5G4 EUPHORBIACEiE. 



valued at £16,482. The exports from the Bahamas were G76 ewt. in 

 1875, and 1,093 cwt. in 1876. 



Uses — Cascarilla is prescribed as a tonic, usually in the form of 

 a tincture or infusion. 



Adulteration — A spurious cascarilla bark has lately been noticed in 

 the London market ; it was imported from the Bahamas mixed with the 

 genuine, to which it bears a close similarity. The quills of it resemble 

 the larger quills of cascarilla ; though covered with a lichen, the latter 

 has not the silvery whiteness of the Verrucaria of cascarilla. The 

 spurious bark has a suberous coat that does not split off; its inner 

 surface is pinkish-brown, and distinctly striated longitudinally. In 

 microscopic structure the bark may be said to resemble cascarilla and 

 still more copalchi. But it is at once distinguishable by its numerous 

 Toimdish groujjs of sclerenchymatous cells, which become very evident 

 when thin sections are moistened with ammonia, and then with solution 

 of iodine in iodide of potassium. The bark has an astringent taste, 

 without bitterness or aroma ; its tincture is not rendered milky by 

 addition of water, but is darkened by ferric chloride, — in these respects 

 differing from a tincture of cascarilla. Mr. Holmes^ suggests that this 

 spurious cascarilla is probably the bark of Oroton lucidiis L. 



Copalchi Bark ; Quina blanca of the Mexicans. 



niveus 



Schlechtendal), a shrub growing 10 feet high, native of the West Indian 

 Islands, Mexico, Central America, New Granada and Venezuela. It has 

 occasionally been imported into Europe, in quills a foot or two in length, 

 much stouter and thicker than those of cascarilla, to which in odour and 

 taste it nearly approximates. The bark has a thin, greyish, papery 

 suberous layer, which when removed shows the surface marked with 

 minute transverse pits, like the lines made by a file ; it has a short 



fracture,^ 



How 



cniorine and ammonia, though it did not afford any characteristic com- 

 pound with iodine. Maiich,^ who also analysed the bark, could not obtain 



from it any organic base. He 



Which he found to consist of a hydrocarbon and an organic acidr-tne 

 latter not examined ; he likewise ffot from the burk an uncrystallizawe 



de rharm 



bitter principle, which proved to be not a glucosido, 



' PAam. Jortrn. iv. (1874) 810. SchlagdeahaufTen, Journ. 



(ISf -n -1V', I Prodromes, xv. part 2. (1878) 248. ,^ ,,. 



i-or more particulara see 01)orlin ;uul prakt. Phann. xviii. (ISCO) 161. 



