Part 23

(1877).

=History=—The plant was first made known by Plukenet in 1696 as _Christophoriana Canadensis racemosa_. It was recommended in 1743 by Colden[72] and named in 1749 by Linnæus in his _Materia Medica_ as _Actæa racemis longissimis_. In 1823 it was introduced into medical practice in America by Garden; it began to be used in England about the year 1860.[73]

=Description=—The drug consists of a very short, knotty, branching rhizome, ½ an inch or more thick, having, in one direction, the remains of several stout aerial stems, and in the other, numerous brittle, wiry roots, ¹/₂₀ to ⅒ of an inch in diameter, emitting rootlets still smaller. The rhizome is of somewhat flattened cylindrical form, distinctly marked at intervals with the scars of fallen leaves. A transverse section exhibits in the centre a horny whitish pith, round which are a number of rather coarse, irregular woody rays, and outside them a hard, thickish bark. The larger roots when broken display a thick cortical layer, the space within which contains converging wedges of open woody tissue 3 to 5 in number forming a star or cross,—a beautiful and characteristic structure easily observed with a lens. The drug is of a dark blackish brown; it has a bitter, rather acrid and astringent taste, and a heavy narcotic smell.

=Microscopic Structure=—The most striking character is afforded by the rootlets, which on a transverse section display a central woody column, traversed usually by 4 wide medullary rays and often enclosing a pith. The woody column is surrounded by a parenchymatous layer separated from the cortical portion by one row of densely packed small cells constituting a boundary analogous to the nucleus-sheath (_Kernscheide_) met with in many roots of monocotyledons, as for instance in sarsaparilla. The parenchyme of cimicifuga root contains small starch granules. The structure of the drug is, on the whole, the same as that of the closely allied European _Actæa spicata_ L.

=Chemical Composition=—Tilghmann[74] in 1834 analysed the drug, obtaining from it gum, sugar, resin, starch and tannic acid, but no peculiar principal.

Conard[75] extracted from it a neutral crystalline substance of intensely acrid taste, soluble in dilute alcohol, chloroform, or ether, but not in benzol, oil of turpentine, or bisulphide of carbon. The composition of this body has not been ascertained. The same chemist showed the drug not to afford a volatile principle, even in its fresh state.

The American practitioners called _Eclectics_ prepare with _Black Snake-root_ in the same manner as they prepare podophyllin, an impure resin which they term _Cimicifugin_ or _Macrotin_. The drug yields, according to Parrish, 3¾ per cent. of this substance, which is sold in the form of scales or as a dark brown powder.

=Uses=—Cimicifuga usually prescribed in the form of tincture (called _Tinctura Actæa racemosæ_) has been employed chiefly in rheumatic affections. It is also used in dropsy, the early stages of phthisis, and in chronic bronchial disease. A strong tincture has been lately recommended in America as an external application for reducing inflammation.[76]

[72] _Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal._ 1743. 131.

[73] Bentley, _Pharm. Journ._ ii. (1861) 460.

[74] Quoted by Bentley.

[75] _Am. Journ. of Pharm._ xliii. (1871) 151; _Pharm. Journ._ April 29, 1871. 866.

[76] _Yearbook of Pharmacy_, 1872. 385.

MAGNOLIACEÆ.

CORTEX WINTERANUS.

_Cortex Winteri_, _Cortex Magellanicus_; _Winter’s Bark_, _Winter’s Cinnamon_; F. _Ecorce de Winter_; G. _Wintersrinde_, _Magellanischer Zimmt_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Drimys[77] Winteri_ Forster, a tree distributed throughout the American continent from Mexico to Cape Horn. It presents considerable variation in form and size of leaf and flower in the different countries in which it occurs, on which account it has received from botanists several distinct specific names. Hooker[78] has reduced these species to a single type, a course in which he has been followed by Eichler in his monograph of the small order _Winteraceæ_[79].—In April, 1877, the tree was blossoming in the open air in the botanic garden at Dublin.

