HERBA SCOPARII.

Botanical Origin—Cytisus Scoparius Link (Spartium Scoparium L., Sarothamnus vulgaris Wimmer), the Common Broom, a woody shrub, 3 to 6 feet high, grows gregariously in sandy thickets and uncultivated places throughout Great Britain, and Western and temperate Northern Europe. In continental Europe it is plentiful in the valley of the Rhine up to the Swiss frontier, in Southern Germany and in Silesia, but does not ascend the Alps, and is absent from many parts of Central and Eastern Europe, Polonia for instance. According to Ledebour, it is found in Central and Southern Russia and on the eastern side of the Ural Mountains. In Southern Europe its place is supplied by other species.

History—From the fact that this plant is chiefly a native of Western, Northern and Central Europe, it is improbable that the classical authors were acquainted with it; and for the same reason the remarks of the early Italian writers may not always apply to the species under notice. With this reservation, we may state that broom under the name Genista, Genesta, or Genestra is mentioned in the earliest printed herbals, as that of Passau,[695] 1485, the Hortus Sanitatis, 1491, the Great Herbal printed at Southwark in 1526, and others. It is likewise the Genista as figured and described by the German botanists and pharmacologists of the 16th century, like Brunfels, Fuchs, Tragus, Valerius Cordus (“Genista angulosa”) and others. Broom was used in ancient Anglo-Saxon medicine[696] as well as in the Welsh “Meddygon Myddvai.” It had a place in the London Pharmacopœia of 1618, and has been included in nearly every subsequent edition. Hieronymus Brunschwyg gives[697] directions for distilling a water from the flowers, “flores genestæ”—a medicine which Gerarde relates was used by King Henry VIII. “against surfets and diseases thereof arising.”

Broom was the emblem of those of the Norman sovereigns of England descended from Geoffrey the “Handsome,” or “Plantagenet” count of Anjou (obiit a.d. 1150), who was in the habit of wearing the common broom of his country, the “planta genista,” in his helmet.

Description—The Common Broom has numerous straight ascending wiry branches, sharply 5-angled and devoid of spines. The leaves, of which the largest are barely an inch long, consist of 3 obovate leaflets on a petiole of their own length. Towards the extremities of the twigs, the leaves are much scattered and generally reduced to a single ovate leaflet, nearly sessile. The leaves when young are clothed on both sides with long reddish hairs; these under the microscope are seen each to consist of a simple cylindrical thin-walled cell, the surface of which is beset with numerous extremely small protuberances.

The large, bright yellow, odorous flowers, which become brown in drying, are mostly solitary in the axils of the leaves; they have a persistent campanulate calyx divided into two lips minutely toothed, and a long subulate style, curved round on itself. The legume is oblong compressed, 1½ to 2 inches long by about ½ an inch wide, fringed with hairs along the edge. It contains 10 to 12 olive-coloured albuminous seeds, the funicle of which is expanded into a large fleshy strophiole. They have a bitterish taste, and are devoid of starch.

The portion of the plant used in pharmacy is the younger herbaceous branches, which are required both fresh and dried. In the former state they emit when bruised a peculiar odour which is lost in drying. They have a nauseous bitter taste.

Chemical Composition—Stenhouse[698] discovered in broom tops two interesting principles, Scoparin, C₂₁H₂₂O₁₀, an indifferent or somewhat acid body, and the alkaloid Sparteine, C₁₅H₂₆N₂, the first soluble in water or spirit and crystallizing in yellowish tufts, the second a colourless oily liquid heavier than water and sparingly soluble in it, boiling at 288° C.

To obtain scoparin, a watery decoction of the plant is concentrated so as to form a jelly after standing for a day or two. This is then washed with a small quantity of cold water, dissolved in hot water and again allowed to repose. By repeating this treatment with the addition of a little hydrochloric acid, the chlorophyll may at length be separated and the scoparin obtained as a gelatinous mass, which dries as an amorphous, brittle, pale yellow, neutral substance, devoid of taste and smell. Its solution in hot alcohol deposits it partly in crystals and partly as jelly, which after drying are alike in composition. Hlasiwetz showed (1866) that scoparin when melted with potash is resolved, like kino or quercetin, into Phloroglucin, C₆H₆O₃, and Protocatechuic Acid, 2 C₇H₆O₄.

The acid mother-liquors from which scoparin has been obtained when concentrated and distilled with soda, yield besides ammonia a very bitter oily liquid, Sparteine. To obtain it pure, it requires to be repeatedly rectified, dried by chloride of calcium, and distilled in a current of dry carbonic acid. It is colourless, but becomes brown by exposure to light; it has at first an odour of aniline, but this is altered by rectification. Sparteine has a decidedly alkaline reaction and readily neutralises acids, forming crystallizable salts which are extremely bitter. Conine, nicotine, and sparteine are the only volatile alkaloids devoid of oxygen hitherto known to exist in the vegetable kingdom.

Mills[699] extracted sparteine simply by acidulated water which he concentrated and then distilled with soda. The distillate was then saturated with hydrochloric acid, evaporated to dryness, and submitted to distillation with potash. The oily sparteine thus obtained was dried by prolonged heating with sodium in a current of hydrogen, and finally rectified per se. Mills succeeded in replacing one or two equivalents of the hydrogen of sparteine by one or two of C₂H₅ (ethyl). From 150 lb. the (dried?) plant, he obtained 22 cubic centimetres of sparteine, which we may estimate as equivalent to about ½ per mille.

