resembles Actaea spicata L., a plant widely spread over the northern parts of Europe, Asia, and America, occurring also in Britain; but it differs in having an elongated raceme of 3 to 8 inches in length and dry dehiscent capsules. A. spicata has a short raceme and juicy berries, usually red. History-The plant was first made known by Plukenet in 1696 as Christophoriana Canadensis racemosa. It was recommended in 1743 by Colden1 and named in 1749 by Linnæus in his Materia Medica as Actœa racemis longissimis. In 1823 it was introduced into medical practice in America by Garden; it began to be used in England about the year 1860.2 Description-The drug consists of a very short, knotty, branching rhizome, an inch or more thick, having, in one direction, the remains of several stout aerial stems, and in the other, numerous brittle, wiry roots, to of an inch in diameter, emitting rootlets still smaller. rhizome is of somewhat flattened cylindrical form, distinctly marked at intervals with the scars of fallen leaves. A transverse section exhibits in the centre a horny whitish pith, round which are a number of rather coarse, irregular woody rays, and outside them a hard, thickish bark. The larger roots when broken display a thick cortical layer, the space within which contains converging wedges of open woody tissue 3 to 5 in number forming a star or cross, a beautiful and characteristic structure easily observed with a lens. The drug is of a dark blackish brown; it has a bitter, rather acrid and astringent taste, and a heavy narcotic smell. Microscopic Structure-The most striking character is afforded by the rootlets, which on a transverse section display a central woody column, traversed usually by 4 wide medullary rays and often enclosing a pith. The woody column is surrounded by a parenchymatous layer separated from the cortical portion by one row of densely packed small cells constituting a boundary analogous to the nucleus-sheath (kernscheide) met with in many roots of monocotyledons, as for instance in sarsaparilla. The parenchyme of cimicifuga root contains small starch granules. The structure of the drug is, on the whole, the same as that of the closely allied European Actœa spicata L. Chemical Composition-Tilghmann 3 in 1834 analysed the drug, obtaining from it gum, sugar, resin, starch and tannic acid, but no peculiar principle. Conard extracted from it a neutral crystalline substance of intensely acrid taste, soluble in dilute alcohol, chloroform, or ether, but not in benzol, oil of turpentine, or bisulphide of carbon. The composition of this body has not been ascertained. The same chemist showed the drug not to afford a volatile principle, even in its fresh state. The American practitioners called Eclectics prepare with Black Snakeroot in the same manner as they prepare podophyllin, an impure resin which they term Cimicifugin or Macrotin. The drug yields according to Parrish, 33 per cent of this substance, which is sold in the form of scales or as a dark brown powder. 1 Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal. 1743. 131. 4 Am. Journ. of Pharm. xliii. (1871) 151; Pharm. Journ. April 29, 1871. 866. Uses Cimicifuga usually prescribed in the form of tincture (called Tinctura Actaea racemosa) has been employed chiefly in rheumatic affections. It is also used in dropsy, the early stages of phthisis, and in chronic bronchial disease. A strong tincture has been lately recommended in America as an external application for reducing inflammation.1 MAGNOLIACEAE (tribe Winterea). CORTEX WINTERANUS. Cortex Winteri, Cortex Magellanicus; Winter's Bark, Winter's Cinnamon ; F. Ecorce de Winter; G. Wintersrinde, Magellanischer Zimmt. Botanical Origin-Drimys2 Winteri Forster, a tree distributed throughout the American continent from Mexico to Cape Horn. It presents considerable variation in form and size of leaf and flower in the different countries in which it occurs, on which account it has received from botanists several distinct specific names. Hooker3 has reduced these species to a single type, a course in which he has been followed by Eichler in his recent monograph of the small order Winteraceae.1 History-In 1577 Captain Drake, afterwards better known as Sir Francis Drake, having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a commission to conduct a squadron to the South Seas, set sail from Plymouth with five ships; and having abandoned two of his smaller vessels, passed into the Pacific Ocean by the Straits of Magellan in the autumn of the following year. But on the 7th September, 1578, there arose a dreadful storm, which dispersed the little fleet. Drake's ship, the Pelican, was driven southward, the Elizabeth, under the command of Captain Winter, repassed the Straits and returned to England, while the third vessel, the Marigold, was heard of no more. Winter remained three weeks in the Straits of Magellan to recover the health of his crew, during which period, according to Clusius (the fact is not mentioned in Hakluyt's account of the voyage), he collected a certain aromatic bark, of which, having removed the acridity by steeping it in honey, he made use as a spice and medicine for scurvy during his homeward voyage. A specimen of this bark having been presented to Clusius, he gave it the name of Cortex Winteranus, and figured and described it in his Libri Exoticorum, published in 1605. He afterwards received a specimen with wood attached, which had been collected by the Dutch navigator Sebald de Weerdt. Van Noort, another well-known Dutch navigator, who visited the Straits of Magellan in 1600, mentions cutting wood at Port Famine to 1 Yearbook of Pharmacy, 1872. 