CAPE ALOES is the produce chiefly of A. spicata, and A. Commelini, which are found growing wild in great abundance in the interior of the Cape Colony. It has not the dark opaque appearance of the other species. About fifty miles from Cape Town is a mountainous tract, almost entirely covered with numerous species and varieties of the plant, and some of the extensive arid plains in the interior of the colony are crowded with it. The settlers go forth and pitch their waggous and campa on these spots to obtain the produce. The shipments from Table Bay and the eastern port of Algoa Bay are very considerable. The odor of the Cape aloes is stronger and more disagreeable than that of the Socotrine or Barbados, and the color is more like gamboge. It is brought over in chests and skins, the latter being preferred.

Mr. George Dunsterville, surgeon of Algoa Bay, gives the following description of the manufacture of Cape aloes:—

Mr. Moodie, in his "Ten Years' Residence in Southern Africa," gives a somewhat similar account.

Mr. Bunbury states that, about the neighbourhood of Graham's Town, three large kinds of aloe are very abundant, which form striking and characteristic features of the scenery; they grow irregularly scattered over the parched and naked faces of the hills, but most abundantly among the low broken ledges and knolls of sandstone rock, and are often seen spiring up above the evergreen bushes in the ravines, and crowning the cliffs. One kind grows to the height of a man. They are plants of a strange, rigid, and ungraceful appearance, but with very handsome flowers, which form tall and dense spikes, of a fine coral-red color in two of the species (A. arborescens and lineata?), and of an orange scarlet in the third (A. glaucescens?). When in blossom they are conspicuous at a great distance, and might easily be mistaken, when seen from far off, for soldiers in red uniforms.

The importance of this indigenous plant to the Cape Colony, may be estimated from the following figures:—

AMOUNT OF ALOES, THE PRODUCE OF THE COLONY, AND VALUE THEREOF,
EXPORTED IN THE YEARS ENDING 5TH JANUARY 1841, 1842, AND 1846.

EXPORTS AND VALUE FROM THE EASTERN PROVINCE.

EXPORTS AND VALUE FROM THE WESTERN PROVINCE.

An inferior sort is obtained from F. persica, another species with very much divided leaves, growing chiefly in the southern provinces of Persia. It comes over usually in casks and cases. The British consumption of the drug is about 10,000 lbs. a year. A little is procured from Scinde. In 1825 the quantity imported was 106,770 lbs., in 1839 only 24 cwts.

The wholesale price in the Liverpool market, in January 1853, was £1 to £3 10s. the cwt.

CAMPHOR.—The Camphor tree (Camphora officinarum, Laurus Camphora) is a native of China, Japan, and Cochin China, of the laurel tribe, with black and purple veins. Camphor is procured from all parts of the tree, but it is obtained principally from the wood by distillation, and subsequent sublimation.

Many plants, such as the cinnamon tree, supply a kind of camphor, but the common camphor of the shops is the produce chiefly of C. officinarum.

Two kinds of unrefined camphor are known in commerce.—1. The Dutch, which is brought from Batavia, and is said to be the produce of Japan. This is imported in tubs covered by matting and each surrounded by a second tub, secured on the outside by hoops of twisted cane. Each tub contains about one cwt. Most of this goes to the continent. 2. Ordinary crude camphor is imported from Singapore and Bombay, in square chests lined with lead-foil, and containing 1¼ to 1½ cwts. It is chiefly produced in the island of Formosa, and is brought by the Chin Chew junks in very large quantities to Canton, whence foreign markets get supplied.—("Pereira's Materia Medica.")

In the southern part of Japan the tree grows in such abundance that, notwithstanding the great consumption of it in the country, large quantities are exported. Kœmpfer says, that the Japanese camphor is made by a simple decoction of the wood and roots, but bears no proportion in value to that of Borneo. There is also an imitation of camphor in Japan, but every body can distinguish it from the genuine.

An account of this tree, and of the mode of procuring the peculiar and high-priced camphor which it yields, is given by Dr. Junghuhn, who has travelled lately in Sumatra, and Prof. De Vriese, of Leyden, in the "Nederlandsch Kruidkundig Archief" for 1851. An abstract of the memoir, translated into English by Miss De Vriese, is published in "Hooker's Journal of Botany " for February and March 1852:—

Nine hundred and eighty-three tubs of camphor were exported from Java in 1843; 625 bales were imported in 1843, the produce of the Japanese empire; and 559 piculs exported from Canton in 1844.

