Part 47

CASTOR OIL, the fixed oil obtained from the seeds of the castor oil plant or Palma Christi, _Ricinus communis_, belonging to the natural order Euphorbiaceae. The botanical name is from Lat. _ricinus_, a tick, from the form and markings of the seed. The plant is a native of tropical Africa, but it has been introduced, and is now cultivated in most tropical and in the warmer temperate countries. In size it varies from a shrubby plant to a tree of from 30 to 40 ft. in height according to the climate in which it grows, being arborescent in tropical latitudes. On account of its very large beautiful palmate-peltate leaves, which sometimes measure as much as 2 ft. in diameter, it is cultivated as an ornamental plant. In the south of England, with the habit of an annual, it ripens its seeds in favourable seasons; and it has been known to come to maturity as far north as Christiania in Norway. Plants are readily grown from seed, which should be sown singly in small pots and placed in heat early in March. The young plants are kept under glass till early in June when they are hardened and put out. The fruit consists of a three-celled capsule, covered externally with soft yielding prickles, and each cell develops a single seed. The seeds of the different cultivated varieties, of which there are a great number, differ much in size and in external markings; but average seeds are of an oval laterally compressed form, with their longest diameter about four lines. They have a shining, marble-grey and brown, thick, leathery outer coat, within which is a thin dark-coloured brittle coat. A large distinct leafy embryo lies in the middle of a dense, oily tissue (endosperm). The seeds contain a toxic substance, which makes them

## actively poisonous; so much so that three have been known to kill an

adult.

The oil is obtained from the seeds by two principal methods--expression and decoction--the latter process being largely used in India, where the oil, on account of its cheapness and abundance is extensively employed for illuminating as well as for other domestic and medicinal purposes. The oil exported from Calcutta to Europe is prepared by shelling and crushing the seeds between rollers. The crushed mass is then placed in hempen cloths and pressed in a screw or hydraulic press. The oil which exudes is mixed with water and heated till the water boils, and the mucilaginous matter in the oil separates as a scum. It is next strained, then bleached in the sunlight, and stored for exportation. A considerable quantity of castor oil of an excellent quality is also made in Italy; and in California the manufacture is conducted on an extensive scale. The following is an outline of the process adopted in a Californian factory. The seeds are submitted to a dry heat in a furnace for an hour or thereby, by which they are softened and prepared to part easily with their oil. They are then pressed in a large powerful screw-press, and the oily matter which flows out is caught, mixed with an equal proportion of water, and boiled to purify it from mucilaginous and albuminous matter. After boiling about an hour, it is allowed to cool, the water is drawn off, and the oil is transferred to zinc tanks or clarifiers capable of holding from 60 to 100 gallons. In these it stands about eight hours, bleaching in the sun, after which it is ready for storing. By this method 100 lb. of good seeds yield about 5 gallons of pure oil.

Castor oil is a viscid liquid, almost colourless when pure, possessing only a slight odour, and a mild yet highly nauseous and disagreeable taste. Its specific gravity is .96, a little less than that of water, and it dissolves freely in alcohol, ether and glacial acetic acid. It contains palmitic and several other fatty acids, among which there is one--ricinoleic acid--peculiar to itself. This occurs in combination with glycerin, constituting the greater part of the bulk of the oil.

The active principle to which the oil owes its purgative properties has not been isolated. It is, indeed, probable that it is formed in the intestine, as a result of some decomposition as yet unknown. The dose is from a drachm to an ounce. The pharmacopoeial mixture is best avoided, being almost uniquely nauseous. By far the best way to administer the oil is in capsules. It acts in about five hours, affecting the entire length of the bowel, but not increasing the flow of bile except in very large doses. The mode of its action is unknown. The oil will purge when rubbed into the skin or injected _per rectum_. It is an invaluable drug in temporary constipation and whenever a mild action is essential, as in pregnancy. It is extremely useful for children and the aged, but must not be employed in cases of chronic constipation, which it only aggravates, whilst relieving the symptoms.

