Gutta percha, its discovery, history, and manifold uses.

Date:
1851
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Gutta percha, its discovery, history, and manifold uses. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    9/50 page 7
    ITS DTSCOYERY AND IIISTOEY, botanists among sapotaceoiis plants ; i.e. those that exude a milky sap. The woodcut on next page represents its leaves, flowers, and fruit; and our frontispiece* admirably delineates its noble and beautiful aspect, as it towers above the other trees of the tropi¬ cal forest. The fruit appears to yield a “ concrete and edible oil, used by the natives with their food,” likewise, a kind of ardent spirit; and other accounts represent the flowers as being also employed as articles of diet. The wood, being soft and spongy, is of little use as timber. The sap, or giitta, circulates between the bark and body of the tree, in vessels whose course is marked by black longi¬ tudinal lines upon the wood. The milky fluid exudes from notches cut at intervals down the trunk, and is received in vessels where it immediately coagulates. It was formerly the custom to fell the trees before collecting the juice; but this plan is now proved as unnecessary as it is wasteful, the notches neither injuring the tree, nor preventing a second accumulation of sap. The Gutta Percha Company have wisely embarked a con¬ siderable capital in seeking to promote the “ tapping,” instead of the “ felling” of the trees. The thickened fluid, before finally harden¬ ing, is kneaded into com¬ pact oblong masses, gene- Fig. 2. Block of Gutta Percha. rally about half a cubic foot in size. This part of the work is per¬ formed by women, as represented in the frontispiece, which faithfully depicts, not only the ordinary appearance of the native Malays, but the character of the internal forest scenery of the magnificent islands which they inhabit. The blocks made up for exportation are not always of one shape. The eccentricity or genius of some barbarian forester wiU some¬ times vary them amusingly. We have seen one fashioned into * Copied from a large oil painting executed by Mr. E. M. Granville, a talented young artist of Bristol. The painting is now in the possession of the Gutta Percha Company, 18, Wharf Road, City Road, Lo'don.
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