a variable proportion of leafstalks and broken twigs, pods and flowers; besides which there was alınost invariably an accompaniment of the leaves, flowers and fruits of Solenostemma Argel Hayne (p. 194), not to mention seeds, stones, dust and heterogeneous rubbish. Such a drug required sifting, fanning and picking, by which most of these impurities could be separated, leaving only the senna contaminated with leaves of argel. But Alexandrian Senna has of late been shipped of much better quality. Some we have recently seen (1872) was, as taken from the original package, wholly composed of leaflets of C. acutifolia in a wellpreserved condition; and even the lower qualities of senna are now contaminated with argel to the extent that was usual a few years ago. The leaflets the general form of which has already been described (p. 190) are to 14 inches long, rather stiff and brittle, generally a little incurled at the edges, conspicuously veined, the midrib being often brown. They are covered with a very short and fine pubescence which is most dense on the midrib. The leaves have a peculiar opaque, light yellowish green hue, a somewhat agreeable tea-like odour, and a mucilaginous, not very marked taste, which however is sickly and nauseous in a watery infusion. 2. Arabian, Moka, Bombay or East Indian Senna-This drug is derived from Cassia angustifolia, and is produced in Southern Arabia. It is shipped from Moka, Aden and other Red Sea ports to Bombay, and thence reaches Europe. Arabian senna is usually collected and dried without care, and is mostly an inferior commodity, fetching in London sometimes as low a price as to d. per lb. Yet so far as we have observed, it is never adulterated, but consists wholly of senna leaflets, often brown and decayed, mixed with flowers, pods, and stalks. The leaflets have the form already described (p. 190); short adpressed hairs are often visible on their under surface. 3. Tinnevelly Senna-Derived from the same species as the last, but from the plant cultivated in India, and in a state of far greater luxuriance than it exhibits in the drier regions of Arabia where it grows wild. It is a very superior and carefully collected drug, consisting wholly of the leaflets. These are lanceolate, 1 to 2 inches in length, of a yellowish green on the upper side, of a duller tint on the under, glabrous or thinly pubescent on the under side with short adpressed hairs. The leaflets are less rigid in texture than those of Alexandrian senna, and have a tea-like, rather fragrant smell with but little taste. Tinnevelly senna has of late fallen off in size, and some recent importations (July, 1873) were not distinguishable from Arabian senna, except from having been more carefully prepared. The drug is generally shipped from Tuticorin in the extreme south of India. Chemical Composition-The analysis of senna with a view to the isolation of its active principle has engaged the attention of numerous chemists, but as yet the results of their labours are not quite satisfactory. Ludwig (1864) treated an alcoholic extract of senna with charcoal, and obtained from the latter by means of boiling alcohol two bitter principles, Sennacrol, soluble in ether, and Sennapicrin, not dissoived by ether. Dragendorff1 and Kubly (1866) have shown the active substance of senna to be a colloid body, easily soluble in water but not in strong alcohol. When a syrupy aqueous extract of senna is mixed with an equal volume of alcohol, and the mucilage thus thrown down has been removed, the addition of a further quantity of alcohol occasions the fall of a dark brown, almost tasteless, easily alterable substance, which is indued with purgative properties. It was further shown that this precipitate was a mixture of calcium and magnesium salts of phosphoric acid and a peculiar acid. The last named, separated by hydrochloric acid, has been called Cathartic Acid; it is a black substance which in the mouth is at first insipid, but afterwards tastes acid and somewhat astringent. In water or strong alcohol it is almost insoluble, and entirely so in ether or chloroform; but it dissolves in warm dilute alcohol. From this solution it is precipitable by many acids, but not by tannic. Cathartic acid is dissolved by alkalis or their carbonates (in the latter case with disengagement of carbonic acid) forming a dark solution from which it may be precipitated unaltered by an acid. The neutral ammoniacal solution affords precipitates with salts of lead or silver, from which Dragendorff and Kubly have deduced for the acid the formula C180 H192082N4S, which in our opinion is inadmissible. Groves in 1868, unaware of the researches of Dragendorff and Kubly, arrived at similar results as these chemists, and proved conclusively that a cathartate of ammonia possesses in a concentrated form the purgative activity of the original drug. The exactness of the chief facts relative to the solubility in weak alcohol of the active principle of senna set forth by the said chemists, was also remarkably supported by the long practical experience of T. and H. Smith of Edinburgh.3 When cathartic acid is boiled with alcohol and hydrochloric acid, it is resolved into sugar and Cathartogenic Acid. The alcoholic solution from which