CATECHU. 



241 



4 to 6 feet in girth, straggling tliorny branches, liglit feathery foliage, 

 and dark grey or brown bark, reddish and fibrous internally. 



It is common in most parts of India and Burma, where it is highly 

 valued for its wood, which is used for posts and for various domestic 

 purposes, as well as for making catechu and charcoal, while the astrin- 

 gent bark serves for tanning. It also grows in the hotter and drier 

 parts of Ceylon. A . Catechu abounds in the forests of Tropical Eastern 

 Africa ; it is found in the Soudan, Sennaar, Abyssinia, the _ Noer 

 country, and Mozambique, but in none of these regions is any astringent 



extract manufactured from its wood. 



2. A. Suma Kurz ^ (Mimosa Suma Roxb.), a large tree with a red 

 heartwood, but a white bark, nearly related to the preceding but not 

 liaving so extensive a geographical range. It grows in the South of 

 India (Mysore), Bengal and Gujerat. The bark is used in tanning, 

 and catechu is made from the heart-wood. 



The extract of the wood of these two species of Acacia is Catechu 

 in the true and original sense of the word, a substance not to be con- 

 founded with Oamhier, which, though very similar in composition, is 

 widely diverse in botanical origin, and always regarded in commerce as 

 a distinct article. 



History— Barbosa in his description of the East Indies in 1514' 

 mentions a drug called Cacho as an article of export from Cambay to 

 ihilacca. This is the name for Catechu in some of the languages of 

 Southern India.^ 



About fifty years later, Garcia de Orta gave a particular account of 

 the same drug ' under its Hindustani name of Kat, first describing the 

 tree and then the method of preparing an extract from its wood. This 

 latter substance was at that period made up with the flour of a cereal 

 {Ehusine coracana Gartn.) into tablets or lozenges, and apparently not 

 sold in its simple state : compositions of this kind are still met with in 

 India. In the time of Garcia de Orta the drug was an important 

 article of traffic to Malacca and China, as well as to Arabia and Persia. 



Notwithstanding these accounts, catechu remained unknown m 

 Europe until the 17th century, when it began to be brought from 

 Japan, or at least said to be exported from that country. It was known 

 about 1641 to Johannes Schrbder,= and is quoted at nearly the same 

 wme in several tariffs of German towns, being included m the simples 

 of mineral origin.^ _.^ . . 



1 ^.^i.^^\ - X- _j „„ „ „.,^r„i r,->or1i>ni« bv Gr. W. VVedel 



«t Jena,7 who also called attention to the diversity of opinion as to its 



n„ /■^^f '^'^^^' ^<^^est Flora of JS/orfh- Western 

 "n<J Central India, Lond. 1874. 187, from 



men exceUent work we also borrow t]ie 



2 W,'?? of A, Catechu. 



W 1866.1 ?|l.'^' ^"^^"^'^ ^''^'*^'' 



cor^f^ ^. ^^^ Canarese, in which ac- 

 -wriH ^ *°,modern spelling the word is 

 ^.n"en Afi,h„ or Kdchu. —UooAcen 



Slif>i-;ff o " ^^ Kachu. — Moodeei 



I879! 96 '^^^' ''^ ^^'('^acopaia of India 



* Aromatim malaria, ed. Clusius, 1574. 

 *.-~-He writes the word Cate. 



iwnnacopma medico-phT/slca, Ulmse, 



1640. lib. iii. 516. " Est et genus terrje 

 exoticaj, colore purpureum, punctulis albis 

 intertextum, ac si situm contraxisset, sapore 

 austeriusculum, masticatum liquescens, 

 subdulcemqiie post se relinquens saporeiii, 

 Catfdm vocant, seu Terram japowcam. . . 

 Particulam hujus obthun a Phannacopceo 

 nostrate curiosissiiuo Dn. Matthia Bama. 

 The preface is dated Frankfurt A.i>. 1641, 

 6 harm. Journ. vi. (1876) 1022 _ 



- Usus novufs Catechu seu Terra Juponicm, 

 Ephemcrides ^'at. Cur. Bee. 1. ami. - 

 (1671) 209. 



O 



