I.—PHÆNOGAMOUS OR FLOWERING PLANTS. (continued 5)

The name Myrrh is from the Hebrew and Arabic Mur, meaning bitter, whence also the Greek σμύρνα. The ancient Egyptian Bola or Bal, and the Sanskrit Vola are preserved in the Persian and Indian words Bol, Bola, and Heerabol, well-known names for myrrh.

Stacte (στακτὴ), a substance often mentioned by the ancients, is said by Pliny to be a spontaneous liquid exudation of the myrrh tree, more valuable than myrrh itself. The author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea represents it as exported from Muza in Arabia[563] together with myrrh. Theophrastus[564] a.d. 314-335.[565]

The myrrh of the ancients was not always obtained from Arabia. The author of the Periplus,[566] who wrote about a.d. 64, records it to have been an export of Abalites, Malao, and Mosyllon (the last named the modern Berbera), ancient ports of the African coast outside the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb; and he even mentions that it is conveyed by small vessels to the opposite shores of Arabia.

Secretion—Marchand[567] who examined and figured the sections of a branch of three years’ growth of B. Myrrha, represents the gum-resin as chiefly deposited in the cortical layers, with a little in the medulla.

Collection—By the Somal tribe myrrh is largely collected as it flows out, incisions, according to Hildebrandt, being never practised. From the information given by Ehrenberg to Nees von Esenbeck,[568] it appears that myrrh when it first exudes is of an oily and then of a buttery appearance, yellowish white, gradually assuming a golden tint and becoming reddish as it hardens. It exudes from the bark like cherry-tree gum, and becomes dark and of inferior value by age. Although Ehrenberg says that the myrrh he saw was of fine quality, he does not mention it being gathered by the natives.

With regard to the localities[569] in which the drug is collected, Cruttenden,[570] who visited the Somali coast in 1843, says that myrrh is brought from the Wadi Nogâl, south west of Cape Gardafui, and from Murreyhan, Ogadain and Agahora; and that some few trees are found on the mountains behind Bunder Murayah. Major Harris[571] saw the myrrh tree in the Adel desert and in the jungle of the Háwash, on the way from Tajura to Shoa.

Vaughan[572] states that the Somali Country and the neighbourhood of Hurrur (or Harar or Adari, 9° 20′ N., 42° 17′ E.) south west of Zeila are the chief producing districts. It is generally brought to the great fair of Berbera held in November, December, and January, where it is purchased by the Banians of India, and shipped for Bombay.

It appears that all these informations rather refer to the Bisabol or Habaghadi variety of myrrh; only the first notice, due to Hildebrandt, applies to true myrrh.

Myrrh trees abound on the hills about Shugra and Sureea in the territory of the Fadhli or Fudthli tribe, lying to the eastward of Aden; myrrh is collected from them by Somalis who cross from the opposite coast for the purpose and pay a tribute for the privilege to the Arabs, who appear to be scarcely acquainted with this drug.[573] But a sample of it, received by one of us from Vaughan in 1852, and others we have since seen in London (and easily, recognized), proved it to be somewhat different from typical myrrh, and it is probably afforded by another species than Balsamodendron Myrrha.

It would thus appear that there are three different trees affording myrrh, namely that just alluded to, secondly the “Habaghadi,” and thirdly that growing east of Aden.

Description—Myrrh consists of irregular roundish masses, varying in size from small grains up to pieces as large as an egg, and occasionally much larger. They are of an opaque reddish-brown with dusty dull surface. When broken, they exhibit a rough or waxy fracture, having a moist and unctuous appearance, especially when pressed, and a rich brown hue. The fractured, translucent surface often displays characteristic whitish marks which the ancients compared to the light mark at the base of the finger-nails. Myrrh has a peculiar and agreeable fragrance with an aromatic, bitter, and acrid taste. It cannot be finely powdered until deprived by drying of some of its essential oil and water; nor when heated does it melt like colophony.

Water disintegrates myrrh, forming a light brown emulsion, which viewed under the microscope appears made up of colourless drops, among which are granules of yellow resin. Alcohol dissolves the resin of myrrh, leaving angular non-crystalline particles of gum[574] and fragments of bark.

Chemical Composition—Myrrh is a mixture, in very varying proportions, of resin, mucilaginous matters, and essential oil. A fine specimen of myrrh from the Somali coast, with which Captain Hunter, in 1877, kindly presented one of us, yielded 27 per cent. of resin. The undissolved portion is partly soluble in water.

The resin dissolves completely in chloroform or alcohol, and the colour of the latter solution is but slightly darkened by perchloride of iron. It is but partially soluble in alkalis or in bisulphide of carbon. Brückner (1867) found this portion to yield 75·6 per cent. of carbon and 9·5 of hydrogen. The resin which the bisulphide refuses to dissolve, is freely soluble in ether. It contains only 57·4 per cent. of carbon. The resin of myrrh to which, when moistened with alcohol, a small quantity of concentrated nitric or hydrochloric acid is added, assumes a violet hue, but far less brilliant than that displayed by resin of galbanum when treated in a similar manner. But a most intensely violet liquid may be obtained by adding bromine to the resin dissolved in bisulphide of carbon. If the resin of myrrh as afforded by alcohol is warmed with petroleum (boiling at 70° C.), only a small amount of resin is dissolved. This liquid becomes turbid if vapours of bromine are added; a violet flocculent matter deposits, whereas the just above-mentioned solution in the bisulphide continues clear on addition of bromine.

The resin of myrrh is not capable of affording umbelliferone like that of galbanum. By melting it with potash, pyrocatechin and protocatechuic acid are produced in small amount.

Myrrh yields on distillation a volatile oil which in operating on 25 lb. of the drug, we obtained to the extent of ¾ per cent.[575] It is a yellowish, rather viscid liquid, neutral to litmus, having a powerful odour of myrrh and sp. gr. 0·988 at 13° C.[576] In a column 50 mm. long, it deviates a ray of light 30·1° to the left. By submitting it to distillation, we obtained before the oil boiled, a few drops of a strongly acid liquid having the smell of formic acid. Neutralized with ammonia, this liquid produced in solution of mercurous nitrate a whitish precipitate which speedily darkened, thus indicating formic acid, which is developed in the oil. Old myrrh is in fact said to yield an acid distillate. The oil begins to boil at about 266° C., and chiefly distills over between 270° and 290°.

On combustion in the usual way it afforded carbon 84·70, hydrogen 9·98. Having been again rectified in a current of dry carbonic acid, it had a boiling point of 262-263° C., and now afforded[577] carbon 84·70, hydrogen 10·26, which would nearly answer to the formula C₂₂H₃₂O. The results of Ruickholdt’s analysis (1845) of essential oil of myrrh assign it the formula C₁₀H₁₄O, which is widely different from that indicated by our experiments.

The oil which we rectified displays a faintly greenish hue; it is miscible in every proportion with bisulphide of carbon, the solution exhibiting at first no peculiar coloration when a drop of nitric or sulphuric acid is added. Yet the mixture to which nitric acid (1·20) has been added, assumes after an hour or two a fine violet hue which is very persistent, enduring even if the liquid is allowed to dry up in a large capsule. If to the crude oil dissolved in bisulphide of carbon bromine be added, a violet hue is produced; and if the solution is allowed to evaporate, and the residue diluted with spirit of wine, it assumes a fine blue which disappears on addition of an alkali. The oil is not much altered by boiling with alcoholic potash, nor does it combine with alkaline bisulphites.

The Bitter principle of myrrh is contained in the resin as extracted by alcohol. By exhausting the resin with warm water an acid brown solution is obtained, from which a dark, viscid, neutral mass separates if the liquid is concentrated; it is contaminated with a large amount of inorganic matter, from which it may be purified by means of ether. Yet the latter affords also but an amorphous, somewhat brittle brown substance, softening at 80°-90° C. This bitter principle reminds us of that mentioned in our article Elemi, page 151; it is but sparingly soluble in water; the yellowish solution is intensely bitter. The bitter principle of myrrh appears to be a glucoside. We have not succeeded in preparing it in a more satisfactory state.

Commerce—Myrrh is chiefly shipped by way of Berbera to Aden, and thence either to Europe or to Bombay. The exports of Aden in the fiscal year 1875 to 1876 were 1439 cwt.; one-half of which went to Bombay, one third to the United Kingdom.[578]

The bags or bales which contain the myrrh are opened in Bombay, and the drug is sorted. The better portion goes to Europe, the refuse to China, where it is probably used as an incense.[579]

Uses—Myrrh, though much used, does not appear to possess any very important medicinal powers, and is chiefly employed on account of its bitter, aromatic properties.

Other Varieties of Myrrh—Though the myrrh of commerce exhibits some diversity of appearance, the drug-brokers and druggists of London are not in the habit of applying any special designations to the different qualities. There are however two varieties which deserve notice.

1. Bissa Bol (Bhesabol, Bysabole), Habaghadi or Hebbakhade of the Somalis, formerly called East India Myrrh.[580]

This drug is of African origin, but of the plant which yields it nothing is known. Vaughan[581] who sent a sample from Aden to one of us in 1852, was told by the natives that the tree from which it is collected resembles that affording Heera Ból or true myrrh, but that it is nevertheless distinct. The drug is exported from the whole Somali coast to Mokha, Jidda, Aden, Makulla, the Persian Gulf, India and even China.[582] Bombay official returns show that the quantity imported thither in the year 1872-73, was 224 cwt, all shipped from Aden.

Some myrrh, no doubt that from the interior of north-eastern Africa, the Habaghadi or Baisabole, finds its way by the country of the Wagadain (Ugahden or Ogadain) to the small port of Brava (Barawa, Braoua), about 1° N. lat., and to Zanzibar.[583] This is, possibly, also the “Mirra fina” which is stated, about the year 1502, by Tomé Lopez to be collected (?) in the island of “Monzambiche.”[584]

According to Vaughan, Bissa Bôl is mixed with the food given to milch cows and buffaloes in order to increase the quantity and improve the quality of their milk, and that it is also used as size to impart a bright gloss to whitewashed walls.

Miles mentions[585] that myrrh, called there hodthai, is only used in the Somali country, by men to whiten their shields (by means of an emulsion made with the drug), by women to cleanse their hair. Probably hodthai and habaghadi is one and the same thing.