385. 4 Martius, Flor. Bras. fasc. 38 (1864) 134. Eichler however admits five principal varieties, viz. a. Magellanica; B. Chilensis; y Granatensis; d. revoluta; e. angustifolia. C make a boat, and that the bark of the trees was hot and biting like pepper. It is stated by Murray that he also brought the bark to Europe. But although the Straits of Magellan were several times visited about this period, it is certain that no regular communication between that remote region and Europe existed either then or subsequently; and we may reasonably conclude that Winter's Bark became a drug of great rarity, and known to but few persons. It thus happened that, notwithstanding most obvious differences, the Canella alba of the West Indies, and another bark of which we shall speak further on, having been found to possess the pungency of Winter's Bark, were (owing to the scarcity of the latter) substituted for it, until at length the peculiar characters of the original drug came to be entirely forgotten. The tree was figured by Sloane in 1693, from a specimen (still extant) brought from Magellan's Straits by Handisyd, a ship's surgeon, who had experienced its utility in treating scurvy. 2 He Feuillée1 a French botanist, found the Winter's Bark-tree in Chili (1709–11), and figured it as Boigue cinnamomifera. It was, however, Forster, the botanist of Cook's second expedition round the world, who first described the tree accurately, and named it Drimys Winteri. met with it in 1773 in Magellan's Straits, and on the eastern coasts of Tierra del Fuego, where it grows abundantly, forming an evergreen tree of 40 feet, while on the western shores it is but a shrub of 10 feet high. Specimens have been collected in these and adjacent localities by many subsequent botanists, among others by Dr. J. D. Hooker, who states that about Cape Horn the tree occurs from the sea-level to an elevation of 1000 feet. Although the bark of Drimys was never imported as an article of trade from Magellan's Straits, it has in recent times been occasionally brought into the market from other parts of South America, where it is in very general use. Yet so little are drug dealers acquainted with it, that its true name and origin have seldom been recognized.3 Description-We have examined specimens of true Winter's Bark from the Straits of Magellan, Chili, Peru, New Granada, and Mexico, and find in each the same general characters. The bark is in quills or channelled pieces, often crooked, twisted or bent backwards, generally only a few inches in length. It is mostly extremely thick ( to 1% of an inch) and appears to have shrunk very much in drying, bark a quarter of an inch thick having sometimes rolled itself into a tube only three times as much in external diameter. Young pieces have an ashygrey suberous coat beset with lichens. In older bark, the outer coat is sometimes whitish and silvery, but more often of a dark rusty brown, which is the colour of the internal substance, as well as of the surface next the wood. The inner side of the bark is strongly characterized by very rough striæ, or, as seen under a lens, by small short and sharp longitudinal ridges, with occasional fissures indicative of great contraction of the inner layer in drying. In a piece broken or cut transversely, it is easy to perceive that the ridges in question are the ends of rays of white liber which diverge towards the circumference in radiate order, a dark rusty parenchyme intervening between them. No such feature is ever observable in either Canella or Cinnamodendron. Winter's Bark has a short, almost earthy fracture, an intolerably pungent burning taste, and an odour which can only be described as terebinthinous. When fresh its smell may be more agreeable. Microscopic Structure-In full-grown specimens the most striking fact is the predominance of sclerenchymatous cells. The tissue moreover contains numerous large oil-ducts, chiefly in the inner portion of the large medullary rays. A fibrous structure of the inner part of the bark is observable only in the youngest specimens.1 Very small starch granules are met with in the drug, yet less numerous than in canella.. The tissue of the former assumes a blackish blue colour on addition of perchloride of iron. The wood of Drimys consists of dotted prosenchyme, traversed by medullary rays, the cells of which are punctuated and considerably larger than in Coniferæ. Chemical Composition-No satisfactory chemical examination has been made of true Winter's Bark. Its chief constituents, as already pointed out, are tannic matters and essential oil, probably also a resin. In a cold aqueous infusion, a considerable amount of mucilage is indicated by neutral acetate of lead. On addition of potash it yields a dark somewhat violet liquid. Canella alba is but little