part 2

, p. 724), the well-known _Tung_ tree of the Chinese. It is a large tree of the order _Euphorbiaceæ_, found in China and Japan. The oil is an article of enormous consumption among the Chinese, who use it in the caulking and painting of junks and boats, for preserving woodwork, varnishing furniture, and also in medicine. In the commercial reports of H.M. Consuls in China (No. 5, 1875, p. 3, 26) we find that this oil is largely exported from Hankow: 199·654 peculs in 1874, and forms an article of import at Ningpo: 15·123 peculs in 1874 (pecul = 133·33 lb. avoirdupois). It is, however, not shipped to foreign countries. The oil of the Tung tree is also extremely remarkable on account of its chemical properties as shown by Cloëz (1875-1877).

[371] Flückiger, _Pharm. Journ._ (1878) 725, with fig.

[372] _Catalogue of the French Colonies_, _Paris Exhibition_, 1878, 101, quoted above.

MALVACEÆ.

RADIX ALTHÆÆ

_Marshmallow Root_; F. _Racine de Guimauve_; G. _Eibischwurzel_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Althæa officinalis_ L., the marshmallow, grows in moist places throughout Europe, Asia Minor, and the temperate parts of Western and Northern Asia, but is by no means universally distributed. It prefers saline localities such as in Spain the salt marshes of Saragossa, the low-lying southern coasts of France near Montpellier, Southern Russia, and the neighbourhood of salt-springs in Central Europe. In southern Siberia Althæa has been met with by Semenoff (1857) ascending as high as 3,000 feet in the Alatau mountains, south of the Balkash Lake.

In Britain it occurs in the low grounds bordering the Thames below London, and here and there in many other spots in the south of England and of Ireland.

The cultivated marshmallow thrives as far north as Throndhjem in Norway, and has been naturalized in North America (salt marshes of New England and New York) and Australia. It is largely cultivated in Bavaria and Württemberg.

=History=—Marshmallow had many uses in ancient medicine, and is described by Dioscorides as Άλθαία, a name derived from the Greek verb ἀλθειν, _to heal_.

The diffusion of the plant in Europe during the middle ages was promoted by Charlemagne who enjoined[373] its culture (A.D. 812) under the name of “_Mismalvas_, id est alteas quod dicitur ibischa.”

=Description=—The plant has a perennial root attaining about a foot in length and an inch in diameter. For medicinal use the biennial roots of the cultivated plant are chiefly employed. When fresh they are externally yellowish and wrinkled, white within and of tender fleshy texture. Previous to drying, the thin outer and a portion of the middle bark are scraped off, and the small root filaments are removed. The drug thus prepared and dried consists of simple whitish sticks 6 to 8 inches long, of the thickness of the little finger to that of a quill, deeply furrowed longitudinally and marked with brownish scars. Its central portion, which is pure white, breaks with a short fracture, but the bark is tough and fibrous. The dried root is rather flexible and easily cut. Its transverse section shows the central woody column of undulating outline separated from the thick bark by a fine dark outline shaded off outwards.

The root has a peculiar though very faint odour, and is of rather mawkish and insipid taste, and very slimy when chewed.

[373] Pertz, _Monumenta Germaniæ historica_, Legum tom. i. (1835) 181.—_Ibischa_ from the Greek ὶβίσκος.

=Microscopic Structure=—The greater part of the bark consists of liber, abounding in long soft fibres, to which the toughness of the cortical tissue is due. They are branched and form bundles, each containing from 3 to 30 fibres separated by parenchymatous tissue. Of the cortical parenchyme many cells are loaded with starch granules, others contain stellate groups of oxalate of calcium, and a considerable number of somewhat larger cells are filled with mucilage. The last named on addition of alcohol is seen to consist of different layers.

The woody part is made up of pitted or scalariform vessels, accompanied by a few ligneous cells and separated by a parenchymatous tissue, agreeing with that of the bark. On addition of an alkali, sections of the root assume a bright yellow hue.

=Chemical Composition=—The mucilage in the dry root amounts to about 25 per cent. and the starch to as much more. The former appears from the not very accordant analysis of Schmidt and of Mulder to agree with the formula C₁₂H₂₀O₁₀, thus differing from the mucilage of gum arabic by one molecule less of water. It likewise differs in being precipitable by neutral acetate of lead. At the same time it does not show the behaviour of cellulose, as it does not turn blue by iodine when moistened with sulphuric acid, and it is not soluble in ammoniacal solution of oxide of copper.

The root also contains pectin and sugar (cane-sugar according to Wittstock), and a trace of fatty oil. Tannin is found in very small quantity in the outer bark alone.