Bissa Bôl differs from myrrh in its stronger, almost acrid taste and in odour, which, when once familiar is easily recognizable; fine specimens of the former have the outward characters of myrrh and perhaps are often passed off for it. A good sample of “coarse” habaghadi myrrh as sent in 1877 by Captain Hunter from Aden proved to contain but very little resin. This resin is manifestly different from that of myrrh as already shown by its paler, more reddish colour. The resin of Bissa Bôl moreover is but very sparingly soluble in bisulphide of carbon; this solution is not altered by bromine, that of true myrrh, as above stated, assuming a most intense violet colour on addition of bromine. Nor is the resin of habaghadi soluble in petroleum ether. Of the gummy substance, which is by far the prevailing constituent of this drug, a small portion only is soluble in water. These extremely marked differences no doubt depend upon a widely discrepant composition of the resins of the two kinds of myrrh as well as upon a different proportion of gum and resin. The Bissa Bôl usually seen is an impure and foul substance, which is regarded by London druggists as well as by the Banian traders in India as a very inferior dark sort of myrrh.

2. Arabian Myrrh—The drug we have mentioned at p. 143 as collected to the eastward of Aden, is of interest as substantiating the statement of Theophrastus that both olibanum and myrrh grow in Southern Arabia.

The drug, which is not distinguished by any special name in English trade, is in irregular masses seldom exceeding 1½ inches long, and having a somewhat gummy-looking exterior. The larger lumps seem formed by the cohesion of small, rounded, translucent, externally shining tears or drops. The fracture is like that of common myrrh, but less unctuous and wants the whitish markings. The odour and taste are those of the ordinary drug. Pieces of a semi-transparent papery bark are attached to some of the lumps. We extracted the resin of a sample of this myrrh from the territory of the Fadhli, as sent to us by Captain Hunter. Its solution in bisulphide of carbon or petroleum ether was coloured by bromine as stated above, (p. 144) with regard to typical myrrh (Heerabol) from the Somali Country. The name applies to myrrh from the vicinity of Ras Morbat in the same region. But the resin of another kind of Arabian myrrh, for which we are likewise indebted to Captain Hunter, is not coloured when treated in the same way. This is the myrrh “Hodaidia Jebeli” from north and north-western Yenen.

ELEMI.

Resina Elemi; Elemi; F. Résine Elemi; G. Elemiharz.

Botanical Origin—The resin known in pharmacy as Elemi is derived from a tree growing in the Philippines, which Blanco,[586] a botanist of Manila, described in 1845 under the name of Icica Abilo, but which is completely unknown to the botanists of Europe. Blanco’s description is such that, if correct, the plant cannot be placed in either of the old genera Icica or Elaphrium, comprehended by Bentham and Hooker in that of Bursera, nor yet in the allied genus Canarium; in fact even the order to which it belongs is somewhat doubtful.[587]

The tree grows in the province of Batangas in the island of Luzon (south of Manila), where its name in the Tagala language is ábilo; the Spaniards call it Arbol a brea, i.e. pitch-tree, from the circumstance that its resin is used for the caulking of boats.

History—The explicit statements of Theophrastus in the 3rd century b.c. relative to olibanum have already been mentioned. The same writer narrates[588] that a little above Coptus on the Red Sea, no tree is found except the acacia (ἀκάνθη) of the desert ... but that on the sea there grow laurel (δάϕνη) and olive (ἐλαία), from the latter of which exudes a substance much valued to make a medicine for the staunching of blood.

This story appears again in Pliny[589] who says that in Arabia the olive tree exudes tears which are an ingredient of the medicine called by the Greeks Enhæmon, from its efficacy in healing wounds.

Dioscorides[590] briefly notices the Gum of the Ethiopian olive, which he likens to scammony; and the same substance is named by Scribonius Largus[591] who practised medicine at Rome during the 1st century.

The writers who have commented on Dioscorides have generally adopted the opinion that the exudation of the so-called olive tree of Arabia and Ethiopia was none other than the substance known to them as Elemi, though, as remarked by Mattioli,[592] the oriental drug thus called by no means well accords with the description left by that author.

As to that name, the earliest mention of it appears in the middle of the 15th century. Thus in a list of drugs sold at Frankfort about 1450, we find Gommi Elempnij.[593] Saladinus,[594] who lived about this period, enumerates Gumi Elemi among the drugs kept by the Italian apothecaries, but we have not met with the name in any other writer of the school of Salerno. The Arbolayre,[595] a herbal supposed to have been printed about 1485, gives some account of Gomme Elempni, stating that it is the gum of the lemon tree and not of fennel as some think,—that it resembles Male Incense,—and makes an excellent ointment for wounds.

The name Enhæmon[596] of Pliny, also written Enhæmi, is probably the original form of the word Animi, another designation for the same drug, though also applied as at the present day to a sort of copal. It is even possible that the word Elemi has the same origin.[597]

This primitive Elemi is in our opinion identical with a peculiar sort of olibanum known as Luban Meyeti, afforded by Boswellia Frereana Birdwood (p. 135). It has a remarkable resemblance both in external appearance and in odour to the substance in after-times imported from America, and which were likened to the elemi and animi of the Old World. The description of “gummi elemnia” given by Valerius Cordus,[598] the most careful observer of his period, could in our opinion well apply to Luban Meyeti. (See p. 153 further on.)

The first reference to Elemi as a production of America comes from the pen of Monardes[599] who has a chapter on Animi and Copal. He describes animi as of a more oily nature than copal, of a very agreeable odour, and in grains resembling olibanum but of larger size, and adds that it differs from the animi of the Old World in being less white and clear.

At a somewhat later period this resin and some similar substances began to be substituted for Elemi which had become scarce.[600] Pomet,[601] who as a dealer in drugs was a man of practical knowledge, laments that this American drug was being sold by some as Elemi, and by others as Animi or as Tacamaca. It was however introduced in great plenty, and at length took the place of the original elemi which became completely forgotten.

American Elemi was in turn discarded in favour of another sort imported from the Philippines. The first mention of this substance is to be found among the descriptions accompanied by drawings sent by Father Camellus to Petiver of London, of the shrubs and trees of Luzon,[602] in the year 1701. Camellus states that the tree, which from his drawing preserved in the British Museum appears to us to be a species of Canarium, is very tall and large, that it is called by the Spaniards Arbol de la brea, and that it yields an abundance of odorous resin which is commonly used for pitching boats. Living specimens of the tree together with samples of the resin were brought to Paris from Manila by the traveller Perrottet about the year 1820. For the last twenty years the resin has been common, and is now imported in large quantities[603] for use in the arts, so displacing all other kinds. It has been adopted as the Elemi of the British Pharmacopœia (1867), and is in fact the only variety of elemi now found in English commerce.

Description—Manila elemi is a soft, resinous substance, of granular consistence not unlike old honey, and when recent and quite pure is colourless; more often it is found contaminated with carbonaceous matter which renders it grey or blackish, and it is besides mixed with chips and similar impurities. By exposure to the air it becomes harder and acquires a yellow tint. It has a strong and pleasant odour suggestive of fennel and lemon, yet withal somewhat terebinthinous. When moistened with spirit of wine, it disintegrates, and examined under the microscope is seen to consist partly of acicular crystals. At the heat of boiling water the hardened drug softens, and at a somewhat higher temperature fuses into a clear resin.

Chemical Composition—Manila elemi is rich in essential oil. On submitting 28 lb. of it to distillation with water, we obtained 2 lb. 13 oz. (equivalent to 10 per cent.) of a fragrant, colourless, neutral oil, of sp. gr. 0·861 at 15° C. Observed in Wild’s polaristrobometer we found it to be strongly dextrogyre.[604] H. Sainte Claire Deville[605] on the other hand has examined an oil of elemi that was strongly levogyre. This discrepancy shows that there are among the oils of various kinds of elemi, differences similar to those existing in the oils of turpentine and copaiba. By the action of dry hydrochloric acid gas, Deville obtained from his oil of elemi a solid crystalline substance, C₁₀H₁₆ + 2 HCl. We failed to produce any such compound from the oil of Manila elemi. Our oil of elemi dissolves in bisulphide of carbon; when mixed with concentrated sulphuric acid, it becomes thick and assumes a deep orange colour.

By submitting the crude oil to fractional distillation, we separated it into six portions, of which the first five were dextrogyre in gradually diminishing degree, while the sixth displayed a weak deviation to the left.[606] The first portion having been dissolved in four times its weight of strong sulphuric acid, washed and again distilled, exhibit a deviation to the left.[607]

If the essential oil of elemi (8 parts) is shaken with alcohol, 0·816 sp. gr. (2 parts), nitric acid, 1·2 sp. gr. (1 part) and water (5 parts), the mixture, on exposure to air in a shallow capsule soon yields large crystals, which were found to agree crystallographically[608] perfectly with terpin, C₁₀H₂₀O₂ + OH₂ from oil of turpentine.

Maujean,[609] a French pharmacien, examined Manila elemi as long ago as 1821 and proved it to contain two resins, the one soluble in cold, the other only in hot spirit of wine. The former, which appears to constitute by far the prevailing part of all varieties of elemi, has not yet been satisfactorily examined. Bonastre[610] a little latter made a more complete analysis, showing that the less soluble resin which he obtained to the extent of 25 per cent. is easily crystallizable, and apparently identical with a substance obtainable in a similar manner from what he regarded as true elemi, which the Manila resin was not then held to be. Baup (1851) gave it the name of Amyrin. According to our experiments, it is readily isolated to the extent of 20 per cent. when Manila elemi is treated with cold spirit of wine, in which the crystals of amyrin are but slightly soluble. If the elemi is pure, the amyrin may be thus obtained (by washing with spirit and pressure between bibulous paper) in a cake of snowy whiteness, which may be further purified by crystallization from boiling alcohol. The fusing point of the crystals is 177° C.; their composition has been ascertained by Buri[611] to agree with the formula C₂₅H₄₂O, which may be written thus: (C₅H₈)₅ OH₂. Amyrin at 16° C. dissolves in 27·5 parts of alcohol 0·816 sp. gr., being readily soluble also in all the usual solvents for resins. The alcoholic solution is slightly dextrogyre. Amyrin is a neutral substance, and may be sublimed in small quantities by very carefully heating it.

By heating amyrin with zinc dust Ciamician[612] obtained chiefly toluol, methyl-ethyl-benzol and ethyl-naphtalin.

By allowing an alcoholic solution of the amorphous resin of Manila elemi[613] to evaporate, Baup obtained in very small quantity crystals of Bréine, a substance fusing at 187° C., which he considered to be distinct from amyrin. In our opinion it was impure amyrin; it is extremely difficult, or rather practically impossible to extract all the crystallizable resin from the amorphous. If the latter, perfectly transparent, is kept for several years, an elegant crystallization at last begins to make its appearance throughout the bulk of the resin.

Baup further extracted from Manila elemi a crystallizable substance soluble in water to which he gave the name of Bryoidin,[614] and in smaller quantity a second also soluble in water which he called Bréidine. From the experiments of Baup it appears that bryoidin is soluble in 360 parts of water at 10° C., and melts at 135° C.; whereas bréidine requires for solution 260 parts of water and fuses at a temperature not much over 100° C.

