29-3 
filtration should be opaque, and present in thin layers a reddish-brown color, have 
an acrid, astringent taste, and an acid reaction. 
CHEMICAL CONSTITUENTS. — Afizarin, C,,H,O,* (C,H,O, + H,O or 
C,,H,,O,).+ This dioxyanthroquinone coloring matter was first discovered in 
Madder root (Audra tnctoria), as a glucoside.t It crystallizes from its solution 
in alcohol in long, lustrous, translucent, yellowish-red, neutral and bitter prisms, 
containing three molecules of water, which it loses at 100°—120° (212°—248° F.). 
It sublimates at 215° (419° F.), in brilliant red needles that are only slightly 
soluble in water, but fully in alcohol and ether. (Wittstein.) 
The plant is acrid and corrosive, but the principle to which this property is 
due has not, as far as I can determine, been investigated. Rafinesque states that 
the glutinous secretion of the leaf hairs is acid; this may be a similar body to that 
which renders the water in the leaves of the pitcher-plant acid.§ 
PHYSIOLOGICAL ACTION.—Drosera has long been deemed poisonous to 
animals, especially sheep; in the latter its action was mostly supposed to be upon 
the mucous membrane of the intestinal tract. Dr. Curie slowly poisoned three 
cats with daily doses of the drug;|] the post-mortem examination with the micro- 
scope revealed the pleural surface of both lungs studded with true tubercle. In 
one cat the mesenteric glands were much enlarged; in another the submaxillary 
glands, with the solitary glands of the colon and Peyer's patches. Burdach states 
that in man the juice produces shuddering, sense of constriction at the chest, raw- 
ness in the throat, cough, hemoptysis, pain in the bowels, diarrhoea, sweat, and 
diminished secretion of urine. The cough caused by this drug arises from a tick- 
ling in the larynx; it is spasmodic in its nature and causes vomiting if the stomach 
contains food. = 
Drosera asserts altogether a peculiar action upon the lungs and, in fact, the 
whole respiratory tract, thus leading us to value it deservingly in pertussis, bron- 
chial irritation and even phthisis, where in fact it gives many a patient a restful 
night and more peaceful day when the disease is too far advanced for still greater 
benefit. 
DESCRIPTION OF PLATE 29. 
r. Whole plant from Spruce Pond, N, Y., July 21st, 1884. 
2. Stamen. 
3. Pistil. 
4. Leaf hair. 
(2-4 enlarged. ) 
—_— 
* Grieb et Lieb. + Schunck. t Rubianic acid. 
\| French Acad. Sci., British Four. Hom., X%., 39. 
4 Sarracenia purpurea, 19. 
