SEMEN TIGLII.

Semen Crotonis; Croton Seeds; F. Graines de Tilly ou des Moluques, Petits Pignons d'Inde; G. Purgirkörner, Granatill.

Botanical Origin-Croton Tiglium L. (Tiglium officinale Klotzsch), a small tree, 15 to 20 feet high, indigenous to the Malabar Coast and Tavoy, cultivated in gardens in many parts of the East, from Mauritius to the Indian Archipelago. The tree has small inconspicuous flowers, and brown, capsular, three-celled fruits, each cell containing one seed. The leaves have a disagreeable smell and nauseous taste.

History-In Europe, the seeds and wood of the tree were first described in 1578 by Christoval Acosta,-the former, with a figure of the plant, appearing under the name of Piñones de Maluco.1 The plant was also described and figured by Rheede (1679) 2 and Rumphius (1743). The seeds, which were officinal in the 17th century but had become obsolete, were recommended about 1812, by English medical officers in India, and the expressed oil by Perry, Frost, Conwell and others about 1821-24. The oil then in use was imported from India, and was often of doubtful purity, so that some druggists felt it necessary to press the seeds for themselves.5

Description-Croton seeds are about half an inch long, by nearly of an inch broad, ovoid or bluntly oblong, divided longitudinally into two unequal parts, of which the more arched constitutes the dorsal and the flatter the ventral side. From the hilum, a fine raised line (raphe) passes to the other end of the seed, terminating in a darker point indicating the chalaza. The surface of the seed is more or less covered with a bright cinnamon-brown coat, which when scraped shows the thin, brittle, black testa filled with a whitish, oily kernel, invested with a delicate seed-coat. The kernel is easily split into two halves consisting of oily albumen, between which lie the large, veined, leafy cotyledons and the radicle. The taste of the seed is at first merely oleaginous, but sodh becomes unpleasantly and persistently acrid.

Microscopic Structure-The testa consists of an outer layer of radially arranged, much elongated and thick-walled cells; the inner parenchymatous layer contains small vascular bundles. The soft tissue of the albumen is loaded with drops of fatty oil. If this is removed by means of ether and weak potash lye, there remain small granules of albuminoid matter, the so-called Aleuron, and crystals of oxalate of calcium.

Chemical Composition-The principal constituent of croton seeds is the fatty oil, the Oleum Crotonis or Oleum Tiglii of pharmacy, of

1 Tractado de las drogas y medicinas de las Indias Orientales, Burgos, 1578, c. 48.After speaking of the virtues of the seeds, he adds "tambien las buenas mugeres de aquellas partes, amigas de sus maridos, les da hasta quatro destos por la boca, para embiar a los pobretos al otro mundo"!

2 Hortis Malabaricus, ii. tab. 33. Herbarium Amboinense, iv. tab. 42.

4 Ainslie, Mat. Med. of Hindoostan, 1813.

292.

5 The oil was very expensive. I find by the books of Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, that the seeds cost in 1824, 10s., and in 1827, 18s. per fb. The oil was purchased in 1826 by the same house at 8s. to 10s. per ounce:D. H.

which the kernels afford from 50 to 60 per cent. That used in England is for the most part expressed in London, and justly regarded as more reliable than that imported from India, with which the market was formerly supplied. It is a transparent, sherry-coloured, viscid liquid, slightly fluorescent, and having a slight rancid smell and an oily, acrid taste. Its solubility in alcohol (794) appears to depend in great measure on the age of the oil, and the greater or less freshness of the seeds from which it was expressed,-oxidized or resinified oil dissolving the most readily.1 We found the oil which one of us had extracted by means of bisulphide of carbon, to be levogyre.

Although croton oil does not solidify in contact with nitrous acid, and thickens somewhat upon exposure to the air, it does not appear to contain the fatty acid of a true drying oil such as that of linseed. It contains however in the form of glycerides, several of the members of the fatty acids series (CH2O2), such as stearic, palmitic, myristic and lauric acids; also largely the more volatile acids, as acetic, butyric and valerianic. The volatile part of the acids yielded by croton oil, contains moreover about a third of its weight of an acid which was regarded by Schlippe (1858) as angelic acid, but which has been shown by Geuther and Frölich (1869) to be a peculiar body, metameric with angelic acid, melting at 64° C. and boiling at 201° C. This constituent of croton oil is called by the latter chemists, Tiglinic Acid; it has the formula C5H8O2.

Schlippe also found in croton oil a peculiar liquid acid termed Crotonic Acid, C4H6O2. According to Geuther and Frölich however, an acid of this formula does not occur at all in croton oil, but may be obtained artificially by means of perchloride of phosphorus and ethyldiacetic acid. They give it the name of Quartenylic Acid, instead of crotonic acid. The latter name has been bestowed upon a crystallizable acid, melting at 72° C. and boiling at 187° C., which has been artificially produced by Will and Körner (1863), Wislicenus (1869), and other chemists.

