key, but it is yet unknown here of what place this plant is a native. It seems to have been cultivated in Britain in the time of Turner, and the figure given in Woodville was drawn from a specimen of the plant produced by sowing the seed in a hot-bed. Though the plants thus raised put forth flowers readily, they are very rarely known to bear fruit. The spongy membraneous medullary part of the fruit is directed for medicinal use: this, "which to the taste is nauseous, acrid, and intensely bitter, on being boiled in water, renders a large quantity of the liquor ropy and slimy; even a tincture of it made in proof spirit is so glutinous as not to pass through a filter, and not easily through a common strainer. The watery decoctions inspissated, yield a large proportion, half of the weight of the colocynth, or more, of a mucilaginous extract; which purges strongly, but with much less irritation, and greater safety, than the colocynth itself, and appears to be the best preparation obtainable from this drastic drug."

This very powerful and irritating cathartic is the Koλoxurdis of the ancient Greeks, and the Alhandal of the Arabians. It was frequently employed by both in different diseases, though not without an apprehension of danger, from the violence of its effects, of which various instances are related. In doses of ten or twelve grains this substance purges with great vehemence, frequently producing violent gripes, bloody discharges, and even disordering the whole system. Many attempts, therefore, have been made to correct its virulence, by the addition of acids, astringents, and the like; but these seem to answer no other purpose than what might be equally effected by a reduction of the dose. "The best method of abating its virulence, without diminishing its purgative virtue, seems to be by triturating it with gummy farinaceous substances, or the oily seeds, which, without making any alteration in the colocynth itself, prevents its resinous particles from cohering, and sticking upon the membranes of the intestines, so as to irritate, inflame, or corrode them.

This drastic purgative has been recommended in various chronic complaints; but as several other cathartics have all the advantages of coloquintida, and may be used with more safety, its use is now seldom resorted to, especially alone.

[Lewis. Woodville. Schuls.

SECTION XXIV.

Columbo.

Calumba.-PHARM. LOND.

THE name of columbo-root seems to have had its origin in the supposition that it was brought to us from Ceylon; a supposition strengthened by its possessing the name of the principal town in that island. It being a staple export of the Portuguese, the place of growth was carefully concealed, and the plant itself unknown to botanists till very lately, when it was raised at Madras from a root brought to Dr. James Anderson of that place, from Mozambique. From a drawing in the possession of the Linnæan Society, the plant appears to belong to the natural order monospermum; but the genus cannot yet be determined, in consequence of the female flower not having hitherto been seen. It is brought from Columbo in knobs or circular pieces, brown, and wrinkled on the outer surface, yellowish within, and consisting of cortical, woody, and medullary lamina. Its smell is aromatic; its taste is pungent, and nauseously bitter.

Practitioners in the East Indies first borrowed the use of this root from the natives of those countries where it is produced, and found it of great service in most disorders of the stomach and bowels, and especially in the cholera, so fatal in hot climates. It stopped the vomiting in this complaint, more speedily and effectually than any other medicine; an effect attributed to its property of correcting the putrid disposition of the bile. With this intention its use has been recommended by Dr. Percival; and it has been successfully used in this country, not only in bilious complaints, but in various cases of dyspepsia.

We have given the botanical name with the spelling of the London College, who have changed Columba into Calumba. We see, however, no reason for this: Columbo is the usual pronunciation and orthography of the Ceylonese capital; and to depart from this mode is to make an unnecessary deviation from the established chemical terms, derived from the same quarter, Columbium, and Columbite.

[Trans. Lin. Soc. Powell. Editor.

SECTION XXV.

Cardamom Tree.

Elitharia Cardamomum.-MATON.

THIS has hitherto been regarded as a species of Amomum, distinguished by the trivial name of repens; to which genus the ginger

* and grains of Paradise plants were also referred. From an accurate description, however, of the plant producing this valuable aromatic, communicated to the Linnæan Society by Mr. White, surgeon of Madras, who has nevertheless persevered in the common error of regarding it as an amomum, Dr. Maton has arranged it as a new genus, to which he has given the name of Eletharia, from the appellation of Elethari, originally bestowed upon this tribe by Van Rhaede in his Hortus Malebaricus.

