Assam, extending thence along the base of the Himalaya westward to Sikkim.

History-The inhabitants of the south-eastern countries of Asia have long been acquainted with the seeds of certain trees of the tribe Pangiec (ord. Bixinea) as a remedy for maladies of the skin. In China a seed called Ta-fung-tsze is imported from Siam1 where it is known as Lukrabo and used in a variety of cutaneous complaints. The tree affording it, which is figured in the Pun-tsao (circa A.D. 1596), has not been recognized by botanists, but from the structure of the seed it is obviously closely related to Gynocardia.2

The properties of G. odorata were known to Roxburgh who Latinizing the Indian name of the tree, called it (1814) Chaulmoogra odorata. Of late years the seeds have attracted the notice of Europeans in India, and having been found useful in certain skin diseases, they have been admitted a place in the Pharmacopoeia of India.

Description-The seeds, 1 to 1 inches long and about half as much in diameter, are of irregular ovoid form, and more or less angular or flattened by mutual pressure; they weigh on an average about 35 grains each. The testa is very thin (about of an inch), brittle, smooth, dull grey; the copious oily albumen encloses a pair of large, plane, leafy, heart-shaped cotyledons with a stout radicle.

Microscopic Structure-The testa is chiefly formed of cylindrical thick-walled cells. The albumen exhibits large angular cells containing fatty oil, masses of albuminous matter and tufted crystals of calcium oxalate. Starch is not present.

Chemical Composition-No chemical examination of the seeds has yet been made.

Uses The seeds are said to have been advantageously used as an alterative tonic in scrofula, skin diseases and rheumatism. They should be freed from the testa, powdered, and given in the dose of 6 grains gradually increased. Reduced to a paste and mixed with Simple Ointment, they constitute the Unguentum Gynocardia of the Indian Pharmacopoeia, which, as well as an expressed oil of the seeds, may be employed externally in herpes, tinea, &c.

Substitute-It has been suggested that the seeds of Hydnocarpus Wightiana Bl. a tree of Western India, and of H. venenata Gärtn., native of Ceylon, might be tried where those of Gynocardia are not procurable. The seeds of both species of Hydnocarpus (formerly confounded together as H. inebrians Vahl) afford a fatty oil which the natives use in cutaneous diseases.3

1 The Commercial Report from H.M. Consul-General in Siam for the year 1871, presented to Parliament, Aug. 1872, states that 48 peculs (6400lb.) of Lukkrabow Seeds were exported from Bangkok to China in 1871.

2 Hanbury, Notes on Chinese Mat. Med. (1862) 23.-Dr. Porter Smith assumes the Chinese drug to be derived from G. odorata, but as I have pointed out, the seeds have a much stronger testa than those of that tree. -D. H.

3 Waring, Pharm. of India, 1868. 27.

POLYGALEÆ.

RADIX SENEGE.

Radix Seneka; Senega or Seneka Root; F. Racine de Polygala de Virginie; G. Senegawurzel.

Botanical Origin-Polygala Senega L., a perennial plant with slender ascending stems 6 to 12 inches high, and spikes of dull white flowers resembling in form those of the Common Milkwort of Britain. It is found in British America as far north as the river Saskatchewan, and in the United States from New England to Wisconsin, Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and the upper parts of North Carolina.

The plant which frequents rocky open woods and plains, has become somewhat scarce in the Atlantic states, and as a drug it is now chiefly collected in the west.

History-The employment of this root among the Seneca Indians as a remedy for the bite of the rattle-snake attracted the notice of Tennent, a Scotch physician in Virginia; and from the good effects he witnessed he concluded that it might be administered with advantage in pleurisy and peripneumonia. The result of numerous trials made in the years 1734 and 1735 proved the utility of the drug in these complaints, and Tennent communicated his observations to the celebrated Dr. Mead of London in the form of an epistle, afterwards published together with an engraving of the plant then called the Seneca Rattle-snake Root.1 Tennent's practice was to administer the root in powder or as a strong decoction, or more often infused in wine. The new drug was favourably received in Europe, and its virtues discussed in numerous theses and dissertations, one written in 1749 being by Linnæus.2

Description-Senega root is developed at its upper end into a knotty crown, in old roots as much as an inch in diameter, from which spring the numerous wiry aerial stems, beset at the base with scaly rudimentary leaves often of a purplish hue. Below the crown is a simple tap-root to of an inch thick, of contorted or somewhat spiral form, which usually soon divides into 2 or 3 spreading branches and smaller filiform rootlets.

