open,

rable from the nucleus. Its surface is conspicuously marked with a network of veins, running chiefly from the hilum. When a seed is split it is seen that these veins extend downwards into the white albumen, reaching almost to its centre, thus giving the seed a strong resemblance both in structure and appearance to a nutmeg. The embryo, which is small and conical, is seated at the base of the seed. Areca nuts are dense and ponderous, and very difficult to break or cut. They have when freshly broken a weak cheesy odour, and taste slightly astringent.

Microscopic Structure-The white horny albumen is made up of large thick-walled cells, loaded with an albuminoid matter, which on addition of iodine assumes a brown hue. The cell-walls display large pores, the structure of which, after boiling in caustic ley, becomes clearly evident in polarized light. The brown tissue which runs into the albu men is of loose texture, and resembles the corresponding structure in a nutmeg. The thin walls of its cells are marked with fine spiral striations, and in this tissue, as well as on the brown surface of the seed, delicate spiral vessels are scattered. All the brown cells assume a rich red if moistened with caustic lye, and a dingy green with ferric chloride.

Chemical Composition-We have exhausted the powder of the seeds, previously dried at 100° C., with ether; and thereby obtained a colourless solution, which after evaporation left an oily liquid, concreting on cooling. This fatty matter, representing 14 per cent. of the seed, was thoroughly crystalline and melted at 39° C. By saponification, we obtained from it a crystalline fatty acid fusing at 41° C., which may consequently be a mixture of lauric and myristic acids. Some of the fatty matter was boiled with water: the water on evaporation afforded an extremely small trace of tannin but no crystals, which had catechin been present should have been left.

The powdered seeds which had been treated with ether, were then exhausted by cold spirit of wine (832), which afforded 14.77 per cent. (reckoned on the original seeds) of a red amorphous tannic matter, which after drying, proved to be but little soluble in water, whether cold or boiling. Submitted to destructive distillation, it afforded Pyrocatechin. Its aqueous solution is not altered by ferrous sulphate, unless an alkali is added, when it assumes a violet hue, with separation of a copious dark purplish precipitate. On addition of a ferric salt in minute quantity to the aqueous solution of the tannic matter, a fine green tint is produced, quickly turning brown by a further addition of the test, and violet by an alkali. An abundant dark precipitate is also formed.

The seeds having been exhausted by both ether and spirit of wine, were treated with water, which removed from them chiefly mucilage precipitable by alcohol. The alcohol thus used afforded on filtration, traces of an acid, the examination of which was not pursued. After exhaustion with ether, spirit of wine and water, a dark brown solution is got by digesting the residue in ammonia: from this solution, an acid throws down an abundant brown precipitate, not soluble even in boiling alcohol. We have not been able to obtain crystals from an aqueous decoction of the seeds, nor by exhausting them directly with boiling spirit of wine. We have come therefore to the conclusion that Catechin (p. 215) is not a constituent of areca nuts, and that any extract made from them must be essentially different to the Catechu of Acacia or of

Nauclea, and rather to be considered a kind of tannic matter of the nature of Ratanhia-red or Cinchona-red.

By incinerating the powdered seeds, 2.26 per cent. were obtained of a brown ash, which besides peroxide of iron, contained phosphate of magnesium.

Commerce-Areca nuts are sold in India both in the husk (pericarp) and without it, and the two sorts are enumerated in the Customs Returns under distinct heads. Their widespread consumption in the East gives rise to an enormous trade, of which some notion may be formed by a consideration of the few statistics bearing upon it which are accessible.

Thus, Ceylon exported of areca nuts in the year 1871, 66,543 cwt., value £62,593; in 1872, 71,715 cwt.,-the latter quantity entirely to India. The Madras Presidency largely trades in the same commodity. In the year 1872-73, there were shipped thence to Bombay, 43,958 cwt., besides about two millions of the entire fruit.2 An extensive traffic in areca nuts is carried on at Singapore and especially in Sumatra.

Uses-Powdered areca nut may be given for the expulsion of tapeworm in the dose of 4 to 6 drachms, taken in milk. The remedy should be administered to the patient after a fast of about twelve hours; some recommend the previous exhibition of a purgative. It is said to be efficacious against lumbricus as well as tænia.

The charcoal afforded by burning areca nuts in a close vessel is sold as a tooth powder; but except greater density, it possesses no advantage over the charcoal from ordinary wood.

As a masticatory, areca nut is chewed with a little lime and a leaf of the Betel Pepper, Piper Betle L. The nut for this purpose is used in a young and tender state, or is prepared by boiling in water; it is sometimes combined with aromatics, as camphor or cardamom.

SANGUIS DRACONIS.

Resina Draconis; Dragon's Blood; F. Sang-dragon; G. Drachenblut.

