part i

. (1875).

[2085] In that year a patent was granted by Charles I. for the incorporation of a Company for colonizing the Bahama Islands, and a complete record is extant of the proceedings of the Company for the first eleven years of its existence. In some of the documents,

## particular mention is made of the introduction, actual or attempted,

of useful plants, as cotton, tobacco, fig, pepper, pomegranate, palma Christi, mulberry, flax, indigo, madder, and jalap; and there is also frequent allusion to the importation of the produce of the islands, but no mention of _Cascarilla_. See _Calendar of State Papers_, Colonial Series, 1574-1660, edited by Sainsbury, Lond. 1860. pp. 146. 148. 149. 164. 168. 185. etc.

[2086] Flückiger, _Pharm. Journ._, vi. (1876) 1022, and “Documente” quoted there, pp. 74-77, etc.

[2087] Stisser (J. A.) _Actorum Laboratorii Chemici specimen secundum_, Helmestadi, 1693. c. ix. Stisser is said to have mentioned Cascarilla bark in his pamphlet “De machinis fumiductoriis,” Hamburg, 1686, but we found this to be incorrect. Nor have we seen the paper of Vincent Garcia Salat, “Unica quæstiuncula, in qua examinatur pulvis de Burango, vulgo _Cascarilla_, in curatione tertíanæ,” Valentiæ. 1692. It is quoted by Haller, _Bibl. Bot._ ii. (1772) 688, and several later authors, but appears to be extremely rare.

The plant affording cascarilla has been the subject of much discussion, arising chiefly from the circumstance that several nearly allied West Indian species of _Croton_ yield aromatic barks resembling more or less the officinal drug. Catesby in 1754 figured a Bahama plant, _Croton Cascarilla_ Bennett, from which the original _Eleuthera Bark_ was probably derived, though it certainly affords none of the cascarilla of modern commerce. Woodville in 1794, and Lindley in 1838, both investigated the botany of the subject, the latter having the advantage of authentic specimens communicated by the Hon. J. C. Lees of New Providence, to whom one of us also is indebted for a similar favour. The question was not however finally set at rest until 1859, when J. J. Bennett by the aid of specimens collected in the Bahamas by Daniell in 1857-8, drew up lucid diagnoses of the several plants which had been confounded, and disentangled their intricate synonymy.[2088]

[2088] _Journal of Proceedings of Linn. Soc._ iv. (1860) Bot. 29.

=Description=—Cascarilla occurs in the form of tubular or channelled pieces of a dull brown colour, somewhat rough and irregular, rarely exceeding 4 inches in length by ½ an inch in diameter. The chief bulk of that at present imported is in very small thin quills and fragments, often scarcely an inch in length, and evidently stripped from very young wood. The younger bark has a thin suberous coat easily detached, blotched or entirely covered with the silvery white growth of a minute lichen (_Verrucaria albissima_ Ach.), the perithecium of which appears as small black dots. The older bark is more rugose, irregularly tessellated by longitudinal cracks and less numerous transverse fissures. Beneath the corky envelope the bark is greyish-brown.

The bark breaks readily with a short fracture, the broken surface displaying a resinous appearance. It has a very fragrant odour, especially agreeable when several pounds of it are reduced to coarse powder and placed in a jar; it has a nauseous bitter taste. When burned it emits an aromatic smell, and hence is a common ingredient in fumigating pastilles.

=Microscopic Characters=—The suberous coat is made up of numerous rows of tabular cells, the outermost having their exterior walls much thickened. The mesophlœum exhibits the usual tissue, containing starch, chlorophyll, essential oil, crystals of oxalate of calcium, and a brown colouring matter. The latter assumes a dark bluish coloration on addition of a persalt of iron. In the inner portion of that layer ramified laticiferous vessels are also present. The liber consists of parenchyme and of fibrous bundles, intersected by small medullary rays. On the transverse section, the fibrous bundles show a wedge-shaped outline; they are for the most part built up, not of true liber-fibres, but of cylindrical cells having their transverse walls perforated sieve-like (_vasa cribriformia_). The contents of the parenchymatous part of the liber are the same as in the mesophlœum; as to the oxalate of calcium, the variety of its crystals is remarkable.[2089]

[2089] For more particulars see Pocklington, _Pharm. Journ._ iii. (1873) 664.