The price of unrefined camphor in the Liverpool market in July, 1853, was £4 to £4 10s. the cwt. There have been no imports there direct in the last two years.

The price of camphor at Canton in July, 1850, was from fourteen to fifteen dollars per picul.

Cinchona.—Peruvian or Jesuit's Bark—One of the most valuable and powerful astringents and tonics used in medicine, is the produce of several species of cinchona, natives of the Andes, from 11 north latitude to 20 south latitude, at elevations varying from 1,200 to 10,000 feet above the level of the sea, and in a dry rocky soil. There are at least twelve trees which are supposed to furnish the barks of commerce, and great obscurity prevails as to the species whence the various kinds of cinchona bark are derived. The names of yellow, red, and pale bark have been very vaguely applied, and are by no means well defined. Dr. Lindley mentions twenty-six varieties; of which twenty-one are well known. The barks are met with either in thick, large, flat pieces, or in thinner pieces, which curl inwards during drying, and are called quilled.

Quinine is one of the most important of the vegetable alkaline bitters. It was first discovered by Vauquelin, in 1811, and its preparation on a large scale pointed out by Pelletier and Caventon in 1820. It is obtained by boiling the yellow bark (Cinchona) in water and sulphuric acid, and then treating it with lime and alcohol, when the quinine is precipitated in the form of a white powder. Upwards of 120,000 ounces are made annually in Paris.

Peruvian bark is cut in the eastern Provinces of Bolivia, skirting the river Paraguay, and now conveyed an immense distance by mules over a mountainous region to El Puerto, the only port of Bolivia on the Pacific. It is thence brought by Cape Horn to the cities of the United States and Europe. Now that Government has been successful in opening the South American rivers, this important article of commerce will be furnished in market by the Paraguay and La Plata rivers, at a much reduced price.

A species of bark from Colombia, known as Malambo or Matias bark, has been frequently administered by Dr. Alexander Ure as a substitute for cinchona with good effect. It offers the useful combination of a tonic and aromatic. It is supposed to be the produce of a species of Drimys. It is stated that in New Granada, and other districts of Central America, where the tree is indigenous, incisions are made in the bark, and there exudes an aromatic oil which sinks in water.

Cinchona bark contains two alkaloids, cinchonia and quina, to which its active properties are due; the former is best obtained from gray bark, the latter from yellow bark. In combination with these there exists an acid called kinic acid.

The imports of cinchona bark to this country are from 225,000 to 556,000 lbs. annually, and about 120,000 lbs. are retained for home consumption. It comes over in chests and serons, or ox-hides, varying from 90 to 200 lbs. We imported from France, in 1850, 489 cwt. of Peruvian bark, of the value of £6,840; and in 1851, 1,128 cwt., of the value of £15,787; also the following quantities of sulphate of quinine, on which there is a duty of 6d. and 3-10ths per ounce.

The following is the arrangement of these barks adopted by Pereira, who has gone very fully into the subject:—

The genus Exostemma yields various kinds of false cinchona bark, which do not contain the cinchona alkalies. The following are some of the kinds noticed by Pereira:—

• 1. St. Lucia or Piton bark. Exostemma floribundum.
• 2. Jamaica bark. E. caribaeum.
• 3. Pitaya bark. E. sp?
• 4. False Peruvian bark. E. peruvianum.
• 5. Brazilian bark. E. souzianum.

The mode adopted by the bark-peelers of obtaining cinchona varies somewhat in different districts. The Indians (says Mr. Stevenson, "Twenty Years' Residence in South America") discover from the eminences where a cluster of trees grow in the woods, for they are easily discernable by the rose-colored tinge of their leaves, which appear at a distance like bunches of flowers amid the deep-green foliage of other trees. They then hunt for the spot, and having found it out, cut down all the trees, and take the bark from the branches, and after they have stripped off the bark, they carry it in bundles out of the wood, for the purpose of drying it. The peelers commence their operation about May, when the dry season sets in. Some writers state that the trees are barked without felling.

