part 10

.

[86] _Phil. Trans._ xvii for 1693. 465.

[87] _Hist. of Jamaica._ London, iii. (1774) 705—also i. 495.

It is probable that both writers really had in view _Cinnamodendron_, the bark of which has been known and used as _Winter’s Bark_, both in England and on the continent from an early period up to the present time.[88] It is the bark figured as _Cortex Winteranus_ by Goebel and Kunze[89] and described by Mérat and De Lens,[90] Pereira, and other writers of repute. Guibourt indeed pointed out in 1850 its great dissimilarity to the bark of _Drimys_ and questioned if it could be derived from that genus.

It is a strange fact that the tree should have been confounded with _Canella alba_ L., differing from it as it does in the most obvious manner, not only in form of leaf, but in having the flowers _axillary_, whereas those of _C. alba_ are _terminal_. Although _Cinnamodendron corticosum_ is a tree sometimes as much as 90 feet high[91] and must have been well known in Jamaica for more than a century, yet it had no botanical name until 1858 when it was described by Miers[92] and referred to the small genus _Cinnamodendron_ which is closely allied to _Canella_.

The bark of _Cinnamodendron_ has the general structure of Canella alba. There is the same thin corky outer coat (which is _not_ removed) dotted with round scars, the same form of quills and fracture. But the tint is different, being more or less of a ferruginous brown. The inner surface which is a little more fibrous than in canella, varies in colour, being yellowish, brown, or of a deep chocolate. The bark is violently pungent but not bitter, and has a very agreeable cinnamon-like odour.

In _microscopic structure_ it approaches very close to canella; yet the thick-walled cells of the latter exist to a much larger extent and are here seen to belong to the suberous tissue. The medullary rays are loaded with oxalate of calcium.

Cinnamodendron bark has not been analysed. Its decoction is blackened by a persalt of iron whereby it may be distinguished from Canella alba; and is coloured intense purplish brown by iodine, which is not the case with a decoction of true Winter’s Bark.

[88] It is so labelled in the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society, 28th April, 1873.

[89] _Pharm. Waarenkunde_, 1827-29. i. Taf. 3. fig. 7.

[90] As shown by De Lens’ own specimen kindly given to us by Dr. J. Léon Soubeiran. There are specimens of the same bark about a century old marked _Cortex Winteranus verus_ in Dr. Burges’s cabinet of drugs belonging to the Royal College of Physicians.

[91] Griesbach calls it a low shrubby tree, 10-15 feet high. Mr. N. Wilson, late of the Bath Botanic Garden, Jamaica, has informed me it grows to be 40-45 in height, but that he has seen a specimen 90 feet high. (Letter 22 May 1862.)—D. H.

[92] _Loc. cit._

FRUCTUS ANISI STELLATI.

_Semen Badiana_[93]; _Star-Anise_; F. _Badiane_, _Anis étoilé_; G. _Sternanis_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Illicium anisatum_ Loureiro (_I. religiosum_ Sieb.). A small tree, 20 to 25 feet high, native of the south-western provinces of China; introduced at an early period into Japan by the Buddhists and planted about their temples.

Kämpfer in his travels in Japan, in 1690-1692, discovered and figured a tree called _Somo_ or _Skimmi_[94] which subsequent authors assumed to be the source of the drug Star-anise. The tree was also found in Japan by Thunberg[95] who remarked that its capsules are not so aromatic as those found in trade. Von Siebold in 1825 noticed the same fact, in consequence of which he regarded the tree as distinct from that of Loureiro, naming it _Illicium Japonicum_, a name he changed in 1837 to _I. religiosum_. Baillon,[96] while admitting certain differences between the fruits of the Chinese and Japanese trees, holds them to constitute but one species, and the same view is taken by Miquel.[97]

[93] From the Arabic _Bádiyán fennel_.

[94] _Amœnitates_, 1712. 880.

[95] _Flora Japonica_, 1784. 235.

