part 31

(1878).—Dr. Thwaites of Ceylon, who has the plant in cultivation, has been good enough to send us a fine coloured drawing of it in flower.

=History=—The earliest reference to galangal we have met with occurs in the writings of the Arabian geographer Ibn Khurdádbah[2378] about A.D. 869-885, who in enumerating the productions of a country called Sila, names galangal together with musk, aloes, camphor, silk, and cassia. Edrisi,[2379] three hundred years later, is more explicit, for he mentions it with many other productions of the far East, as brought from India and China to Aden, then a great emporium of the trade of Asia with Egypt and Europe. The physician Alkindi,[2380] who lived at Bassora and Bagdad in the second half of the 9th century, and somewhat later Rhazes and Avicenna, notice galangal, the use of which was introduced into Europe[2381] through the medical system promulgated by them and other writers of the same school. As to Great Britain, galingal, as it was frequently spelt, also occurs in the Welsh “Meddygon Myddfai” (see Appendix).

Many notices exist showing that galangal was imported with pepper, ginger, cloves, nutmegs, cardamoms and zedoary; and that during the middle ages it was used in common with these substances as a culinary spice, which it is still held to be in certain parts of Europe.[2382] The plant affording the drug was unknown until the year 1870, when a description of it was communicated to the Linnean Society of London by Dr. H. F. Hance, from specimens collected by Mr. E. C. Taintor, near Hoihow in the north of Hainan.

[2378] Work quoted in the Appendix—tome v. 294.

[2379] _Géographie_, i. (1836) 51.

[2380] _De Rerum gradibus_, Argentorati, 1531. 162.

[2381] Macer Floridus (see p. 627), cap. 70, was already acquainted with it.

[2382] Hanbury, _Historical Notes on the Radix Galangæ of pharmacy—Journ. of Linnean Society_, Bot. xiii. (1871) 20; _Pharm. Journ._ Sept. 23, 1871. 248; _Science Papers_, 370.

=Description=—The drug consists of a cylindrical rhizome, having a maximum diameter of about ¾ of an inch, but for the most part considerably smaller. This rhizome has been cut while fresh into short pieces, 1½ to 3 inches in length, which are often branched, and are marked transversely at short intervals by narrow raised sinuous rings, indicating the former attachment of leaves or scales. The pieces are hard, tough and shrivelled, externally of a dark reddish-brown, displaying when cut transversely an internal substance of rather paler hue (but never white), with a darker central column. The drug exhales when comminuted an agreeable aroma, and has a strongly pungent, spicy taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The central portion of the rhizome is separated from the outer tissue by the nucleus-sheath, which appears as a well-defined darker line. Yet the central tissue does not differ much from that surrounding it, both being composed of uniform parenchyme cells, traversed by scattered vascular bundles. There also occur throughout the whole tissue isolated cells loaded with essential oil or resin. But the larger number of cells abound in large starch granules of an unusual club-shaped form. Some cells contain a brown substance, differing from resin in being insoluble in alcohol. The corky layer is remarkable from its cells having undulated walls.

=Chemical Composition=—The odour of galangal is due to an essential oil, which the rhizoma yields to the extent of only 0·7 per cent., and which we found to be very slightly deviating the plane of polarization to the left.

Brandes[2383] extracted from Galangal, by means of ether, an inodorous, tasteless, crystalline body called _Kämpferid_, which is worthy of further examination.

The pungent principle of the drug, which is probably analogous to that of ginger, has not been studied.

=Commerce=—Galangal is shipped from Canton to other ports of China, to India and Europe, but there are no general statistics to give an idea of the total production. From official returns quoted by Hance, the export of the year 1869, which seems to have been exceptionally large, amounted to 370,800 lb. From Kiung-chow, island of Hainan, 2,113 peculs (281,733 lb.) were exported in 1877.

=Uses=—The drug is an aromatic stimulant of the nature of ginger, now nearly obsolete in British medicine. It is still a popular remedy and spice in Livonia, Esthonia and central Russia, and by the Tartars is taken with tea. It is also in some requisition in Russia among brewers, and the manufacturers of vinegar and cordials, and finally as a cattle medicine.

=Substitute=—The rhizoma of _Alpina Galanga_ Willd., a plant of Java, constitutes the drug known as _Radix Galangæ majoris_ or _Greater Galangal_, packages of which occasionally appear in the London drug sales. It may be at once distinguished from the Chinese drug by its much larger size and the pale buff hue of its internal substance, the latter in strong contrast with the orange-brown outer skin.

FRUCTUS CARDAMOMI.

_Semina Cardamomi minoris_; _Cardamoms_, _Malabar Cardamoms_; F. _Cardamomes_; G. _Cardamomen_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Elettaria[2384] Cardamomum_ Maton (_Alpinia Cardamomum_ Roxb.), a flag-like perennial plant, 6 to 12 feet high, with large lanceolate leaves on long sheathing stalks, and flowers in lax flexuose horizontal scapes, 6 to 18 inches in length, which are thrown out to the number of 3 or 4, close to the ground. The fruit is ovoid, three-sided, plump and smooth, with a fleshy green pericarp.

The Cardamom plant grows abundantly, both wild and under cultivation, in the moist shady mountain forests of North Canara, Coorg and Wynaad on the Malabar Coast; at an elevation of 2500 to 5000 feet above the sea. It is truly wild in Canara and in the Anamalai, Cochin and Travancore forests.[2385] The cardamom region has a mean temperature of 22° C. (72° F.), and a mean rainfall of 121 inches.

[2383] _Archiv der Pharm._ xix. (1839) 52.

[2384] From _Elettari_, the Mallyalim name of the plant.—Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s _Med. Plants_,