The bark is light yellowish-grey, translucent, horny, shrivelled, knotted and partially annulated. Very frequently a keel-shaped ridge occurs, running like a shrunken sinew through the principal root; it has no connexion with the wood, but originates in a one-sided development of the liber-tissue. The bark encloses a pure white, woody column about as thick as itself. After the root has been macerated in water the bark is easily peeled off and the peculiar structure of the wood can then be studied. The latter immediately below the crown is a cylindrical cord, cleft however by numerous, fine, longitudinal fissures. Lower down these fissures increase in an irregular manner, causing a very abnormal development of the wood. Transverse sections of a root therefore differ greatly, the circular woody portion being either penetrated by clefts or wide notches, or one-half or even more is altogether wanting, the space 1 Tennent (John), Epistle to Dr. Richard Mead concerning the epidemical diseases of Virginia, &c., Edinb. 1738.

2 Amanitates Academica, ii. 126.

where wood should exist being in each case filled up by uniform parenchymatous tissue.

Senega root has a short brittle fracture, a peculiar rancid odour, and a very acrid and sourish taste. When handled it disperses an irritating dust,

Microscopic Structure-The woody part is built up of dotted vessels surrounded by short porous ligneous cells; the medullary rays consist of one or two rows of the usual small cells. There is no pith in the centre of the root. The clefts and notches are filled up with an uniform tissue passing into the primary cortical tissue without a distinct liber; the large cells of this tissue are spirally striated. In the keelshaped ridge the proper liber rays may be distinguished from the medullary rays. The former are made up of a soft tissue, hence the cortical part of the root breaks short together with the wood.

Neither starch granules nor crystals of oxalate of calcium are present in this root; the chief contents of its tissue are albuminoid granules and drops of fatty oil.

Chemical Composition--The substance to which the drug owes its irritating taste was distinguished by the name of Senegin by Gehlen as early as 1804, and is probably the same as the Polygalic Acid of Quevenne (1836) and of Procter (1859). It appears to be closely allied to saponin, the decomposition-products of the two bodies being the same. Senegin is amorphous, insoluble in ether and in cold water; it forms with boiling water a frothing solution possessing feebly acid properties, and dissolves in alkaline liquids with a greenish yellow colour. Like saponin it excites violent sneezing.

Dilute inorganic acids added to a warm solution of senegin throw down a flocculent jelly of Sapogenin, the liquid retaining in solution uncrystallizable sugar. Alkalis give rise to the same decomposition; but it is difficult to split up the senegin completely, and hence the formulas given for this process are doubtful. Even the formula of senegin itself is not definitely settled. According to Procter, the root yields 5 per cent. of this substance; according to earlier authorities (who doubtless had it less pure) a much larger proportion.

Senega root contains a little volatile oil, traces of resin, also gum, salts of malic acid, yellow colouring matter, and sugar (7 per cent. according to Rebling). The Virginic Acid said by Quevenne to be contained in it, and the bitter substance Isolusin mentioned by Peschier, are doubtful bodies.

Uses-Senega is prescribed as a stimulating expectorant and diuretic, useful in pneumonia, asthma and rheumatism, It is much esteemed in America.

Adulteration-The drug is not liable to be wilfully falsified, but through careless collecting there is occasionally a slight admixture of other roots. One of these is American Ginseng (Panax quinquefolium L) a spindle-shaped root which may be found here and there both in senega and serpentaria. The rhizome of Cypripedium pubescens Willd. has also been noticed; it cannot be confounded with that of Polygala Senega.

RADIX KRAMERIÆ.

Radix Ratanhia, Rhatanhia v. Rathania; Rhatany or Rhatania Root, Peruvian or Payta Rhatany; F. Racine de Ratanhia; G. Ratanhiawurzel.

Botanical Origin-Krameria triandra Ruiz et Pav., a small woody shrub with an upright stem scarcely a foot high and thick decumbent branches 2 to 3 feet long. It delights in the barren sandy declivities of the Bolivian and Peruvian Cordilleras at 3000 to 8000 feet above the sea-level, often occurring in great abundance and adorning the ground with its red starlike flowers and silver-grey foliage.

The root is gathered chiefly to the north, north-east, and east of Lima, as at Caxatambo, Huanuco, Tarma, Jauja, Huarochiri and Canta; occasionally on the high lands about lake Titicaca. It appears likewise to be collected in the northern part of Peru, since the drug is now frequently shipped from Payta.

History-Hipolito Ruiz 2 the Spanish botanist observed in 1784 that the women of Huanuco and Lima were in the habit of using for the preservation of their teeth a root which he recognized as that of Krameria triandra, a plant discovered by himself in 1779. On his return to Europe he obtained admission for this root into Spain in 1796, whence it was gradually introduced into other countries of Europe.