We have also obtained Bryoidin[615] by operating in the following manner: the watery liquid left in the still after the distillation of 28 lb. of Manila elemi was poured off from the mass of hard resin, and having been duly concentrated, it deposited together with a dark extractiform matter, colourless acicular crystals of bryoidin. The deposit in question having been drained and allowed to dry, the bryoidin may be separated by boiling water or by cold ether. We found the latter the more convenient; it readily takes up the bryoidin contaminated only with a little resin. The ethereal solution should be allowed to evaporate and the residual crystalline mass boiled in water, when the solution (which is colourless), poured off from the resin, will deposit upon cooling brilliant tufts of acicular crystals of bryoidin. The boiling in water requires to be several times repeated before the whole of the bryoidin can be removed; the latter sometimes crystallizes as a mossy arborescent growth. Bryoidin is a neutral substance, of bitter taste, scarcely soluble in cold water, but dissolving easily in boiling water, or in alcohol or ether. When a little is placed in a watch-glass, covered with a plate of glass, and then gently heated over a lamp, it sublimes in delicate needles. To obtain it perfectly pure, it is best to sublime it in a current of dry carbonic acid. Thus purified its fusing point is 133·5 C.; after fusion it concretes as a transparent, amorphous mass, which if immersed in glycerin and raised to the temperature of 135° C., suddenly crystallizes.

We have observed that if the filtered mother-liquor of bryoidin after complete cooling and standing for a day or two is warmed, it becomes turbid and that in a few minutes there separate from it long white flocks like bits of paper or wool, which do not disappear either by warming or by cooling the liquid; under the microscope they are seen to consist partly of thread-like, partly of acicular crystals. It is possible this substance is Baup’s Bréidine; we found it to fuse at 135° C., to be neutral, and to crystallize from weak alcohol exactly like bryoidin. Both it and bryoidin look very voluminous in water, but are extremely small in weight, and are present in the drug in but a very small amount. The composition of bryoidin agrees with the formula C₂₀H₃₈O₃, which might be written thus (C₅H₈)₄+3OH₂. But it contains no water of crystallization. In the vapour of dry hydrochloric gas, bryoidin assumes a fine red colour, turning violet, then blue, and lastly green. This behaviour is not at all displayed by amyrin.

The liquids from which bryoidin is obtained contain an amorphous brown substance of intensely bitter taste, at the same time somewhat aromatic. It is decomposed by dilute mineral acids, evolving a very peculiar strong odour.

Buri[616] isolated from Manila Elemi an extremely small amount of Elemic acid, C₃₅H₅₆O₄. It is in very brilliant crystals, much larger than those of the other constituents of elemi. Although we have before us some prisms of the acids several millimetres long, it has been found impossible to ascertain their crystallographic character, each of the prisms being formed of very intimately aggregated crystals. Elemic acid melts at 215° C.; its alcoholic solution decidedly reddens litmus. Elemate of potassium is a crystalline salt.

The relations of the substances hitherto isolated from elemi may perhaps be given thus:—

Essential oil, C₅H₈.

Amyrin, (C₅H₈)₅ + OH₂

Amorphous resin (?) (C₅H₈)₂ + OH₂

Bryoidin, (C₅H₈)₄ + 3OH₂

Elemic acid, (C₅H₈)₇ + O₄

Uses—Elemi is scarcely used in British medicine except in the form of an ointment, sometimes prescribed as a stimulating application to old wounds.

Other sorts of Elemi—1. Mexican Elemi, Vera Cruz Elemi—This drug, which used to be imported into London about thirty years ago, but which has now disappeared from commerce, is the produce of a tree named by Royle Amyris elemifera growing at Oaxaca in Mexico.[617] It is a light yellow, or whitish, brittle resin occurring in semi-cylindrical scraped pieces, or in irregular fragments which are sometimes translucent but more often dull and opaque. It easily softens in the mouth so that it may be masticated, and has an agreeable terebinthinous odour. Treated with cold spirit of wine (·828), it breaks down into a white magma of acicular crystals (Amyrin?).

2. Brazilian Elemi—Was described as long ago as 1658 by the traveller Piso, as a substance completely resembling the elemi of the Old World and applicable to the same purposes. It is the produce of several trees described as species of Icica, as I. Icicariba DC.,[618] I. heterophylla DC., I. heptaphylla Aublet, I. guianensis Aubl., I. altissima Aubl.—In New Granada a similar exudation[619] is furnished by I. Caranna H.B.K.

A specimen in our possession from Pernambuco[620] is a translucent, greenish yellow, fragrant, terebinthinous resin, which by cold spirit of wine may be separated into two portions, the one soluble, the other a mass of colourless acicular crystals. The resin spontaneously exuded and collected from the trunks, is often opaque and white, grey, or yellowish, looking not unlike fragments of old mortar. The microscope shows it to be made up of minute acicular crystals.[621]

3. Mauritius Elemi—Fine specimens of this substance and of Colophonia Mauritiana DC. the tree affording it, were sent to one of us (H.) in 1855 by Mr. Emile Fleurot of Mauritius. The resin accords in its general characters with Manila elemi, like which it leaves after treatment with cold spirit of wine, an abundance of crystals resembling amyrin.

4. Luban Meyeti[622] or Luban Mati.—This substance, which we claim to be the Oriental or African Elemi of the older writers, and also one of the resins anciently designated Animi,[623] is the exudation of Boswellia Frereana Birdwood, a remarkable tree gregarious on the bare limestone hills near Bunder Murayah to the west of Cape Gardafui. The tree which is called Yegaar by the natives, is of small stature, and differs from the other species of Boswellia growing on the same coast in having glabrous, glaucous leaves with obtuse leaflets, crisped at the margin.[624] The bark is smooth, papery, and translucent, and easily stripped off in thin sheets which are used for writing on. Though growing wild, the trees are said by Capt. Miles[625] to be carefully watched and even sometimes propagated. The resin exudes after incision in great plenty, soon hardens, and is collected by the Somali tribes who dispose of it to traders for shipment to Jidda and ports of Yemen: occasionally a package reaches London among the shipments of olibanum. It is used in the East for chewing like mastich.

In modern times Luban Mati has been mentioned by Wellsted in his “Travels in Arabia” (1838).

Luban Meyeti occurs in the form of detached droppy tears and fragments, occasionally in stalactitic masses several ounces in weight. It breaks very easily with a brilliant conchoidal fracture, showing an internal substance of a pale amber yellow and perfectly transparent. Externally it is more or less coated with a thin opaque white crust, which seen under the microscope appears non-crystalline. Many of the tears have pieces of the thin, brown, papery bark adhering to them. The resin has an agreeable odour of lemon and turpentine, and a mild terebinthinous taste.

Treated with alcohol (·838) it is almost entirely dissolved; the very small undissolved portion is not crystalline. The former agrees with the formula C₂₀H₃₀O₂. 20 lb. of Luban Mati yielded us 10 ounces of a volatile oil (= 3·1 per cent.) having a fragrant odour suggestive of elemi and sp. gr. 0·856 at 17° C. The oil examined in a column 50 millim. long, deviates the ray 2°·5 to the left. By fractional distillation we found it to consist of dextrogyre hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, mixed with an oxygenated oil which we did not succeed in isolating; the latter is evidently lævogyre, and exists in proportion more than sufficient to overcome the weak dextrogyre power of the hydrocarbon.

There is no gum in this exudation; it is therefore essentially different from olibanum, the product of closely allied species of Boswellia.[626]

MELIACEÆ.

CORTEX MARGOSÆ.

Cortex Azadirachtæ; Nim Bark, Margosa Bark.

Botanical Origin—Melia indica Brandis (M. Azadirachta L., Azadirachta indica Juss.), an ornamental tree, 40 to 50 feet high and attaining a considerable girth,[627] well known throughout India by its Hindustani name of Nim, or by its Portuguese appellation of Margosa.[628] It is much planted in avenues, but occurs wild in the forests of Southern India, Ceylon and the Malay Archipelago, as far as Java.[629]

The hard and heavy wood which is so bitter that no insect will attack it, the medicinal leaves and bark, the fruit which affords an acrid bitter oil used in medicine and for burning, the gum which exudes from the stem, and finally a sort of toddy obtained from young trees, cause the Nim to be regarded as one of the most useful trees of India.

M. indica is often confounded with M. Azedarach L., a native of China,[630] and probably of India, now widely distributed throughout the warmer regions of the globe, and not rare even in Sicily and other parts of the south of Europe. The former has an oval fruit (by abortion) one-celled and one-seeded, and leaves simply pinnate. The latter has the fruit five-celled, and leaves bipinnate.

History—The tree under the Sanskrit name of Nimba is mentioned in Susruta, one of the most ancient Hindu medical writings, composed perhaps about the 10th century of our era.

In common with many other productions of India, it attracted the notice of Garcia de Orta, physician to the Portuguese viceroy at Goa, and he published an account of it in his work on drugs in 1563.[631] Christoval Acosta[632] in 1578 supplied some further details and also a figure of the tree. The tonic properties of the bark, long recognized by the native physicians of India, were successively tested by Dr. D. White of Bombay in the beginning of the present century, and have since been generally admitted.[633] The drug has a place in the Pharmacopœia of India.

Description—The bark in our possession[634] is in coarse fibrous pieces about ⅕ of an inch thick and 2 to 3 inches wide, slightly channelled. The suberous coat is rough and cracked, and of a greyish rusty hue. The inner surface is of a bright buff and has a highly foliaceous structure. On making a transverse section three distinct layers may be observed—firstly the suberous coat exhibiting a large brown parenchyme interwoven with small bands of corky tissue,—secondly a dark cellular layer, and then the foliaceous liber. The dry bark is inodorous and has a slightly astringent bitter taste.

Microscopic Structure—The suberous coat consists of numerous layers of ordinary cork-cells, which cover a layer of nearly cubic sclerenchymatous cells. This latter however is not always met with, secondary bands of cork (rhytidoma) frequently taking its place. The liber is commonly built up of strong fibre-bundles traversed by narrow medullary rays, and transversely separated by bands of parenchymatous liber tissue. Crystals of oxalate of calcium occur in the parenchyme more frequently than the small globular starch grains. The structure of the bark varies considerably according to the gradual development of the secondary cork-bands.

Chemical Composition—Margosa bark was chemically examined in India by Cornish[635] (1856), who announced it as a source of a bitter alkaloid to which he gave the name of Margosine, but which he obtained only in minute quantity as a “double salt of Margosine and Soda” in long white needles.

From the bitter oil of the seeds he isolated a substance which he called Margosic Acid, and which he doubted to be capable of affording crystallizable salts. The composition neither of this acid nor of margosine is known, nor have the properties of either been investigated.