Stenhouse ascertained that the amount of sparteine and scoparin depends much on external conditions, broom grown in the shade yielding less than that produced in open sunny places. He states that shepherds are well aware of the shrub possessing narcotic properties, from having observed their sheep to become stupified and excited when occasionally compelled to eat it.

The experiments of Reinsch (1846) tend to show that broom contains a bitter crystallizible principle in addition to the foregoing. The seeds of the allied Cytisus Laburnum L. afford two highly poisonous alkaloids, Cytisine and Laburnine, discovered by A. Husemann and Marmé in 1865.

Uses—A decoction of broom tops, made from the dried herb, is used as a diuretic and purgative. The juice of the fresh plant, preserved by the addition of alcohol, is also administered and is regarded as a very efficient preparation.

SEMEN FŒNI GRÆCI.

Botanical Origin—Trigonella Fœnum græcum L., an erect, sub-glabrous, annual plant, 1 to 2 feet high, with solitary, subsessile, whitish flowers; indigenous to the countries surrounding the Mediterranean, in which it has been long cultivated, and whence it appears to have spread to India.

History—In the old Egyptian preparation Kyphi, an ingredient “Sebes or Sebtu” is mentioned, which is thought by Ebers to mean fenugreek. This plant was well known to the Roman writers on husbandry, as Porcius Cato (b.c. 234-149) who calls it Fœnum Græcum and directs it to be sown as fodder for oxen. It is the τῇλις of Dioscorides and other Greek writers. Its mucilaginous seeds, “siliquæ” of the Roman peasants, were valued as an aliment and condiment for man, and as such are still largely consumed in the East. They were likewise supposed to possess many medicinal virtues, and had a place in the pharmacopœias of the last century.

The cultivation of fenugreek in Central Europe was encouraged by Charlemagne (a.d. 812), and the plant was grown in English gardens in the 16th century.

Description—The fenugreek plant has a sickle-shaped pod, 3 to 4 inches long, containing 10 to 20 hard, brownish-yellow seeds, having the smell and taste which is characteristic of peas and beans, with addition of a cumarin-or melilot-flavour.

The seeds are about ⅛ of an inch long, with a rhomboid outline, often shrivelled and distorted; they are somewhat compressed, with the hilum on the sharper edge, and a deep furrow running from it and almost dividing the seed into two unequal lobes. When the seed is macerated in warm water, its structure becomes easily visible. The testa bursts by the swelling of the internal membrane or endopleura, which like a thick gelatinous sac encloses the cotyledons and their very large hooked radicle.

Microscopic Structure—The most interesting structural peculiarity of this seed arises from the fact that the mucilage with which it abounds is not yielded by the cells of the epidermis, but by a loose tissue closely surrounding the embryo.[700]

Chemical Composition—The cells of the testa contain tannin; the cotyledons a yellow colouring matter, but no sugar. The air-dried seeds give off 10 per cent. of water at 100° C., and on subsequent incineration leave 7 per cent. of ash, of which nearly a fourth is phosphoric acid.

Ether extracts from the pulverized seeds 6 per cent. of a fœtid, fatty oil, having a bitter taste. Amylic alcohol removes in addition a small quantity of resin. Alcohol added to a concentrated aqueous extract, forms a precipitate of mucilage, amounting when dried to 28 per cent. Burnt with soda-lime, the seeds yielded to Jahns[701] 3·4 per cent. of nitrogen, equivalent to 22 per cent. of albumin. No researches have been yet made to determine the nature of the odorous principle.

Production and Commerce—Fenugreek is cultivated in Morocco, in the south of France near Montpellier, in a few places in Switzerland, in Alsace, and in some other provinces of the German and Austrian empires, as Thuringia and Moravia. It is produced on a far larger scale in Egypt, where it is known by the Arabic name Hulba, and whence it is exported to Europe and India. In 1873 it was stated that the profits of the European growers were much reduced by the seed being largely exported from Mogador and Bombay.

Under the Sanscrit name of Methi, which has passed, slightly modified, into several of the modern Indian languages, fenugreek is much grown in the plains of India during the cool season. In the year 1872-73, the quantity of seed exported from Sind to Bombay was 13,646 cwt., valued at £4,405.[702] From the port of Bombay there were shipped in the same year 9,655 cwt., of which only 100 cwt. are reported as for the United Kingdom.[703]

Uses—In Europe fenugreek as a medicine is obsolete, but the powdered seeds are still often sold by chemists for veterinary pharmacy and as an ingredient of curry powder. The chief consumption is, however, in the so-called Cattle Foods.

The fresh plant in India is commonly eaten as a green vegetable, while the seeds are extensively used by the natives in food and medicine.

TRAGACANTHA.

Botanical Origin.—Tragacanth is the gummy exudation from the stem of several pieces of Astragalus, belonging to the subgenus Tragacantha. The plants of this group are low perennial shrubs, remarkable for their leaves having a strong, persistent, spiny petiole. As the leaves and shoots are very numerous and regular, many of the species have the singular aspect of thorny hemispherical cushions, lying close on the ground; while others, which are those furnishing the gum, grow erect with a naked woody stem, and somewhat resemble furze bushes.