[96] _Adansonia_, vHist. des Plantes, Magnoliacées_, 1868. 154.

[97] _Ann. Mus. Bot._ Lugdun. Batav. ii. (1865-1866). 257.

The star-anise of commerce is produced in altitudes of 2500 metres in the north-western parts of the province of Yunnan in South-western China where the tree, which attains a height of 12 to 15 feet, grows in abundance.[98] The fruits of the Japanese variety of the tree are not collected, and the Chinese drug alone is in use even in Japan.

=History=—Notwithstanding its striking appearance, there is no evidence that star-anise found its way to Europe like other Eastern spices during the middle ages. Concerning its ancient use in China, the only fact we have found recorded is, that during the Sung dynasty, A.D. 970-1127, star-anise was levied as tribute in the southern part of Kien-chow, now Yen-ping-fu, in Fokien.[99]

Star-anise was brought to England from the Philippines by the voyager Candish, about A.D. 1588. Clusius obtained it in London from the apothecary Morgan and the druggist Garet, and described it in 1601.[100] The drug appears to have been rare in the time of Pomet, who states (1694) that the Dutch use it to flavour their beverages of tea and “sorbec.”[101] In those times it was brought to Europe by way of Russia, and was thence called _Cardamomum Siberiense_, or _Annis de Sibérie_.

=Description=—The fruit of _Illicium anisatum_ is formed of 8 one-seeded carpels, originally upright, but afterwards spread into a radiate whorl and united in a single row round a short central column which proceeds from an oblique pedicel. When ripe they are woody and split longitudinally at the upturned ventral suture, so that the shining seed becomes visible. This seed, which is elliptical and somewhat flattened, stands erect in the carpel; it is truncated on the side adjoining the central column, and is there attached by an obliquely-rising funicle. The upper edge of the seed is keeled, the lower rounded. The boat-shaped carpels, to the number of 8, are attached to the column through their whole height, but adhere to each other only slightly at the base; the upper or split side of each carpel occupies a nearly horizontal position. The carpels are irregularly wrinkled, especially below, and are more or less beaked at the apex; their colour is a rusty brown. Internally they are of a brighter colour, smooth, and with a cavity in the lower half corresponding to the shape of the seed. The cavity is formed of a separate wall, ½ millim. thick, which, as well as the testa of the seed, distinctly exhibits a radiate structure. The small embryo lies next the hilum in the soft albumen, which is covered by a dark brown endopleura. The seed, which is not much aromatic, amounts to about one-fifth of the entire weight of the fruit.

[98] Thorel, _Notes Médicales du voyage d’exploration du Mékong et de Cochinchine_, Paris, 1870. 31.—Garnier, _Voyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine II._ (Paris, 1873) 439.—Rondot, _Etude pratique du commerce d’exportation de la Chine_, 1848. 11.

[99] Bretschneider in (Foochow) _Chinese Recorder_, Jan., 1871, 220, reprinted in his “Study and Value of Chinese Botanical Works,” Foochow, 1872, 13.—See also Hirth du Frênes, in _New Remedies_, New York, 1877, 181.

[100] _Rarior. Plant. Hist._ 202.

[101] _Hist. des Drog._ pt. i. liv. i. 43.

Star-anise has an agreeable aromatic taste and smell, more resembling fennel than anise, on which account it was at first designated _Fœniculum Sinense_.[102] When pulverised, it has a subacid after-taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The carpels consist of an external, loose, dark brown layer and a thick inner wall, separated by fibro-vascular bundles. The outer layer exhibits numerous large cells, containing pale yellow volatile oil. The inner wall of the carpels consists of woody prosenchyme in those parts which are exterior to the seed cavity, and especially in the shining walls laid bare by the splitting of the ventral suture. The inner surface of the carpel is entirely composed of sclerenchyme. A totally different structure is exhibited by this stony shell where it lines the cavity occupied by the seed. Here it is composed of a single row of cells, consisting of straight tubes exactly parallel to one another, more than 500 mkm. long, and 70 mkm. in diameter, placed vertically to the seed cavity; their porous walls, marked with fine spiral striations, display splendid colours in polarized light. The seed contains albumen and drops of fat. Starch is wanting in star-anise, except a little in the fruit-stalk.