The small sample of the bark at our disposal only enables us to add that an infusion produced with perchloride of iron a blackish precipitate, and that an infusion is not altered by tannic acid or iodohydrargyrate of potassium. If the inner layers of the bark are alone exhausted with water, the liquid affords an abundant precipitate with tannic acid; but if the entire bark is boiled in water, the tannic matter which it contains will form an insoluble compound with the bitter principle, and prevent the latter being dissolved. It is thus evident that to isolate the bitter matter of the bark, it would be advisable to work on the liber or inner layers alone, which might readily be done, as they separate easily.

According to the recent researches of Broughton[636] the bitter principle is an amorphous resin soluble in the usual solvents and in boiling solutions of fixed alkalis. From the latter it is precipitated by acids, yet, probably, altered. Broughton ascribed the formula C₃₆H₅₀O₁₁ to this bitter resin purified by means of bisulphide of carbon, ether and absolute alcohol; it fused at 92° C. He obtained moreover a small quantity of a crystallized principle, which he believed to be a fatty body, yet its melting point of 175° C. is not in favour of this suggestion.

Uses—In India the bark is used as a tonic and antiperiodic, both by natives and Europeans. Dr. Pulney Andy of Madras has found the leaves beneficial in small-pox.

CORTEX SOYMIDA.

Cortex Swieteniæ; Rohun Bark.

Botanical Origin—Soymida[637] febrifuga Juss. (Swietenia febrifuga Willd.), a tree of considerable size not uncommon in the forests of Central and Southern India. The timber called by Europeans Bastard Cedar is very durable and strong, and much valued for building purposes.

History—The introduction of Rohun Bark into the medical practice of Europeans is due to Roxburgh[638] who recommended the drug as a substitute for Cinchona, after numerous trials made in India about the year 1791. At the same time he sent supplies to Edinburgh, where Duncan made it the subject of a thesis[639] which probably led to it being introduced into the materia medica of the Edinburgh Pharmacopœia of 1803, and of the Dublin Pharmacopœia of 1807.

Though thus officially recognized, it does not appear that the bark came much into use or by any other means fulfilled the expectations raised in its favour. At present it is regarded simply as a useful astringent tonic, and as such it has a place in the Pharmacopœia of India (1868).

Description—Our specimen of Rohun bark[640] which is from a young tree, is in straight or somewhat curved, half-tubular quills, an inch or more in diameter and about ⅕ of an inch in thickness. Externally it is of a rusty grey or brown, with a smoothish surface exhibiting no considerable furrows or cracks, but numerous small corky warts. These form little elliptic scars or rings, brown in the centre and but slightly raised from the surface. The inner side and edges of the quills are of a bright reddish colour.

A transverse section exhibits a thin outer layer coloured by chlorophyll, and a middle layer of a bright rusty hue, traversed by large medullary rays and darker wedge-shaped rays of liber. The latter has a fibrous fracture, that of the outer part of the bark being rather corky or foliaceous. The whole bark when comminuted is of a rusty colour, becoming reddish by exposure to air and moisture. It has a bitter astringent taste with no distinctive odour. The older bark frequently half an inch thick and fibrous, has a thick ragged corky layer of a rusty blackish-brown colour, deeply fissured longitudinally, and minutely cracked transversely. Old bark, according to Dymock (1877), is generally in half quills of a rich red-brown colour.

Microscopic Structure—The bark presents but few structural peculiarities. The ring of liber is made up of alternating prosenchymatous and parenchymatous tissue. In the latter the larger cells are filled with mucilage, the others with starch. The prosenchymatous groups of the liber exhibit that peculiar form we have already described as hornbast (p. 74); it chiefly contains the tannic matter, besides stellate crystals of oxalate of calcium which are distributed through the whole tissue of the bark. The medullary rays are of the usual form, and contain starch granules. The corky coat is built up of a smaller number of vaulted cells.

Chemical Composition[641]—The bitter principle of the bark has been ascertained by Broughton[642] to be a nearly colourless resinous substance, sparingly soluble in water but more so in alcohol, ether, or benzol. It does not appear to unite with acids or bases, and is less soluble in water containing them than in pure water. It has a very bitter taste, and refuses to crystallize either from benzol or ether. It contains no nitrogen. To this we may add that the bark is rich in tannic acid.

Uses—Rohun bark is administered in India as an astringent tonic and antiperiodic, and is reported useful in intermittent fevers and general debility, as well as in the advanced stages of dysentery and in diarrhœa.

RHAMNACEÆ.

FRUCTUS RHAMNI.

Baccæ Rhamni, Baccæ Spinæ cervinæ; Buckthorn Berries; F. Baies de Neprun; G. Kreuzdornbeeren.

Botanical Origin—Rhamnus cathartica L., a robust diœcious shrub with spreading branches, the smaller of which often terminate in a stout thorn. It is indigenous to Northern Africa, the greater part of Europe, and stretches eastward to the Caucasus and into Siberia. We have seen stems 50 years old, having a diameter of 8 inches, sent from the government of Cherson, Southern Russia. In England the buckthorn though generally distributed is abundant only in certain districts; in Scotland it occurs wild in but a single locality. Yet in Norway, Sweden, and Finland it grows much further north.

The fruit which ripens in the autumn is collected for use chiefly in the counties of Hertfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Oxfordshire, and also from Wiltshire. The collectors usually prefer to supply the juice as expressed by themselves.

History—The Buckthorn was well known to the Anglo-Saxons, and is mentioned as Hartsthorn or Waythorn in their medical writings and glossaries dating before the Norman conquest. The Welsh physicians of Myddfai (“Meddygon Myddvai”) in the 13th century prescribed the juice of the fruit of buckthorn boiled with honey as an aperient drink.

As Spina Cervina the shrub is referred to by Piero de’ Crescenzi of Bologna[643] about a.d. 1305.

The medicinal use of the berries was familiar to all the writers on botany and materia medica of the 16th century. Syrup of buckthorn first appeared in the London Pharmacopœia of 1650; it was aromatized by means of aniseed, cinnamon, mastich and nutmeg.

Description—The fruits, which are only used in the fresh state, are small, juicy, spherical drupes the size of a pea, black and shining, bearing on the summit the remnants of the style, and supported below by a slender stalk expanded into a disc-like receptacle. Before ripening the fruit is green and distinctly 4-lobed, afterwards smooth and plump. It contains 4 one-seeded nuts[644] meeting at right angles in the middle. The seed is erect with a broad furrow on the back: in transverse section the albumen and cotyledons are seen to be curved into a horseshoe form with the ends directed outwards.

The fresh juice is green, has an acid reaction and a sweetish, afterwards disagreeably bitter taste, and repulsive odour. It is coloured dingy green by ferric chloride, yellow by alkalis, red by acids. According to Umney[645] it should have a sp. gr. of 1·070 to 1·075, but is seldom sold pure. By keeping the juice gradually turns red.

Microscopic Structure—The epidermis consists of small tabular cells, followed by a row of large cubic cells and then by several layers of tangentially-extended cells rich in chlorophyll. This thick epicarp passes into the loose thin-walled and large-celled sarocarp. Besides chlorophyll it exhibits numerous cells each containing a kind of sac, which may be squeezed out of the cell. These sacs are violet, turning blue with alkalis. Similar, yet much more conspicuous bodies occur also in the pulp of the Locust Bean (Ceratonia Siliqua L.).

Chemical Composition—The berries of buckthorn and other species of Rhamnus contain interesting colouring matters, which have been the subject of much chemical research and controversy. Winckler in 1849 extracted from the juice Rhamnocathartin, a yellowish uncrystallizable bitter substance, soluble in water but not in ether. Alkalis colour it golden yellow; perchloride of iron, dark greenish brown.

In 1840 Fleury, a pharmacien of Pontoise, discovered in buckthorn juice a yellow substance forming cauliflower-like crystals to which he gave the name of Rhamnine. This body has been recently studied by Lefort,[646] who identified it with the Rhamnetine of Galletly (1858) and the Chrysorhamnine of Schützenberger and Bertèche (1865). Though obtainable from the berries of all kinds of Rhamnus used in dyeing (including the common buckthorn), it is got most easily and abundantly from Persian Berries. When pure, and crystallized from absolute alcohol, it is described as forming minute yellow translucent tables. It is scarcely soluble in cold water, though colouring it pale yellow; is soluble in hot alcohol, insoluble in ether or bisulphide of carbon. It is very soluble in caustic alkalis, forming uncrystallizable reddish-yellow solutions. From alkaline solutions it is precipitated by a mineral acid in the form of a glutinous magma resembling hydrated silica. Lefort assigns to it the formula C₁₂H₁₂O₅ + 2H₂O.

This chemist has likewise found in the berries of Rhamnus, though not with certainty in those of R. cathartica, a neutral substance isomeric with rhamnine, to which he has given the name of Rhamnegine. Unlike rhamnine it is very soluble in cold water, but in all other respects it agrees with that body in chemical and physical properties. The two substances have the same taste, almost the same tint, the same crystalline form, and lastly they give rise to the same reactions with chemical agents.

The conclusions of Lefort have been contested by Stein (1868) and by Schützenberger (1868), the latter of whom succeeded in decomposing rhamnegine and proving it a glucoside having the formula C₂₄H₃₂O₁₄. Its decomposition gives rise to a body named Rhamnetin, C₁₂H₁₀O₅, and a crystallizable sugar isomeric with mannite. Schützenberger admits that the berries contain an isomeric modification of rhamnegine; but in addition another colouring matter insoluble in water, which appears to be the Rhamnine of Lefort, but to which he assigns a different formula, namely, C₁₈H₂₂O₁₀. This is also a glucoside capable of being split into rhamnetin and a sugar. There are thus, according to Schützenberger, two forms of rhamnegine which may be distinguished as α and β, and there is the substance insoluble in water, named by Lefort Rhamnine.

The question of the purgative principles of buckthorn, it will be observed, has not been touched by all these researches.

Uses—From the juice of the berries is prepared a syrup having strongly purgative properties, much more used as a medicine for animals than for man. The pigment Sap Green is also made from the juice.

AMPELIDEÆ.

UVÆ PASSÆ.

Passulæ majores; Raisins; F. Raisins; G. Rosinen.

Botanical Origin—Vitis vinifera L., the Common Grape-vine. It appears to be indigenous to the Caucasian provinces of Russia, that is to say, to the country lying between the eastern end of the Black Sea and the south-western shores of the Caspian; extending thence southward into Armenia. Under innumerable varieties, it is cultivated in most of the warmer and drier countries of the temperate regions of both the northern and southern hemispheres. Humboldt defines the area of the profitable culture of the vine as a zone lying between 36° and 40° of north latitude.

