Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Friedrich August Flückiger
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    706/732 page 682
    G82 Microscopic Structure—The ti'sinsverse section shows a loose tissue nuide up of large Qm])ty cells, enclosed by a cortical zone 30 to 70 mkm. thick. This zone consists of small cells, loaded with globular starch-granuks, from less than 1 up to 3 mkm' in diameter, so densely packed as to form what seems at hrst sight a single mass in each cell. In the'darger cells, the granules are attached to the walls ; they do not display in polarized light ihe usual cross. The thick walls of the cells show a stratified structure, especially after having been moistened with chromic acid; on addition of a solution of iodine in an alkaline iodide, they assume a deep brown, tut the starch-granules, which also abound in the cystocarps, display the usual blue tint. Chemical Composition—The drug, as examined by O'Shaughnessy, yielded in 100 parts, of vegetable jelly 54-5, starch 15-0, ligneous fibre (cellulose ?) 18-0, mucilage 4*0, inorganic salts 7'5. Cold water rem.oves the mucilage, which after due concentration, may be precipitated by neutral acetate of lead. This mucilage when boiled for some time with nitric acid, produces oxalic acid and microscopic crystals of mucic acid (beautifully seen by polarized light), soluble in boiling water and precipitating on cooling. With one part of the drug and 100 parts of boiling water, a tliick liquid is obtained which affords transparent precipitates with neutral acetate of lead or alcohol, in the same way as carrageen. With 50 parts of water, a transparent tasteless jelly, devoid of viscosity, is produced ; in common with the mucilage, it furnishes mucic acid, if treated with nitric acid. Micro-chemical tests do not manifest albuminous matter in this plant. Some chemists have regarded the jelly extracted by boiling water as identical with pectin, but the fact requires proof. Payen ^ called it Gelose, and found it composed of carbon 42 77, hydrogen 5*77, and oxygen 51-45 per cent. Gum Arabic contains carbon 42-12, hydrogen 6-41 and oxygen 5147 = C^^H^^O^^, Payen's gelose imparts a gelatinous consistence to 500 parts of water; it is extracted by boiling water from the plant previously exhausted by cold water slightly acidulated.^ The inorganic salts of Ceylon moss consist, according to O'Shaugh- nessy, of sulphates, phosphates, and chlorides of sodium and calcium, with neither iodide nor bromide. Dried at 100° C, it yielded us 9*15 per cent, of ash. Uses—A decoction of Ceylon moss made palatable by sugar and aromatics, has been recommended as a demulcent, and a light article of food for invalids. In the Indian Archipelago and in China, immense quantities of this and of some other species of sea weed ^ are used for making jelly and for other purposes. 1 Comptcs Renchis, xlix, (1859) 521 ; consists mainly of it, will keep good for Pharm. Journ. i. (I860) 470. 508. years. 2 Gelose even in the moist state is but ^ Consult Mai'tius, NcitesJahrb.f. Pharin. little prone to change, and the jelly made Bd. ix. Marz 1858; Cooke, Pharm. Journ. by the Chinese as a sweetmeat which i. (1860) 604.
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