I.—PHÆNOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS. (continued 19)

PIX LIQUIDA.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other Varieties of Tar.

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

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

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

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

PIX NIGRA.

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

Botanical Origin—see Pix liquida.

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

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

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

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

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

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

FRUCTUS JUNIPERI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HERBA SABINÆ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Monocotyledons.

CANNACEÆ.

AMYLUM MARANTÆ.

Arrowroot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Substitutes for Arrowroot.

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

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

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

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

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

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

ZINGIBERACEÆ.

RHIZOMA ZINGIBERIS.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Commerce—Great Britain imported of ginger as follows:—

1868 1869 1870 1871 1872

52,194 cwt. 34,535 cwt. 33,854 cwt. 32,723 cwt. 32,174 cwt.

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

The drug was received in 1872 thus:—

From Egypt 4,923 cwt.

” Sierra Leone 6,167 ”

” British India 13,310 ”

” British West Indies 7,543 ”

” other countries 231 ”

Total 32,174 ”

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

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

RHIZOMA CURCUMÆ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RHIZOMA GALANGÆ.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Other sorts of Cardamom.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

GRANA PARADISI.

Semina Cardamomi majoris, Piper Melegueta; Grains of Paradise, Guinea Grains, Melegueta Pepper; F. Grains de Paradis, Maniguette; G. Paradieskörner.

Botanical Origin—Amomum Melegueta Roscoe—an herbaceous, reed-like plant, 3 to 5 feet high, producing on a scape rising scarcely an inch above the ground, a delicate, wax-like, pale purple flower, which is succeeded by a smooth, scarlet, ovoid fruit, 3 to 4 inches in length, rising out of sheathing bracts.[2420]

It varies considerably in the dimensions of all its parts, according to more or less favourable circumstances of soil and climate. In Demerara, where the plant grows luxuriously in cultivation, the fruit is as large as a fine pear, measuring with its tubular part as much as 5 inches in length by 2 inches in diameter; on the other hand, in some parts of West Africa it scarcely exceeds in size a large filbert. It has a thick fleshy pericarp, enclosing a colourless acid pulp of pleasant taste, in which are imbedded the numerous seeds.

A. Melegueta is widely distributed in tropical West Africa, occurring along the coast region from Sierra Leone to Congo. The littoral region, termed, in allusion to its producing grains of paradise, the Grain Coast, Pepper Coast, or Melegueta Coast, lies between Liberia and Cape Palmas; or, more exactly, between Capes Mesurado (Montserrado) and St. Andrews. The Gold Coast, whence the seeds are now principally exported, is in the Gulf of Guinea, further eastward.

Of the distribution of the plant in the interior we have no exact information. Yet the name Melegueta refers to the ancient empire of Melle (Meli or Melly), formerly extending over the upper Niger region, about in 4° E. long., and then inhabited by the Mandingos, now by the Fulbe or Fullãn. Messena is their most considerable place. In that region Amomum Melegueta may be indigenous, or the spice, being formerly exported from the coast by way of Melle, took its commercial name in allusion to the latter.

History—There is no evidence that the ancients were acquainted with the seeds called Grains of Paradise; nor can we find any reference to them earlier than an incidental mention under their African name, in the account[2421] of a curious festival held at Treviso in a.d. 1214: it was a sort of tournament, during which a sham fortress, held by twelve noble ladies and their attendants, was besieged and stormed by assailants armed with flowers, fruits, sweetmeats, perfumes, and spices, amongst which last figure—Melegetæ!

After this period there are many notices, showing the seeds to have been in general use. Nicolas Myrepsus,[2422] physician at the court of the Emperor John III. at Nicœa, in the 13th century, prescribed Μνεγέται; and his contemporary, Simon of Genoa,[2423] at Rome, names the same drug as Melegete or Melegette. Grana Paradisi are enumerated among spices sold at Lyons[2424] in 1245, and were used about the same time by the Welsh Physicians of Myddvai under the name Grawn Paris.[2425] They also occur as Greyn Paradijs in a tariff of duties levied at Dordrecht in Holland[2426] in 1358. And again among the spices used by John, king of France, when in England, a.d. 1359-60, Grainne de Paradis is repeatedly mentioned.[2427]

In the earliest times the drug was conveyed by the long land journey from the Mandingo country through the desert to the Mediterranean port, Monte di Barca (Mundibarca), on the coast of Tripoli. There the spice was shipped by the Italians, and being the produce of an unknown region and held in great esteem, it acquired the name of Grains of Paradise,[2428] or also, as already stated at page 650, that of Semina Cardamomi Majoris. That they came from Melli is expressly stated also by Leonhard Fuchs.[2429] Small quantities of the drug still reach Tripoli in the same way.