History—The vine is among the oldest of cultivated plants, and is mentioned in the earliest Mosaic writings. Dried grapes as distinguished from fresh were used by the ancient Hebrews, and in the Vulgate are translated Uvæ passæ.[647] During the middle ages, raisins were an article of luxury imported into England from Spain.

Description—The ovary of Vitis vinifera is 2-celled with 2 ovules in each cell; it develops into a succulent, pedicellate berry of spherical or ovoid form, in which the cells are obliterated and some of the seeds generally abortive. As the fruit is not articulated with the rachis or the rachis with the branch, it does not drop at maturity but remains attached to the plant, on which, provided there is sufficient solar heat, it gradually withers and dries: such fruits are called Raisins of the sun. Various methods are adopted to facilitate the drying of the fruit, such as dipping the bunches in boiling water or in a lye of wood ashes, or twisting or partially severing the stalk,—the effect of each operation being to arrest or destroy the vitality of the tissues. The drying is performed by exposure to the sun, sometimes supplemented by artificial heat.

The raisins commonly found in the shops are the produce of Spain and Asia Minor, and are sold either in entire bunches or removed from the stalk. The former kind, known as Muscatel Raisins and imported from Malaga, are dried and packed with great care for use as a dessert fruit. The latter kind, which includes the Valencia Raisins of Spain, and the Eleme, Chesme and stoneless Sultana Raisins of Smyrna, are used for culinary purposes. For pharmacy, Valencia raisins are generally employed.

Microscopic Structure—The outer layer or skin of the berry is made up of small tabular cells loaded with a reddish granular matter, which on addition of an alcoholic solution of perchloride of iron assumes a dingy green hue. The interior parenchyme exhibits large, thin-walled, loose cells containing an abundance of crystals (bitartrate of potassium and sugar). There are also some fibro-vascular bundles traversing the tissue in no regular order.

Chemical Composition—The pulp abounds in grape sugar and cream of tartar, each of which in old raisins may be found crystallized in nodular masses; it also contains gum and malic acid. The seeds afford 15 to 18 per cent. of a bland fixed oil, which is occasionally extracted. Fitz[648] has shown that it consists of the glycerides of Erucic Acid, C₂₂H₄₂O₂, stearic acid, and palmitic acid, the first-named acid largely prevailing. The crystals of erucic acid melt at 34° C.; by means of fused potash they may be resolved into arachic acid, C₂₀H₄₀O₂, and acetic acid, C₂H₄O₂.

The seeds further contain 5 to 6 per cent. of tannic acid, which also exists in the skin of the fruit. The latter is likewise the seat of chlorophyll and other colouring matter.

Commerce—The consumption of raisins in Great Britain is very large and is increasing. The imports into the United Kingdom have been as follows:—

1870. 1871. 1872. 1876.

365,418 427,056 617,418 583,860 cwt.

val. £593,527. val. £707,344. val. £1,149,337. val. £1,058,406.

Of the quantity mentioned for 1872 there were 400,570 cwt. shipped from Spain, 176,500 cwt. from Asiatic Turkey, and the remainder from other countries.[649] It is stated that Greece, in 1874, exported about 1⅓ millions of cwt., value £28,000,000; much of this was shipped to England.

Uses—Raisins are an ingredient of Compound Tincture of Cardamoms and of Tincture of Senna. They have no medicinal properties, and are only used for the sake of the saccharine matter they impart.[650]

ANACARDIACEÆ.

MASTICHE.

Mastix, Resina Mastiche; Mastich; F. Mastic; G. Mastix.

Botanical Origin—Pistacia Lentiscus L., the lentisk, is a diœcious evergreen, mostly found as a shrub a few feet high; but when allowed to attain its full growth, it slowly acquires the dimensions of a small tree having a dense head of foliage. It is a native of the Mediterranean shores from Syria to Spain, and is found in Portugal, Morocco and the Canaries. In some parts of Italy it is largely cut for fuel.

Mastich is collected in the southern and south-western part of the island of Scio, which was long regarded as the only region in the world capable of affording it. Experiments made in 1856 by Orphanides[651] have proved that excellent mastich might be easily obtained in other islands of the Archipelago, and probably also in Continental Greece. The same botanist remarks that the trees yielding mastich in Scio are exclusively male.

History—Mastich has been known from a very remote period, and is mentioned by Theophrastus,[652] who lived in the 4th century before the Christian era. Both Dioscorides and Pliny notice it as a production of the island of Chio, the modern Scio.

Avicenna[653] described (about the year 1000) two sorts of mastich, the white or Roman (i.e. Mediterranean or Christian), and the dark or Nabathæan,—the latter probably one of the Eastern forms of the drug mentioned at p. 165.

Benjamin of Tudela,[654] who visited the island of Scio when travelling to the East about a.d. 1160-1173, also refers to it yielding mastich, which in fact has always been one of its most important productions, and from the earliest times intimately connected with its history.

Mastich was prescribed in the 13th century by the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai” as an ingredient of ointments.

In the middle ages the mastich of Scio was held as a monopoly by the Greek emperors, one of whom, Michael Paleologus in 1261, permitted the Genoese to settle in the island. His successor Andronicus II. conceded in 1304 the administration of the island to Benedetto Zaccaria, a rich patrician of Genoa and the proprietor of the alum works of Fokia (the ancient Phocæa), north-west of Smyrna, for ten years, renouncing all tribute during that period. The concession was very lucrative, a large revenue being derived from the Contrata del Mastico or Mastich district: and the Zaccaria family, taking advantage of the weakness of the emperor, determined to hold it as long as possible. In fact they made themselves the real sovereigns of Scio and of some of the adjacent islands, and retained their position until expelled by Andronicus III. in 1329.[655]

The island was retaken by the Genoese under Simone Vignosi in 1346; and then by a remarkable series of events became the property of an association called the Maona (the Arabic word for subsidy or reinforcement). Many of the noblest families of Genoa enrolled themselves in this corporation and settled in the island of Scio; and in order to express the community of interest that governed their proceedings, some of them relinquished their family names and assumed the general name of Giustiniani.[656] This extraordinary society played a part exactly comparable to that of the late East India Company. In Genoa it had its “Officium Chii”; it had its own constitution and mint, and it engaged in wars with the emperors of Constantinople, the Venetians and the Turks, who in turn attacked and ravaged the mastich island and adjacent possessions.

The Giustinianis regulated very strictly the culture of the lentisk and the gathering and export of its produce, and cruelly punished all offenders. The annual export of the drug was 300 to 400 quintals,[657] which were immediately assigned to the four regions with which the Maona chiefly traded. These were Romania (i.e. Greece, Constantinople and the Crimea), Occidente (Italy, France, Spain and Germany), Vera Turchia (Asia Minor), and Oriente (Syria, Egypt, and Northern Africa). In 1364, a quintal was sold for 40 lire; in 1417, the price was fixed at 25 lire. In the 16th century, the whole income from the drug was 30,000 ducats (£13,750),[658] a large sum for that period.

In 1566, the Giustinianis definitively lost their beautiful island, the Turks under Piali Pasha taking it by force of arms under pretext that the customary tribute was not duly paid.[659] A few years before that event, it was visited by the French naturalist Belon[660] who testifies from personal observation to the great care with which the lentisk was cultivated by the inhabitants.

When Tournefort[661] was at Scio in 1701, all the lentisk trees on the island were held to be the property of the Grand Signor, and if any land was sold, the sale did not include the lentisks that might be growing on it. At that time the mastich villages, about twenty in number, were required to pay 286 chests of mastich annually to the Turkish officers appointed to receive the revenue.

In the beginning of the present century, when Olivier[662] paid a visit to the island of Chios, he found 50,000 ocche (one occa = 2·82 lb. avdp. = 1·28 kilogrammes) or somewhat more to be the annual harvest of mastich.

The month of January, 1850, was memorable throughout Greece and the Archipelago for a frost of unparalleled severity which proved very destructive to the mastich trees of Scio, and occasioned a scarcity of the drug that lasted for many years.[663]

The foregoing statements show that for centuries past Scio or Chios was famed for this resin; there are however a few evidences proving that at least a little mastich used also to be collected in other islands. Amari[664] quoted an Arabic geographer of the 12th century speaking of “il mastice di Pantellaria cavato da’ lentischi e lo storace odorifero.” Pantellaria, Kossura of the ancients, is the small volcanic island south-west of Sicily, not far from Tunis. In a list enumerating the drugs to be met with in 1582 in the fair of Frankfurt[665] we find even mastich of Cyprus quoted as superior to the common. Cyprian mastich again occurs in the pharmaceutical tariffs of 1612 and 1669 of the same city, and in many others of that time.[666]

The disuse into which mastich has fallen makes it difficult to understand its ancient importance; but a glance at the pharmacopœias of the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries shows that it was an ingredient of a large number of compound medicines.[667]

Secretion—In the bark of the stems and branches of the mastich shrub, there are resin-ducts like those in the aromatic roots of Umbelliferæ or Compositæ. In Pistacia they may even be shown in the petioles. The wood is devoid of resin,[668] so that slight incisions are sufficient to provoke the resinous exudation, the bark being not very thick, and liable to scale off.

Collection—In Scio incisions are made about the middle of June in the bark of the stems and principal branches. From these incisions which are vertical and very close together, the resin speedily flows, and soon hardens and dries. After 15 to 20 days it is collected with much care in little baskets lined with white paper or clean cotton wool. The ground below the trees is kept hard and clean, and flat pieces of stone are often laid on it that the droppings of resin may be saved uninjured by dirt. There is also some spontaneous exudation from the small branches which is of very fine quality. The operations are carried on by women and children and last for a couple of months. A fine tree may yield as much as 8 to 10 pounds of mastich.

The dealers in Scio distinguish three or four qualities of the drug, of which the two finer are called κυλιστὸ and ϕλισκάρι, that collected from the ground πῆττα, and the worst of all ϕλοῦδα.[669]

Description—The best sort of mastich consists of roundish tears about the size of small peas, together with pieces of an oblong or pear-shaped form. They are of a pale yellow or slightly greenish tint darkening by age, dusty and slightly opaque on the surface but perfectly transparent within. The mastich of late imported has been washed; the tears are no longer dusty, but have a glassy transparent appearance. Mastich is brittle, has a conchoidal fracture, a slight terebinthinous balsamic odour. It speedily softens in the mouth, and may be easily masticated and kneaded between the teeth, in this respect differing from sandarac, a tear of which breaks to powder when bitten.

Inferior mastich is less transparent, and consists of masses of larger size and less regular shape, often contaminated with earthy and vegetable impurities.

The sp. gr. of selected tears of mastich is about 1·06. They soften at 99° C. but do not melt below 108°.

