434 DR DUNCAN on Mudarine. 



enlarged experience has satisfied me, that mudar possesses no 

 specific virtue ; but that it is infinitely more valuable, from its. 

 common medicinal properties, which correspond in every re- 

 spect, both in kind and in degree, with those of ipecacuan. In- 

 deed, I have no doubt, that, from the facility with which any 

 quantity may be supplied from the province of Bahar, the use 

 of the Brazilian root may be altogether dispensed with in our 

 East Indian settlements, and that mudar may even become, in a 

 commercial point of view, a valuable export from Bengal to Eu- 

 rope. As such I feel myself justified in recommending it to the 

 notice of the Honourable East India Company, and to the pri- 

 vate merchants trading with India. 



In the paper to which I have already alluded, I gave an ac- 

 count of the analysis of mudar, so far as I had then carried it. I 

 merely indicated the singular property possessed by one of its 

 constituents, Mudarine, which it is the object of this paper to 

 explain more fully. In a note, I mentioned that I had disco- 

 vered it to possess the very singular property of being very solu- 

 ble in cold water, and gelatinizing when the solution was heated 

 to 85 or 90 Fahrenheit. 



Since that time I have frequently repeated and varied my 

 experiments upon the mudar powder ; but I have not yet com- 

 pleted my general analysis, which, upon the whole, coincides 

 with what I published from my first experiments in 1829. 

 Having, however, satisfied myself that the principle to which I 

 gave the name of Mudarine possesses a property which has not 

 been observed in any other principle, organic or inorganic, and 

 constitutes a very striking exception to the general law of the 

 power of solvents being increased by increase of temperature, I 

 have thought it deserving of being communicated to the Royal 

 Society, and, through the medium of its Transactions, of be- 

 ing made known to scientific chemists, as it is not improbable 

 that it is possessed, in a greater or less degree, by some other 