CASTREN, MATTHIAS ALEXANDER (1813-1853), Finnish ethnologist and philologist, was born at Tervola, in the parish of Kemi in Finland, on the 20th of November (December 2, 1813). His father, Christian Castren, parish minister at Rovaniemi, died in 1825; and Matthias passed under the protection of his uncle, Mathias Castren, the kindly and learned incumbent of Kemi. At the age of twelve he was sent to school at Uleaborg, and there he helped to maintain himself by teaching the younger children. On his removal to the Alexander University at Helsingfors in 1830, he first devoted himself to Greek and Hebrew with the intention of entering the church; but his interest was soon excited by the language of his native country, and he even began before his course was completed to lay the foundations of a work on Finnish mythology. The necessity of personal explorations among the still unwritten languages of cognate tribes soon made itself evident; and in 1838 he joined a medical fellow-student, Dr. Ehrstrom, in a journey through Lapland. In the following year he travelled in Russian Karelia at the expense of the Literary Society of Finland; and in 1841 he undertook, in company with Dr Elias Lonnrot, the great Finnish philologist, a third journey, which ultimately extended beyond the Ural as far as Obdorsk, and occupied a period of three years. Before starting on this last expedition he had published a translation into Swedish of the Finnish epic of _Kalevala_; and on his return he gave to the world his _Elementa grammatices Syrjaenae_ and _Elementa grammatices Tscheremissae_, 1844. No sooner had he recovered from the illness which his last journey had occasioned than he set out, under the auspices of the Academy of St Petersburg and the Helsingfors University, on an exploration of the whole government of Siberia, which resulted in a vast addition to previous knowledge, but seriously affected the health of the adventurous investigator. The first-fruits of his collections were published at St Petersburg in 1849 in the form of a _Versuch einer ostjakischen Sprachlehre_. In 1850 he published a treatise _De affixis personalibus linguarum Altaicarum_, and was appointed professor at Helsingfors of the new chair of Finnish language and literature. The following year saw him raised to the rank of chancellor of the university; and he was busily engaged in what he regarded as his principal work, a Samoyedic grammar, when he died on the 7th of May 1853.

Five volumes of his collected works appeared from 1852 to 1858, containing respectively--(1) _Reseminnen fran aren_ 1838-1844; (2) _Reseberaitelser och bref aren_ 1845-1849; (3) _Forelasningar i Finsk mythologi_; (4) _Ethnologiska forelasningar ofver Altaiska folken_; and (5) _Smarre afhandlingar och akademiska dissertationer_. A German translation was published by Anton Schiefner, who was also entrusted by the St Petersburg Academy with the editing of his manuscripts which had been left to the Helsingfors University and which were subsequently published.

CASTRENSIS, PAULUS, an Italian jurist of the 14th century. He studied under Baldus at Perugia, and was a fellow-pupil with Cardinal Zabarella. He was admitted to the degree of doctor of civil law in the university of Avignon, but it is uncertain when he first undertook the duties of a professor. A tradition, which has been handed down by Panzirolus, represents him as having taught law for a period of fifty-seven years. He was professor at Vienna in 1390, at Avignon in 1394, and at Padua in 1429; and, at different periods, at Florence, at Bologna and at Perugia. He was for some time the vicar-general of Cardinal Zabarella at Florence, and his eminence as a teacher of canon law may be inferred from the language of one of his pupils, who styles him "famosissimus juris utriusque monarca." His most complete treatise is his readings on the _Digest_, and it appears from a passage in his readings on the _Digestum Vetus_ that he delivered them at a time when he had been

## actively engaged for forty-five years as a teacher of civil law. His

death is generally assigned to 1436, but it appears from an entry in a MS. of the _Digestum Vetus_, which is extant at Munich, made by the hand of one of his pupils who styles him "praeceptor meus," that he died on the 20th of July 1441.

CASTRES, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Tarn, 29 m. S.S.E. of Albi on a branch line of the Southern railway. Pop. (1906) town, 19,864; commune, 28,272. Castres, the busiest and most populous town of its department, is intersected from north to south by the Agout; the river is fringed by old houses the upper stories of which project over its waters. Wide boulevards traverse the west of the town, which is also rendered attractive by numerous fountains fed by a fine aqueduct hewn in the rock. The church of St Benoit, once a cathedral, and the most important of the churches of Castres, dates only from the 17th and 18th centuries. The hotel de ville, which contains a museum and the municipal library, occupies the former bishop's palace, designed by Jules Mansart in the 17th century; the Romanesque tower beside it is the only survival of an old Benedictine abbey. The town possesses some old mansions of which the hotel de Nayrac, of the Renaissance, is of most interest. Castres has a sub-prefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the bank of France and two hospitals. There are also communal colleges for boys and girls, a school of artillery and school of draughtsmanship. The industrial establishments include manufactories of earthenware and porcelain and metal-foundries, and tanning, leather-dressing, turnery, the making of wooden shoes and furniture, the weaving of woollen and other fabrics, dyeing, and the manufacture of machinery, paper and parchment are carried on.

Castres grew up round a Benedictine abbey, which is believed to have been founded in the 7th century. It was a place of considerable importance as early as the 12th century, and ranked as the second town of the Albigenses. During the Albigensian crusade it surrendered of its own accord to Simon de Montfort; and in 1356 it was raised to a countship by King John of France. On the confiscation of the possessions of the D'Armagnac family, to which it had passed, it was bestowed by Louis XI. on Boffilo del Giudice, but the appointment led to so much disagreement that the countship was united to the crown by Francis I. in 1519. In the wars of the latter part of the 16th century the inhabitants sided with the Protestant party, fortified the town, and established an independent republic. They were brought to terms, however, by Louis XIII., and forced to dismantle their fortifications; and the town was made the seat of the _chambre de l'edit_, or chamber for the investigation of the affairs of the Protestants, afterwards transferred to Castelnaudary (in 1679). The bishopric of Castres, which had been established by Pope John XXII. in 1317, was abolished at the Revolution.