A few species occur in South-western Europe, others are found in Greece and Turkey; but the largest number are inhabitants of the mountainous regions of Asia Minor, Syria, Armenia, Kurdistan and Persia. The tragacanth of commerce is produced in the last named countries, and chiefly, though not exclusively, by the following species[704]:—

1. Astragalus adscendens Boiss. et Hausskr., a shrub attaining 4 feet in height, native, of the mountains of South-western Persia at an altitude of 9,000 to 10,000 feet. According to Haussknecht, it affords an abundance of gum.

2. A. leioclados Boiss.

3. A. brachycalyx Fisch., a shrub of 3 feet high, growing on the mountains of Persian Kurdistan, likewise affords tragacanth.

4. A. gummifer Labill., a small shrub of wide distribution occurring on the Lebanon and Mount Hermon in Syria, the Beryt Dagh in Cataonia, the Arjish Dagh (Mount Argæus) near Kaisariyeh in Central Asia Minor, and in Armenia and Northern Kurdistan.

5. A. microcephalus Willd., like the preceding a widely distributed species, extending from the south-west of Asia Minor to the north-east coast, and to Turkish and Russian Armenia. A specimen of this plant with incisions in the stem, was sent some years ago to the Pharmaceutical Society by Mr. Maltass of Smyrna. We received a large example of the same species, the stem of which is marked by old incisions, from the Rev. W. A. Farnsworth of Kaisariyeh, who states that tragacanth is collected from it on Mount Argæus.

6. A. pycnocladus Boiss. et Haussk., nearly related to A. microcephalus; it was discovered on the high mountains of Avroman and Shahu in Persia by Professor Haussknecht, who states that it exudes tragacanth in abundance.

7. A. stromatodes Bunge, growing at an elevation of 5,000 feet on the Akker Dagh range, near Marash in Northern Syria.

8. A. kurdicus Boiss., a shrub 3 to 4 feet high, native of the mountains of Cilicia and Cappadocia, extending thence to Kurdistan. Haussknecht has informed us that from this and the last named species, the so-called Aintab Tragacanth is chiefly obtained.

Probably the drug is also to some extent collected from

9. A. verus Olivier, in North-western Persia and Asia Minor.

Lastly as to Greece, tragacanth is also afforded by

10. A. Parnassi Boiss., var. cyllenea, a small shrub found in abundance on the northern mountains of the Morea, which is stated by Heldreich[705] to be the almost exclusive source of the tragacanth collected about Vostizza and Patras.

History—Tragacanth has been known from a very early period. Theophrastus in the 3rd century b.c. mentioned Crete, the Peloponnesus and Media as its native countries. Dioscorides, who as a native of South-eastern Asia Minor was probably familiar with the plant, describes it correctly as a low spiny bush. The drug is mentioned by the Greek physicians Oribasius, Aëtius, and Paulus Ægineta (4th to 7th cent.), and by many of the Arabian writers on medicine. The abbreviated form of its name “Dragantum” already occurs in the book “Artis veterinariæ, seu mulomedicinæ” of Vegetius Renatus, who lived about a.d. 400. During the middle ages the gum was imported into Europe through the trading cities of Italy, as shown in the statutes of Pisa,[706] a.d. 1305, where it is mentioned as liable to impost.

Pierre Belon, the celebrated French naturalist and traveller, saw and described, about 1550, the collecting of tragacanth in the northern part of Asia Minor; and Tournefort in 1700 observed on Mount Ida in Candia the singular manner in which the gum is exuded from the living plant.[707]

Secretion—It has been shown by H. von Mohl[708] and by Wigand[709] that tragacanth is produced by metamorphosis of the cell membrane, and that it is not simply the dried juice of the plant.

The stem of a gum-bearing Astragalus cut transversely, exhibits concentric annual layers which are extremely tough and fibrous, easily tearing lengthwise into thin filaments. These inclose a central column, radiating from which are numerous medullary rays, both of very singular structure, for instead of presenting a thin-walled parenchyme, they appear to the naked eye as a hard translucent gum-like mass, becoming gelatinous in water. Examined microscopically, this gummy substance is seen to consist not of dried mucilage, but of the very cells of the pith and medullary rays, in process of transformation into tragacanth. The transformed cells, if their transformation has not advanced too far, exhibit the angular form and close packing of parenchyme-cells, but their walls are much incrassated and evidently consist of numerous very thin strata.

That these cells are but ordinary parenchyme-cells in an altered state, is proved by the pith and medullary rays of the smaller branches which present no such unusual structure. Mohl was able to trace this change from the period in which the original cell membrane could be still easily distinguished from its incrusting layers, to that in which the transformation had proceeded so far that it was impossible to perceive any defined cells, the whole substance being metamorphosed into a more or less uniform mucilaginous mass.

The tension under which this peculiar tissue is held in the interior of the stem is very remarkable in Astragalus gummifer which one of us had the opportunity of observing on the Lebanon in 1860.[710] On cutting off a branch of the thickness of the finger, there immediately exudes from the centre a stream of soft, solid tragacanth, pushing itself out like a worm, to the length of ¾ of an inch, sometimes in the course of half an hour; while much smaller streams (or none at all) are emitted from the medullary rays of the thick bark.