The first supplies which reached England formed part of the cargo of a Spanish prize, and were sold in the London drug sales at the commencement of the present century. Some fell into the hands of Dr. Reece who recommended it to the profession.3

About 20 years ago there appeared in the European market some other kinds of rhatany previously unknown: of these the more important are noticed at p. 76.

Description-The root which attains a considerable size in proportion to the aerial part of the shrub, consists of a short thick crown, sometimes much knotted and as large as a man's fist. This ramifies beneath the soil even more than above, throwing out an abundance of branching, woody roots (frequently horizontal) some feet long and to an inch thick. These long roots used formerly to be found in commerce; but of late years rhatany has consisted in large proportion of the more woody central part of the root with short stumpy branches, which from their broken and bruised appearance have evidently been extracted with difficulty from a hard soil.

The bark which is scaly and rugged, and to of an inch in thickness, is of a dark reddish brown. It consists of a loose cracked cork-layer, mostly smooth in the smaller roots, covering a bright brownred inner bark, which adheres though not very firmly to a brownish yellow wood. The bark is rather tough, breaking with a fibrous fracture. The wood is dense, without pith, but marked with thin vessels arranged in concentric rings, and with still thinner, dark medullary rays. The taste of the bark is purely astringent; the wood is almost tasteless : neither possesses any distinctive odour.

1 Ruiz and Pavon state that the root is called at Huanuco ratanhia. The derivation of the word which is of the Quichua language is obscure.

2 Mem. de la R. Acad. méd. de Madrid, i. (1797) 349-366.

3 Medical and Chirurgical Review, Lond., xiii. (1806) ccxlvi.; also Reece, Dict. of Domest Med., 1808.

Microscopic Structure-The chief portion of the bark is formed of liber, which in transverse section exhibits numerous bundles of yellow fibres separated by parenchymatous tissue and traversed by narrow brown medullary rays. The small layer of the primary bark is made up of large cells, the surface of the root of large suberous cells imbued with red matter. The latter also occurs in the inner cortical tissue and ought to be removed by means of ammonia in order to get a clear idea of the structure. Many of the parenchymatous cells are loaded with starch granules; oxalate of calcium occurs in the neighbourhood of the liber bundles. The woody portion exhibits no structure of particular interest.

Chemical Composition-Wittstein (1854) found in the bark of rhatany (the only part of the drug having active properties) about 20 per cent. of a form of tannin called Ratanhia-tannic Acid, closely related to catechu-tannic acid. It is an amorphous powder, the solution of which is not affected by emetic tartar, but yields with ferric chloride, a dark greenish precipitate. By distillation Eissfeldt (1854) obtained. pyrocatechin as a product of the decomposition of ratanhia-tannic acid. The latter is also decomposed by dilute acids which convert it into crystallizable sugar and Ratanhia-red a substance nearly insoluble in water, also occurring in abundance ready formed in the bark.

Grabowski (1867) showed that by fusing ratanhia-red with caustic potash, proto-catechuic acid and phloroglucin1 are obtained. Ratanhiared has the composition C2H22O11, the same according to Grabowski, as an analogous product of the decomposition of the peculiar tannic acid. occurring (as shown by Rochleder in 1866) in the horse-chesnut. The same red substance may also be obtained, as stated by Rembold (1868), from the tannic acid of the root of tormentil (Potentilla Tormentilla L.).

As to rhatany root, Wittstein also found it to contain wax, gum and uncrystallizable sugar (even in the wood! according to Cotton 2). Cotton further pointed out the presence in very minute quantity of an odorous, volatile, solid body, obtainable by means of ether or bisulphide of carbon; it occurs in a somewhat more considerable amount in the other sorts of rhatany. The root contains no gallic acid.

A dry extract of rhatany resembling kino used formerly to be imported from South America, but how and where manufactured we know not. It is however of some interest as containing a crystalline body which Wittstein who discovered it (1854) regards as Tyrosin, CHINO3, previously supposed to be exclusively of animal origin.3 Its identity with tyrosin has been called in question by Städeler and Ruge (1862), who assign to it a slightly different composition, C10H13NO3, and give it the name of Ratanhin. The same substance has been abundantly met with by Gintl (1868) in the natural exudation called Resina d'Angelim pedra which flows from the alburnum of Ferreirea spectabilis Allem., a large Brazilian tree of the order Leguminosa (tribe Sophorea). Peckolt who first extracted it, named it Angelin; it forms colourless, neutral crystals yielding compounds both with alkalis and acids, which have been investigated by Gintl in 1869 and 1870.

1 See art. Kino.

2 Etude sur le Genre Krameria (thèse), Paris, 1868. 83.

3 Gmelin, Chemistry, xiii. (1859) 358.