In a letter published in one of the Calcutta papers not long ago, from the pen, I believe, of Mr. Piddington, he strongly urged the introduction of the cinchona tree into British India:—

The Calumba plant (Cocculus palmatus, Decandolle, or Minispermum palmatum) furnishes the medicinal Colombo root, which is one of the most useful stomachics and tonics in cases of dyspepsia. It is scarcely ever cultivated, the spontaneous produce of thick forests on the shores of Oibo and Mozambique and many miles inland on the eastern shores of Africa, Madagascar and Bombay, proving sufficient. The supplies principally go to Ceylon. The roots are perennial, and consist of several fasciculated, fusiform, branched, fleshy, curved and descending tubers, from one to two inches thick, with a brown warty epidermis; internally deep yellow, odorless, very bitter.

The main roots are dug up by the natives in March (the hot season). The offsets are cut in slices and hung up on cords to dry in the shade. It is deemed fit to ship when, on exposure to the sun, it breaks short, and of a bad quality when it is soft and black.—("Pereira's Materia Medica.")

It contains a bitter crystallizable principle called Calumbin.

The commercial parcels are often adulterated with the roots of Costus indicus, C. speciosus, and C. Arabicus (Kusmus, Putckuk, &c.). It is imported into this country in bags and chests of from one to three cwt., and ranges in price from £1 to £2 the cwt. The imports in 1846 to London were 82 packages, and in 1850, 214 packages, but the stock held in London is always large, being nearly 2,500 packages.

CUBEBS.—The dried unripe fruit of P. Cubebi, or Cubeba qfficinalia, a climbing plant of the pepper tribe, native of Prince of Wales' Island, Java, and the Indian islands furnishes the medicinal cubebs, which is used extensively in arresting discharges from mucous membranes. In appearance cubebs resemble black pepper, except that they are higher colored and are each furnished with a stalk two or three lines long. Dr. Blume says, that the cubebs of the shops are the fruit of P. caninum. This species of pepper, when fresh and good, contains nearly 10 per cent. of essential oil.

In 1842 the quantity entered for home consumption was 67,093 lbs. The average imports are about 40 to 50 tons annually. 3 cases were imported into Liverpool in 1851. The price in the Liverpool market, in January 1853, was £3 10s. to £4 10s. the cwt.

GAMBOGE.—This resinous juice, which is a most important article of commerce, is furnished by some of the plants of Gambogia, natives principally of South America. It is a powerful irritant, and is employed medicinally as a drastic and hydragogue cathartic. From its bright yellow color it is also used as a pigment.

Gamboge fetches in the London market from £5 to £11 per cwt.

Some of the species of Stalagmites (Murray), natives of Ceylon and the East, yield a similar yellow viscid juice, hardly distinguishable from gamboge, and used for the same purpose by painters. They are a genus of fine ornamental trees, thriving well in soils partaking of a mixture of loam and peat.

According to Kœnig, the juice is collected by breaking off the leaves or young branches. From the fracture the gamboge exudes in drops, and is therefore called gum gutta. It is received on leaves, coco-nut shells, earthen pots, or in bamboos; it gradually hardens by age, and is then wrapped up in leaves prior to sale.

The common gamboge of Ceylon is produced by a plant which Dr. Graham was led to view as a species of a new genus under the name of Hebradendron Gambogoides. A very different species, the Garcinia Gambogia, of Roxburgh, once supposed to produce gamboge, and indeed actually confounded by Linnæus with the true gamboge tree of Ceylon, he has proved not to produce gamboge at all.

The average imports of gamboge into the port of London, during the past five or six years, have been from 400 to 500 chests of one to two cwt. each.

Gentian.—The yellow gentian root (Gentiana lutea) is the officinal species, and a native of the Alps of Austria and Switzerland.

The stems and roots of G. amarella and campestris, British species, and G. cruciata, purpurea, punctata, &c., are similar in their effects, having tonic, stomachic, and febrifugal properties. So has G. kurroo of the Himalayas. The root is generally taken up in autumn, when the plant is a year old. It is cut longitudinally into pieces of a foot or a foot and a half long. They are imported into this country in bales from Havre, Marseilles, &c., and a good deal comes from Germany. In 1839, 470 cwts. were entered for home consumption.

Chiretta is the herb and root of Agathotes Chirayta, Don; Gentiana Chirayta, Fleming; or Ophelia chirayta, a herbaceous plant, growing in the Himalaya mountains about Nepaul and the Morungs.