the cathartates have been separated, contains a yellow colouring matter which was called Chrysoretin by Bley and Diesel (1849), but identified as Chrysophan by Martius, Batka ind others. Dragendorff and Kubly regard the identity of the two substances as doubtful. The same alcoholic solution which contains the yellow colouring matter just described, also holds dissolved a sugar which has been named Catharto-mannite. It forms warty crystals, is not susceptible of alcoholic fermentation, and does not reduce alkaline cupric tartrate. The formula assigned to it is C42H44038. Senna contains tartaric and oxalic acids with traces of malic acid. The large amount of ash, 9 to 12 per cent., consisting of earthy and alkaline carbonates, also indicates the presence of a considerable quantity of organic acids. Commerce-Alexandrian Senna, the produce of Nubia and the regions further south, was formerly a monopoly of the Egyptian GovernPharm. Journ. x. (1869) 196. 3 Ibid. 315. 1 Pharm. Zeitschr. f. Russland, iv. (1866) 429 465; an abstract in Wittstein's Viertelahreschrift xvi. (1867) 92, and in Gmelin's Chemistry, xviii. (1871) 240. 4 See Art. Radix Rhei ment, the enjoyment of which was granted to individuals in return for a stipulated payment: hence it was known in continental trade as Séné de la palte, while the depots were termed paltes and those who farmed the monopoly paltiers. All this has long been abolished, and the trade is now free, the drug being shipped from Alexandria. Arabian senna is brought into commerce by way of Bombay. The quantity of senna imported thither from the Red Sea and Aden in the year 1871-72 was 4,195 cwt., and the quantity exported during the same period, 2,180 cwt.2 Uses-Senna leaves are extensively employed in medicine as a purgative. Adulteration-The principal contamination to which senna is at present liable, arises from the presence of the leaves of Solenostemma Argel Hayne, a plant of the order Asclepiadea, 2 to 3 feet high, growing in the arid valleys of Nubia. Whether these leaves are used for the direct purpose of adulteration, or under the notion of improving the drug, or in virtue of some custom or prejudice, is not very evident. It is certain however that druggists have been found who preferred senna that contained a good percentage of argel. Nectoux, to whom we owe the first exact account of the argel plant,3 describes it as never gathered with the senna by accident or carelessness, but always separately. In fact he saw both at Esneh and Phile, the original bales of argel as well as those of senna: and at Boulak near Cairo at the beginning of the present century, the argel used to be regularly mixed with senna in the proportion of one to four. The leaves of argel after a little practice are very easily recognized; but their complete separation from senna by hand-picking is a tedious operation. They are lanceolate, equal at the base, of the same size as senna leaflets but often larger, of a pallid, opaque, greyish-green, rigid, thick, rather crumpled, wrinkled and pubescent, not distinctly veined. They have an unmistakeably bitter taste. The small, white, star-like flowers, or more often the flower buds, in dense corymbs are found in plenty in the bales of Alexandrian senna. The slender, pear-shaped follicles, when mature 1 inches long, with comose seeds are less frequent. It has been shown by Christison that argel leaves administered per se, have but a feeble purgative action though they occasion griping. It is plain therefore that their admixture with senna should be deprecated. The leaves or leaflets of several other plants were formerly mixed occasionally with senna, as those of the poisonous Coriaria myrtifolia L., a Mediterranean shrub, of Colutea arborescens L., a native of Central and Southern Europe, and of the Egyptian Tephrosia Apollinea DC. We have never met with any of them.5 1 From the Italian appaltare, to let or farmi. 2 Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 21. 98. 3 Op. cit. (See p. 191). Dispensatory, ed. 2. 1848. 850. 5 The reader will find figures of these leaves contrasted with Senna in Pereira's Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. part 2 (1853) 1866. FRUCTUS CASSIE FISTULE. Cassia Fistula; Purging Cassia; F. Casse, Canefice, Fruit du Caneficier; G. Röhrencassie. Botanical Origin-Cassia Fistula L. (Cathartocarpus Fistula Pers., Bactyrilobium Fistula Willd.), a tree indigenous to India, but now cultivated or subspontaneous in Egypt, Tropical Africa, the West Indies and Brazil. It is from 20 to 30 feet high (in Jamaica even 50 feet) and bears long pendulous racemes of beautiful, fragrant, yellow flowers. Some botanists have established for this tree and its near allies a separate genus, on account of its elongated, cylindrical, indehiscent legume, but by most it is retained in the genus Cassia. History The name Casia or Cassia was originally applied exclusively to a bark related to cinnamon which, when rolled into a tube or pipe, was distinguished in Greek by the word ovptys, and in Latin by that of fistula. Thus Scribonius Largus a physician of Rome during the reigns of Tiberius and Claudius, with the latter of whom he is said to have visited Britain, A.D. 43, uses the expression " Casiæ rufo fistularum" in the receipt for a collyrium. Galen 2 describing the different varieties of cassia, mentions that called Gizi as being quite like cinnamon or even better; and also names a well-known cheaper sort, having a strong taste and odour, which is called fistula, because it is rolled up like a tube. Oribasius, physician to the Emperor Julian in the latter half of the 4th and beginning of the 5th century, describes Cassia fistula as a bark of which there are several varieties, having pungent and astringent properties ("omnes cassic fistulæ vires habent acriter excalfacientes et stringentes"), and sometimes used in the place of cinnamon.