elongated lateral ones as Curcuma longa, were regarded by Linnæus as the production of distinct species.

The radical tubers of some species of Curcuma, as C. angustifolia Roxb., are used for making a sort of arrowroot (p. 637). Sometimes they are dried, and constitute the peculiar kind of turmeric which the Chinese call Yuh-kin.'

The turmeric of commerce consists of the two sorts of rhizome just mentioned, namely, the central or round and the lateral or long. The former are ovate, pyriform or subspherical, sometimes pointed at the upper end and crowned with the remains of leaves, while the sides are beset with those of roots and marked with concentric ridges. The diameter is very variable, but is seldom less than of an inch, and is frequently much more. They are often cut and usually scalded in order to destroy their vitality and facilitate drying.

The lateral rhizomes are subcylindrical, attenuated towards either end, generally curved, covered with a rugose skin, and marked more or less plainly with transverse rings. Sometimes one, two or more short knobs or shoots grow out on one side. The rhizomes, whether round or long, are very hard and firm, exhibiting when broken a dull, waxy, resinous surface, of an orange or orange-brown hue, more or less brilliant. They have a peculiar aromatic odour and taste.

Several varieties of turmeric distinguished by the names of the countries or districts in which they are produced, are found in the English market: but although they present differences which are sufficiently appreciable to the eye of the experienced dealer, the characters of each sort are scarcely so marked or so constant as to be recognizable by mere verbal description. The principal sorts now in commerce are known as China, Madras, Bengal, Java, and Cochin. Of these the first named is the most esteemed, but it is seldom to be met with in the European market.2

Madras Turmeric is a fine sort in large, bold pieces. Sometimes packages of it contain exclusively round rhizomes, while others are made up entirely of the long or lateral.

Bengal Turmeric differs from the other varieties chiefly in its deeper tint, and hence is the sort preferred for dyeing purposes.

Java Turmeric presents no very distinctive features; it is dusted with its own powder, and does not show when broken a very brilliant colour. Judging by the low price at which it is quoted it is not in great esteem. It is the produce of Curcuma longa var. B. minor3 Hassk.

Microscopic Structure-The suberous coat is made up of 8 to 10 rows of tabular cells; the parenchyme of the middle cortical layer of large roundish polyhedral cells. Towards the centre the transverse section exhibits a coherent ring of fibro-vascular bundles representing a kind of medullary sheath. The parenchyme enclosed by this ring is traversed by scattered bundles of vessels, and in most of its cells contains starch in amorphous, angular, or roundish masses, which are

1Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 206; also Science Papers, 254, fig. 11.-It is not wholly devoid of yellow colouring matter.

A good deal is exported from Takow in Formosa, but mostly to Chinese ports.

Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports of
China for 1872. p. 106.

3 From information communicated by Mr. Binnendyk, of the Botanical Garden, Buitenzorg, Java.

so far disorganized that they no longer exhibit the usual appearance in polarized light, but are nevertheless turned blue by iodine. The starch has been reduced to this condition by scalding.

Resin likewise occurs in separate cells, forming dark yellowish-red particles. The entire tissue is penetrated with yellow colouring matter, and shows numerous drops of essential oil, which in the fresh rhizome is no doubt contained in peculiar cells.

Chemical Composition-The drug yielded us (1876) one per cent. of a yellow essential oil, which contains a portion boiling at 250° C., answering to the formula CH1O; this liquid differs from carvol (p. 306) by being unable to combine with SH2. The other constituents of curcuma oil boil at temperatures much above 250°; we found the crude oil and its different portions slightly dextrogyrate.

The aqueous extract of the drug tastes bitter, and is precipitated by tannic acid.

The colouring matter, Curcumin, CHO3, may be obtained to the amount of per cent. by depriving first the drug of fat and essential oil. The powder, after that treatment with bisulphide of carbon, is gradually exhausted, according to Daube (1871), with warm petroleum (boiling point 80°-90° C.). On cooling chiefly the last portions of petroleum deposit the crystalline curcumin. Its alcoholic solution is purified by mixing it cautiously with basic acetate of lead, not allowing the liquid to assume a decidedly acid reaction. The red precipitate thus formed is collected, washed with alcohol, immersed in water, and decomposed with sulphuretted hydrogen. From the dried mixture of sulphide of lead and curcumin the latter is lastly removed by boiling alcohol.

By Ivanow-Gajewsky (1873) the best produce of curcumin is stated to be obtained by washing an ethereal extract of turmeric with weak ammonia, dissolving the residue in boiling concentrated ammonia, and passing into the solution carbonic acid, by which the curcumin ist precipitated in flakes.