Towards the middle of the 14th century, there began to be direct commercial intercourse with tropical Western Africa. Margry[2430] relates that ships were sent thither from Dieppe in 1364, and took cargoes of ivory and malaguette from near the mouth of the river Cestos, now Sestros. A century later the coast was visited by the Portuguese, who termed it Terra de malaguet. The celebrated Columbus also, who traded to the coast of Guinea, called it Costa di Maniguetta. Soon after this period the spice became a monopoly of the kings of Portugal.

English voyagers visited the Gold Coast in the 16th century, bringing thence in exchanging for European goods, gold, ivory, pepper, and Grains of Paradise.[2431] The pepper was doubtless that of Piper Clusii (p. 589).

Grains of paradise, often called simply grains, were anciently used as a condiment like pepper. They were also employed with cinnamon and ginger in making the spiced wine called hippocras, in vogue during the 14th and 15th centuries.

In the Portuguese and Spanish idioms, the name Melegueta, spelt in various ways, as Melegette, Melligetta, Mallaguetta, Manigete, Maniguette, was subsequently also applied to other substitutes of pepper, and even to that spice itself.

In the hands of modern botanists, the plant affording grains of paradise has been the subject of a complication of errors which it is needless to discuss. Suffice it to say, that Amomum Granum Paradisi as described by Linnæus cannot be identified;—that in 1817, Afzelius, a Swedish botanist, who resided some years at Sierra Leone, published a description of “Amomum Granum Paradisi? Linn.,”[2432] but that the specimen of it alleged to have been received from him, and now preserved in the herbarium of Sir J. E. Smith, belongs to another species. Under these circumstances, the name given to the grains of paradise plant by Roscoe, A. Melegueta, has been accepted as quite free from doubt.[2433]

Description—The seeds are about ⅒ of an inch in diameter, rather variable in form, being roundish, bluntly angular or somewhat pyramidal. They are hard, with a shining, reddish-brown, shagreen-like surface. The hilum is beak-shaped and of paler colour. The seeds when crushed are feebly aromatic, but have a most pungent and burning taste.

Microscopic Structure—In structure, grains of paradise agree in most respects with cardamom seeds. Yet in the former, the cells of the albumen have very thin, delicate walls which are much more elongated. Of the testa, only the innermost layer agrees with the corresponding part of cardamom; whilst the middle layer has the cell-walls so much thickened that only a few cavities, widely distant from one another, remain open. The outer layer of the testa consists of thick-walled cells, the cavities of which appear, on transverse section, radially extended. The albumen is loaded with starch granules of 2 to 5 mkm. diameter, the whole amount in each cell being agglutinated, so as to form a coherent mass.

Chemical Composition—Grains of paradise contain a small proportion of essential oil; 53 lb. yielded us only 2½ oz., equivalent to nearly 0·30 per cent.[2434] The oil is faintly yellowish, neutral, of an agreeable odour reminding one of the seeds, and of an aromatic, not acrid taste. It has a sp. gr. at 15·5° C., of 0·825. It is but sparingly soluble in absolute alcohol or in spirit of wine; but mixes clearly with bisulphide of carbon; it dissolves iodine without explosion. When saturated with dry hydrochloric gas, no solid compound is formed.

The oil begins to boil at about 236° C., and the chief bulk of it distills at 257°-258°: the residual part is a thick brownish liquid. Examined in a column of 50 mm. long, the crude oil deviates 1·9° to the left. The portion passing over at 257°-258° deviates 1·2°, the residue 2° to the left. The optical behaviour is consequently in favour of the supposition that the oil is homogeneous. This is corroborated by the results of three elementary analyses which lead to the formula C₂₀H₃₂O.

In order to ascertain whether the seed contains a fatty oil, 10 grammes, powdered with quartz, were exhausted with boiling ether. This gave upon evaporation 0·583 grm. of a brown viscid residue, almost devoid of odour, but of intense pungency. As it was entirely soluble in glacial acetic acid or in spirit of wine, we may consider it a resin, and not to contain any fatty matter.

The seeds, dried at 100° C., afforded us 2·15 per cent. of ash, which, owing to the presence of manganese, had a green hue.

Commerce—Grains of paradise are chiefly shipped from the settlements on the Gold Coast, of which Cape Coast Castle and Accra are the more important. Official returns[2435] show that the exports in 1871 from this district were as follows:—to Great Britain 85,502 lb., the United States 35,630 lb., Germany 28,501 lb., France 27,125 lb., Holland 14,250 lb.—total, 191,011 lb. (1705 cwt.) In 1872 the total shipments amounted to the enormous quantity of 620,191 lb., valued at £10,303; in 1875 only 151,783 lb., valued at £912, were exported.