Ipecacuan.— Cephælis Ipecacuanhæ, Richard, yields the ipecacuan of the shops. The plant is met with in the woods of several Brazilian provinces, as Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio Janeiro. It is found growing in moist shady situations, from 8 to 20 degs. south latitude. The roots, which are the officinal part, are contorted, knotty and annulated, and about the thickness of a goose quill.

Besides this brown or gray annulated ipecacuan, there are spurious kinds, such as the striated or black Peruvian, the produce of Pyschotria elliptica, and other species; and white or amylaceous ipecacuan, furnished by Richardsonia scabra, an herbaceous perennial, native of the provinces of Rio Janeiro and Minas Geraes. Manettia glabra or cordifolia, also furnishes ipecacuan in Buenos Ayres. It is imported into this country from Rio in bales, barrels, bags, and serons, and the average annual imports in the eight years ending in 1841 were 10,000 lbs. In 1840, the shipments from Rio were as much as 20,000 lbs.

Castelnau states, that one expert hand can gather 15 lbs. of the ipecacuan root in a day, which will fetch in Rio one dollar per pound. He estimates that, from 1830 to 1837, not less than 800,000 lbs. of this drug were exported from the province of Matto Grosso to Rio.

Two sorts of jalap root occur in commerce. The one which was first introduced into the market, and which is even at the present day most frequently met with, is obtained from the Ipomœa Schiedeana of Zuccarini, a plant growing on the eastern declivity of the Mexican Andes, and discovered by Von Schiedes. The root, as met with in commerce, consists of pieces varying from the size of a nut to that of the fist, sometimes whole, sometimes cut into disks, and at other times divided into two or three portions. The external surface is of a more or less dark gray brown color, corrugated and rough. It is very hard, presents a shining resinous even surface when broken, and is difficult to reduce to powder. The powder is of a brownish color, has a faint peculiar odor and irritant taste.

The second quality, which was introduced into commerce is great quantities a few years ago, by the name of stalk jalap, is now more scarce, and obtained from the Ipomœa orazabensis of Pelletan, a plant growing without cultivation in the neighbourhood of the Mexican town of Orizaba. The root, as met with in the trade, consists of pieces varying from one to three inches in length, and 1½ to two inches in diameter. They are of a higher color than the first-named root, and of decidedly fibrous structure. The chief constituents of both varieties is a peculiar resin, of which they contain about 10 per cent.

Scammony.—The root of Convolvulus Scammonia, another plant of the same family, affords, when cut, a gummy resinous exudation or milky juice, which soon concretes and forms scammony. The plant grows abundantly in Greece, the Grecian Islands, and various parts of the Levant. It is imported from Aleppo in drums, weighing from 75 to 125 lbs. each, and from Smyrna in compact cakes like wax packed in chests. In 1839, the quantity on which duty (2s. 6d. per lb.) was paid amounted to 8,581 lbs. The duty received for scammony, in 1842, was £607. A spurious kind is prepared from Calystegia (Convolvulus) sepium, a native of Australia, and several plants of the Asclepiadacæ order.

Liquorice.—The plant which yields the liquorice root of commerce is Glycirrhiza glabra or Liquiritia officinalis. It is a native of Italy and the southern parts of Europe, but has been occasionally cultivated with success in Britain, especially at Pontefract, in Yorkshire, and at Mitcham, in Surrey. The plant is a perennial, with pale blue flowers. It grows well in a deep, light, sandy loam, and is readily increased by slips from the roots with eyes. The root, which is the only valuable part, is long, slender, fibrous, of a yellow color, and when grown in England is fit for use at the end of three years. The sweet, subacid, mucilaginous juice is much esteemed as a pectoral. It owes its sweetness to a peculiar principle called glycrin or glycirrhiza, which appears also to be present in the root and leaves of other papilionaceous plants, as G. echinata and glandulifera, Trifoliwm alpinum, and the wild liquorice of the West Indies, Abrus precatorius, a pretty climber.

The greatest portion of our supplies of the extract, which amount to 7,000 or 8,000 cwts. a year, are obtained from Spain and Sicily. The juice, obtained by crushing the roots in a mill, and subjecting them to the press, is slowly boiled, till it becomes of a proper consistency, when it is formed into rolls of a considerable thickness, which are usually covered with bay leaves. It is afterwards usually re-dissolved, purified, and, when formed into small quills, is known as refined liquorice.

