stylopodium. As met with in the shops, it consists of the separated mericarps which are about ⅛ of an inch long. The dorsal surface of these has 5 prominent longitudinal ridges, the edges of which are marked with little protuberances giving them a jagged or crenate outline, which is most conspicuous before the fruits are fully ripe. The furrows are glabrous but slightly wrinkled longitudinally; they are devoid of vittæ. When a mericarp is cut transversely, the seed exhibits a reniform outline, due to a deep furrow in the albumen on the side of the commissure.

[1145] See Imbert-Gourbeyre, De la mort de Socrate par la Ciguë, Paris, 1876.

[1146] An extensive paper has been devoted by Albert Regel to the History of Conium and Cicuta in the Bulletin de la Soc. imp. des Naturalistes de Moscou, tome li. (1876, first part) 155-203 and lii. (1877) first part, 1-52.

[1147] Volume of Vocabularies, edited by Wright, 1857. 31.

[1148] Pharm. Journ. viii. (1867) 460-710; ix. (1868) 53.

The fruits of hemlock are dull greenish grey, and have but little taste and smell; but when triturated with a solution of caustic alkali they evolve a strong and offensive odour.

=Microscopic Structure=—Hemlock fruits differ from other fruits of the order by the absence of vittæ.[1149] In the endocarp, there is a peculiar layer of small nearly cubic cells surrounding the albumen. The cells of the endocarp are loaded with a brown liquid consisting chiefly of conine and essential oil.

=Chemical Composition=—The most important constituent of the fruits of hemlock Conine or Conia, C₈H₁₄NH, a limpid colourless oily fluid, 0·846 sp. gr. at 12°·5 C. It has a strong alkaline reaction, and boils at 170° C. in an atmosphere devoid of oxygen, without decomposition. It was first observed by Giseke at Eisleben, Saxony, in 1827, recognized as an alkaloid by Geiger in 1831, and more amply studied by Wertheim in 1856 and 1862. To obtain it, an alcoholic extract is submitted to distillation with a little slaked lime. The product should be neutralized with oxalic acid, and the oxalate of conine removed by absolute alcohol mixed with a little ether, oxalate of ammonium being insoluble. The oxalate of the alkaloid shaken with caustic lye and ether, affords the conine, on evaporating the solvent and distilling the alkaloid in a current of dry hydrogen. In the plant it is combined with an acid (malic?), and accompanied by ammonia, as well as by a second, less poisonous crystallizable base, called Conhydrine, C₈H₁₇NO, which may be converted into conine by abstraction of the elements of water. From these alkaloids a liquid non-poisonous hydrocarbon, Conylene, C₈H₁₄, has been separated by Wertheim. Even in nature one hydrogen atom of conine is frequently replaced by methyl, CH₃; and commercial conine commonly contains, as shown by A. von Planta and Kekulé, methyl-conine, C₈H₁₄NCH₃. Lastly there is present in hemlock fruits a third alkaloid having probably the composition C₇H₁₃N.

As to the yield of conine, it varies according to the development of the fruits, but it is at best only about ⅕ per cent. According to Schroff (1870), the fruits are most active just before maturity, provided they are gathered from the biennial plant. At a later stage, conine is probably partly transformed into conhydrine, which however is present in but very small proportion,—about 1¼ per mille at most.

In its deleterious action, conine resembles nicotine, but is much less powerful.

Schiff (1871-1872) has artificially produced an alkaloid partaking of the general properties of conine, and having the same composition; but it is optically indifferent. Conine, on the other hand, we find turns the plane of polarization to the right.

The fruits of hemlock contain also a volatile oil which appears devoid of poisonous properties; it exists in but small quantity and has not yet been fully examined.

[1149] See Moynier de Villepoix, Annales des Sciences naturelles, Botanique, v. (1878) 348.

=Uses=—The fruits of hemlock are the only convenient source of the alkaloid conine. They were introduced into British medicine in 1864, as a substitute for the dried leaf in making the tincture. But it has been shown that a tincture, whether of leaf or fruit, is a preparation of very small value, and that it is far inferior to the preserved juice of the herb. It has however been pointed out by W. Manlius Smith,[1150] and his observations have been confirmed by Harley,[1151] that the green unripe fruits possess more than any other part the peculiar energies of the plant, and that they may even be dried without loss of activity. A medicinal fluid extract of considerable power has been made from them by Squibb of New York.