=Chemical Composition=—The volatile oil amounts to four or five per cent. Its composition is that of the oils of fennel or anise. We observed that oil of star-anise, as distilled by one of us, continued fluid below 8° C. It solidified at that temperature as soon as a crystal of anethol (see our article on Fructus Anisi) was brought in contact with the oil. The crystallized mass began to melt again at 16° C. The oils of anise and star-anise possess no striking optical differences, both deviating very little to the left. We are unable to give any chemical characters by which they can be discriminated, although they are distinguished by dealers; the oil of star-anise imparts a somewhat different flavour, for instance, to drinks than that produced by anise oil.

Star-anise is rich in sugar, which seems to be cane-sugar inasmuch as it does not reduce alkaline cupric tartrate. An aqueous extract of the fruit assumes, on addition of alcohol, the form of a clear mucilaginous jelly, of which pectin is probably a constituent. The seeds contain a large quantity of fixed oil.

=Commerce=—Star-anise is shipped to Europe and India from China. In 1872 Shanghai imported, mostly by way of Hong Kong 5273 peculs (703,066 lb.), a large proportion of which was re-shipped to other ports of China.[103] According to Rondot (_l. c._) the best is first brought by junks from Fokien to Canton, being exported from Tsiouen-tchou-fou. A little is also collected in Kiangsi and Kuang-tung. The same drug, under the name of _Bādiyāne-khatāi_ (i.e. _Chinese fennel_), is carried by inland trade from China to Yarkand and thence to India, where it is much esteemed.

=Uses=—Star-anise is employed to flavour spirits, the principal consumption being in Germany, France, and Italy. It is not used in medicine at least in England, except in the form of essential oil, which is often sold for oil of aniseed.

[102] Redi, _Experimenta_, Amstelod. 1675, p. 172.

[103] _Returns of Trade at the Treaty Ports in China for 1872_, 4-8.

MENISPERMACEÆ.

RADIX CALUMBÆ.

_Radix Columba_; _Calumba or Colombo Root_; F. _Racine de Colombo_; G. _Kalumbawurzel_, _Columbowurzel_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Jateorhiza palmata_ Miers[104] a diœcious perennial plant, with large fleshy roots and herbaceous annual stems, climbing over bushes and to the tops of lofty trees. The leaves are of large size and on long stalks, palmate-lobed and membranous. The male flowers are in racemose panicles a foot or more in length, setose-hispid at least in their lower part, or nearly glabrous. The whole part is more or less hispid with spreading setæ and glandular hairs.

It is indigenous to the forests of Eastern Africa between Ibo or Oibo, the most northerly of the Portuguese settlements (lat. 12° 28′ S.), and the banks of the Zambesi, a strip of coast which includes the towns of Mozambique and Quilimane. Kirk found it (1860) in abundance at Shupanga, among the hills near Morambala, at Kebrabasa and near Senna, localities all in the region of the Zambesi. Peters[105] states that on the islands of Ibo and Mozambique the plant is cultivated. In the Kew Herbarium is a specimen from the interior of Madagascar.

The plant was introduced into Mauritius a century ago in the time of the French governor Le Poivre, but seems to have been lost, for after many attempts it was again introduced in 1825 by living specimens procured from Ibo by Captain Owen.[106] It still thrives there in the Botanical Garden of Pamplemousses.

It was taken from Mozambique to India in 1805 and afterwards cultivated by Roxburgh in the Calcutta Garden, where however it has long ceased to exist.

