starch is resolved into Dextrin, C12H2O10, and Dextrose, C6H12O6, with which decomposition, the formula, C18H3O1, would be more in accord. Sachsse (1877) on the other hand advocates the formula C6H62031+ 12 OH2. Cold water is not without action on starch; if the latter be continuously triturated with it, the filtrate, in which no particles can be detected by the microscope, will assume a blue colour on addition of iodine, without the formation of a precipitate. The proportion of starch thus brought into solution is infinitely small, and always at the expense of the integrity of the grains. It is even probable that the solution in this case is due to the minute amount of heat, which must of necessity be developed by the trituration. Certain reagents capable of attacking starch act upon it in very different ways. The action in the cold of concentrated aqueous solutions of easily soluble neutral salts or of chloral hydrate is remarkable. Potassium bromide or iodide, or calcium chloride for instance, cause the grains to swell, and render them soluble in cold water. At a certain degree of dilution a perfectly clear liquid is formed, which at first contains neither dextrin nor sugar; it is coloured blue, but is not precipitated by iodine water; and starch can be thrown down from it by alcohol. This precipitate, though entirely devoid of the structural peculiarity of starch, still exhibits some of the leading properties of that substance; it is coloured in the same manner by iodine, does not dissolve even when fresh in ammoniacal cupric oxide, and after drying is insoluble in water, whether cold or boiling. The progress of the solvent is most easily traced when calcium chloride is used, as this salt acts more slowly than the others we have mentioned. It leaves scarcely any perceptible residue. This fact in our opinion militates against the notion that starch is composed of a peculiar amylaceous substance, deposited within a skeleton of cellulose. The remarkable action of iodine upon starch was discovered in 1814 by Colin and Gaultier de Claubry. It is extremely different in degree, according to the peculiar kind of starch, the proportion of iodine, and the nature of the substance the grains are impregnated with, before or after their treatment with iodine. The action is even entirely arrested (no blue colour being produced) by the presence in certain proportion of quinine, tannin, Aqua Picis, and of other bodies. The combination of iodine with starch does not take place in equivalent proportions, and is moreover easily overcome by heat. The iodine combined with starch amounts at the utmost to 75 per cent. The compound is most readily formed in the presence of water, and then produces a deep indigo blue. Almost all other substances capable of penetrating starch grains, weaken the colour of the iodine compound to violet, reddish yellow, yellow, or greenish blue. These different shades, the production of which has been described by Nägeli with great diffuseness, are merely the colours which belong to iodine itself in the solid, liquid, or gaseous form. They must be referred to the fact that the particles of iodine diffuse themselves in a peculiar but hitherto unexplained manner within the grain or in the swollen and dissolved starch. Commerce of Arrowroot-The chief kinds of arrowroot found in commerce are known as Bermuda, St. Vincent, and Natal; but that of Jamaica and other West India Islands, of Brazil, Sierra Leone, and the East Indies, are quoted in price-currents, at least occasionally. Of these the Bermuda enjoys the highest reputation and commands by far the highest price; but its good quality is shared by the arrowroot of other localities, from which, when equally pure, it can in nowise be distinguished. Greenish,' however, points out that in Natal arrowroot the layers (or lamina) are more obvious than in other varieties, although it appears that the former is also produced by Maranta. The importations of arrowroot into the United Kingdom during the year 1870 amounted to 21,770 cwt., value £33,063. Of this quantity the island of St. Vincent in the West Indies furnished nearly 17,000 cwt., and the colony of Natal about 3000 cwt. The exports from St. Vincent in 1874 were 2,608,100 lb., those of the Bermudas in 1876 only 45,520 Hb.2 The shipments from the colony of Natal during the years 1866 to 1876 varied from 1,076 cwt. in 1873 to 4,305 cwt. in 1867.3 Uses Arrowroot boiled with water or milk is a much-valued food in the sick-room. It is also an agreeable article of diet in the form of pudding or blancmange. Adulteration--Other starches than that of Maranta are occasionally sold under the name of Arrowroot. Their recognition is only possible by the aid of the microscope. Substitutes for Arrowroot. Potato Starch-This substance, known in trade as Farina or Potato Flour, is made from the tubers of the potato (Solanum tuberosum L.) by a process analogous to that followed in the preparation of arrowroot. It has the following characters :-examined under the microscope, the granules are seen to be chiefly of two sorts, the first small and spherical, the second of much larger size, often 100 mkm. in length, having an irregularly circular, oval or egg-shaped outline, finely marked with concentric rings round a minute inconspicuous hilum. When heated in water, the grains swell considerably even at 60° C. Hydrochloric acid, sp. gr. 106, dissolves them at 40° quickly and almost completely, the granules being no longer deposited, as in the case of arrowroot similarly treated. The mixture of arrowroot and hydrochloric acid is inodorous, but that of potato starch has a peculiar though not powerful odour. 