After due recrystallization from alcohol curcumin forms yellow crystals, having an odour of vanilla, and exhibiting a fine blue in reflected light. They melt at 165° C. Curcumin is scarcely soluble, even in boiling water, but dissolves readily on addition of an alkali either caustic or carbonate. On acidulating these solutions, a yellow powder of curcumin is precipitated. Curcumin is not abundantly dissolved by ether, very sparingly by benzol or bisulphide of carbon. It is not volatile; heated with zinc dust it yields an oil boiling at 290°; fused with caustic potash, curcumin affords protocatechuic acid (page 243).

Paper tinged with an alcoholic solution of curcumin displays on addition of an alkali a brownish-red coloration, becoming violet on drying. Boracic acid produces an orange tint, turning blue by addition of an alkaline solution. This behaviour of (impure) curcumin was

1 The following is a striking experiment, showing some of these changes of colour: --Place a little crushed turmeric or the powder on blotting paper, and moisten it repeatedly with chloroform, allowing the latter to evaporate. There will thus be formed on the paper a yellow stain, which

on addition of a slightly acidulated solution of borax and drying assumes a purple hue. If the paper is now sprinkled with dilute ammonia it will acquire a transient blue, This reaction enables one to recognize the presence of turmeric in powdered rhubarb or mustard.

pointed out by Vogel as early as 1815, and has since that time been utilized as a chemical test.

Borax added to an alcoholic solution of curcumin gives rise to a crystallizable substance, which Ivanow-Gajewsky (1870) isolated by heating an alcoholic extract of turmeric with boracic and sulphuric acids. It forms a purple crystalline powder with a metallic green lustre, insoluble in water, but soluble in alcohol. Its solution is coloured dark blue by an alkali.

According to the same chemist there also exists in curcuma an alkaloid in very small quantity. Kachler (1870) found in the aqueous decoction an abundance of bioxalate of potassium.

Commerce-In the year 1869 there were imported into the United Kingdom 64,280 cwt. of turmeric; in 1870, 44,900 cwt.,―a very large proportion being furnished by Bengal and Pegu. The export from Calcutta1 in the year 1870-71 was 59,352 cwt.

Bombay exported in the year 1871-72, 29,780 cwt., of which the greater portion was shipped to Sind and the Persian Gulf, and only 910 cwt. to Europe.

2

Uses Turmeric is employed as a condiment in the shape of curry powder, and as such is often sold by druggists; but as a medicine it is obsolete. It is largely consumed in dyeing.

Substitute-Cochin Turmeric is the produce of some other species of Curcuma than C. longa. It consists exclusively of a bulb-shaped rhizome of large dimensions, cut transversely or longitudinally into slices or segments. The cortical part is dull brown; the inner substance is horny and of a deep orange-brown, or when in thin shavings of a brilliant yellow. Mr. A. Forbes Sealy of Cochin has been good enough to send us (1873) living rhizomes of this Curcuma, which he states is mostly grown at Alwaye, north-east of Cochin, and is never used in the country as turmeric, though its starchy tubers are employed for making arrowroot. The rhizomes sent are thick, short, conical, and of enormous size, some attaining as much as 2 inches in diameter. Internally they are of a bright orange-yellow.

3

The beautiful figures of Roscoe show several species of Curcuma and Zingiber provided with yellow tubers or rhizomes, all probably containing curcumin.

RHIZOMA GALANGE.

Radix Galanga1 minoris; Galangal; F. Racine de Galanga;
G. Galgant.

Botanical Origin—Alpinia officinarum Hance, a flag-like plant,

1 Returns quoted at p. 571, note 2.

2 Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 95.

3 Monandrous Plants of the order Scitaminea, Liverpool, 1828, especially Zingiber Cassumunar.

Galanga appears to be derived from the Arabic name Khulanjan, which in turn comes from the Chinese Kau-liang Kiang, signifying, as Dr. F. Porter Smith has in

formed us, Kau-liang ginger. Kau-liang is the ancient name of a district in the province of Kwangtung.

Journ. of Linnean Society, Botany, xiii. (1871) 1; also Trimen's Journ. of Bot., ii. (1873) 175; Bentley and Trimen's Med. Plants, part 31 (1878).-Dr. Thwaites of Ceylon, who has the plant in cultivation, has been good enough to send us a fine coloured drawing of it in flower.

with stems about 4 feet high, clothed with narrow lanceolate leaves, and terminating in short and simple racemes of elegant white flowers, shaded and veined with dull red. It grows cultivated in the island of Hainan in the south of China, and, as is supposed, in some of the southern provinces of the Chinese Empire.

History The earliest reference to galangal we have met with occurs in the writings of the Arabian geographer Ibn Khurdádbah' about A.D. 869–885, who in enumerating the productions of a country called Sila, names galangal together with musk, aloes, camphor, silk, and cassia. Edrisi, three hundred years later, is more explicit, for he mentions it with many other productions of the far East, as brought from India and China to Aden, then a great emporium of the trade of Asia with Egypt and Europe. The physician Alkindi, who lived at Bassora and Bagdad in the second half of the 9th century, and somewhat later Rhazes and Avicenna, notice galangal, the use of which was introduced into Europe through the medical system promulgated by them and other writers of the same school. As to Great Britain, galingal, as it was frequently spelt, also occurs in the Welsh "Meddygon Myddfai” (see Appendix).