Production—The principal localities in Asia Minor in which tragacanth is collected are the district of Angora, the capital of the ancient Galatia; Isbarta, Buldur and Yalavatz,[711] north of the gulf of Adalia; the range of the Ali Dagh between Tarsous and Kaisariyeh, and the mountainous country eastward as far as the valley of the Euphrates. The drug is also gathered in Armenia on the elevated range of the Bingol Dagh south of Erzerum; throughout Kurdistan from Mush for 500 miles in a south-eastern direction as far as the province of Luristan in Persia, a region including the high lands south of lake Van, and west of lake Urumiah. It is likewise produced in Persia farther east, over an area 300 miles long by 100 to 150 miles broad, between Gilpaigon and Kashan, southward to the Mahomed Senna range north-east of Shiraz, thus including the lofty Bakhtiyari mountains.

As to the way in which the gum is obtained, it appears from the statements of Maltass, that in July and August the peasants clear away the earth from around the stem of the shrub, and then make in the bark several incisions, from which during the following 3 or 4 days the gum exudes and dries in flakes. In some localities they also puncture the bark with the point of a knife. Whilst engaged in these operations, they pick from the shrubs whatever gum they find exuded naturally.

Hamilton,[712] who saw the shrub in 1836 on the hills about Buldur, says “the gum is obtained by making an incision in the stem near the root, and cutting through the pith, when the sap exudes in a day or two and hardens.”

Formerly the peasants were content to collect the naturally exuded gum, no pains being taken to make incisions, whereby alone white flaky gum is obtained. We have in fact heard an old druggist state, that he remembered the first appearance of this fine kind of tragacanth in the London market. According to Professor Haussknecht, whose observations relate chiefly to Kurdistan and Persia, the tragacanth collected in these regions is mostly a spontaneous exudation.

Tragacanth is brought to Smyrna, which is a principal market for it, from the interior, in bags containing about 2 quintals each, by native dealers who purchase it of the peasants. In this state it is a very crude article, consisting of all the gatherings mixed together. To fit it for the European markets, some of which have their special requirements, it has to be sorted into different qualities, as Flaky or Leaf Gum, Vermicelli and Common or Sorts; this sorting is performed almost exclusively by Spanish Jews.

Description—The peculiar conditions under which tragacanth exudes, arising from the pressure of the surrounding tissues and the power of solidifying a large amount of water, will account to some extent for the strange forms in which this exudation occurs.

The spontaneously exuded gum is mostly in mammiform or botryoidal masses from the size of a pea upwards, of a dull waxy lustre, and brownish or yellowish hue. It also occurs in vermiform pieces more or less contorted and very variable in thickness; some of them may have exuded as the result of artificial punctures. It is this form that bears the trade name of Vermicelli. The most valued sort is however the Flake Tragacanth, which consists of thin flattish pieces or flakes, 1, 2, 3 or more inches in length, by ¼ to 1 in width.[713] They are marked on the surface by wavy lines and bands, or by a series of concentric wave-marks, as if the soft gum had been forced out by successive efforts. The pieces are contorted and altogether very variable in form and size. The gum is valued in proportion to its purity and whiteness. The best, whether vermiform or flaky, is dull white, translucent, devoid of lustre, somewhat flexible and horny, firm, and not easily broken, inodorous and with scarcely any or only a slight bitterish taste.

The tragacanth of Kurdistan and Persia shipped from Bagdad, which sometimes appears in the London drug sales under the incorrect name of Syrian Tragacanth, is in very fine and large pieces which are rather more translucent and ribbon-like than the selected tragacanth imported from Smyrna: in fact, the two varieties when seen in bulk are easily distinguishable.

The inferior kinds of tragacanth have more or less of colour, and are contaminated with bark, earth and other foreign substances. They used formerly to be much imported into Europe, and were frequently mentioned during the past centuries as black tragacanth.

Microscopic Structure—The transformation of the cells into tragacanth is usually not so complete, that every trace of the original tissue or its contents has disappeared. In the ordinary drug, the remains of cell-walls as well as starch granules may be seen, especially if thin slices are examined under oil or any other liquid not acting on the gum. Polarized light will then distinctly show the starch and the cell-walls. If a thin section is imbued with a solution of iodine in iodide of potassium and then moistened with concentrated sulphuric acid, the cell-walls will assume a blue colour as well as the starch.

Chemical Composition—When tragacanth is immersed in water it swells, and in the course of some hours disintegrates so that it can be diffused through the liquid. So great is its power of absorbing water that even with 50 times its weight, it forms a thick mucilage. If one part of tragacanth is shaken with 100 parts of water and the liquid filtered, a neutral solution may be obtained which yields an abundant precipitate with acetate of lead, and mixes clearly with a concentrated solution of ferric chloride or of borax,—in these respects differing from a solution of gum arabic. On the other hand, it agrees with the latter in that it is thrown down as a transparent jelly by alcohol, and rendered turbid by oxalate of ammonium. The residue on the filter is a slightly turbid, slimy, non-adhesive mucilage, which when dried forms a very coherent mass. It has received the name of Bassorin, Traganthin or Adraganthin, and agrees with the formula C₁₂H₂₀O₁₀.