The drastic principle of croton oil has not yet been isolated. It appears to exist not only in the seeds, but also in the wood and leaves of the plant, from which latter it may possibly be more readily extracted. Schlippe asserts that he has separated the vesicating matter of croton oil according to his statements, if the oil be agitated with alcoholic soda, and afterwards with water, the supernatant liquor will be found quite free from acridity, while the alcoholic solution will yield, on addition of hydrochloric acid, a small quantity of a dark brown oil, called Crotonol, C18H28O4, possessing strong vesicating properties. In its purest state it is described to be a viscid, non-volatile, yellowish liquid, of faint peculiar odour, miscible with alcohol or ether, and decomposable by acids as well as by alkalis. We have not succeeded in obtaining it, nor, so far as we know, has any other chemist except its discoverer.

The shells of the seeds (testa) yield upon incineration 26 per cent. of ash; the kernels dried at 100° C. 30 per cent.

Commerce-The shipments of croton seeds arrive chiefly from

1 Warrington, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 382-387.

Cochin or Bombay, packed in cases, bales or robbins; but there are no statistics to show the extent of the trade.

Uses-Croton seeds are not administered. The oil is given internally as a powerful cathartic, and is applied externally as a rubefacient.

Substitutes-The seeds of Croton Pavana Hamilton, a native of Ava and Camrup (Assam), and those of C. oblongifolius Roxb., a small tree common about Calcutta, are said to resemble those of C. Tiglium L., but we have not compared them. Those of Baliospermum montanum Müll. Arg. (Croton polyandrum Roxb.) partake of the nature of croton seeds, and according to Roxburgh, are used by the natives of India as a purgative.

SEMEN RICINI.

Semen Cataputia majoris; Castor Oil Seeds, Palma Christi Seeds; F. Semence de Ricin; G. Ricinussamen.

Botanical Origin-Ricinus communis L., the castor oil plant, is a native of India where it bears several ancient Sanskrit names.1 By cultivation, it has been distributed through all the tropical and many of the temperate countries of the globe. In the regions most favourable to its growth, it attains a height of 40 feet. In the Azores, and the warmer Mediterranean countries as Algeria, Egypt and Greece, it becomes a small tree, 10 to 15 feet high; while in France, Germany and the south of England, it is an annual herb of noble foliage, growing to a height of 4 or 5 feet. In good summers, it ripens seeds in England and even as far north as Christiania in Norway.

Ricinus communis exhibits a large number of varieties, several of which have been described and figured as distinct species. Müller, after a careful examination of the whole series, maintains them as a single species, of which he allows 16 forms, more or less well marked. Baillon follows the same course.

3

History-The castor oil plant was known to Herodotus who calls it Kík, and states that it furnishes an oil much used by the Egyptians. At the period when he wrote, it would appear to have been already introduced into Greece, where it is cultivated to the present day under the same ancient name. The Kikajon of the Book of Jonah, rendered by the translators of the English Bible, gourd, is believed to be the same plant. Kiki is also mentioned by Strabo as a production of Egypt, the oil from which is used for burning in lamps and for unguents.

Theophrastus and Nicander give the castor oil plant the name of Κρότων. Dioscorides, who calls it Κίκι or Κρότων, describes it as of the stature of a small fig-tree, with leaves like a plane, and seeds in a prickly pericarp, observing that the name Kpórov is applied to the seed on account of its resemblance to an insect [Ixodes Ricinus Latr.], known by that appellation. He also gives an account of the process for extracting castor oil (Kíkivov eλaiov), which he says is not fit for food, but is used externally in medicine; he represents the seeds as

1 The most usual is Eranda or Yeranda, which passes into several other languages. 2 De Candolle, Prodromus, XV. sect. 2. 1017.

3 Hist. des Plantes; Euphorbiacées (1874) 110.

Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands, Athen, 1862. 58.

extremely purgative. There is a tolerably correct figure of Ricinus in the famous MS. Dioscorides which was executed for the Empress Juliana Anicia in A.D. 505, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna,

The castor oil plant was cultivated by Albertus Magnus, Bishop of Ratisbon, in the middle of the 13th century. It was well known as a garden plant in the time of Turner (1568), who mentions the oil as Oleum cicinum vel ricininum.2 Gerarde at the end of the same century, was familiar with it under the name of Ricinus or Kik. The oil he says is called Oleum cicinum or Oleum de Cherua, and used externally in skin diseases.

After this period the oil seems to have fallen into complete neglect, and is not even noticed in the comprehensive and accurate Pharmacologia of Dale (1693). In the time of Hill (1751) and Lewis (1761) Palma Christi seeds were rarely found in the shops, and the oil from them was scarcely known.3

In 1764, Peter Canvane, a physician who had practised many years in the West Indies, published a "Dissertation on the Oleum Palma Christi, sive Oleum Ricini; or (as it is commonly call'd) Castor Oil," 4 strongly recommending its use as a gentle purgative. This essay which passed through two editions and was translated into French, was followed by several others, thus thoroughly drawing attention to the value of the oil. Accordingly we find that the seeds of Ricinus were admitted to the London Pharmacopoeia of 1788, and directions given for preparing oil from them. Woodville in his Medical Botany (1790) speaks of the oil as having "lately come into frequent use."

