“MELIACEZ. . 337 
Roxburgh was the first to introduce it to the notice ‘of 
: Europeans as a substitute for the Peruvian bark. Ainslie 
describes it and says, “given to the extent of four or five 
; drachms i in the geen tote: hours I thave found it to be a 
useful medicine, but beyond that quantity, it, in every 
; “instanco ; in which I tried it, appeared to me to derange the 
“nervous system, oceasioning” vertigo and subsequent stupor.” 
‘The authors of the Bengal Dispensatory thus summarize its 
"properties :~“Tt seems to us to be exactly similar to the 
_ mahogany bark, useful where astringent tonics are apples 
_ but of very questionable efficacy as a true antiperiodic.” In 
1791, Roxburgh sent the bark to Edinburgh, where Duncan 
made it the subject of a thesis,* which led to its admission into 
- the Edinburgh and Dublin Pharmacopcvias. It appears never 
to have attracted much attention in England, but recently it 
has been made official in the Fharmenepe of India as a 
useful estrmpert tonic. 
: Description.—Flickiger and Hanbury describe the bark 
from a young tree as occurring in straight or somewhat curved 
half tubular quills, an inch of more in diameter, and about 
1-5th of an inch in thickness. Externally it is of a rusty grey 
or brown, with a smoothish surface, exhibiting no considerable 
_ furrows or cracks, but numerous small corky warts. These 
Eforni little elliptic scars or rings, brown in the centre, and but 
| slightly raised from the surface. The inner side and edges of 
_ the quills are of a bright reddish brown. A transverse section \ 
exhibits a thin outer layer coloured by chlorophyll, and a 
middle layer of a bright rusty hue, traversed by large medullary 
rays and darker wedge-shaped rays of liber. The latter has a 
fibrous “fracture, that of the outer part of the bark bemg rather 
_ Corky or foliaceous. The whole bark when comminuted i is of a 
rusty colour, becoming reddish by exposure to air and moisture, — 
Th: has a bitter astringent taste, with no distinctive see 
(Pkarmacographia.) ‘To this we may add that the old bark has 
‘ragged dry suber; a quarter of an inch thick, soe of a rasty 
: “Tangata 
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