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FOLIA CONII

Hemlock Leaves; F. Feuilles de Ciguë; G. Schierlingsblätter.

=Botanical Origin=—Conium maculatum L., see p. 299.

=History=—See p. 299.

=Description=—Hemlock in its first year produces only a tuft of leaves; but in its second a stout erect stem which often grows to the height of 5 or 9 feet, is much branched in its upper part, and terminates in small umbels, each having about 12 rays. The lower leaves, often a foot in length, have a triangular outline, and a hollow stalk as long as the lamina, clasping the stem at its base with a membranous sheath. Towards the upper portion of the plant, the leaves have shorter stalks, are less divided, and are opposite or in cohorts of 3 to 5. The involucral bracts are lanceolate, reflexed, and about a ¼ of an inch long. Those of the partial umbel are turned towards the outside, and are always 3 in number. The larger leaves are twice or thrice pinnate, the ultimate segments being ovate-oblong, acute, and deeply incised.

The stem is cylindrical and hollow, of a glaucous green, generally marked on its lower part with reddish-brown spots. The leaves are of a dull dark green, and like the rest of the plant quite glabrous. They have when bruised a disagreeable fœtid smell.

For medicinal purposes the plant should be taken when in full blossom.[1152]

=Chemical Composition=—The leaves of hemlock contain, though in exceedingly small proportion, the same alkaloids as the fruits. Geiger obtained from the fresh herb not so much as one ten-thousandth part of conine. It is probable however that the active constituents vary in proportion considerably, and that a dry and sunny climate promotes their development.

The same observer, as well as Pereira, has pointed out that hemlock leaves when dried are very frequently almost devoid of conine, and the observation is supported by the more recent experiments of Harley (1867). It has also been shown by the last named physician, that the inspissated juice known in pharmacy as Extractum Conii usually contains but a mere trace of alkaloid, the latter having in fact been dissipated by the heat employed in reducing the juice to the required consistence. On the other hand, Harley has proved that the juice of fresh hemlock preserved by the addition of spirit of wine, as in the Succus Conii of the Pharmacopœia, possesses in an eminent degree the poisonous properties of the plant.

[1150] Trans. of the New York State Medical Society for 1867.

[1151] The old Vegetable Neurotics, Lond. 1869.

[1152] The London herbalists often collect it while much of the inflorescence is still in bud, in which state it affords far more of leaf than when well matured; but it is in the latter condition that the plant is to be preferred.

The entire amount of nitrogen in dried hemlock leaves was estimated by Wrightson (1845) at 6·8 per cent.; the ash at 12·8 per cent. The latter consists mainly of salts of potassium, sodium, and calcium, especially of sodium chloride and calcium phosphate.

A ferment-oil may be obtained from Conium; it is stated to have an odour unlike that of the plant and a burning taste, and not to be poisonous.[1153]

[1153] Gmelin, Chemistry, xiv. 405.

=Uses=—Hemlock administered in the form of Succus Conii, has a peculiar sedative action on the motor nerves, on account of which it is occasionally prescribed. It was formerly much more employed than at present, although the preparations used were so defective that they could rarely have produced the specific action of the medicine.

=Plants liable to be confounded with Hemlock=—Several common plants of the order Umbelliferæ have a superficial resemblance to Conium, but can be discriminated by characters easy of observation. One of these is Æthusa Cynapium L. or Fool’s Parsley, a common annual garden weed, of much smaller stature than hemlock. It may be known by its primary umbel having no involucre, and by its partial umbel having an involucel of 2 or 3 linear pendulous bracts. The ridges of its fruit moreover are not wavy or crenate as in hemlock, nor is its stem spotted.

Chærophyllum Anthriscus L. (Anthriscus vulgaris Pers.) and two or three other species of Chærophyllum have the lower leaves not unlike those of hemlock, but they are pubescent or ciliated. The fruits too are linear-oblong, and thus very dissimilar from those of Conium.

The latter plant is in fact clearly distinguished by its smooth spotted stem, the character of its involucral bracts and fruit, and finally by the circumstance that when triturated with a few drops of solution of caustic alkali, it evolves conine (and ammonia), easily observable as a white fume when a rod moistened with strong acetic acid is held over the mortar.

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