Mastich dissolves in half its weight of pure warm acetone and then deviates the ray of polarized light to the right. On cooling, the solution becomes turbid. It dissolves slowly in 5 parts of oil of cloves, forming even in the cold a clear solution; it is but little soluble in glacial acetic acid or in benzol.

Chemical Composition—Mastich is soluble to the extent of about 90 per cent in cold alcohol; the residue, which has been termed Masticin or Beta-resin of Mastich, is a translucent, colourless, tough substance, insoluble in boiling alcohol or in solution of caustic alkali, but dissolving in ether or oil of turpentine. According to Johnston, it is somewhat less rich in oxygen than the following.

The soluble portion of mastich, called Alpha-resin of Mastich, possesses acid properties, and like many other resins has the formula C₂₀H₃₂O₃. Hartsen[670] asserts that it can be obtained in crystals. Its alcoholic solution is precipitated by an alcoholic solution of neutral acetate of lead. Mastich contains a very little volatile oil.

Commerce—Mastich still forms the principal revenue of Scio, from which island the export in 1871 was 28,000 lb. of picked, and 42,000 lb. of common. The market price of picked mastich was equal to 6s. 10d. per lb.—that of common 2s. 10d. The superior quality is sent to Turkey, especially Constantinople, also to Trieste, Vienna, and Marseilles, and a small quantity to England. The common sort is employed in the East in the manufacture of raki and other cordials.[671]

Uses—Mastich is not now regarded as possessing any important therapeutic virtues, and as a medicine is becoming obsolete. Even in varnish making it is no longer employed as formerly, its place being well supplied by less costly resins, such for example as dammar.

Varieties—There is found in the Indian bazaars a kind of mastich which though called Mustagi-rúmí (Roman mastich), is not imported from Europe but from Kabul, and is the produce of Pistacia Khinjuk Stocks, and the so-called P. cabulica St. trees growing all over Sind, Belúchistan and Kabul.[672] This drug, of which the better qualities closely approximate to the mastich of Scio, sometimes appears in the European market under the name of East Indian or Bombay Mastich. We find that when dissolved in half its weight of acetone or benzol, it deviates the ray of light to the right.

The solid resin of the Algerian form of P. Terebinthus L., known as P. atlantica Desf., is collected and used as mastich by the Arab tribes of Northern Africa.[673]

TEREBINTHINA CHIA

Terebinthina Cypria; Chian or Cyprian Turpentine; F. Térébenthine ou Baume de Chio ou de Chypres; G. Chios Terpenthin, Cyprischer Terpenthin.

Botanical Origin—Pistacia Terebinthus L. (P. atlantica Desf., P. palæstina Boiss., P. cabulica Stocks), a tree 20 to 40 feet or more in height, in some countries only a shrub, common on the islands and shores of the Mediterranean as well as throughout Asia Minor, extending, as P. palæstina, to Syria and Palestine; and eastward, as P. cabulica, to Belúchistan and Afghanistan. It is found under the form called P. atlantica in Northern Africa, where it grows to a large size, and in the Canary Islands.

These several forms are mostly regarded as so many distinct species; but after due consideration and the examination of a large number of specimens both dried and living, we have arrived at the conclusion that they may fairly be united under a single specific name. The extreme varieties certainly present great differences of habit, as anyone would observe who had compared Pistacia Terebinthus as the straggling bush which it is in Languedoc and Provence, with the noble umbrageous tree it forms in the neighbourhood of Smyrna. But the different types are united by so many connecting links, that we have felt warranted in dissenting from the opinion usually held respecting them.

On the branches of Pistacia Terebinthus, a kind of galls is produced, which we shall briefly notice in our article Gallæe halepenses.

History—The terebinth was well known to the ancients; it is the τέρμινθος of Theophrastus, τερέβινθος of other authors, and the Alah of the Old Testament.[674] Among its products, the kernels were regarded by Dioscorides as unwholesome, though agreeable in taste. By pressing them, the original Oil of Turpentine, τερεβίνθινον ἔλαιον, a mixture of essential and fat oil was obtained, as it is in the East to the present day. The resinous juice of the stem and branches, the true, primitive turpentine, ῤητίνη τερμινθίνη, was celebrated as the finest of all analogous products, and preferred both to mastich and the pinic resins. To the latter however the name of turpentine was finally applied.[675]

Collection—The resinous juice is secreted in the bark, according to Unger,[676] and Marchand,[677] in special cells precisely as mastich in P. Lentiscus. That found in commerce is collected in the island of Scio. To some extent it exudes spontaneously, yet in greater abundance after incisions made in the stems and branches. This is done in spring, and the resin continues to flow during the whole summer; but the quantity is so small that not more that 10 or 11 ounces are obtained from a large tree in the course of a year. The turpentine, hardened by the coolness of the night, is scraped from the stem down which it has flowed, or from flat stones placed at the foot of the tree to receive it. As it is, when thus collected, always mixed with foreign substances, it is purified to some extent by straining through small baskets, after having been liquefied by exposure to the sun.

When Tournefort[678] visited Scio in 1701, the island was said to produce scarcely 300 okes or ocche (one occa = 2·82 lb. avdp.); a century later Olivier[679] stated, that the turpentine was becoming very scarce, 200 ocche only, or even less, being the annual yield. It was then carefully collected by means of little earthen vessels tied to the incised stems. The trade is asserted to be now almost exclusively in the hands of the Jews, who dispose of the drug in the interior part of the Turkish Empire.[680]

Description—A specimen collected by Maltass near Smyrna in 1858 was, after ten years, of a light yellowish colour, scarcely fluid though perfectly transparent, nearly of the odour of melted colophony or mastich, and without much taste. We found it readily soluble in spirit of wine, amylic alcohol, glacial acetic acid, benzol, or acetone, the solution in each case being very slightly fluorescent. The alcoholic solution reddens litmus, and is neither bitter nor acrid. Two parts of this genuine turpentine dissolved in one of acetone deviate a ray of polarized light 7° to the right[681] in a column 50 mm. long.

Chian turpentine as found in commerce and believed to be genuine, is a soft solid, becoming brittle, by exposure to the air; viewed in mass it appears opaque and of a dull brown hue. If pressed while warm between two slips of glass, it is seen to be transparent, of a yellowish-brown, and much contaminated by various impurities in a state of fine division. It has an agreeable, mild terebinthinous odour and very little taste. The whitish powder with which old Chian turpentine becomes covered, shows no trace of crystalline structure when examined under the microscope.

Chemical Composition—Chian turpentine consists of resin and essential oil. The former is probably identical with the Alpha-resin of mastich. The Beta-resin or Masticin appears to be absent, for we find that Chian turpentine deprived of its essential oil by a gentle heat, dissolves entirely (impurities excepted) in alcohol sp. gr. 0·815, which is by no means the case with mastich.

The essential oil which we obtained by distilling with water 64 ounces of Chian turpentine of authentic origin, amounted to nearly 14½ per cent. It has the odour of the drug; sp. gr. 0·869; boiling point 161° C.; it deviates the ray of polarized light 12·1° to the right. In common with turpentine oils of the Coniferæ, it contains a small amount of an oxygenated oil, and is therefore vividly attacked by sodium. When this reaction is over and the oil is again distilled, it boils at 157° C. and has a sp. gr. of 0·862. It has now a more agreeable odour, resembling a mixture of cajuput, mace, and camphor, and nearly the same rotatory power (11·5° to the right). By saturation with dry hydrochloric acid, it yields a solid compound after some weeks. After treatment with sodium and rectification, the oil was found[682] to consist of C 88·75, H 11·40 per cent., which is the composition of oil of turpentine.

Uses—Chian Turpentine appears to have exactly the properties of the pinic turpentines; in British medicine it is almost obsolete. In Greece it is sometimes added to wine or used to flavour cordials, in the same manner as turpentine of the pine, or mastich.

GALLÆ CHINENSES SEU JAPONICÆ.

Botanical Origin—The plant which bears this important kind of gall, is Rhus semialata Murray (Rh. Bucki-amela Roxb.), a tree attaining 30 to 40 feet, common in Northern India, China and Japan, ascending in the outer Himalaya and the Kasia hills to elevations of 2,500 to 6,000 feet.[683]

History—In China these galls are probably known and used both medicinally and in dyeing since very long; they are mentioned in the herbal Puntsaou, written in the middle of the 16th century. They also occur in Cleyer’s “Specimen medicinæ sinicæ,” Frankfort, 1682, No. 225, under the name u poi çu.[684] Kämpfer[685] also mentions a tree “Baibokf, vulgo Fusi,” growing on the hills, the pinnate leaves of which he found often provided with an excrescence: “Ἐπίϕνσι foliorum informi, tuberosa, multiplici, tenui, dura, cava, Gallæ nostratis usu praestante.” No doubt this refers to the galls under notice; they began to be imported into Europe about 1724, and are noticed by Geoffroy[686] as Oreilles des Indes, but they seem to have soon disappeared from the market. Pereira directed attention to them in 1844, since which time they have formed a regular and abundant article of import both from China and Japan.

Formation—Chinese galls are vesicular protuberances formed on the leafstalks and branches of the above-mentioned tree, by the puncture of an insect, identified and figured by Doubleday[687] as a species of Aphis, and subsequently named provisionally by Jacob Bell[688] A. chinensis. We have no account by any competent observer of their growth; and as to their development, we can only imagine it from the analogous productions seen in Europe. According to Doubleday, it is probable that the female aphis punctures the upper surface of a leaf (more probably leafstalk), the result of the wound being the growth of a hollow expansion in the vegetable tissue. Of this cavity the creature takes possession and brings forth a progeny which lives by puncturing the inner surface of their home, thus much increasing the tendency to a morbid expansion of the soft growing tissue in an outward direction. Meanwhile the neck of the sac-like gall thickens, the aperture contracts and finally closes, imprisoning all the inmates. Here they live and multiply until, as in the case of the pistacia gall of Europe, the sac ruptures and allows of their escape. This, we may imagine, takes place at the period when, after some generations all wingless and perhaps all female (for the female aphis produces for several generations without impregnation), a winged generation is brought forth of both sexes. These may then fly to other spots, and deposit eggs for a further propagation of their race.

The galls are collected when their green colour is changing into yellow; they are then scalded.[689]

Description—The galls are light and hollow, varying in length from 1 to 2½ inches, and of extremely diverse and irregular form. The simplest are somewhat egg-shaped, the smaller end being attached to the leafstalk; but the form is rarely so regular, and more often the body of the gall is distorted by numerous knobby or horn-like protuberances or branches; or the gall consists of several lobes uniting in their lower part and gradually attenuated to the point by which the excrescence is attached to the leaf.[690] But though the form is thus variable, the structure of these bodi4s is very characteristic. They are striated towards the base, and completely covered on other parts with a thick, velvety, grey down, which rubbed off on the prominences, displays the reddish-brown colour of the shell itself. The latter is ⅒ to ¹/₂₀ of an inch in thickness, translucent and horny, but brittle with a smooth and shining fracture. It is rather smoother on the inner surface and of lighter colour than on the outer.