In 1839, 1,166 tons of liquorice paste were exported from Naples, valued at £45 per ton. Mr. Poole, in his Statistics of Commerce, states that the consumption of liquorice root and paste in this country averages 500 tons per annum. 110 cwt. of the juice and 100 cwt. of the root are annually brought into Hull from the continent.

Matico—the Peruvian styptic, a powerful vegetable astringent, was first made known to the medical profession of England by Dr. Jeffreys, of Liverpool, in the Lancet, as far back as January 5th, 1839. A paper on its history and power was published in May, 1843, in the "Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association," vol. 10. It is stated to be the Piper angustifolium of Ruiz and Parsons. Dr. Martin believes it to be a species of Phlomis. The leaves are covered with a fine hair.

Quassia.—The quassia wood of the pharmacopœia was originally the product of Quassia amara, a tall shrub, never above fifteen feet high, native of Guiana, but also inhabiting Surinam and Colombia. It is a very ornamental plant, and has remarkable pinnate leaves with winged petioles. This wood is well known as one of the most intense bitters, and is considered an effectual remedy in any disorder where pure bitters are required. Surinam quassia is not, however, to be met with now. That sold in the shops is the tough, fibrous, bitter bark of the root of Simaruba (Quassia) excelsa and officinalis, very large forest trees, growing in Cayenne, Jamaica, and other parts of the West India Islands, where they bear the local name of bitter-wood. Its infusion is used as a tonic. 23 tons of bitter-wood were shipped from Montego Bay, Jamaica, in 1851. Quassia acts as a narcotic poison on flies and other insects. Although prohibited by law, it is frequently employed by brewers as a substitute for hops. The duty of £8 17s. 6d. per cwt., levied on quassia, is intended to restrict its use for such a purpose.

Rhubarb.—This most important plant belongs to the genus Rheum. The officinal rhubarb is the root of an undetermined species. There are about thirteen different kinds which are said to yield rhubarb. Lindley enumerates fifteen. I however take Professor Balfour's classification:—

All these grow in the cold parts of the world, as on the Altai mountains, in Siberia, Thibet, North of China, and on the Himalayan range. The rhubarb procured from one or more of these species is known in commerce under the names of Russian or Turkey, Chinese or East Indian, and English rhubarb.

The plants all thrive well in a rich loamy soil, or light sandy soil, and are increased by divisions of the roots or by seed.

The extent of country from which rhubarb of one kind or another is actually collected, according to Christison, stretches from Ludall, in 77½ east longitude, to the Chinese province of Shen-si, 29 degrees further east, and from the Sue-chan mountains, in north latitude 26 degrees, nearly to the frontiers of Siberia, 24 degrees northward. The best rhubarb is said to come from the very heart of Thibet, within 95 degrees east longitude and 35 degrees north latitude, 500 or 600 miles north of Assam.

The Chinese rhubarb is inferior to that of Russia and Turkey. The price varies in China from 38 dollars per picul upwards, and about 1,500 piculs are annually exported, on an average at 50 dollars per picul. In 1844, 2,077 piculs were shipped from Canton for Great Britain; and of 95,701 lbs. imported in 1841, 43,640 lbs. were brought from China, 8,349 lbs. from the Philippines, 7,290 lbs. from the East Indies, and 33,710 lbs. from the United States; only 1,462 lbs. were brought from Russia. The imports from the East Indies have decreased more than 70 per cent. in the last twelve years, as compared with the preceding. The wholesale prices are, for round rhubarb, 8d. to 3s. per lb.; flat, 6d. to 3s. 3d. per lb.; Dutch trimmed, 6s. to 7s. per lb.; Russian, 13s. to 13s. 6d. per lb.

In 1831, we imported 133,462 lbs. from the East India Company's possessions, and 6,901 lbs. from Russia. In 1843, only 71,298 lbs. came from the East. From China we received, in 1843, 172,882 lbs.

The quantities of rhubarb on which duty of 1s. per lb. was paid in the six years ending 1840, were as follows;—

The imports and consumption of rhubarb are thus stated in the Pharmaceutical Journal:—