* It is doubtless the same drug which is spoken of by Alexander Trallianus (6th century) as Kaoías ovpıy§ (casia fistula) in connexion with costus, pepper and other aromatics; and named by other Greek writers as Κασία συριγγώδης (casia fistularis). The Cassia Fistula of modern medicine is noticed by Joannes Actuarius, who flourished at Constantinople towards the close of the 13th century; and as he describes it with particular minuteness, it is evident that he did not consider it well known. The drug is also mentioned by several writers of the school of Salernum. It was a familiar remedy in England in the time of Turner,7 1568. The tree was figured in 1553 by the celebrated traveller Belon who › Compositiones Medicamentorum cap. 4. sect. 36. 2 De Antidot. i. c. 14. 3 Noticed likewise among the commodities liable to duty at Alexandria in the 2nd century.-Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii. 712. Physica Hildegardis, Argent. 1533. 227. Libri xii. J. Guinterio interprete, Basil., 1556, lib. vii. c. 8. "Quemadmodum si ventrem mollire fuerit animus, pruna, et præcipuè Damas cena adjicimus, atque quippiam ferè nigræ nominatæ casiæ. Est autem fructus ejus fistulosus et oblongus, nigrum intus humorem concretum gestans, qui haudquaquam una continuitate coaluit, sed ex intervallo tenuibus lignosisque membranulis dirimitur, habens ad speciei propagationem grana quædam seminalia, siliquæ illi quæ nobis innotuit, adsimilia." -Methodus Medendi, lib. v. c. 2. 7 Herball, part 3. 20. inet with it in the gardens of Cairo, and in 1592 by Prosper Alpinus who also saw it in Egypt. Description-The ovary of the flower is one-celled with numerous ovules, which as they advance towards maturity, become separated by the growth of intervening septa. The ripe legume is cylindrical, dark chocolate-brown, 1 to 2 feet long, by to 1 inch in diameter, with a strong short woody stalk, and a blunt end suddenly contracted into a point. The fibro-vascular column of the stalk is divided into two broad parallel seams, the dorsal and ventral sutures, running down the whole length of the pod. The sutures are smooth, or slightly striated longitudinally; one of them is formed of two ligneous bundles coalescing by a narrow line. If the legume is curved, the ventral suture commonly occupies its inner or concave side. The valves of the pods are marked by slight transverse depressions (more evident in small specimens) corresponding to the internal divisions, and also by inconspicuous transverse veins. Each of the 25 to 100 seeds which a legume contains, is lodged in a cell formed by very thin woody dissepiments. The oval, flattish seed, from to of an inch long, of a reddish-brown colour, contains a large embryo whose yellowish veined cotyledons cross diagonally, as seen on transverse section, the horny white albumen. One side is marked by a dark line (the raphe). A very slender funicle attaches the seed to the ventral suture. In addition to the seeds, the cells contain a soft saccharine pulp which in the recent state fills them up, but in the imported pods appears only as a thin layer, spread over the septum, of a dark viscid substance of mawkish sweet taste. It is this pulp which is made use of in pharmacy. Microscopic Structure-The bands above described running along the whole pod, are made up of strong fibro-vascular bundles mixed with sclerenchymatous tissue. The valves consist of parenchymatous cells, and the whole pod is coated with an epidermis exhibiting small tabular cells, which are filled with dark granules of tannic matter. A few stomata are also met with. The thin brittle septa of the pod are composed of long ligneous cells, enclosing here and there crystals of oxalate of calcium. The pulp itself, examined under water, is seen to consist of loose cells, not forming a coherent tissue. They enclose chiefly granules of albuminoid matters and stellate crystals of oxalate of calcium. The cell walls, assume on addition of iodine, a blue hue if they have been previously washed by potash lye. The seeds are devoid of starch, but vield a copious amount of thick mucilage, which surrounds them like a halo if they are macerated in water. Chemical Composition-No peculiar principle is known to exist either in the woody or the pulpy portion of cassia fistula. The pulp contains sugar in addition to the commonly occurring bodies noticed in the previous section. Uses-The pulp separated from the woody part of the pods by crushing the latter, digesting them in hot water, and evaporating the strained liquor, is a mild laxative in common domestic use in the |