The museum report : a descriptive list of the donations for the years 1895-1902.

  • Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The museum report : a descriptive list of the donations for the years 1895-1902. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

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    to it as the best remedy known to him for killing the insects that infest the leaves of the nutmeg tree and cause them to turn yellow (I'/uirm. .f„nin. [3 , XYII., p. 5), and in 1877 an infusion of the root was recommended in the Kar llejunt for that year, p. 4;-3, as an insecticide. A chemical examination of the root was made by Greshoff in 1890 (Bci. der Deutsch. Chrm. (rrx., 1890, 23, pp. 35 to 38), and an abstract of it was published m the P/ianii. Jniini. [3], XXI., p. 559. Mr. Leonard Wray, Curator of the Perak ]\Iuseum, also examined the root chemically {PJtaniK J,mm. [3], XXIII., p. Gl). The acid resinous body obtained by Greshoff was named derrid, and that obtained by Wray, tubain, apparently in ignorance of Greshoff's previous work. Greshoff found the crude active principle, or derrid, to consist of a crystalline and an amorphous body. It is accompanied in the root by a brown colouring matter, called derris red. Sillevoldt subsequently examined the root, and also found an amorphous and a crystalline body, which, he suggested, were respectively anhydroderrid and derrid {Arch, der Fhanii. 1899, p. 595); see also Mhsi'hw Ilcport ofthe Pharmnrnitieal Society 1895, p. 45. An allied species from Fiji, called by the natives Duva, and which proved to be Derris iilif/inosa, was examined in the Wellcome Research Laboratory by Dr. F. Power, who ■obtained from it, besides red colouring matter, two resins, one soluble in chloroform, and apparently nearly related to, but not identical with Sillevoldt's anhydroderrid, and a resin insoluble in chloroform. An account of these bodies was given in Painjddet No. 34, published by the Wellcome Chemical Research Laboratories, 1903. Frejar Oil. This is a thick oil containing a resin, obtained from a wood imported from the East Indies since 1895, and was introduced into commerce by H. Haensel, of Pirna-on-the-Elbe. The oil, when rectified, loses 20 per cent, in the form of resin, and is then clear and fluid. The specific gravity of the crude oil is 0-9295, and that of the rectified oil, 0-90G5 at 15° C. Its perfume has a permanent character like that of sandal wood, and some other oils distilled from wood. The name of the plant yielding it is at present not published (Haciisrl llep., April, 1902, p. 7, and January, 1903, p. 11). Oentian Root. There occasionally appears in commerce a gentian root which is distinguished by the name of white gentian root, pale brown in transverse section, which gives a much more bitter tincture and infusion than the ordinary root, and leads to occasional difficulties in dispensing. The deeper brownish colour of the interior of ordinary, or red, gentian root appears to be artificially pro-