altered by the same treatment. By reason of its astringency the bark is used in Chili for tanning.2 Uses-Winter's Bark is a stimulating tonic and antiscorbutic, now almost obsolete in Europe. It is much used in Brazil and other parts of South America as a remedy in diarrhoea and gastric debility. Substitute-False Winter's Bark-We have shown that the bark of Drimys or True Winter's Bark has been confounded with the pungent bark of Canella alba L., and with an allied bark, also the produce of Jamaica. The latter is that of Cinnamodendron corticosum Miers,3 a tree growing in the higher mountain woods of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and St. John, but not observed in any other of the West Indian islands than Jamaica. It was probably vaguely known to Sloane when he described the" Wild Cinamon tree, commonly, but falsely, called Cortex Winteranus," which, he says, has leaves resembling those of Lauro-cerasus; though the tree he figures is certainly Canella alba. Long5 in 1774, speaks of Wild Cinnamon, Canella alba, or Bastard Cortex Winteranus, saying that it is used by most apothecaries instead of the true Cortex Winteranus. It is probable that both writers really had in view Cinnamodendron, the bark of which has been known and used as Winter's Bark, both in England and on the continent from an early period up to the present time. It is the bark figured as Cortex Winteranus by Goebel and Kunze7 1 The structure of Winter's Bark is beautifully figured by Eichler, loc. cit. tab. 32.. 2 Perez-Rosales, Essai sur le Chili, 1857. 113. Annals of Nat. Hist., May 1858; also Miers' Contributions to Botany, i. 121, pl. 24. • Phil. Trans. xvii for 1693. 465 Hist. of Jamaica, Lond. iii. (1774) 705 -also i. 495. 6 It is so labelled in the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, 28th April, 1873. 7 Pharm. Waarenkunde, 1827-29. i. taf. 3., fig. 7. and described by Mérat and De Lens, Pereira, and other writers of repute. Guibourt indeed pointed out in 1850 its great dissimilarity to the bark of Drimys and questioned if it could be derived from that genus. It is a strange fact that the tree should have been confounded with Canella alba L., differing from it as it does in the most obvious manner, not only in form of leaf, but in having the flowers axillary, whereas those of C. alba are terminal. Although Cinnamodendron corticosum is a tree sometimes as much as 90 feet high and must have been well known in Jamaica for more than a century, yet it had no botanical name until 1858 when it was described by Miers3 and referred to the small genus Cinnamodendron which is closely allied to Canella. The bark of Cinnamodendron has the general structure of Canella alba. There is the same thin corky outer coat (which is not removed) dotted with round scars, the same form of quills and fracture. But the tint is different, being more or less of a ferruginous brown. The inner surface which is a little more fibrous than in canella, varies in colour, being yellowish, brown, or of a deep chocolate. The bark is violently pungent but not bitter, and has a very agreeable cinnamon-like odour. In microscopic structure it approaches very close to canella; yet the thick-walled cells of the latter exist to a much larger extent and are here seen to belong to the suberous tissue. The medullary rays are loaded with oxalate of calcium. Cinnamodendron bark has not been analysed. Its decoction is blackened by a persalt of iron whereby it may be distinguished from Canella alba; and is coloured intense purplish brown by iodine, which is not the case with a decoction of true Winter's Bark. FRUCTUS ANISI STELLATI. Semen Badiani; Star-Anise; F. Badiane, Anis étoilé; G. Sternanis. Botanical Origin-Illicium anisatum Loureiro (I. religiosum Sieb.). A small tree, 20 to 25 feet high, native of the south-western provinces of China; introduced at an early period into Japan by the Buddhists and planted about their temples. Kämpfer in his travels in Japan towards the end of the 17th century discovered a tree called Somo or Skimmi5 which subsequent authors assumed to be the source of the drug Star-anise. The tree was also found in Japan by Thunberg who remarked that its capsules are not so aromatic as those found in trade. Von Siebold in 1825 noticed the same fact, in consequence of which he regarded the tree as distinct from that of Loureiro, naming it Illicium Japonicum, a name he afterwards changed to I. religiosum. Baillon who has recently investigated the subject? while admitting certain differences between the fruits of the Chinese and 1 As shown by De Lens' own specimen kindly given to one of us by Dr. J. Léon Soubeiran. There are specimens of the same bark about a century old marked Cortex Winteranus verus in Dr. Burges's cabinet of drugs belonging to the Royal College of Physicians. 2 Grisebach calls it a low shrubby tree, 10-15 feet high. Mr. N. Wilson, late of the Bath Botanic Garden, Jamaica, has in formed me it grows to be 40-45 in height, but that he has seen a specimen 90 feet high. (Letter 22 May, 1862.)-D. H. 3 Loc. cit. 4 From the Arabic Bádiyán, anise. 5 Amanitates, 1712. 808. 6 Flora Japonica, 1784. 235. 7 Adansonia, viii. 9; Hist. des Plantes, Magnoliacées, 1868. 154. |