220 ANXt'AL OF SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERY. 



feared that these valuable barks will ultimately fail altogether, or, at 

 any rate, the prico will become exorbitant. This most powerful feb- 

 rifuge is found in countries where fevers possess great intensity ; and 

 its location is a dispensation of Providence, the intention of which 

 cannot be mistaken. But South America and the Caribbee Islands are 

 not the only countries in which fever makes numerous victims ; in 

 Africa and India this fearful disease reigns in full force. There 

 must, therefore, exist in these countries trees w T ell known to the na- 

 tives which afford remedies to those attacked. It was with this 

 persuasion that M. Caventou wrote to a French officer at Senegal, 

 asking him if there did not exist in that colony a very powerful febri- 

 fuge in use among the negroes. He received in reply the bark of the 

 cail-cedra, as the febrifuge most highly esteemed by the native popu- 

 lation, who generally prefer the cheap decoction which they make of 

 this bark to the sulphate of quinine offered them by Europeans. The 

 bark cail-cedra is furnished by the Swietenia Senegalensis, one of the 

 largest and most beautiful trees that ornament the banks of the Gam- 

 bia and the lowlands of Cape Verde, and which belongs to the family 

 Meliaceae. The negroes take this bark in infusion or decoction for 

 curing the fever ; they also wash their shoulders, head, and arms with 

 it. The color of the bark is grayish outside, and yellow under the 

 epidermis. It develops, in mastication, a very perceptible bitterness, 

 has a clear fracture and a close grain. 



The organic principle which M. Caventou obtained from it is pe- 

 culiar and quite distinct from those already known. He has desig- 

 nated it cail-cedrin. It is a solid body, opaque, resinous in appear- 

 ance, yellowish, and of a non-crystalline form. The bark also contains 

 a green fatty matter analogous to that contained in quinquina, which 

 is aromatic and adheres strongly to the fingers. It also contains a red 

 and yellow coloring matter, sulphate of lime, chloride of potassium, 

 phosphate of lime, gum, fecula, waxy and ligneous matters. Experi- 

 ments made w r ith it at the Hotel Dieu seem favorable to its employ- 

 ment in intermittent fever. If we add to this fact those which are 

 well known, afforded by the natives of Senegal, who cure the most 

 violent attacks of fever with the aqueous decoction of the bark, we 

 cannot but conceive well-founded hopes of the utility of cail-cedrin in 

 therapeutics. Journal de Pharmacie, Nov. 



FREEZING OF THE ALBUMEN OF EGGS. 



PROF. JAMES PAGET states that he has made some experiments on 

 the freezing of the albumen of eggs, which, besides confirming Mr. 

 Hunter's observation, that a fresh egg will resist freezing longer than 

 one which has been previously frozen and thawed, also prove that, 

 when fresh eggs are exposed to very low temperatures, together with 

 eggs which are decayed or putrid, or the contents of which have been 

 much altered by mechanical force or by electricity, a shorter time is 

 sufficient for the freezing of the latter than is necessary for those 

 which are uninjured. Though fresh eggs resist freezing longer than 

 any others, they yet lose heat more quickly, their resistance to freezing 