Tragacanth is readily soluble in alkaline liquids, even in ammonia water and at the same time assumes a yellow colour; heated with ammonia in a sealed tube at 90° C. it blackens.

The drug loses by drying about 14 per cent. of water, which it absorbs again on exposure to the air. Pure flake tragacanth incinerated leaves 3 per cent. of ash.

Commerce—Tragacanth is shipped from Constantinople, Smyrna and the Persian Gulf. The annual export of the gum from Smyrna has been recently stated[714] to be 4,500 quintals, value 675,000 Austrian florins (£67,500); and the demand to be always increasing.

Uses—Though tragacanth is devoid of active properties, it is a very useful addition to many medicines. Diffused in water it acts as a demulcent, and is also convenient for the suspension of a heavy powder in a mixture. It is an important ingredient for imparting firmness to lozenges and pill-masses.

Adulteration—The fine quantities consisting of large distinct pieces are not liable to adulteration, but the small and the inferior kinds are often sophisticated. At Smyrna, tragacanth is mixed with gums termed respectively Mosul and Caramania Gum. The former appears to be simply very inferior tragacanth; the latter which is sometimes called in the London market Hog Gum Tragacanth or Bassora Gum,[715] is said to be the exudation of almond and plum trees. It occurs in nodular masses of a waxy lustre and dull brown hue, which immersed in water gradually swells into a voluminous white mass. To render this gum available for adulteration, the lumps are broken into small angular fragments, the size of which is adjusted to the sort of tragacanth with which they are to be mixed. As the Caramania Gum is somewhat dark, it is usual to whiten it by white lead, previous to mixing it with Small Leaf or Flake, or with the Vermicelli gum.

By careful examination the fraud is easily detected, angular fragments not being proper to any true tragacanth. The presence of lead may be readily proved by shaking suspected fragments for a moment with dilute nitric acid, which will dissolve any carbonate present, and afford a solution which may be tested by the ordinary reagents.

RADIX GLYCYRRHIZÆ.

Botanical Origin—Glycyrrhiza glabra L., a plant which under several well marked varieties[716] is found over an immense extent of the warmer regions of Europe, spreading thence eastward into Central Asia. The root used in medicine is derived from two principal Varieties, namely:—

α. typica—Nearly glabrous, leaves glutinous beneath, divisions of the calyx linear-lanceolate often a little longer than the tube, corolla purplish blue, legume glabrous, 3-6 seeded. It is indigenous to Portugal, Spain, Southern Italy, Sicily, Greece, Crimea, the Caucasian Provinces and Northern Persia; and is cultivated in England, France and Germany.

γ. glandulifera (G. glandulifera W.K.)—Stems more or less pubescent or roughly glandular, leaves often glandular beneath, legume sparsely or densely echinate-glandular, many-seeded, or short and 2-3 seeded. It occurs in Hungary, Galicia, Central and Southern Russia, Crimea, Asia Minor, Armenia, Siberia, Persia, Turkestan and Afghanistan.

G. glabra L. has long, stout, perennial roots, and erect, herbaceous annual stems. In var. α., the plant throws out long stolons which run horizontally at some distance below the surface of the ground.

History—Theophrastus[717] in commenting on the taste of different roots (3rd cent. b.c.) instances the sweet Scythian root which grows in the neighbourhood of the lake Mæotis (Sea of Azov), and is good for asthma, dry cough and all pectoral diseases,—an allusion unquestionably to liquorice. Dioscorides,[718] who calls the plant γλυκιῤρίζη, notices its glutinous leaves and purplish flowers, but as he describes the pods to be in balls resembling those of the plane, and the roots to be sub-austere (ὑπόστρυϕνοι) as well as sweet, it is possible he had in view Glycyrrhiza echinata L. as well as G. glabra.

Roman writers, as Celsus and Scribonius Largus, mention liquorice as Radix dulcis. Pliny, who describes it as a native of Cilicia and Pontus, makes no allusion to it growing in Italy.

The cultivation of liquorice in Europe does not date from a very remote period, as we conclude from the absence of the name in early mediæval lists of plants. It is, for instance, not enumerated among the plants which Charlemagne ordered (a.d. 812) to be introduced from Italy into Central Europe;[719] nor among the herbs of the convent gardens as described by Walafridus Strabus,[720] abbot of Reichenau, lake of Constance, in the 9th century; nor yet in the copious list of herbs contained in the vocabulary of Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury in the 10th century.[721]

On the other hand, liquorice is described as being cultivated in Italy by Piero de’ Crescenzi[722] of Bologna, who lived in the 13th century. The cultivation of the plant in the north of England existed at the close of the 16th century, but how much earlier we have not been able to trace.

As a medicine the drug was well known in Germany in the 11th century, and an extensive cultivation of the plant was carried on near Bamberg, Bavaria, in the 16th century, so that in many of the numerous pharmaceutical tariffs of those times in Germany not only Glycyrrhizæ succus creticus, seu candiacus, seu venetus is quoted, but also expressly that of Bamberg.[723]

The word Liquiritia, whence is derived the English name Liquorice (Lycorys in the 13th century), is a corruption of Glycyrrhiza, as shown in the transitional mediæval form Gliquiricia. The Italian Regolizia, the German Lacrisse or Lakriz, the Welsh Lacris[724] and the French Réglisse (anciently Requelice or Recolice) have the same origin.