Botanical Origin-Calamus Draco Willd. (Dæmonorops Draco Mart.) This is one of the Rotang or Rattan Palms, remarkable for their very long flexible stems, which climb among the branches of trees by means of spines on the leafstalk. The species under notice, called in Malay Rotang Jernang, grows in swampy forests of the Residency of Palembang and in the territory of Jambi, in Eastern Sumatra, and in Southern Borneo, which regions furnish the dragon's blood of commerce. It is said to occur also in Penang and in various islands of the Sunda chain.

History-The substance which is mentioned by Dioscorides under the name of Kivváßapis, as a costly pigment and medicine brought from Africa, and which is also described by Pliny who distinguished it from minium, was certainly the resin called Dragon's Blood. It was not

1 Ceylon Blue Books for 1871 and 1872.

2 From the returns quoted at p. 514,

note 6.

R R

however that of the Rotang Palm, Calamus Draco, or even of any tree of the Indian Archipelago, but was on the contrary a production of the island of Socotra (see p. 612).

Dragon's blood is, we believe, not named by any of the earlier voyagers to the Indian islands. Ibn Batuta, who visited both Java and Sumatra between A.D. 1325 and 1349, and notices their producing benzoin (see p.361), cloves, camphor, and aloes-wood, is silent about dragon's blood. Barbosa, whose intelligent narrative (A.D. 1514) of the East Indies is full of reference to the trade and productions of the different localities he visited, states that aloes and dragon's blood are produced in Socotra, but makes no mention of the latter commodity as found at Malacca, Java, Sumatra, or Borneo.

The fact we wish to prove is corroborated by the accounts of early commercial intercourse between the Chinese and Arabs recently published by Bretschneider.2 From the 10th to the 15th century, there was carried on between these nations a trade, the objects of which were not only the productions of the Arabian Gulf and countries further north, but also those of the Indian Archipelago. One of the islands with which the Arabs and Persians carried on a great commerce was Sumatra, whence they obtained the precious camphor so much valued by the Chinese, but not, so far as appears, the resin dragon's blood. As to the productions brought from Arabia, they are enumerated as Ostriches, Olibanum, Liquid Storax, Myrrh, and Dragon's Blood, beside a few other articles not yet determined. It is worthy of remark that the Chinese are still the principal consumers of dragon's blood, though like the rest of mankind, they have to content themselves with the plentiful drug of Sumatra and Borneo, instead of the more ancient sort produced in Socotra.

The first clear account of the production of the resin in India, is that given by Rumphius, who in his Herbarium Amboinense3 describes the process by which it is collected at Palembang.

Production-The fruit of Calamus Draco, which is produced in panicles in great profusion, is globose and of the size of a large cherry, clothed with smooth downward-overlapping scales. These scales are sub-quadrangular, thick and shell-like, marked with a longitudinal furrow; the largest, which are found towards the middle of the fruit, are 2 lines long by 3 broad. At maturity, the fruit is covered with an exudation of red resin, which encrusts it so abundantly that the form of the scales can hardly be seen.

The resin, which is naturally friable, is collected by gathering the fruits, and shaking or beating them in a sack, by which process it is soon separated. It is then sifted, to remove from it scales and other portions of the fruit. By exposure to the heat of the sun, or in a covered vessel to that of boiling water, the resin is so far softened that it can be moulded into sticks or balls, which are forthwith wrapped in a piece of palm leaf. It is thus that the best dragon's blood, or jernang, is obtained. An inferior quality is got by boiling the pounded fruits in water, and making the resin into a mass, frequently with the addition

1 Description of the coasts of East Africa and Malabar (Hakluyt Society), 1866. 30. 191-197.

2 Knowledge possessed by the Chinese of the Arabs, &c. 1871.

3 Pars. v. (1747) 114-115. tab. 58.

of other substances by way of adulteration. The foregoing is the account of the manufacture of the drug given by Blume.1

Description-Dragon's Blood is found in commerce chiefly in two forms, known respectively as Reed and Lump.

1. Reed Dragon's Blood (Dragon's Blood in sticks, Sanguis draconis in baculis). Some of fine quality purchased in London in 1842, is in sticks 13 to 14 inches in length, and to 1 inch in diameter, neatly wrapped in palm-leaf, secured by 8 or 9 transverse bands of some flexible grass. The average weight of each stick, including the enveloping leaf, is five ounces. The resin has evidently been wrapped up while soft, as the sticks are furrowed longitudinally by pressure of the surrounding leaf. The smooth surface is of an intense blackish-brown; when seen in thin splinters, the resin appears transparent, and of a pure and brilliant crimson. The fractured surface looks resinous and rough, is a little porous, and contains numerous particles of the scales of the fruit. Rubbed on paper, it leaves a red mark, of not very splendid tint. Heated with spirit, it left 20 per cent. of pulverulent residue consisting chiefly of vegetable matter. Sticks of smaller size are more common.