[77] From δριμὺς, _acrid_, _biting_.

[78] _Flora Antarctica_, ii. (1847) 229.

[79] Martius, _Flor. Bras._ fasc. 38 (1864) 134. Eichler however admits five principal varieties, viz. α. _Magellanica_; β. _Chilensis_; γ. _Granatensis_; δ. _revoluta_; ε. _angustifolia_.

=History=—In 1577 Captain Drake, afterwards better known as Sir Francis Drake, having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a commission to conduct a squadron to the South Seas, set sail from Plymouth with five ships; and having abandoned two of his smaller vessels, passed into the Pacific Ocean by the Straits of Magellan in the autumn of the following year. But on the 7th September, 1578, there arose a dreadful storm, which dispersed the little fleet. Drake’s ship, the _Pelican_, was driven southward, the _Elizabeth_, under the command of Captain Winter, repassed the Straits and returned to England, while the third vessel, the _Marigold_, was heard of no more.

Winter remained three weeks in the Straits of Magellan to recover the health of his crew, during which period, according to Clusius (the fact is not mentioned in Hakluyt’s account of the voyage), he collected a certain aromatic bark, of which, having removed the acridity by steeping it in honey, he made use as a spice and medicine for scurvy during his voyage to England, where he arrived in 1579.

A specimen of this bark having been presented to Clusius, he gave it the name of _Cortex Winteranus_, and figured and described it in his pamphlet: “Aliquot notæ in Garciæ aromatum historiam,” Antverpiæ, 1582, p. 30, and also in the _Libri Exoticorum_, published in 1605. He afterwards received a specimen with wood attached, which had been collected by the Dutch navigator Sebald de Weerdt.

Van Noort, another well-known Dutch navigator, who visited the Straits of Magellan in 1600, mentions cutting wood at Port Famine to make a boat, and that the bark of the trees was hot and biting like pepper. It is stated by Murray that he also brought the bark to Europe.

But although the straits of Magellan were several times visited about this period, it is certain that no regular communication between that remote region and Europe existed either then or subsequently; and we may reasonably conclude that Winter’s Bark became a drug of great rarity, and known to but few persons. It thus happened that, notwithstanding most obvious differences, the Canella alba of the West Indies, and another bark of which we shall speak further on, having been found to possess the pungency of Winter’s Bark, were (owing to the scarcity of the latter) substituted for it, until at length the peculiar characters of the original drug came to be entirely forgotten.

The tree was figured by Sloane in 1693, from a specimen (still extant in the British Museum) brought from Magellan’s Straits by Handisyd, a ship’s surgeon, who had experienced its utility in treating scurvy.

Feuillée,[80] a French botanist, found the Winter’s Bark-tree in Chili (1709-11), and figured it as _Boigue cinnamomifera_. It was, however, Forster,[81] the botanist of Cook’s second expedition round the world, who first described the tree accurately, and named it _Drimys Winteri_. He met with it in 1773 in Magellan’s Straits, and on the eastern coasts of Tierra del Fuego, where it grows abundantly, forming an evergreen tree of 40 feet, while on the western shores it is but a shrub of 10 feet high. Specimens have been collected in these and adjacent localities by many subsequent botanists, among others by Dr. J. D. Hooker, who states that about Cape Horn the tree occurs from the sea-level to an elevation of 1000 feet.

Although the bark of _Drimys_ was never imported as an article of trade from Magellan’s Straits, it has in recent times been occasionally brought into the market from other parts of South America, where it is in very general use. Yet so little are drug dealers acquainted with it, that its true name and origin have seldom been recognized.[82]

[80] _Journ. des observations physiques_, &c. iv. 1714. 10, pl. 6.

[81] _Characteres Generum Plantarum_, 1775. 42.

[82] We have seen it offered in a drug sale at one time as “_Pepper Bark_,” at another as “_Cinchona_.” Even Mutis thought it a Cinchona, and called it “_Kinkina urens_”!