Cultivation, and habit of growth—The liquorice plant is cultivated in England at Mitcham and in Yorkshire, but not on a very extensive scale. The plants, which require a good deep soil, well enriched by manure, are set in rows, attain a height of 4 to 5 feet and produce flowers but not seeds. The root is dug up at the beginning of winter, when the plant is at least 3 or 4 years old. The latter has then a crown dividing into several aerial stems. Below the crown is a principal root about 6 inches in length, which divides into several (3 to 5) rather straight roots, running without much branching, though beset with slender wiry rootlets, to a depth of 3, 4 or more feet.[725] Besides these downward-running roots, the principal roots emit horizontal runners or stolons, which grow at some distance below the surface and attain a length of many feet. These runners are furnished with leaf buds and throw up stems in their second year.

Every portion of the subterraneous part of the plant is carefully saved; the roots proper are washed, trimmed, and assorted, and either sold fresh in their entire state, or cut into short lengths and dried, the cortical layer being sometimes first scraped off. The older runners distinguished at Mitcham as “hard,” are sorted out and sold separately; the young, called “soft,” are reserved for propagation.

In Calabria, the singular practice prevails of growing the liquorice among the wheat in the cornfields.

Description—Fresh liquorice (English) when washed is externally of a bright yellowish-brown. It is very flexible, easily cut with a knife, exhibiting a light yellow, juicy, internal substance which consists of a thick bark surrounding a woody column. Both bark and wood are extremely tough, readily tearing into long, fibrous strips. The root has a peculiar earthy odour, and a strong and characteristic sweet taste.

Dried liquorice root is supplied in commerce either with or without the thin brown coat In the latter state it is known as peeled or decorticated. The English root, of which the supply is very limited, is usually offered cut into pieces 3 or 4 inches long, and of the thickness of the little finger.

Spanish Liquorice Root, also known as Tortosa or Alicante Liquorice, is imported in bundles several feet in length, consisting of straight unpeeled roots and runners, varying in thickness from ¼ to 1 inch. The root is tolerably smooth or somewhat transversely cracked and longitudinally wrinkled; that from Tortosa is usually of a good external appearance, that from Alicante sometimes untrimmed, dirty, of very unequal size, showing frequently the knobby crowns of the root. Alicante liquorice root is sometimes shipped in bags or loose.

Russian Liquorice Root, which is much used in England, is we presume derived from G. glabra var. glandulifera. It is imported from Hamburg in large bales, and is met with both peeled and unpeeled. The pieces are 12 to 18 inches long, with a diameter of ¼ of an inch to 1 or even 2 inches. Sometimes very old roots, split down the centre and forming channelled pieces as much as 3½ inches wide at the crown end, are to be met with. This liquorice in addition to being sweet has a certain amount of bitterness.

Microscopic Structure—The root exhibits well-marked structural peculiarities. The corky layer is made up of the usual tabular cells; the primary cortical tissue of a few rows of cells. The chief portion of the bark consists of liber or endophlœum, and is built up for the most part of parenchymatous tissue accompanied by elongated fibres of two kinds, partly united into true liber-bundles and partly forming a kind of network, the smaller threads of which deviate considerably from the straight line. Solution of iodine imparts an orange hue to both kinds of bast-bundles, and well displays the structural features of the bark.

The woody column of the root exhibits three distinct forms of cell, namely ligneous cells (libriform) with oblique ends; parenchymatous, almost cubic cells; and large pitted vessels. In the Russian root, the size of all the cells is much more considerable than in the Spanish.

Chemical Composition—The root of liquorice contains, in addition to sugar and albuminous matter, a peculiar sweet substance named Glycyrrhizin, which is precipitated from a strong decoction upon addition of an acid or solution of cream of tartar, or neutral or basic acetate of lead. When washed with dilute alcohol and dried, it is an amorphous yellow powder, having a strong bitter-sweet taste and an acid reaction. It forms with hot water a solution which gelatinizes on cooling, does not reduce alkaline tartrate of copper, is not fermentable, and does not rotate the plane of polarization. From the analysis and experiments of Rösch, performed in the laboratory of Gorup-Besanez at Erlangen, in 1876, the formula C₁₆H₂₄O₆ was derived for glycyrrhizin. By boiling it with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acid it is resolved into a resinous amorphous bitter substance named Glycyrretin, and an uncrystallizable sugar having the characters of glucose. The formula of glycyrretin has not yet been settled. Weselsky and Benedikt, in 1876, showed that 65 per cent. of it may be obtained from glycyrrhizin. By melting glycyrretin with about 5 parts of caustic potash paraoxy-benzoïc acid is produced.

Alkalis easily dissolve glycyrrhizin with a brown colour and emission of a peculiar odour. In the root it perhaps exists combined with ammonia, inasmuch as the aqueous extract evolves that alkali when warmed with potash (Roussin, 1875). According to Sestini (1878) glycyrrhizin is present in the root combined with calcium; he obtained 6·3 per cent. of glycyrrhizin from the root previously dried at 110°. By exhausting glycyrrhizin with glacial acetic acid Habermann in 1876 succeeded in isolating almost colourless crystals having the sweet taste of the root. They yield, by boiling them with dilute acids, a yellow substance which would appear to agree with glycyrretin. The deep yellow walls of the vessels and prosenchymatous cells appear to be the chief seat of the glycyrrhizin.