The root is perennial: the stalks are simple, sheathy, erect, grow to a considerable height, and beset with leaves, which are lanceshaped, large, entire, acutely ribbed, and stand alternately upon the sheaths of the stalk: the flower stalk proceeds immediately from the root, and creeps along the ground; it is commonly about a foot and a half in length, articulated, in a zig-zag form, and producing numerous flowers, which are placed upon divided stipulated peduncles, arising from the articulations: the calyx is small, and obscurely divided into three teeth at the margin: the corolla is monopetalous, composed of a narrow tube, divided at the mouth into four segments; of these the three outermost are long, narrow, uniform, and of a straw colour, but the central one, which has been considered as a nectary, is large, broad, concave, of an irregular oval shape, and marked with violet-coloured stripes: the filament is membraneous, strap-shaped, shorter than the segments of the corolla, to the top of which the antheræ is joined: the germen is roundish, and placed below the insertion of the tube of the corolla: the style is filiform, of the length of the filament, and supplied with an obtuse stigma: the capsule is triangular, divided into three cells and valves, containing several small dark-coloured seeds.

This plant is a native of the East Indies, and according to Sonne

* See chap. iv. sect. xviii.

rat, grows abundantly on the Malabar coast: it differs considerably from the Amomum Cardamomum of Linnæus, as appears by the specific character he has given it, and the figures to which it is referred to in his Species Plantarum. Sonnerat, who first discovered the Amomum repens, and on whose authority it is considered to afford the seeds officinally known by the name of Cardamomum minus, informs us, that this plant abounds so plentifully on a certain mountain on the coast of Malabar, that it is called the Mountain of Cardamoms, from which all India is supplied with the seeds.

The Cardamoms imported into Europe have been distinguished by the names Cardamomum majus, medium, and minus; the distinction depending upon the respective sizes of their seeds; but the different species from which the two former are said to have been produced, are so imperfectly described, and their botanical histories so confused, that we are unable to give any satisfactory information concerning them; and whether the Amomum verum of the ancient Greek writers is referable to our cardamom, seems also equally uncertain.

The seeds of the cardamomum minus, which are now generally preferred for medicinal purposes, are brought to us in their capsules, or husks, by which they are preserved; for they soon lose a part of their flavour when freed from this covering. "Their virtue is extracted not only by rectified spirit, but almost completely by water also; with this difference, that the watery infusion is cloudy or turbid, the spirituous clear and transparent. Scarcely any of the aromatic seeds give out so much of their warmth to watery menstrua, or abound so much with gummy matter, which appears to be the principle by which the aromatic part is made dissoluble in water: the infusion is so mucilaginous, even in a dilute state, as hardly to pass through a filter."

"In distillation with water a considerable quantity of essential oil separates from the watery fluid, of a pale yellowish colour, in smell exactly resembling the Cardamoms, and of a very pungent taste: the remaining decoction is disagreeably bitterish, and mucilaginous. On inspissating the tincture made of rectified spirit, a part of the flavour of the Cardamoms arises with the spirit; but the greatest part remains behind, concentrated in the extract, which smells moderately of the seeds, and has a pungent aromatic taste,

very durable in the mouth, and rather more grateful than that of the seeds in substance."

Cardamom seeds, on being chewed, impart a glowing aromatic warmth, and grateful pungency: they are supposed gently to stimulate the stomach, and prove cordial, carminative, and antispasmodic, but without that irritation and heat which many of the other spicy aromatics are apt to produce. We are told by Sonnerat, that the Indians use them much, and believe them to strengthen the stomach, and assist digestion. Physicians however consider Cardamoms merely as an aromatic, and prescribe them in conjunction with other medicines, which they are intended to correct or assist.

[Trans. Lin. Soc. Sonnerat. Woodville. Lewis.

SECTION XXVI.

Gum Ammoniac Plant.

Heracleum Gummiferum.-Wilden.

THOUGH We have assigned the gum ammoniac tree to this genus of Mr. Wildenow, originally known by the name of Cowparsnip; there is still a doubt upon the subject. The plant described for the first time in the Hortus Berolinensis of this author was raised by him, in the Royal Garden at Berlin, from seeds taken out of the ammoniacum of the shops, which, it is well known, often contains them. Dr. Wildenow declares himself to be satisfied, that this is the source of this valuable drug, though he has not been able to obtain it from the plant thus produced; and the seeds employed may therefore have belonged to another tribe.

Woodville does not pretend to appropriate it; and only speaks of it as follows: "This concrete gummy-resinous juice is composed of little lumps, or tears, of a milky whiteness: the external parts of the mass are yellowish or brownish, and the white tears change to the same colour on being exposed for some time to the air.

We have hitherto had no information concerning the plant which produces this drug, nor of the manner in which it is obtained: judging however from the seeds and pieces of an umbelliferous plant, with which it is often intermixed, there is no doubt of its being the produce of a vegetable of this kind: and as ammoniacum

Tom. i. Pl. 58, 54.