=Chemical Composition=—Cascarilla contains a volatile oil, which it yields to the extent of 1·1 per cent. According to Völckel (1840), it is a mixture of at least two oils, the more volatile of which is probably free from oxygen. Gladstone (1872) assigns to the hydrocarbon of cascarilla oil the composition of oil of turpentine. By examining the oil optically we found it to have a weak rotatory power—some samples deviated to the right, some to the left. The resin, in which cascarilla is rich, has not yet been examined more exactly.

The bitter principle was isolated in 1845 by Duval, and called _Cascarillin_. C. and E. Mylius (1873) have obtained it from a deposit in the officinal extract, in microscopic prisms readily soluble in ether or hot alcohol, very sparingly in water, chloroform or spirit of wine. It melts at 205° C., is not volatile, nor a glucoside. Its composition answers to the formula C₁₂H₁₈O₄.

=Commerce=—The bark is shipped from Nassau, the chief town of New Providence (Bahamas), and is usually packed in sacks. The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1870 was 12,261 cwt., valued at £16,482. The exports from the Bahamas were 676 cwt. in 1875, and 1,093 cwt. in 1876.

=Uses=—Cascarilla is prescribed as a tonic, usually in the form of a tincture or infusion.

=Adulteration=—A spurious cascarilla bark has lately been noticed in the London market; it was imported from the Bahamas mixed with the genuine, to which it bears a close similarity. The quills of it resemble the larger quills of cascarilla; though covered with a lichen, the latter has not the silvery whiteness of the _Verrucaria_ of cascarilla. The spurious bark has a suberous coat that does not split off; its inner surface is pinkish-brown, and distinctly striated longitudinally. In microscopic structure the bark may be said to resemble cascarilla and still more copalchi. But it is at once distinguishable by its numerous _roundish groups_ of sclerenchymatous cells, which become very evident when thin sections are moistened with ammonia, and then with solution of iodine in iodide of potassium. The bark has an astringent taste, without bitterness or aroma; its tincture is not rendered milky by addition of water, but is darkened by ferric chloride,—in these respects differing from a tincture of cascarilla. Mr. Holmes[2090] suggests that this spurious cascarilla is probably the bark of _Croton lucidus_ L.

Copalchi Bark; Quina blanca of the Mexicans.

This drug is derived from _Croton niveus_[2091] Jacquin (_C. Pseudo-China_ Schlechtendal), a shrub growing 10 feet high, native of the West Indian Islands, Mexico, Central America, New Granada and Venezuela. It has occasionally been imported into Europe, in quills a foot or two in length, much stouter and thicker than those of cascarilla, to which in odour and taste it nearly approximates. The bark has a thin, greyish, papery suberous layer, which when removed shows the surface marked with minute transverse pits, like the lines made by a file; it has a short fracture.[2092]

Copalchi bark was examined by J. Eliot Howard,[2093] and found to contain a minute proportion of a bitter alkaloid soluble in ether, which resembled quinine in yielding a deep green colour when treated with chlorine and ammonia, though it did not afford any characteristic compound with iodine. Mauch,[2094] who also analysed the bark, could not obtain from it any organic base. He extracted by distillation the essential oil, which he found to consist of a hydrocarbon and an organic acid,—the latter not examined; he likewise got from the bark an uncrystallizable bitter principle, which proved to be not a glucoside.

[2090] _Pharm. Journ._ iv. (1874) 810.

[2091] De Candolle’s _Prodromus_, xv.