The galls when broken are generally found to contain a white, downy-looking substance, together with the minute, dried-up bodies of the killed insect.[691]

The drug as imported from Japan is usually a little smaller and paler; it mostly fetches a better price in the market.

Microscopic Structure—The tissue of the galls is made up of thin-walled, large cells irregularly traversed by small vascular bundles and laticiferous vessels. The latter are mostly not branched. The parenchyme is loaded with lumps of tannic matter and starch, the latter having mostly lost by the treatment with boiling water its granular appearance. The epidermis of the galls is covered with little tapering hairs, consisting each of 1-5 cells, to which is due the velvety down of the drug.

Chemical Composition—Chinese or Japanese galls contain about 70 per cent. of a tannic acid, which has been first shown by Stein in 1849 to be identical with that derived from oak galls (see Gallæ halepenses), the so-called gallo-tannic or common tannic acid.[692] It is remarkable that this substance, which is by no means widely distributed, is also present in Rhus coriaria, a species indigenous in the Mediterranean region. Its leaves and shoots are the well-known dyeing and tanning material Sumach.

Stein, however, pointed out at the same time, that in Chinese galls gallo-tannic acid is accompanied by a small amount, about 4 per cent., of a different tannic matter.

Commerce—At present the supplies arrive chiefly from Hankow, from which great trading city the export, in 1872, was no less than 30,949 peculs, equal to 36,844 cwt; 21,611 peculs, value 136,214 taels (one tael about 6s.) in 1874. In 1877 all China exported not more than 17,515 peculs. A little is also shipped from Canton and Ningpo.[693] The quantity imported from China into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 8621 cwts., valued at £20,098. In the China trade returns, the drug is always miscalled “Nut galls,” or “gallnuts.” Only those called “Wu-pei-tze” are the galls under examination. There are also oak galls exported from China resembling those from Western Asia. Japanese galls, “Kifushi,” are shipped in increasing quantities at Hiogo.[694]

Uses—The galls under notice are employed, chiefly in Germany, for the manufacture of tannic acid, gallic acid, and pyrogallol.

LEGUMINOSÆ.

HERBA SCOPARII.

Cacumina vel Summitates Scoparii; Broom Tops; F. Genêt à balais; G. Besenginster, Pfriemenkraut.

Botanical Origin—Cytisus Scoparius Link (Spartium Scoparium L., Sarothamnus vulgaris Wimmer), the Common Broom, a woody shrub, 3 to 6 feet high, grows gregariously in sandy thickets and uncultivated places throughout Great Britain, and Western and temperate Northern Europe. In continental Europe it is plentiful in the valley of the Rhine up to the Swiss frontier, in Southern Germany and in Silesia, but does not ascend the Alps, and is absent from many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, Polonia for instance. According to Ledebour, it is found in Central and Southern Russia and on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains. In Southern Europe its place is supplied by other species.

History—From the fact that this plant is chiefly a native of Western, Northern and Central Europe, it is improbable that the classical authors were acquainted with it; and for the same reason the remarks of the early Italian writers may not always apply to the species under notice. With this reservation, we may state that broom under the name Genista, Genesta, or Genestra is mentioned in the earliest printed herbals, as that of Passau,[695] 1485, the Hortus Sanitatis, 1491, the Great Herbal printed at Southwark in 1526, and others. It is likewise the Genista as figured and described by the German botanists and pharmacologists of the 16th century, like Brunfels, Fuchs, Tragus, Valerius Cordus (“Genista angulosa”) and others. Broom was used in ancient Anglo-Saxon medicine[696] as well as in the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai.” It had a place in the London Pharmacopœia of 1618, and has been included in nearly every subsequent edition. Hieronymus Brunschwyg gives[697] directions for distilling a water from the flowers, “flores genestæ”—a medicine which Gerarde relates was used by King Henry VIII. “against surfets and diseases thereof arising.”

Broom was the emblem of those of the Norman sovereigns of England descended from Geoffrey the “Handsome,” or “Plantagenet” count of Anjou (obiit a.d. 1150), who was in the habit of wearing the common broom of his country, the “planta genista,” in his helmet.

Description—The Common Broom has numerous straight ascending wiry branches, sharply 5-angled and devoid of spines. The leaves, of which the largest are barely an inch long, consist of 3 obovate leaflets on a petiole of their own length. Towards the extremities of the twigs, the leaves are much scattered and generally reduced to a single ovate leaflet, nearly sessile. The leaves when young are clothed on both sides with long reddish hairs; these under the microscope are seen each to consist of a simple cylindrical thin-walled cell, the surface of which is beset with numerous extremely small protuberances.

The large, bright yellow, odorous flowers, which become brown in drying, are mostly solitary in the axils of the leaves; they have a persistent campanulate calyx divided into two lips minutely toothed, and a long subulate style, curved round on itself. The legume is oblong compressed, 1½ to 2 inches long by about ½ an inch wide, fringed with hairs along the edge. It contains 10 to 12 olive-coloured albuminous seeds, the funicle of which is expanded into a large fleshy strophiole. They have a bitterish taste, and are devoid of starch.

The portion of the plant used in pharmacy is the younger herbaceous branches, which are required both fresh and dried. In the former state they emit when bruised a peculiar odour which is lost in drying. They have a nauseous bitter taste.

Chemical Composition—Stenhouse[698] discovered in broom tops two interesting principles, Scoparin, C₂₁H₂₂O₁₀, an indifferent or somewhat acid body, and the alkaloid Sparteine, C₁₅H₂₆N₂, the first soluble in water or spirit and crystallizing in yellowish tufts, the second a colourless oily liquid heavier than water and sparingly soluble in it, boiling at 288° C.

To obtain scoparin, a watery decoction of the plant is concentrated so as to form a jelly after standing for a day or two. This is then washed with a small quantity of cold water, dissolved in hot water and again allowed to repose. By repeating this treatment with the addition of a little hydrochloric acid, the chlorophyll may at length be separated and the scoparin obtained as a gelatinous mass, which dries as an amorphous, brittle, pale yellow, neutral substance, devoid of taste and smell. Its solution in hot alcohol deposits it partly in crystals and partly as jelly, which after drying are alike in composition. Hlasiwetz showed (1866) that scoparin when melted with potash is resolved, like kino or quercetin, into Phloroglucin, C₆H₆O₃, and Protocatechuic Acid, 2 C₇H₆O₄.

The acid mother-liquors from which scoparin has been obtained when concentrated and distilled with soda, yield besides ammonia a very bitter oily liquid, Sparteine. To obtain it pure, it requires to be repeatedly rectified, dried by chloride of calcium, and distilled in a current of dry carbonic acid. It is colourless, but becomes brown by exposure to light; it has at first an odour of aniline, but this is altered by rectification. Sparteine has a decidedly alkaline reaction and readily neutralises acids, forming crystallizable salts which are extremely bitter. Conine, nicotine, and sparteine are the only volatile alkaloids devoid of oxygen hitherto known to exist in the vegetable kingdom.

Mills[699] extracted sparteine simply by acidulated water which he concentrated and then distilled with soda. The distillate was then saturated with hydrochloric acid, evaporated to dryness, and submitted to distillation with potash. The oily sparteine thus obtained was dried by prolonged heating with sodium in a current of hydrogen, and finally rectified per se. Mills succeeded in replacing one or two equivalents of the hydrogen of sparteine by one or two of C₂H₅ (ethyl). From 150 lb. the (dried?) plant, he obtained 22 cubic centimetres of sparteine, which we may estimate as equivalent to about ½ per mille.

Stenhouse ascertained that the amount of sparteine and scoparin depends much on external conditions, broom grown in the shade yielding less than that produced in open sunny places. He states that shepherds are well aware of the shrub possessing narcotic properties, from having observed their sheep to become stupified and excited when occasionally compelled to eat it.

The experiments of Reinsch (1846) tend to show that broom contains a bitter crystallizible principle in addition to the foregoing. The seeds of the allied Cytisus Laburnum L. afford two highly poisonous alkaloids, Cytisine and Laburnine, discovered by A. Husemann and Marmé in 1865.

Uses—A decoction of broom tops, made from the dried herb, is used as a diuretic and purgative. The juice of the fresh plant, preserved by the addition of alcohol, is also administered and is regarded as a very efficient preparation.

SEMEN FŒNI GRÆCI.

Semen Fœnugræci; Fenugreek; F. Semences de Fenugrec; G. Bockshornsamen.

Botanical Origin—Trigonella Fœnum græcum L., an erect, sub-glabrous, annual plant, 1 to 2 feet high, with solitary, subsessile, whitish flowers; indigenous to the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, in which it has been long cultivated, and whence it appears to have spread to India.

History—In the old Egyptian preparation Kyphi, an ingredient “Sebes or Sebtu” is mentioned, which is thought by Ebers to mean fenugreek. This plant was well known to the Roman writers on husbandry, as Porcius Cato (b.c. 234-149) who calls it Fœnum Græcum and directs it to be sown as fodder for oxen. It is the τῇλις of Dioscorides and other Greek writers. Its mucilaginous seeds, “siliquæ” of the Roman peasants, were valued as an aliment and condiment for man, and as such are still largely consumed in the East. They were likewise supposed to possess many medicinal virtues, and had a place in the pharmacopœias of the last century.

The cultivation of fenugreek in Central Europe was encouraged by Charlemagne (a.d. 812), and the plant was grown in English gardens in the 16th century.

Description—The fenugreek plant has a sickle-shaped pod, 3 to 4 inches long, containing 10 to 20 hard, brownish-yellow seeds, having the smell and taste which is characteristic of peas and beans, with addition of a cumarin-or melilot-flavour.

The seeds are about ⅛ of an inch long, with a rhomboid outline, often shrivelled and distorted; they are somewhat compressed, with the hilum on the sharper edge, and a deep furrow running from it and almost dividing the seed into two unequal lobes. When the seed is macerated in warm water, its structure becomes easily visible. The testa bursts by the swelling of the internal membrane or endopleura, which like a thick gelatinous sac encloses the cotyledons and their very large hooked radicle.

Microscopic Structure—The most interesting structural peculiarity of this seed arises from the fact that the mucilage with which it abounds is not yielded by the cells of the epidermis, but by a loose tissue closely surrounding the embryo.[700]

Chemical Composition—The cells of the testa contain tannin; the cotyledons a yellow colouring matter, but no sugar. The air-dried seeds give off 10 per cent. of water at 100° C., and on subsequent incineration leave 7 per cent. of ash, of which nearly a fourth is phosphoric acid.

