576 ORD, XXXII. Gruinales. QUASSIA AMARA. 
The root, bark, and wood‘ of this tree, are all comprehended in 
the catalozwes of the Materia Medica; but as the roots are per- 
fectly ligneous, they may be medically consideted in the same- 
light as the wood, which is now most generally employed, and 
seems to differ from the bark in being less intensely bitter; the 
latter is therefore thought to be a more powerful medicine. 
Quassia has no sensible odour; its taste is that of a pure bitter, 
more intense and durable than that of almost any other known 
substance ; it imparts its virtues more completely to watery than 
to spirituous menstrua, and its infusions are not blackened by the 
addition of martial vitriol. The watery extract is from a sixth to 
a ninth of the weight of the wood; the spirituous about a twenty- 
fourth. Quassia derived its name from a negro name Quassi, (by 
Fermin ° written Coissi, and by Rolander Quass) who employed 
it with uncommon success, as a secret remedy in the malignant 
endemic fevers, which frequently prevailed at Surinam. In con- 
sequence of a valuable consideration, this secret was disclosed to 
Daniel Rolander, a Swede, who brought specimens of the Quassia- 
wood to Stockholm, in the year 1756; and since then the effects 
of this drug have been very generally tried in Europe, and nu- 
merous testimonies of its efficacy published by many respectable 
authors.’ Various experiments with Quassia have likewise been 
made, with a view to ascertain its antiseptic powers, from which it 
appears to have considerable influence in retarding the tendency 
4 It.may also be remarked, that the leaves, flowers, &c. likewise possess similar 
qualities. Toutes les parties du Cassie, éeorce, bois, feuilles, fleurs, calice, 
enveloppes des graines, et les graines mémes, sont d’une amertume energique, 
et dont m’approche aucun medicament jusqu’a present comnu, &e. Patris 1. ¢. 
p 44. 
© Description de la Colonie de Surinam. Tom. i. p. 212. 
* Of these we may mention Linnwus, Dahlberg, Blom, Fermin, Tissot, 
Thorstensen, Severius, Ebeling, Patris, and many others, for which see Murray 
App. Med. vol. iti. p. 432.- seq. 
