226 MALVACEZ. 
attention from being used by the female negroes to produce 
abortion. There appears to be little doubt that it acts like ergot 
upon the uterus, and is useful in dysmenorrhcea and suppression 
of the menses when produced by cold; a decoction of 4 ounces 
of the bark in two pints of water boiled down to one pint may 
be used in doses of two ounces every 20 or 80 minutes, or the 
fiuid extract may be prescribed in doses of from 30 to 60 
minims. Cotton seed tea is given in dysentery in America ; 
the seeds are also reputed to be galactagogue. (Stillé and 
Maisch., Nat. Disp., p. 678.) By treating cotton first with a 
dilute alkali, then with a5 per cent. solution of chloride of 
lime, and lastly with water acidulated with hydrochloric acid, 
and afterwards well washing it with water, it loses its greasi- 
ness and becomes absorbent and a valuable dressing for wounds ; 
this absorbent cotton may be medicated by sprinkling it with 
solutions of carbolic acid, salicylic acid, boracic acid, &e. - 
Pyroxylin or Gun Cotton is made by dipping cotton into 
a mixture of equal parts of nitric and sulphuric acids, washing 
freely with water, and drying. 
Description. —Cotton root bark is in bands or quilled 
_ pieces, one half a line thick, covered with a brownish-yellow, 
satiny, very thin cork, by the abrasion of which irregular, dull, 
brownish orange patches; appear. The cork forms slight _ 
longitudinal ridges, which are often confluent into elongated 
meshes, and marked with black circular dots or short transversé 
lines. The inner surface is whitish or reddish white, of ® 
nearly silky lustre, and finely striate in a longitudinal direction 
by the thin medullary rays. The bast fibres are long and 
tough, arranged in tangential rows, and are separated without 
difficulty in very thin layers. The bark breaks with difficulty 
in a transverse direction, but is readily torn longitudinally. It 
is without odour and without taste, with the exception of ® 
very slight acridity and faint astringoncy. (Stillé und Maisch-) 
- Chemical composition.—The bark contains starch, and wher, 
_~ fresh, according to W. A. Taylor (1876), a chromogen, whicb 
dissolves in alcohol with a pale yellow colour, gradually cha0g- 