At this period and for several years subsequently, the small supplies of the seeds and oil required for European medicine, were obtained from Jamaica. This oil was gradually displaced in the market by that produced in the East Indies: the rapidity with which the consumption increased, may be inferred from the following figures, representing the value of the Castor Oil shipped to Great Britain from Bengal in three several years, namely 1813-14, £610; 1815-16, £1269; 1819-20, £7102,7

Description-The fruit of Ricinus is a tricoccous capsule, usually provided with weak prickles, containing one seed in each of its three cells. The seeds attain a length of to, and a maximum breadth of of an inch, and are of a compressed ellipsoid form. The apex of

1 De Vegetabilibus, ed. Jessen, 1867. 347. 2 Turner's Herbal, pt. ii. 116.

3 Hill, Hist. of the Mat. Med., Lond. 1751. 537.-Lewis, Hist. of the Mat. Med., Lond. 1761. 468.

The word castor in connection with the seeds and oil of Ricinus, has come to us from Jamaica, in which island, by some strange mistake, the plant was once called Agnus Castus. The true Agnus Castus (Vitex Agnus-castus L.) is a native of the Mediterranean countries and not of the West Indies.

5 For a list of which consult Mérat et De Lens, Dict. de Mat. Méd., vi. (1834) 95.

How small was the traffic in Castor Oil

=

in those days, may be judged from the fact that the stock in 1777, of a London wholesale druggist (Joseph Gurney Bevan, predecessor of Allen and Hanburys) was 2 Bottles (1 Bottle 18 to 20 ounces) valued at 8s. per bottle. The accounts of the same house show at stocktaking in 1782, 23 Bottles of the oil, which had cost 10s. per bottle. In 1799, Jamaica exported 236 Casks of Castor Oil and 10 Casks of seeds (Renny, Hist. of Jamaica, 1807. 235).

7 H. H. Wilson, Review of the External Commerce of Bengal from 1813 to 1828, Calcutta 1830, tables pp. 14-15. (We have reduced the value from Sicca rupees to sterling.)

the seed is prolonged into a short beak, on the inner side of which is a large tumid caruncle: from this latter proceeds the raphe as far as the lower end of the ventral surface, where it forks, its point of disappearance through the testa being marked by a minute protuberance. If the caruncle is broken off, a black scar formed of two little depressions, remains.

The shining grey epidermis is beautifully marked with brownish bands and spots, and in this respect exhibits a great variety of colours and markings. It cannot be rubbed off, but may after maceration be peeled off in leathery strips. The black testa, grey within, is not thicker than in croton seed, but is much more brittle. The kernel or nucleus fills the testa completely, and is easily separated, still covered by the soft white inner membrane.

The kernel in respect to structure and situation of the embryo, agrees exactly with that of Croton Tiglium (p. 508), excepting that the somewhat gaping cotyledons of Ricinus are proportionately broader, and have their thick midrib provided with 2 or 3 pairs of lateral veins. If not rancid, the kernel has a bland taste, with but very slight acridity.

Microscopic Structure-The thin epidermis consists of pentagonal or hexagonal porous tabular cells, the walls of which are penetrated in certain spots by brownish colouring matter, whence the singular markings on the seed. It is these cells only that become blackened. when a thin tangential slice is saturated with solution of ferric chloride in alcohol.

Beneath these tabular cells, there is found in the unripe seed1 a row of encrusted colourless cells, deposited in a radial direction on the testa. In the mature seed this layer of cells is not perceptible, and therefore appears to perish as the seed ripens. The testa itself is built up of cylindrical, densely packed cells, 300 to 320 mkm. long, and 6 to 10 mkm. in diameter. The kernel shares the structure of that of C. Tiglium, but is devoid of crystals of oxalate of calcium. If the endopleura of Ricinus is moistened with dilute sulphuric acid, acicular crystals of sulphate of calcium separate from it after a few hours.

When thin slices of the kernel are examined under concentrated glycerin, no drops of oil are visible, notwithstanding the abundance of this latter; and it becomes conspicuous only by addition of much water. Hence it is probable that the oil exists in the seed as a kind of compound with its albuminoid contents.2 As to the latter, they partly form in the albumen of Ricinus, beautiful octohedra or tetrahedra, which are also found in many other seeds.

Chemical Constitution-The most important constituent of the seed is the fixed oil, called Castor Oil, of which the peeled kernels afford at most, half of their weight.

The oil, if most carefully prepared from peeled and winnowed seeds by pressure without heat, has but a slightly acrid taste, and contains only a very small proportion of the still unknown drastic constituent of

1 Gris, Annales des Sciences Nat., Bot., xv. (1861) 5-9.

2 Sachs, Lehrbuch der Botanik, 1870. 53. 3 For further particulars, see Trécul, Ann. des Sc. Nat., Bot., x. (1858) 355; Radlkofer,

Krystalle proteinartiger Körper, Leipzig, 1859. 61. and tab. 2 fig. 10; Pfeffer, Proteinkörner in Pringsheim's Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Botanik, viii. (1872) 429. 464.