Many notices exist showing that galangal was imported with pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmegs, cardamoms and zedoary; and that during the middle ages it was used in common with these substances as a culinary spice, which it is still held to be in certain parts of Europe. The plant affording the drug was unknown until the year 1870, when a description of it was communicated to the Linnean Society of London by Dr. H. F. Hance, from specimens collected by Mr. E. C. Taintor, near Hoihow in the north of Hainan.

Description-The drug consists of a cylindrical rhizome, having a maximum diameter of about of an inch, but for the most part considerably smaller. This rhizome has been cut while fresh into short pieces, 1 to 3 inches in length, which are often branched, and are marked transversely at short intervals by narrow raised sinuous rings, indicating the former attachment of leaves or scales. The pieces are hard, tough and shrivelled, externally of a dark reddish-brown, displaying when cut transversely an internal substance of rather paler hue (but never white), with a darker central column. The drug exhales when comminuted an agreeable aroma, and has a strongly pungent, spicy taste.

Microscopic Structure-The central portion of the rhizome is separated from the outer tissue by the nucleus sheath, which appears as a well-defined darker line. Yet the central tissue does not differ much from that surrounding it, both being composed of uniform parenchyme cells, traversed by scattered vascular bundles. There also occur throughout the whole tissue isolated cells loaded with essential oil or resin. But the larger number of cells abound in large starch granules of an unusual club-shaped form. Some cells contain a brown substance, dif

1 Work quoted in the Appendix-tome v. 294.

2 Géographie, i. (1836) 51.

3 De Rerum gradibus, Argentorati, 1531. 162.

Macer Floridus (see p. 627), cap. 70,

was already acquainted with it.

Hanbury, Historical Notes on the Radie Galanga of pharmacy-Journ. of Linneas Society, Bot. xiii. (1871) 20; Pharm. Journ. Sept. 23, 1871. 248; Science Papers, 370.

fering from resin in being insoluble in alcohol. The corky layer is remarkable from its cells having undulated walls.

Chemical Composition-The odour of galangal is due to an essential oil, which the rhizoma yields to the extent of only 07 per cent., and which we found to be very slightly deviating the plane of polarization to the left.

Brandes extracted from Galangal, by means of ether, an inodorous, tasteless, crystalline body called Kämpferid, which is worthy of further examination.

The pungent principle of the drug, which is probably analogous to that of ginger, has not been studied.

Commerce-Galangal is shipped from Canton to other ports of China, to India and Europe, but there are no general statistics to give an idea of the total production. From official returns quoted by Hance, the export of the year 1869, which seems to have been exceptionally large, amounted to 370,800 b. From Kiung-chow, island of Hainan, 2,113 peculs (281,733 M.) were exported in 1877.

Uses The drug is an aromatic stimulant of the nature of ginger, now nearly obsolete in British medicine. It is still a popular remedy and spice in Livonia, Esthonia and central Russia, and by the Tartars is taken with tea. It is also in some requisition in Russia among brewers, and the manufacturers of vinegar and cordials, and finally as a cattle medicine.

Substitute The rhizoma of Alpina Galanga Willd., a plant of Java, constitutes the drug known as Radix Galanga majoris or Greater Galangal, packages of which occasionally appear in the London drug sales. It may be at once distinguished from the Chinese drug by its much larger size and the pale buff hue of its internal substance, the latter in strong contrast with the orange-brown outer skin.

FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI.

Semina Cardamomi minoris; Cardamoms, Malabar Cardamoms; F. Cardamomes; G. Cardamomen.

Botanical Origin-Elettaria Cardamomum Maton (Alpinia Cardamomum Roxb.), a flag-like perennial plant, 6 to 12 feet high, with large lanceolate leaves on long sheathing stalks, and flowers in lax flexuose horizontal scapes, 6 to 18 inches in length, which are thrown out to the number of 3 or 4, close to the ground. The fruit is ovoid, three-sided, plump and smooth, with a fleshy green pericarp.

The Cardamom plant grows abundantly, both wild and under cultivation, in the moist shady mountain forests of North Canara, Coorg and Wynaad on the Malabar Coast; at an elevation of 2500 to 5000 feet above the sea. It is truly wild in Canara and in the Anamalai, Cochin and Travancore forests. The cardamom region has a mean temperature of 22 C. (72° F.), and a mean rainfall of 121 inches.

1 Archiv der Pharm. xix. (1839) 52. 2 From Elettari, the Mallyalim name of the plant.-Fig. in Bentley and Trimen's Med. Plants, part 24 (1877).

3 The small "Cardamom" island in the

Laccadive group, west of Malabar, is inhabited by Moplahs, known (as we are informed by Dr. King, Calcutta) in the south of India as dealers in cardamoms.