4 Canna Starch, Tous-les-Mois, Toulema, Tolomane-A species of Canna is cultivated in the West India Islands, especially St. Kitts, for the sake of a peculiar starch which, since about the year 1836, has been extracted from its rhizomes by a process similar to that adopted in making arrowroot. The specific name of the plant is still undeter 1 Yearbook of Pharm. (1875) 529. 2 Papers relating to H. M. Colonial Possessions. Reports for 1875-76. Presented to both Houses of Parliament, July 1877. 54. 4. 3 Statist. Abstr. for the several Colonial and other Possessions of the United Kingdom, 14th number, 1878. p. 60. It is commonly stated that the name Tous-les-mois was given in consequence of the plant flowering all the year round. But this explanation appears improbable: no such name is mentioned by Rochefort, Aublet, or Descourtilz, who all describe the Balisier or Canna. It seems more likely that the term is the result of an attempt to confer a meaning on an ancient name- -perhaps Touloula, which is one of the Carib designations for Canna and Calathea mined; it is said to agree with Canna edulis Ker (C. indica Ruiz et Pavon).1 The starch, which bears the same name as the plant, is a dull white powder, having a peculiar satiny or lustrous aspect, by reason of the extraordinary magnitude of the starch granules of which it is composed. These granules examined under the microscope are seen to be flattened and of irregular form, as circular, oval, oblong, or oval-truncate. The centre of the numerous concentric rings with which each granule is marked, is usually at one end rather than in the centre of a granule. The hilum is inconspicuous. The granules though far larger than those of the potato, are of the same density as the smaller forms of that starch, and, like them, float perfectly on chloroform. When heated, they begin to burst at 72° C. Dilute hydrochloric acid acts upon them as it does on arrowroot. Canna starch boiled with 20 times its weight of water affords a jelly less clear and more tenacious than that of arrowroot, yet applicable to exactly the same purposes. The starch is but little known and not much esteemed in Europe; it was exported in 1876 from St. Kitts to the amount of 51,873 lb, besides 5,300 lb arrowroot starch.2 Curcuma Starch, Tikor, Tikhar.-The pendulous, colourless tubers of some species of Curcuma, but especially of C. angustifolia Roxb. and C. leucorrhiza Roxb., have long been utilized in Southern India for the preparation of a sort of arrowroot, known by the Hindustani name of Tikor, or Tikhur, and sometimes called by Europeans East Indian Arrowroot. The granules of this substance much resemble those of Maranta, but they are neither spherical nor egg-shaped. On the contrary, they are rather to be described as flat discs, 5 to 7 mkm. thick, of elliptic or ovoid outline, sometimes truncate; many attain a length of 60 to 70 mkm. They are always beautifully stratified both on the face and on the edge. The hilum is generally situated at the narrower end. We have observed that when heated in water, the tumefaction of the grains commences at 72° C. Curcuma starch, which in its general properties agrees with common arrowroot, is rather extensively manufactured in Travancore, Cochin and Canara on the south-western coast of India, but in a very rude manner. Drury states that it is a favourite article of diet among the natives, and that it is exported from Travancore and Madras; we can add that it is not known as a special kind in the English market, and that the article we have seen offered in the London drug sales as East Indian Arrowroot was the starch of Maranta. 1 Fig. in Bentley and Trimen's Medic. Plants, part 8 (1876). 2 Page 102 of the Reports quoted at p. 633, note 2. 3 Living roots of the plant used for mak ing this arrowroot at Cochin, have been kindly forwarded to us by A. F. Sealy, Esq. of that place. Useful Plants of India, ed. 2. 1873. 168. ZINGIBERACEÆ. RHIZOMA ZINGIBERIS. Radix Zingiberis; Ginger; F. Gingembre; G. Ingwer. Botanical Origin-Zingiber officinale Roscoe (Amomum Zingiber L.), a reed-like plant, with annual leafy stems, 3 to 4 feet high, and flowers in cone-shaped spikes borne on other stems thrown up from the rhizome. It is a native of Asia, in the warmer countries of which it is universally cultivated,1 but not known in a wild state. It has been introduced into most tropical countries, and is now found in the West Indies, South America, Tropical Western Africa, and Queensland in Australia. History-Ginger is known in India under the old name of Sringavera, derived possibly from the Greek Ziyyißept As a spice it was used among the Greeks and Romans, who appear to have received it by way of the Red Sea, inasmuch as they considered it to be a production of Southern Arabia. In the