=Description=—We have examined specimens of true Winter’s Bark from the Straits of Magellan, Chili, Peru, New Granada, and Mexico, and find in each the same general characters. The bark is in quills or channelled pieces, often crooked, twisted or bent backwards, generally only a few inches in length. It is most extremely thick (⅒ to ³/₁₀ of an inch) and appears to have shrunk very much in drying, bark a quarter of an inch thick having sometimes rolled itself into a tube only three times as much in external diameter. Young pieces have an ashy-grey suberous coat beset with lichens. In older bark, the outer coat is sometimes whitish and silvery, but more often of a dark rusty brown, which is the colour of the internal substance, as well as of the surface next the wood. The inner side of the bark is strongly characterized by very rough striæ, or, as seen under a lens, by small short and sharp longitudinal ridges, with occasional fissures indicative of great contraction of the inner layer in drying. In a piece broken or cut transversely, it is easy to perceive that the ridges in question are the ends of rays of white liber which diverge towards the circumference in radiate order, a dark rusty parenchyme intervening between them. No such feature is ever observable in either _Canella_ or _Cinnamodendron_.

Winter’s Bark has a short, almost earthy fracture, an intolerably pungent burning taste, and an odour which can only be described as terebinthinous. When fresh its smell may be more agreeable. The descriptions of Clusius, as alluded to above, are perfectly agreeing and even his figures as nearly as might be expected.

=Microscopic Structure=—In full-grown specimens the most striking fact is the predominance of sclerenchymatous cells. The tissue moreover contains numerous large oil-ducts, chiefly in the inner portion of the large medullary rays. A fibrous structure of the inner part of the bark is observable only in the youngest specimens.[83] Very small starch granules are met with in the drug, yet less numerous than in canella. The tissue of the former assumes a blackish blue colour on addition of perchloride of iron.

The wood of _Drimys_ consists of dotted prosenchyme, traversed by medullary rays, the cells of which are punctuated and considerably larger than in _Coniferæ_.

=Chemical Composition=—No satisfactory chemical examination has been made of true Winter’s Bark. Its chief constituents, as already pointed out, are tannic matters and essential oil, probably also a resin. In a cold aqueous infusion, a considerable amount of mucilage is indicated by neutral acetate of lead. On addition of potash it yields a dark somewhat violet liquid. Canella alba is but little altered by the same treatment. By reason of its astringency the bark is used in Chili for tanning.[84]

=Uses=—Winter’s Bark is a stimulating tonic and antiscorbutic, now almost obsolete in Europe. It is much used in Brazil and other parts of South America as a remedy in diarrhœa and gastric debility.

=Substitute=—_False Winter’s Bark_—We have shown that the bark of _Drimys_ or True Winter’s Bark has been confounded with the pungent bark of _Canella alba_ L., and with an allied bark, also the produce of Jamaica. The latter is that of _Cinnamodendron corticosum_ Miers,[85] a tree growing in the higher mountain woods of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and St. John, but not observed in any other of the West Indian islands than Jamaica. It was probably vaguely known to Sloane when he described the “_Wild Cinamon tree, commonly, but falsely, called_ Cortex Winteranus,” which, he says, has leaves resembling those of _Lauro-cerasus_; though the tree he figures is certainly _Canella alba_.[86] Long[87] in 1774, speaks of _Wild Cinamon_, _Canella alba_, or _Bastard Cortex Winteranus_, saying that it is used by most apothecaries instead of the true _Cortex Winteranus_.

[83] The structure of Winter’s Bark is beautifully figured by Eichler, _loc. cit._ tab. 32.

[84] Perez-Rosales, _Essai sur le Chili_, 1857. 113.

[85] _Annals of Nat. Hist._, May 1858; also Miers’ _Contributions to Botany_, i. 121, pl. 24, _Bot. Magaz._, Sept. 1874, vol. xxx. pl. 6121, and Bentley and Trimens’ _Medicinal Plants_,