part 30

.—F. A. F.

[340] _Description de Camboge_ in Abel-Remusat’s _Nouv. Mélanges asiatiques_, i. (1829) 134.—The Chinese traveller calls the exudation _Kiang-hwang_ which is the name for _turmeric_, but his description is unmistakeable.

[341] _Exotica_ (1605) 82.

[342] Dr. R. Rost is of opinion that this word is derived from the Malay _gătáh_, gum, and the Javanese _jamú_ signifying medicinal, such mixing of the two languages being of common occurrence.

[343] _De nova gummi purgante_, Lipsiæ, 1614. We have only seen the second edition published at Leiden in 1625, its preface dating from 1613.

Gamboge is one of the articles of the tariff of the pharmaceutical shops of the City of Frankfort in 1612: “Gutta gemou, a strong purgative dried juice, coming from the Kingdom of _Patana_ in the East Indies.” Patana or Patani is the most populous province of the east coast of the peninsula of Malacca. The Dutch established there a factory in 1602, and were followed in 1612 by the English. The settlement was abandoned in 1700; gamboge was probably brought there from the opposite shore of the gulf of Siam.[344]

In 1615, a considerable quantity of gamboge was offered for sale in London by the East Indian Company. The entry respecting it in the Court Minute Books of the company under date October 13, 1615, is to this effect:—Three chests, one rundlet, and a basket, containing 13, 14, or 15 hundredweights, more or less, of _Cambogium_ “_a drugge unknown here_,”—the use of which, was much commended as a “_a gentle purge_,” were offered for sale at 5s. per lb., but met with no purchaser.

Jacob Bontius,[345] a Dutch physician, resident, towards 1629, in Batavia, stated that “gutta Cambodja,” as he termed the drug, came from the country of the same name; he supposed it to be derived from an Euphorbiaceous plant.

Parkinson,[346] who was an apothecary of London and wrote in 1640, speaks of this “_Cambugio_,” called by some _Catharticum aureum_, as a drug of recent importation which arrived in the form of “_wreathes or roules_” yellow within and without.

In the _London Pharmacopœia_ of 1650, gamboge is called _Gutta Gamba_[347] or _Ghitta jemou_.

The mother plant of the drug was not fully examined and figured until 1864; yet in 1677 already, Hermann, a German physician residing in Ceylon, had pointed out that it was a Garcinia.[348]

=Secretion=—We have examined a portion of a branch two inches in diameter of the gamboge-tree,[349] and have found the yellow gum-resin to be contained chiefly in the middle layer of the bark in numerous ducts like those occurring in the roots of _Inula Helenium_ and other roots of the same natural order. A little is also secreted in the dotted vessels of the outermost layer of the wood, and in the pith. The wood, which is white, acquires a bright yellow tint when exposed to the vapour of ammonia or to alkaline solutions.

=Production=—At the commencement of the rainy season the gamboge-collectors start for the forest in search of the trees which in some localities are plentiful. Having found one of the full size they make a spiral incision in the bark round half the circumference of the trunk, and place a joint of bamboo to receive the sap which slowly exudes for several months. When it first issues from the tree, it is a yellowish fluid, which after passing through a viscid state hardens into the gamboge of commerce.

[344] Flückiger, _Documente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie_, 1876. 41.

[345] _De Medicina Indorum_, lib. iv. Lugduni Batav. (1642) 119. 150.

[346] _Theatrum Botanicum_ (1640) 1575.

[347] This name is the Hindustani _Gótáganbá_, signifying according to Moodeen Sheriff (_Suppl. to Pharm. of India_, 83) _juice or extract of rhubarb_. It is still applied to gamboge.

[348] Hanbury in _Trans. of Linn. Soc._ xxiv. (1864) 487. tab. 50; also _Science Papers_, 1876. 326.

[349] Obligingly sent to us by Dr. Jamie of Singapore.

The trees grow both in the valleys and on the mountains and will yield on an average in one season enough to fill three joints of bamboo 20 inches in length by 1½ inches in diameter. The tree appears to suffer no injury provided the tapping is not more frequent than every other year.[350]

According to Dr. Jamie of Singapore, the gamboge-tree grows most luxuriantly in the dense jungles. The best time for collecting is from February to March or April. The trees, the larger the better, are wounded by a parang or chopping-knife, in various parts of the trunk and large branches, when prepared bamboos are inserted between the root and the bark of the trees. The bamboo cylinders being tied or inserted, are examined daily till filled, which generally takes from 15 to 30 days. Then the bamboos are taken to a fire, over which they are gradually rotated till the water in the gum-resin is evaporated and it gets sufficiently hard to allow of the bamboo being torn off.[351]

=Description=—The drug arrives in the form of sticks or cylinders 1 to 2½ inches in diameter, and 4 to 8 inches in length, striated lengthwise with impressions from the inside of the bamboo. Often the sticks are agglutinated, or folded, or the drug is in compressed or in shapeless masses. It is when good of a rich brownish orange tint, dense and homogeneous, breaking easily with a conchoidal fracture, scarcely translucent even in thin splinters. Touched with water it instantly forms a yellow emulsion. Triturated in a mortar it affords a brilliant yellow powder, slightly odorous. Gamboge has a disagreeable acrid taste.