The sugar of liquorice root has not yet been isolated; the aqueous infusion of the dried root separates protoxide of copper from an alkaline solution of cupric tartrate. Yet the sugar as extracted from the fresh root by cold water does not precipitate alkaline cupric tartrate at all in the cold, and not abundantly even on prolonged boiling.

Asparagin was obtained from the root by Robiquet (1809) and by Plisson (1827). Sestini (1878) isolated 2-4 parts of asparagin from 100 parts of the root dried at 110° C. Robiquet also found the root to contain malic acid. The presence of starch in abundance is shown by the microscope as well as by testing a decoction of the root with iodine. The outer bark of the root contains a small quantity of tannin.

Commerce—Liquorice root is imported into Great Britain from Germany, Russia and Spain, but there are no data for showing to what extent. France imported in 1872 no less than 4,348,789 kilogrammes (4282 tons), which was more than double the quantity imported the previous year.[726]

Liquorice root is much used in China, and is largely produced in some of the northern provinces. In 1870, 1,304 peculs were shipped from Ningpo,[727] and 7,147 pepuls in 1877 from Cheefu (one pecul = 133·33 lb. avdp.).

Uses—Liquorice root is employed for making extract of liquorice and in some other pharmaceutical preparations. The powdered root is used to impart stiffness to pill-masses and to prevent the adhesion of pills. Liquorice has a remarkable power of covering the flavour of nauseous medicines. As a domestic medicine, liquorice root is far more largely used on the Continent than in Great Britain.

SUCCUS GLYCYRRHIZÆ.

Botanical Origin—Glycyrrhiza glabra L., see preceding article, p. 179.

History—Inspissated liquorice juice was known in the time of Dioscorides, and may be traced in the writings of Oribasius and Marcellus Empiricus in the latter half of the 4th century, and in those of Paulus Ægineta in the 7th. It appears to have been in common use in Europe during the middle ages. In a.d. 1264, “Liquorice” is charged in the Wardrobe Accounts of Henry III.;[728] and as the article cost 3d. per lb., or the same price as grains of paradise and one-third that of cinnamon, we are warranted in supposing the extract and not the mere root is intended. Again, in the Patent of Pontage granted by Edward I., a.d. 1305, to aid in repairing the London Bridge, permission is given to lay toll on various foreign commodities including Liquorice.[729] A political song written in 1436[730] makes mention of Liquorice as a production of Spain, but the plant is not named as an object of cultivation by Herrera, the author of a work on Spanish agriculture in 1513.

Saladinus,[731] who wrote about the middle of the 15th century, names it among the wares kept by the Italian apothecaries; and it is enumerated in a list of drugs of the city of Frankfort written about the year 1450.[732]

Dorsten,[733] in the first half of the 16th century, mentions the liquorice plant as abundant in many parts of Italy, and describes the method of making the Succus by crushing and boiling the fresh root. Mattioli[734] states that the juice made into pastilli was brought every year from Apulia, and especially from the neighbourhood of Monte Gargano. Extract of liquorice was made at Bamberg in Germany, where the plant is still largely cultivated, as early as 1560.[735]

Manufacture—This is conducted on a large scale in Spain, Southern France, Sicily, Calabria, Austria, Southern Russia (Astracan and Kasan), Greece (Patras) and Asia Minor (Sokia and Nazli, near Smyrna); but the extract with which England is supplied is almost exclusively the produce of Calabria, Sicily and Spain.

The process of manufacture varies only by reason of the amount of intelligence with which it is performed, and the greater or less perfection of the apparatus employed. As witnessed by one of us (H.) at Rossano in Calabria in May, 1872, it may be thus described from notes made at the time. The factory employs about 60 persons, male and female. The root having been taken from the ground the previous winter, is stacked in the yard around the factory; it is mostly of the thickness of the fingers, with here and there a piece of larger size up to a diameter of nearly 2 inches; some of it sprouting.

As required, the root is taken within the building and crushed under a heavy millstone to a pulp, water-power being employed. It is then transferred to boilers and boiled with water over a naked fire. The decoction is run off and the residual root pressed in circular bags like those used in the olive-mills. The liquor which is received into cisterns below the floor is then pumped up into copper pans, in which the evaporation is conducted also over the naked fire—even to the very last, care being taken by constant stirring to avoid burning the extract. The extract or pasta is removed from the pan while warm, and taken in small quantities to an adjoining apartment where a number of women are employed in rolling it into sticks. It is first weighed into portions, each of which the woman seated at the end of a long table tears with her hand into about a dozen pieces. These are passed to the women sitting next who roll them with their hands into cylindrical sticks, the table on which the rolling is done being of wood, and the pasta moistened with oil to prevent its adhesion to the hands. Near the further end of the table are some frames made of marble or metal, clean and bright, so arranged as to bring the sticks when rolled in them to the proper length and thickness. When thus adjusted, they are carefully ranged on a board, and a woman then stamps them with the name of the manufacturer. Lastly the sticks laid on boards are stacked up in a room to dry.