[104] Synonyms—_Menispermum palmatum_ Lamarck, _Cocculus palmatus_ DC, _Menispermum Columba_ Roxb., _Jateorhiza Calumba_ Miers, _J. Miersii_ Oliv., _Chasmanthera Columba_ Baillon. As we thus suppress a species admitted in recent works, it is necessary to give the following explanation. _Menispermum palmatum_ of Lamarck, first described in the _Encyclopédie méthodique_ in 1797 (iv. 99), was divided by Miers into two species, _Jateorhiza palmata_ and _J. Calumba_. Oliver in his _Flora of Tropical Africa_, i. (1868) 42, accepted the view taken by Miers, but to avoid confusion abolished the specific name _palmata_, substituting for it that of _Miersii_. At the same time he noticed the close relationship of the two species, and suggested that further investigation might warrant their union. The characters supposed to distinguish them _inter se_ are briefly these:—In _J. palmata_, the lobes at the base of the leaf _overlap_, and the male inflorescence is nearly glabrous; while in _J. Calumba_, the basal lobes are rounded, but _do not overlap_, and the male inflorescence is setose-hispid (“_sparsely pilose_” Miers). On careful examination of a large number of specimens, including those of Berry from Calcutta, and others from Mauritius, Madagascar, and the Zambesi, together with the drawings of Telfair and Roxburgh, and the published figures and descriptions, I am convinced that the characters in question are unimportant and do not warrant the establishment of two species. In this view I have the support of Mr. Horne of Mauritius, who at my request has made careful observations on the living plant and found that both forms of leaf occur on the same stem.—D. H.

[105] _Reise nach Mossambique_, Botanik i. (1862) 172.

[106] Hooker, _Bot. Mag._ lvii. (1830) tabb. 2970-71.

=History=—The root is held in high esteem among the natives of Eastern Africa who call it _Kalumb_, and use it for the cure of dysentery and as a general remedy for almost any disorder.

It was brought to Europe by the Portuguese in the 17th century, and is first noticed briefly in 1671 by Francesco Redi, who speaks of it[107] as an antidote to poison deserving trial.

No further attention was paid to the drug for nearly a century, when Percival[108] in 1773 re-introduced it as “_a medicine of considerable efficacy ... not so generally known in practice as it deserves to be_.” From this period it began to come into general use. J. Gurney Bevan, a London druggist, writing to a correspondent in 1777 alludes to it as—“an article not yet much dealt in and subject to great fluctuation.” It was in fact at this period extremely dear, and in Mr. Bevan’s stock-books is valued in 1776 and 1777 at 30_s._ per lb., in 1780 at 28_s._, 1781 at 64_s._, 1782 at 15_s._, 1783 at 6_s._ Calumba was admitted to the _London Pharmacopœia_ in 1788.

=Collection=—As to the collection and preparation of the drug for the market, the only account we possess is that obtained by Dr. Berry,[109] which states that the roots are dug up in the month of March, which is the dry season, cut into slices and dried in the shade.

=Description=—The calumba plant produces great fusiform fleshy roots growing several together from a short head. Some fresh specimens sent to one of us (H.) from the Botanic Garden, Mauritius, in 1866, and others from that of Trinidad in 1868, were portions of cylindrical roots, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, externally rough and brown and internally firm, fleshy, and of a brilliant yellow. When sliced transversely, and dried by a gentle heat, these roots exactly resemble imported calumba except for being much fresher and brighter.

The calumba of commerce consists of irregular flattish pieces of a circular or oval outline, 1 to 2 inches or more in diameter, and ⅛ to ½ an inch thick. In drying, the central portion contracts more than the exterior: hence the pieces are thinnest in the middle. The outer edge is invested with a brown wrinkled layer which covers a corky bark about ⅜ of an inch thick, surrounding a pithless internal substance, from which it is separated by a fine dark shaded line. The pieces are light and of a corky texture, easily breaking with a mealy fracture. Their colour is a dull greenish yellow, brighter when the outer surface is shaved off with a knife.[110] The drug has a weak musty odour and a rather nauseous bitter taste. It often arrives much perforated by insects, but seems not liable to such depredations here.