Much of the gamboge shipped to Europe is of inferior quality, being of a brownish hue or exhibiting when broken a rough, granular, bubbly surface. Sometimes it arrives imperfectly dried and still soft.

=Chemical Composition=—Gamboge consists of a mixture of resin with 15 to 20 per cent. of gum. The resin dissolves easily in alcohol, forming a clear liquid of fine yellowish-red hue, and not decidedly acid reaction. It forms darker-coloured solutions with ammonia or the fixed alkalis, and a copious precipitate with basic acetate of lead. Perchloride of iron colours a solution of the resin deep blackish brown.

By fusing purified gamboge resin with potash, Hlasiwetz and Barth (1866) obtained acetic acid and other acids of the same series, together with _phloroglucin_, C₆H₃(OH)₃, _pyrotartaric_ acid, C₅H₈O₄, and _isuvitinic_ acid, C₆H₃CH₃(COOH)₂.

The gum which we obtained to the extent of 15·8 per cent. by completely exhausting gamboge with alcohol and ether, was found readily soluble in water. The solution does not redden litmus, and is not precipitated by neutral acetate of lead, nor by perchloride of iron, nor by silicate or biborate of sodium. It is therefore not identical with gum arabic.

[350] Spenser St. John, _Life in the Forests of the Far East_, Lond. 1862. ii. 272.

[351] _Pharm. Journ._ iv. (1874) 803.

=Commerce=—The drug finds its way to Europe from Camboja by Singapore, Bangkok, or Saigon. In 1877 the first place exported 240 peculs, Bangkok in 1875 no less than 346 peculs, value 48,835 dollars; from Saigon there have of late been shipped from 30 to 40 peculs annually (one pecul = 133·3 lbs. = 60·479 kilogrammes).[352]

=Uses=—Gamboge is a drastic purgative, seldom administered except in combination with other substances.

=Adulteration=—The Cambojans adulterate gamboge with rice flour, sand, or the pulverized bark of the tree,[353] which substances may be easily detected in the residue left after exhausting the drug successively by spirit of wine and cold water.

=Other Sources of Gamboge=—Although the gamboge of European commerce appears to be exclusively derived from the form of the plant named at the head of this article, _Garcinia travancorica_ Beddome, is capable of yielding a similar drug which may be collected to some small extent for local use, but not for exportation. It is a beautiful tree of the southern forests of Travancore and the Tinnevelly Ghats (3,000 to 4,500 feet). According to its discoverer Lieut. Beddome,[354] it yields an abundance of bright yellow gamboge.

OLEUM GARCINIÆ.

_Concrete Oil of Mangosteen_, _Kokum Butter_.

=Botanical Origin.=—_Garcinia indica_ Choisy (_G. purpurea_ Roxb. _Brindonia indica_ Dup. Th.), an elegant tree with drooping branches and dark green leaves.[355] It bears a smooth round fruit the size of a small apple, containing an acid purple pulp in which are lodged as many as 8 seeds. The tree is a native of the coast region of Western India known as the Concan, lying between Daman and Goa.

=History=—The fruit is mentioned by Garcia d’Orta(1563) as known to the Portuguese of Goa by the name of _Brindones_. He states that it has a pleasant taste though very sour, and that it is used in dyeing; and further that the peel serves to make a sort of vinegar. Several succeeding authors (as Bauchin and Ray) have contented themselves with repeating this account.

As to the fruit yielding a fatty oil, we find no reference to such fact till about the year 1830, when it was stated in an Indian newspaper[356] that an oil of the seeds is well known at Goa and often used to adulterate ghee (liquid butter). It was afterwards pointed out as the result of some experiments that the oil was of an agreeable bland taste and well adapted for use in pharmacy. A short article on Kokum Butter was published by Pereira[357] in 1851. With the view of bringing the substance into use for pharmaceutical preparations in India, it has been introduced into the _Pharmacopœia of India_ of 1868.

[352] _Report from H. M. Consul-General in Siam for 1875_. 9.

[353] Spenser St. John, _op. cit._

[354] _Flora Sylvatica_, Madras, part xv . (1872) tab. 173.

[355] Fig. Bentley and Trimen, _Medic. Plants_,