In some establishments the vacuum-pan has been introduced for the inspissation of the decoction. At the great manufactory of Mr. A. O. Clarke at Sokia near Smyrna, all the processes are performed by steam power.

Description—Liquorice juice of good quality is met with in cylindrical sticks stamped at one end with the maker’s name or mark. They are of various sizes, but generally not larger than 6 to 7 inches long by about an inch in diameter. They are black, when new or warm slightly flexible, but breaking when struck, and then displaying a sharp-edged fracture, and shining conchoidal surface on which a few air bubbles are perceptible; thin splinters are translucent. The extract has a special odour and dissolves in the mouth with a peculiar strong sweet taste. By complete drying, it loses from 11 to 17 per cent. of water.

Several varieties of Stick Liquorice are met with in English commerce, and command widely different prices. The most famous is the Solazzi Juice, manufactured at Corigliano, a small town of Calabria in the gulf of Taranto, at an establishment belonging to the sons of Don Onorato Gaetani, duke of Laurenzano and prince of Piedimonte d’Alife, who inherited the manufacture from his father-in-law, the Cavaliere Domenico Solazzi Castriota. The Solazzi Juice destined for the English market is usually shipped at Naples; it has for many years been wholly consigned to two firms in London, and in quantity not always equal to the demand. Of the other varieties we may mention Barracco, manufactured at the establishment of Messieurs Barracco at Cotrone on the eastern coast of Calabria; Corigliano, produced at a factory at Corigliano, belonging to Baron Compagna. The sticks stamped Pignatelli are from the works of Vincenzo Pignatelli, prince of Strongoli, at Torre Cerchiora, where 300 to 400 workmen are employed.

The juice is also imported in a block form, having while warm and soft been allowed to run into the wooden case in which it is exported. This juice, which is known as Liquorice Paste, is largely imported from Spain and Asia Minor, but on account of a certain bitterness is unsuited for use as a sweetmeat.

Chemical Composition—Hard extract of liquorice, such as that just described, is essentially different in composition and properties from the Extract of Liquorice (Extractum Glycyrrhizæ) of the British Pharmacopœia.[736] The latter is a soft, hygroscopic substance, entirely soluble in cold water, whereas the so-called Spanish Juice when treated with cold water leaves a large residue undissolved.

It has been sometimes supposed that the presence of this residue indicates adulteration, but such is far from being the fact, as was conclusively shown by the researches of a French Commission appointed to investigate the process recommended by Delondre.[737] This commission subjected liquorice root to the successive action of cold water, boiling water, and lastly of steam. By the first menstruum 15 per cent., and by the second an additional 7½ per cent., were obtained of a hygroscopic extract much more soluble than commercial liquorice, and totally unsuitable for being moulded into sticks. The residue having been then exhausted by steam, 16 per cent. was obtained of an extract differing entirely from those of the previous operations. It was a dry friable substance, cracking and falling to pieces in the drying stove, having a sweet taste without acridity, not readily dissolving in the mouth, and very imperfectly soluble in cold water. This then was the substance required to give firmness to the more soluble matter, and to render possible the preparation of an extract possessing that degree of solubility and hardness which would render it an agreeable sweetmeat, as well as a permanent and stable commodity. In fact, by treating the root at once with steam according to Delondre’s process, the experimenters obtained 42 to 45 per cent. of extract having all the qualities desired in good Italian or Spanish Juice.

When the latter substance is suspended in water undisturbed, the soluble matter may be dissolved out, the stick still retaining its original form. Glycyrrhizin, which is but slightly soluble in cold water, remains to some extent in the residue, and by an alkaline solution may be afterwards extracted together with colouring matter and probably also pectin. The proportion of soluble matter which the best varieties of liquorice juice yield to cold water varies from about 60 to 70 per cent. A sample of Solazzi Juice recently examined by one of us, lost 8·4 per cent. when dried at 100° C.; it was then exhausted by 60 times its weight of cold water used in successive quantities, by which means 66·8 per cent. of soluble matter were removed. The residue consisted of minute starch granules, fragments of the root, and colouring matter partially soluble in ammonia. Small shreds of copper were also visible to the naked eye. The dried juice yielded 6·3 per cent. of ash.

Corigliano liquorice treated in the same manner gave 71·2 per cent. of extract soluble in cold water; Barracco liquorice 64·9.

The small liquorice lozenges known as Pontefract Cakes (Dunhill’s), not previously dried, gave 71 per cent. of matter soluble in cold water.

Commerce—The value of the imports of Liquorice into the United Kingdom has been for the last five years as follows:—

The last named sum represents a quantity of 28,000 cwt., of which 11,170 cwt. were furnished by Italy, and the remainder by Turkey, France, Spain and other countries.

The total exports of Liquorice Paste from Smyrna were estimated in 1872 as 1,200 to 1,400 tons (24,000 to 28,000 cwt.) per annum.

Uses—Stick liquorice is sucked as a remedy for coughs, and by children as a sweetmeat. It is also used in lozenges, and in some pharmacopœias is admitted as the raw material from which to prepare soft extract of liquorice.

The block liquorice, of which a large quantity is imported, is chiefly used in the manufacture of tobacco for smoking and chewing.

OLEUM ARACHIS.