CASTRO, INEZ DE (d. 1355), mistress, and perhaps wife, of Peter I. (Pedro), king of Portugal, called _Collo de Garza_, i.e. "Heron's Neck," was born in Spanish Galicia, in the earlier years of the 14th century. Tradition asserts that her father, Don Pedro Fernandez de Castro, and her mother, Dona Aldonca Soares de Villadares, a noble Portuguese lady, were unmarried, and that Inez and her two brothers were consequently of bastard birth. Educated at the semi-Oriental provincial court of Juan Manuel, duke of Penafiel, Inez grew up side by side with Costanca, the duke's daughter by a scion of the royal house of Aragon, and her own cousin. After refusing several crowned heads in marriage, Costanca was at last persuaded to accept the hand of the infante Dom Pedro, son of Alphonso the Proud, king of Portugal. In 1341 the two girls left Penafiel; Costanca's marriage was celebrated in the same year, and the young infanta and her cousin went to reside at Lisbon, or at Coimbra, where Dom Pedro conceived that luckless and furious passion for Inez which has immortalized them.

The morality of the age was lax, and more especially so in Spain and Portugal, where the looseness of the marriage tie and the example of the Moors encouraged polygamy. Pedro's connexion _par amours_ with Inez would of itself have aroused no opposition. He might even have married her, after the death of his wife in childbirth in 1345. According to his own assurance he did marry her in 1354. But by that time the rising power of the Castro family had created the most brutal hatred among their rivals, both in Spain and Portugal. Alvaro Gonzales, Pedro Coelho, and Diogo Lopes Pacheco persuaded the king, Alphonso, that his throne was in danger from an alliance between his son and the Castros, and with all the brutality of the age they urged the king to remove the danger by murdering the poor woman. The old king listened, refused, wavered and ended by yielding. He went in secret to the palace at Coimbra, where Inez and the infante resided, accompanied by his three familiars, and by others who agreed with them. The beauty and tears of Inez disarmed his resolution, and he turned to leave her; but the gentlemen about him had gone too far to recede. Inez was stabbed to death and was buried immediately in the church of Santa Clara.

The infante raised at once the flag of revolt against his father, and was only appeased by the concession of a large share in the government. The three murderers of Inez were sent out of the kingdom by Alphonso, who knew his son too well not to be aware that the vengeance would be tremendous as the crime. They took refuge in Castile. In 1357, however, Alphonso died, and the infante was crowned king of Portugal. Peter the Cruel, his nephew, reigned over Castile; and the murderers were given up as soon as required. Diogo Lopes escaped through the gratitude of a beggar to whom he had formerly done a kindness; but Coelho and Gonzales were executed, with horrible tortures, in the very presence of the king.

The story of the exhumation and coronation of the corpse of Inez has often been told. It is said that to the dead body, crowned and robed in royal raiment, and enthroned beside the king, the assembled nobles of Portugal paid homage as to their queen, swearing fealty on the withered hand of the corpse. The gravest doubts, however, exist as to the authenticity of this story; Fernao Lopes, the Portuguese Froissart, who is the great authority for the details of the death of Inez, with some of the actors in which he was acquainted, says nothing of the ghastly ceremony, though he tells at length the tale of the funeral honours that the king bestowed upon his wife. Inez was buried at Alcobaca with extraordinary magnificence, in a tomb of white marble, surmounted by her crowned statue; and near her sepulchre Pedro caused his own to be placed. The monument, after repeatedly resisting the violence of curiosity, was broken into in 1810 by the French soldiery; the statue was mutilated, and the yellow hair was cut from the broken skeleton, to be preserved in reliquaries and blown away by the wind. The children of Inez shared her habit of misfortune. From her brother, however, Alvaro Perez de Castro, the reigning house of Portugal directly descends.

See Fernao Lopes, _Chronica del Rey Dom Pedro_ (1735); Camoens, _Os Lusiadas_; Antonio Ferreira's _Ines de Castro_,--the first regular tragedy of the Renaissance after the _Sofonisba_ of Trissino; Luis Velez de Guevara, _Reinar despues de morir_, an admirable play; and Ferdinand Denis, _Chroniques chevaleresques de l'Espagne et du Portugal_.