Ether extracts from the pulverized seeds 6 per cent. of a fœtid, fatty oil, having a bitter taste. Amylic alcohol removes in addition a small quantity of resin. Alcohol added to a concentrated aqueous extract, forms a precipitate of mucilage, amounting when dried to 28 per cent. Burnt with soda-lime, the seeds yielded to Jahns[701] 3·4 per cent. of nitrogen, equivalent to 22 per cent. of albumin. No researches have been yet made to determine the nature of the odorous principle.

Production and Commerce—Fenugreek is cultivated in Morocco, in the south of France near Montpellier, in a few places in Switzerland, in Alsace, and in some other provinces of the German and Austrian empires, as Thuringia and Moravia. It is produced on a far larger scale in Egypt, where it is known by the Arabic name Hulba, and whence it is exported to Europe and India. In 1873 it was stated that the profits of the European growers were much reduced by the seed being largely exported from Mogador and Bombay.

Under the Sanscrit name of Methi, which has passed, slightly modified, into several of the modern Indian languages, fenugreek is much grown in the plains of India during the cool season. In the year 1872-73, the quantity of seed exported from Sind to Bombay was 13,646 cwt., valued at £4,405.[702] From the port of Bombay there were shipped in the same year 9,655 cwt., of which only 100 cwt. are reported as for the United Kingdom.[703]

Uses—In Europe fenugreek as a medicine is obsolete, but the powdered seeds are still often sold by chemists for veterinary pharmacy and as an ingredient of curry powder. The chief consumption is, however, in the so-called Cattle Foods.

The fresh plant in India is commonly eaten as a green vegetable, while the seeds are extensively used by the natives in food and medicine.

TRAGACANTHA.

Gummi Tragacantha; Tragacanth, Gum Tragacanth; F. Gomme Adragante; G. Traganth.

Botanical Origin.—Tragacanth is the gummy exudation from the stem of several pieces of Astragalus, belonging to the subgenus Tragacantha. The plants of this group are low perennial shrubs, remarkable for their leaves having a strong, persistent, spiny petiole. As the leaves and shoots are very numerous and regular, many of the species have the singular aspect of thorny hemispherical cushions, lying close on the ground; while others, which are those furnishing the gum, grow erect with a naked woody stem, and somewhat resemble furze bushes.

A few species occur in South-western Europe, others are found in Greece and Turkey; but the largest number are inhabitants of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia, Kurdistan and Persia. The tragacanth of commerce is produced in the last named countries, and chiefly, though not exclusively, by the following species[704]:—

1. Astragalus adscendens Boiss. et Hausskr., a shrub attaining 4 feet in height, native, of the mountains of South-western Persia at an altitude of 9,000 to 10,000 feet. According to Haussknecht, it affords an abundance of gum.

2. A. leioclados Boiss.

3. A. brachycalyx Fisch., a shrub of 3 feet high, growing on the mountains of Persian Kurdistan, likewise affords tragacanth.

4. A. gummifer Labill., a small shrub of wide distribution occurring on the Lebanon and Mount Hermon in Syria, the Beryt Dagh in Cataonia, the Arjish Dagh (Mount Argæus) near Kaisariyeh in Central Asia Minor, and in Armenia and Northern Kurdistan.

5. A. microcephalus Willd., like the preceding a widely distributed species, extending from the south-west of Asia Minor to the north-east coast, and to Turkish and Russian Armenia. A specimen of this plant with incisions in the stem, was sent some years ago to the Pharmaceutical Society by Mr. Maltass of Smyrna. We received a large example of the same species, the stem of which is marked by old incisions, from the Rev. W. A. Farnsworth of Kaisariyeh, who states that tragacanth is collected from it on Mount Argæus.

6. A. pycnocladus Boiss. et Haussk., nearly related to A. microcephalus; it was discovered on the high mountains of Avroman and Shahu in Persia by Professor Haussknecht, who states that it exudes tragacanth in abundance.

7. A. stromatodes Bunge, growing at an elevation of 5,000 feet on the Akker Dagh range, near Marash in Northern Syria.

8. A. kurdicus Boiss., a shrub 3 to 4 feet high, native of the mountains of Cilicia and Cappadocia, extending thence to Kurdistan. Haussknecht has informed us that from this and the last named species, the so-called Aintab Tragacanth is chiefly obtained.

Probably the drug is also to some extent collected from

9. A. verus Olivier, in North-western Persia and Asia Minor.

Lastly as to Greece, tragacanth is also afforded by

10. A. Parnassi Boiss., var. cyllenea, a small shrub found in abundance on the northern mountains of the Morea, which is stated by Heldreich[705] to be the almost exclusive source of the tragacanth collected about Vostizza and Patras.

History—Tragacanth has been known from a very early period. Theophrastus in the 3rd century b.c. mentioned Crete, the Peloponnesus and Media as its native countries. Dioscorides, who as a native of South-eastern Asia Minor was probably familiar with the plant, describes it correctly as a low spiny bush. The drug is mentioned by the Greek physicians Oribasius, Aëtius, and Paulus Ægineta (4th to 7th cent.), and by many of the Arabian writers on medicine. The abbreviated form of its name “Dragantum” already occurs in the book “Artis veterinariæ, seu mulomedicinæ” of Vegetius Renatus, who lived about a.d. 400. During the middle ages the gum was imported into Europe through the trading cities of Italy, as shown in the statutes of Pisa,[706] a.d. 1305, where it is mentioned as liable to impost.

Pierre Belon, the celebrated French naturalist and traveller, saw and described, about 1550, the collecting of tragacanth in the northern part of Asia Minor; and Tournefort in 1700 observed on Mount Ida in Candia the singular manner in which the gum is exuded from the living plant.[707]

Secretion—It has been shown by H. von Mohl[708] and by Wigand[709] that tragacanth is produced by metamorphosis of the cell membrane, and that it is not simply the dried juice of the plant.

The stem of a gum-bearing Astragalus cut transversely, exhibits concentric annual layers which are extremely tough and fibrous, easily tearing lengthwise into thin filaments. These inclose a central column, radiating from which are numerous medullary rays, both of very singular structure, for instead of presenting a thin-walled parenchyme, they appear to the naked eye as a hard translucent gum-like mass, becoming gelatinous in water. Examined microscopically, this gummy substance is seen to consist not of dried mucilage, but of the very cells of the pith and medullary rays, in process of transformation into tragacanth. The transformed cells, if their transformation has not advanced too far, exhibit the angular form and close packing of parenchyme-cells, but their walls are much incrassated and evidently consist of numerous very thin strata.

That these cells are but ordinary parenchyme-cells in an altered state, is proved by the pith and medullary rays of the smaller branches which present no such unusual structure. Mohl was able to trace this change from the period in which the original cell membrane could be still easily distinguished from its incrusting layers, to that in which the transformation had proceeded so far that it was impossible to perceive any defined cells, the whole substance being metamorphosed into a more or less uniform mucilaginous mass.

The tension under which this peculiar tissue is held in the interior of the stem is very remarkable in Astragalus gummifer which one of us had the opportunity of observing on the Lebanon in 1860.[710] On cutting off a branch of the thickness of the finger, there immediately exudes from the centre a stream of soft, solid tragacanth, pushing itself out like a worm, to the length of ¾ of an inch, sometimes in the course of half an hour; while much smaller streams (or none at all) are emitted from the medullary rays of the thick bark.

Production—The principal localities in Asia Minor in which tragacanth is collected are the district of Angora, the capital of the ancient Galatia; Isbarta, Buldur and Yalavatz,[711] north of the gulf of Adalia; the range of the Ali Dagh between Tarsous and Kaisariyeh, and the mountainous country eastward as far as the valley of the Euphrates. The drug is also gathered in Armenia on the elevated range of the Bingol Dagh south of Erzerum; throughout Kurdistan from Mush for 500 miles in a south-eastern direction as far as the province of Luristan in Persia, a region including the high lands south of lake Van, and west of lake Urumiah. It is likewise produced in Persia farther east, over an area 300 miles long by 100 to 150 miles broad, between Gilpaigon and Kashan, southward to the Mahomed Senna range north-east of Shiraz, thus including the lofty Bakhtiyari mountains.

As to the way in which the gum is obtained, it appears from the statements of Maltass, that in July and August the peasants clear away the earth from around the stem of the shrub, and then make in the bark several incisions, from which during the following 3 or 4 days the gum exudes and dries in flakes. In some localities they also puncture the bark with the point of a knife. Whilst engaged in these operations, they pick from the shrubs whatever gum they find exuded naturally.

Hamilton,[712] who saw the shrub in 1836 on the hills about Buldur, says “the gum is obtained by making an incision in the stem near the root, and cutting through the pith, when the sap exudes in a day or two and hardens.”

Formerly the peasants were content to collect the naturally exuded gum, no pains being taken to make incisions, whereby alone white flaky gum is obtained. We have in fact heard an old druggist state, that he remembered the first appearance of this fine kind of tragacanth in the London market. According to Professor Haussknecht, whose observations relate chiefly to Kurdistan and Persia, the tragacanth collected in these regions is mostly a spontaneous exudation.

Tragacanth is brought to Smyrna, which is a principal market for it, from the interior, in bags containing about 2 quintals each, by native dealers who purchase it of the peasants. In this state it is a very crude article, consisting of all the gatherings mixed together. To fit it for the European markets, some of which have their special requirements, it has to be sorted into different qualities, as Flaky or Leaf Gum, Vermicelli and Common or Sorts; this sorting is performed almost exclusively by Spanish Jews.

Description—The peculiar conditions under which tragacanth exudes, arising from the pressure of the surrounding tissues and the power of solidifying a large amount of water, will account to some extent for the strange forms in which this exudation occurs.

The spontaneously exuded gum is mostly in mammiform or botryoidal masses from the size of a pea upwards, of a dull waxy lustre, and brownish or yellowish hue. It also occurs in vermiform pieces more or less contorted and very variable in thickness; some of them may have exuded as the result of artificial punctures. It is this form that bears the trade name of Vermicelli. The most valued sort is however the Flake Tragacanth, which consists of thin flattish pieces or flakes, 1, 2, 3 or more inches in length, by ¼ to 1 in width.[713] They are marked on the surface by wavy lines and bands, or by a series of concentric wave-marks, as if the soft gum had been forced out by successive efforts. The pieces are contorted and altogether very variable in form and size. The gum is valued in proportion to its purity and whiteness. The best, whether vermiform or flaky, is dull white, translucent, devoid of lustre, somewhat flexible and horny, firm, and not easily broken, inodorous and with scarcely any or only a slight bitterish taste.