In 1826 Bacon, a pharmacien of Caen, obtained from althæa root crystals of a substance at first regarded as peculiar, but subsequently identified with _Asparagin_, C₄H₈N₂O₃, H₂O. It had been previously prepared (1805) by Vauquelin and Robiquet from Asparagus, and is now known to be a widely diffused constituent of plants.[374] Marshmallow root does not yield more than 0·8 to 2·0 per cent. Asparagin crystallizes in large prisms or octohedra of the rhombic system; it is nearly tasteless, and appears destitute of physiological action. Its relation to succinic acid may be thus represented:—

Succinic acid: C₂H₄ {COOH; Asparagin: C₂H₃(NH₂) {CONH₂ {COOH {COOH.

Asparagin is quite permanent whether in the solid state or dissolved, but it is easily decomposed if the solution contains the albuminoid constituents of the root, which act as a ferment. Leguminous seeds, yeast or decayed cheese induce the same change, the final product of which is succinate of ammonium, the asparagin taking the elements of water and hydrogen set free by the fermentation, thus—

C₄H₈N₂O₃ + H₂O + 2H = 2NH₄, C₄H₄O₄ Asparagin. Succinate of Ammonium.

Under the influence of acids or bases, or even by the prolonged boiling of its aqueous solution, asparagin is converted into _Aspartate of Ammonium_, C₄H₆(NH₄)NO₄, of which the hydrated asparagin contains the elements.

[374] It plays an interesting part in the germination of the seeds of papilionaceous and other plants. It is abundant in the young plants, but in most it speedily disappears. Its presence can be proved in the juice by means of the microscope and absolute alcohol, in which latter asparagin is insoluble. See Pfeffer in Pringsheim’s _Jahrb. f. wiss. Bot._ 1872. 533-564.—Borodin in _Bot. Zeitung_, 1878. 801 and seq.

These transformations, especially the former, are undergone by the asparagin in the root, if the latter has been imperfectly dried, or has been kept long, or not very dry. Under such conditions, the asparagin gradually disappears, and the root then yields a brownish decoction, sometimes having a disagreeable odour of butyric acid. There is no doubt that a protein-substance here acts as a ferment. The sections of the root when touched with ammonia or caustic lye should display a bright yellow, not a dingy brown, colour.

The peeled root dried at 100° C. and incinerated afforded us 4·88 of ash, rich in phosphates.

=Uses=—Althæa is taken as a demulcent; it is sometimes also applied as an emollient poultice. It is far more largely used on the continent than in England.

FRUCTUS HIBISCI ESCULENTI.

_Capsulæ Hibisci esculenti_; _Uëhka_, _Okro_, _Okra_, _Bendi-kai_[375]; F. _Gombo_ (in the French Colonies).

=Botanical Origin=—_Hibiscus esculentus_ L. (_Abelmoschus esculentus Guill. et Perr._) an herbaceous annual plant 2 to 3 or even 10 feet high, indigenous to the Old World.[376] It has been found growing abundantly wild on the White Nile by Schweinfurth, and also in 1861 by Col. Grant in Unyoro, 2° N. lat., near the lake Victoria Nyanza, where it is known to the natives as Bameea.

The plant is now largely cultivated in several varieties in all tropical countries.

=History=—The Spanish Moors appear to have been well acquainted with _Hibiscus esculentus_, which was known to them by the same name that it has in Persian at the present day—_Bámiyah_. Abul Abbas el-Nebáti, a native of Seville learned in plants, who visited Egypt in A.D. 1216, describes[377] in unmistakeable terms the form of the plant, its seeds and fruit, which last he remarks is eaten when young and tender with meat by the Egyptians. The plant was figured among Egyptian plants in 1592 by Prosper Alpinus,[378] who mentions its uses as an external emollient.

The powdered fruits as imported from Arabia Felix were known for some time (about the year 1848) in Europe as _Nafé of the Arabs_. They are noticed in the present work from the circumstance that they have a place in the _Pharmacopœia of India_.

=Description=—The fruit is a thin capsule, 4 to 6 or more inches long and about an inch in diameter, oblong, pointed, with 5 to 7 ridges corresponding to the valves and cells, each of which latter contains a single row of round seeds. It is covered with rough hairs and is green or purplish when fresh; it has a slightly sweet mucilaginous taste and a weak herbaceous odour. Like many other plants of the order, _Hibiscus esculentus_ abounds in all its parts with insipid mucilage.

[375] Uëhka in Arabic, according to Schweinfurth. _Okro_ or _Okra_ are common names for the plant in the East and West Indies. _Bendi-kai_, a Canarese and Tamil word, is used by Europeans in the South of India. _Gigambo_ in Curaçao.

[376] Fig. Bentley and Trimen, _Med. Plants_,