LEG UMINOSE. 499 
carbon, almost insoluble in petroleum ether and water. It is 
dissolved by essential and fatty oils, whence the bitterness of 
the oil extracted from the seeds by petroleum ether, a bitterness 
which can be removed by treating the oil with alcohol. The 
st method of preparing the bitter principle is to pour the 
cehloroform solution into petroleum ether, or to precipitate with 
water a solution in glacial acetic acid. Alkalies have hardly 
ny effect upon the bitter principle, ammonia dissolves a trace 
{ the temperature of the water bath, caustic potash does not 
aponify it. Submitted to the action of heat it swells up and 
elts at 145° C., and then slowly decomposes; with hydro- 
loric acid it at first strikes a dark colour, then slowly dissolves, 
rming a rose-coloured solution, With nitrie acid it is dark- 
ked when a trace of ferric chloride is added to the acid. The 
ure bitter principle yielded Messrs. Heckel and Schlagden- 
fen CO 62°60, H 7°75, O 29°65 per cent., from which the 
ormula C'4H'505 is deduced. Clinical experiments made 
h this bitter principle by Dr. Isnard, Chief Medical Officer 
f the Customs Department, Marseilles, led him to the con- 
Iusion that in doses of from 10 to 20 centigrams it is as 
ficient 2 remedy in ordinary intermittents as quinine salts. 
matism. 
Commerce.—The seeds are collected on the coast and sold 
the druggists. Value, Rs. 12 per cwt. . 
Cesalpinia digyna, Rottl., a shrub of the E Hima- 
2 E. and W. Peninsulas and Ceylon, is used in native 
actice. The root (Vékeri-mul) is astringent. It is given 
nally in 6 massa doses mixed with milk, ghi, cummin and 
r, in phthisis and scrofulous affections; when’ sores exist 
applied externally as well; a kind | 
; found on the root is preferred. =~ 
ned, and finally separates into a number of red resinous drops; — 
ith sulphuric acid it forms a dark brown solution, which after 
alf an hour becomes deep red; the red colour is much more | 
urn. de Phar. et de Ohim., Aug. 1st, 1886.) According to 
31 nnt, the oil from the seeds is used as an embrocation in 
of tuberous swelling 
as 