[107] “Sono ancora da farsi nuove esperienze intorno alla _radice di Calumbe_, creduta un grandissimo alessifarmaco.”—_Esperienze_, p. 125. (See Appendix, R.)

[108] _Essays Medical and Experimental_, Lond. ii. (1773) 3.

[109] _Asiatick Researches_, x. (1808) 385; Ainslie, _Mat. Med. of Hindoostan_, 298.

[110] Wholesale druggists sometimes _wash_ the drug to improve its colour.

=Microscopic Structure=—On a transverse section the root exhibits a circle of radiate vascular bundles only in the layer immediately connected with the cambial zone; they project much less distinctly into the cortical part. The tissue of the whole root, except the cork and vascular bundles, is made up of large parenchymatous cells. In the outer part of the bark,— some of them have their yellow walls thickened and are loaded with fine crystals of oxalate of calcium, whilst all the other cells contain very large starch granules, attaining as much as 90 mkm. The short fracture of the root is due to the absence of a proper ligneous or liber tissue.

=Chemical Composition=—The bitter taste of calumba, and probably likewise its medicinal properties, are due to three distinct substances, _Columbin_, _Berberine_, and _Columbic Acid_.

_Columbin_, or _Columba-Bitter_ was discovered by Wittstock in 1830. It is a neutral bitter principle, crystallizing in colourless rhombic prisms, slightly soluble in cold alcohol or ether, but dissolving more freely in those liquids when boiling. It is soluble in aqueous alkalis and in acetic acid.

The presence of _Berberine_ in calumba was ascertained in 1848 by Bödeker, who showed that the yellow cell-walls of the root owe their colour to it and (as we may add) to _Columbic Acid_, another substance discovered by the same chemist in the following year. Columbic Acid is yellow, amorphous, nearly insoluble in cold water, but dissolving in alcohol and in alkaline solutions. It tastes somewhat less bitter than columbin. Bödeker surmises that it may exist in combination with the berberine.

Bödeker has pointed out a connection between the three bitter principles of calumba. If we suppose a molecule of ammonia, NH₃, to be added to columbin C₄₂H₄₄O₁₄, the complex molecule thence resulting will contain the elements of berberine C₂₀H₁₇NO₄, columbic acid C₂₂H₂₄O₇, and water 3H₂O.

Among the more usual constituents of plants, calumba contains (in addition to starch) pectin, gum, and nitrate of potassium, but no tannic acid. It yields when incinerated 6 per cent. of ash.

=Commerce=—Calumba root is shipped to Europe and India from Mozambique and Zanzibar, and exported from Bombay and other Indian ports.

=Uses=—It is much employed as a mild tonic, chiefly in the form of tincture or of aqueous infusion.

PAREIRA BRAVA.

_Radix Pareiræ_; _Pareira-Brava_[111]; F. _Racine de Butua ou de Pareira-Brava_; G. _Grieswurzel_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Chondodendron tomentosum_ Ruiz et Pav. (non Eichler) (_Cocculus Chondodendron_ DC., _Botryopsis platyphylla_ Miers[112]).—It is a lofty climbing shrub with long woody stems, and leaves as much as a foot in length. The latter are of variable form, but mostly broadly ovate, rounded or pointed at the extremity, slightly cordate at the base, and having long petioles. They are smooth on the upper side; on the under covered between the veins with a fine close tomentum of an ashy hue. The flowers are unisexual, racemose, minute, produced either from the young shoots or from the woody stems. The fruits are ¾ of an inch long, oval, black and much resembling grapes in form and arrangement.[113]

[111] From the Portuguese _parreira_, signifying a vine that grows against a wall (in French _treille_), and _brava_, wild.

[112] For a figure see Bentley and Trimen, _Medic. Plants_,