list of imports from the Red Sea into Alexandria, which in the second century of our era were there liable to the Roman fiscal duty (vectigal), Zingiber occurs among other Indian spices. During the middle ages it is frequently mentioned in similar lists, and evidently constituted an important item in the commercial relations between Europe and the East. Ginger thus appears in the tariff of duties levied at Acre in Palestine about A.D. ÎÎ73;3 in that of Barcelona in 1221; Marseilles in 1228; and Paris in 1296. The Tarif des Péages, or customs tariff, of the Counts of Provence in the middle of the 13th century, provides for the levying of duty at the towns of Aix, Digne, Valensole, Tarascon, Avignon, Orgon, Arles, &c., on various commodities imported from the East. These included spices, as pepper, ginger, cloves, zedoary, galangal, cubebs, saffron, canella, cumin, anise; dye stuffs, such as lac, indigo, Brazil wood, and especially alum from Castilia and Volcano; and groceries, as racalicia (liquorice), sugar and dates.7 In England ginger must have been tolerably well known even prior to the Norman Conquest, for it is frequently named in the AngloSaxon leech-books of the 11th century, as well as in the Welsh "Physicians of Myddvai" (see Appendix). During the 13th and 14th centuries it was, next to pepper, the commonest of spices, costing on an average nearly 1s. 7d. per lb., or about the price of a sheep. 1 The mode of cultivation is described by Buchanan, Journey from Madras through Mysore, etc. ii. (1807) 469.-Fig. of the plant in Bentley and Trimen's Medic. Plants, part 32 (1878). 2 Vincent, Commerce and Navigation of the Ancients, ii. (1807) 695. 3 Recueil des Historiens des Croisades ; Lois, ii. (1843) 176. 1 Capmany, Memorias sobre la Marina, 5 etc. de Barcelona, Madrid, ii. (1779) 3. 6 Revue archéologique, ix. (1852) 213. 8 Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, i. (1866) 629. The merchants of Italy, about the middle of the 14th century, knew three kinds of ginger, called respectively Belledi, Colombino, and Micchino. These terms may be explained thus:-Belledi or Baladi is an Arabic word, which, as applied to ginger, would signify country or wild, i.e. common ginger. Colombino refers to Columbum, Kolam or Quilon, a port in Travancore frequently mentioned in the middle ages. Ginger termed Micchino denotes that the spice had been brought from or by way of Mecca.1 Ginger preserved in syrup, and sometimes called Green Ginger, was also imported during the middle ages, and regarded as a delicacy of the choicest kind. The plant affording ginger must have been known to Marco Polo (circa 1280-90), who speaks of observing it both in China and India. John of Montecorvino, who visited India about 1292 (see p. 521), describes ginger as a plant like a flag, the root of which can be dug up and transported. Nicolo Conti also gave some description of the plant and of the collection of the root, as witnessed by him in India. The Venetians received ginger by way of Egypt; yet some of the superior kinds were conveyed from India overland by the Black Sea, as stated by Marino Sanudo3 about 1306. Ginger was introduced into America by Francisco de Mendoça, who took it from the East Indies to New Spain. It was shipped for commercial purposes from the Island of St. Domingo as early at least as 1585; and from Barbados in 1654.5 According to Renny, 22,053 cwt. were exported from the West Indies to Spain in 1547. Description-Ginger is known in two forms, namely the rhizome dried with its epidermis, in which case it is called coated; or deprived of epidermis, and then termed scraped or uncoated. The pieces, which are called by the spice-dealers races or hands, rarely exceed 4 inches in length, and have a somewhat palmate form, being made up of a series of short, laterally compressed, lobe-like shoots or knobs, the summit of each of which is marked by a depression indicating the former attachment of the leafy stem. To produce the uncoated ginger, which is that preferred for medicinal use, the fresh rhizome is scraped, washed, and then dried in the sun. Thus prepared, it has a pale buff hue, and a striated, somewhat fibrous surface. It breaks easily, exhibiting a short and farinaceous fracture with numerous bristle-like fibres. When cut with a knife the younger or terminal portion of the rhizome appears pale yellow, soft and amylaceous, while the older part is flinty, hard and resinous. Coated ginger, or that which has been dried without the removal of the epidermis, is covered with a wrinkled, striated brown integument, which imparts to it a somewhat coarse and crude appearance, which is usually remarkably less developed on the flat parts of the rhizome. Internally, it is usually of a less bright and delicate hue than ginger 1 Yule, Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) 316.-See, however, Heyd, Levantehandel, II. (1879) 601. 2 See Appendix. 3 Marinus Sanutus, Liber secretorum fidelium crucis, Hanoviæ (1611) 22. * Monardes, Historia de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales, Sevilla, (1574) 99. Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, Lond. 1860, p. 4; see also pp. 414, 434. 6 Renny, Hist. of Jamaica, Lond. 1807. 154. |