2. Lump Dragon's Blood (Sanguis draconis in massis) is imported in large rectangular blocks, or irregular masses. From the fine Reed Dragon's Blood, just described, it differs in containing a larger proportion of remains of the fruit, including numerous entire scales. Hence it has a coarser fracture, and the fractured surface is less intense in tint. Its taste is slightly acrid. Exhausted with spirit of wine it leaves a residue amounting in the specimen we tested, to 27 per cent.

Dragon's blood is abundantly soluble in the usual solvents of resins, namely, the alcohols (even in dilute spirit of wine), benzol, chloroform, bisulphide of carbon and the oxygenated essential oils, as that of cloves. The residue left after the evaporation of these liquids, is amorphous and of the original fine red colour. The drug is likewise dissolved by glacial acetic acid, as well as by caustic soda; the latter solution, on addition of an excess of acid, yields a dingy brown, jelly-like precipitate which on drying turns dark red like the original drug. In ether, dragon's blood is sparingly soluble and still less so in oil of turpentine; but in the most volatile portions of petroleum, the so-called petroleum ether, we find it to be entirely insoluble. It has a slightly sweetish and somewhat acrid taste; melts at about 120° C., evolving the aromatic but irritating fumes of benzoic acid; boiled with water, the resin becomes soft and partially liquid.

Chemical Composition-Dragon's blood is a peculiar resin, which according to Johnston,2 answers to the formula C20H2004. By heating it and condensing the vapour, an aqueous acid liquid is obtained, together with a heavy oily portion of a pungent burning taste, and crystals of benzoic acid. The composition of these products has not yet been thoroughly ascertained, but the presence of acetone, Toluol, C'H (the Dracyl of Glénard and Boudault, 1844) and Styrol, C8H8 (Draconyl), has been pointed out,3-the latter perhaps due to the existence in the drug

1 Rumphia, iii. (1847) 9. tab. 131. 132. 2 Phil. Trans. 1839. 134; 1840. 384.

3 Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. (1866) 387.

of metastyrol (p. 244), as suggested by Kovalewsky.1 Both these hydrocarbons are lighter than water; yet we find that the above oily portion yielded by dry distillation, sinks in water, a circumstance possibly occasioned by the presence of benzoic alcohol, C'HO.

As benzoic acid is freely soluble in petroleum ether, it ought to be removed from the drug by that solvent: on making the experiment, we got traces of an amorphous red matter, a little of an oily liquid, but nothing crystalline. As to the watery liquid, it assumes a blue colour on addition of perchloride of iron, whence it would appear to contain phenol or pyrogallol, rather than pyrocatechin (p. 172).

By boiling dragon's blood with nitric acid, benzoic, nitro-benzoic and oxalic acids are chiefly obtained, and only very little picric acid. Hlasiwetz and Barth melted the drug with caustic potash and found among the products thus formed, phloroglucin (p. 172), para-oxybenzoic, protocatechuic and oxalic acids, as well as several acids of the fatty series. Benzoin yields similar products.

Commerce-Dragon's blood is shipped from Singapore and Batavia. Large quantities are annually exported from Banjarmasin in Borneo to these places and to China.2

Uses-In medicine, only as the colouring agent of plasters and tooth powders in the arts, for varnish.

Adulteration-Dragon's blood varies exceedingly in quality, of which the principal criterion regarded by the dealers, is colour. Some of the inferior sorts make only a dull brick-red mark when rubbed on paper, and have an earthy-looking fracture. The sticks moreover do not take the impression of the enveloping leaf, as when they are more purely resinous. A sample of inferior Reed Dragon's Blood afforded us 40 per cent. of matter, insoluble in spirit of wine.

Other sorts of Dragon's Blood.

Dragon's Blood of Socotra-We have already stated (p. 609) that the Cinnabar mentioned by Dioscorides was brought from Africa. That the term really designated dragon's blood, seems evident from the fact that the author of the Periplus of the Erythrean Sea, written circa A.D. 54-68, names it (Kivváßapi) as a production of the island of Dioscorida, the ancient name of Socotra.

The Arabians, as Abu Hanifa and Ibn Baytar,5 describe dragon's blood as brought from Socotra, giving to the drug the very name by which it is known to the Arabs at the present day, namely, Dam-ulakhawein. Barbosa (1514) as well as Giovanni di Barros mention it as a production of the island; and in our own times it has been noticed by Wellstead, Vaughan, and Von Kremer. It is now but little collected.

1 Gmelin, Chemistry, xvii. 388; also Ann. d. Chemie, cxx. (1861) 68.

Low, Sarawak, its inhabitants and productions, 1848. 43.

3 The present price, £3 to £11 per cwt., sufficiently indicates this.

Voyage of Nearchus and Periplus of the

6