I.—PHÆNOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS. (continued 17)

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

STROBILI HUMULI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

C₂₅H₂₄O₁₃)₂ = OH₂ · C₅₀H₄₆O₂₅.

humulotannic acid. phlobaphene.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GLANDULÆ HUMULI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ULMACEÆ.

CORTEX ULMI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CORTEX ULMI FULVÆ.

Slippery Elm Bark.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

EUPHORBIACEÆ.

EUPHORBIUM.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In the year 1849 it was pointed out in the (Admiralty) Manual of Scientific Enquiry, that the stems of which fragrants are found in commercial euphorbium, do not agree with those of E. canariensis. Berg carried the comparison further, and finally from the fragments in question drew up a botanical description, which with an excellent figure he published[2078] as Euphorbia resinifera. The correctness of his observations has been fully justified by specimens[2079] which were transmitted to the Royal Gardens, Kew, in 1870, and now form flourishing plants.

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

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

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

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

Amorphous resin, C₁₀H₁₆O₂ 38

Euphorbon, C₁₃H₂₂O 22

Mucilage 18

Malates, chiefly of calcium and sodium 12

Mineral compounds 10

100

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CORTEX CASCARILLÆ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Copalchi Bark; Quina blanca of the Mexicans.

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

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

SEMEN TIGLII.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SEMEN RICINI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

KAMALA.

Kamela, Glandulæ Rottleræ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PIPERACEÆ.

FRUCTUS PIPERIS NIGRI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

White Pepper.

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

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

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

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

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

FRUCTUS PIPERIS LONGI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CUBEBÆ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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