Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medicine and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all of the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bently and Theophilus Redwood.

  • Jonathan Pereira
Date:
1872
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Dr. Pereira's Elements of materia medica and therapeutics : abridged and adapted for the use of medicine and pharmaceutical practitioners and students and comprising all of the medicines of the British Pharmacopœia, with such others as are frequently ordered in prescriptions or required by the physician / edited by Robert Bently and Theophilus Redwood. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    1095/1132 (page 1063)
    it is shining/silvery, and iridescent. Internally, it presents numerous small, lanceolate, oblong, or semilunar scales, which are mostly toothed at their margin, and envelope each a brown body, which is supposed to be a gland, and is lodged in a small cavity. The inner surface of the castor sacs is lined with epithelium (a continuation of the epithelium of the prepuce), which invests the glands and scales of the scaly or glandular coat. In the cavity of the castor sac is found the secretion, which, when recent, is thin, fluid, highly odorous, yellow or orange, and becoming deeper coloured by ex- posure to the air. The quantity of this secretion is liable to great variation. The oil sacs are pyriform conglomerate glands, placed one on each side between the castor sac and anus ; their ducts terminate in the cloaca. The secretion of these sacs is a fatty matter, having the consistence of syrup or honey, a peculiar odour, and a yellowish colour. Female Castor Sacs.—We are less perfectly acquainted with the anatomy of the female beaver. It is said to be furnished with similar, though smaller, castor sacs and oil sacs; but it is probable that the male alone yields the castor sacs of commerce. General Characters.—[§ Follicles in pairs, about three inches long, fig-shaped, firm, and heavy, brown or greyish-black ; containing a dry resinous reddish-brown or brown highly odorous secretion, in great part soluble in rectified spirit, and in ether.] Varieties.—Two varieties of castor have long been known, viz. Russian and American. The latter, however, is the only one now found in commerce. Two kinds of this American castor have also been distinguished, viz. Hudson's Bay and Canadian. The former has been usually considered the finest variety, but there is no essential difference between them. All the castor of commerce which is now imported is obtained from the Hudson's Bay Territory, and is probably the produce of that territory. It usually consists of two isolated sacs, which are connected so as to form two parts, like a purse, or like two testicles connected by the spermatic cords. The size of the sacs varies considerably. They are elongated and pyriform, and frequently wrinkled. The penis, or the oil sacs, or both, are sometimes attached to them. The colour and other ex- ternal characters are variable. In 1834 I examined between three and four thousand pounds of castor, which was offered for sale by the Hudson's Bay Company. A considerable quantity of it was covered externally with a bluish-white mouldiness, while the remainder was of a brownish colour. The brown colour, however, was sometimes dark, and in other cases yellowish, or even reddish. Some castor sacs are found nearly empty^ and present, in their dried state, a very fibrous character ; these are of inferior quality. Others are found gorged with unctuous matter, aud, when quite