CASTRO, JOAO DE (1500-1548), called by Camoens _Castro Forte_, fourth viceroy of the Portuguese Indies, was the son of Alvaro de Castro, civil governor of Lisbon. A younger son, and destined therefore for the church, he became at an early age a brilliant humanist, and studied mathematics under Pedro Nunez, in company with the infante Dom Luis, son of Emanuel the First, with whom he contracted a life-long friendship. At eighteen he went to Tangier, where he was dubbed knight by Duarte de Menezes the governor, and there he remained several years. In 1535 he accompanied Dom Luis to the siege of Tunis, where he had the honour of refusing knighthood and reward at the hands of the great emperor Charles V. Returning to Lisbon, he received from the king the small commandership of Sao Pablo de Salvaterra in 1538. He was exceedingly poor, but his wife Lenor de Coutinho, a noble Portuguese lady, admired and appreciated her husband sufficiently to make light of their poverty. Soon after this he left for the Indies in company with his uncle Garcia de Noronha, and on his arrival at Goa enlisted among the _aventureiros_, "the bravest of the brave," told off for the relief of Diu. In 1540 he served on an expedition under Estevao da Gama, by whom his son, Alvaro de Castro, a child of thirteen, was knighted, out of compliment to him. Returning to Portugal, Joao de Castro was named commander of a fleet, in 1543, to clear the European seas of pirates; and in 1545 he was sent, with six sail, to the Indies, in the room of Martin de Sousa, who had been dismissed the viceroyalty. The next three years were the hardest and most brilliant, as they were the last, of his life--years of battle and struggle, of glory and sorrow, of suffering and triumph. Valiantly seconded by his sons (one of whom, Fernao, was killed before Diu) and by Joao Mascarenhas, Joao de Castro achieved such popularity by the overthrow of Mahmud, king of Gujarat, by the relief of Diu, and by the defeat of the great army of the Adil Khan, that he could contract a very large loan with the Goa merchants on the simple security of his moustache. These great deeds were followed by the capture of Broach, by the complete subjugation of Malacca, and by the passage of Antonio Moniz into Ceylon; and in 1547 the great captain was appointed viceroy by Joao III., who had at last accepted him without mistrust. He did not live long to fill this charge, expiring in the arms of his friend, St Francis Xavier, on the 6th of June 1548. He was buried at Goa, but his remains were afterwards exhumed and conveyed to Portugal, to be reinterred under a splendid monument in the convent of Bemfica.

See Jacinto Freire de Andrade, _Vida de D. Joao de Castro_ (Lisbon, 1651), English translation by Sir Peter Wyche (1664); Diogo de Couto, _Decadas da Asia_, vi. The _Roteiros_ or logbooks of Castro's voyages in the East (Lisbon, 1833, 1843 and 1872) are of great interest.

CASTROGIOVANNI (Arab. _Kasr-Yani_, a corruption of _Castrum Ennae_), a town and episcopal see of the province of Caltanisetta, Sicily, 95 m. by rail S.E. of Palermo, and 56 m. W. of Catania, situated 2605 ft. above sea-level, almost in the centre of the island, and commanding a magnificent view of the interior. Pop. (1901) 25,826. Enna was one of the cities of the Sicels, and the statement of Stephanus Byzantinus that it was colonized by Syracuse in 664 B.C. is improbable. The question is discussed by E. Pais, _Atakta_ (Pisa, 1891), 63. It does not appear in history before the time of Dionysius I. of Syracuse, who, after unsuccessful attempts, finally acquired possession of it by treachery about 397 B.C. Its natural position rendered it a fortress of great importance, and it is frequently mentioned in subsequent history. In 134-132 it was the headquarters of the slave revolt, and was only reduced by treachery. Cicero speaks of it as a place of some importance, but in imperial times it seems to have been of little account. In A.D. 837 the Saracens attempted to take it, but without success; and it was again only by treachery that they were able to take it in 859. In 1087 it fell into the hands of the Normans; and the existing remains of fortifications are entirely medieval. There are indeed no remains of earlier days. The cathedral, founded in 1307, is of some interest. There are no remains of the famous temple of Demeter, from which Verres, as Cicero tells us, removed the bronze statue of the goddess. The lake of Pergus, where Persephone, according to one of the myths, was carried off by Hades, lies 4 m. to the south. The myth itself must have had some local origin, but has had so much Greek detail grafted upon it that the very names of the earlier Sicel deities have been displaced.

CASTRO URDIALES, a seaport of northern Spain, in the province of Santander, situated on the bay of Biscay and at the head of a branch railway connected with the Bilbao-Santander line. Pop. (1870) about 3500; (1900) 14,191. Castro Urdiales is a modern town, although its castle and parish church date from the middle ages. It was destroyed by the French in 1813, but speedily rebuilt and fortified. Its rapid rise in population and prosperity dates from the increased development of iron-mining and railway communication which took place after 1879. Its chief industries are iron-mining, fishing, and the preservation of fish, especially sardines, in oil. Between 1894 and 1904 the exports of iron ore rose from 277,200 tons to 516,574 tons.