APPENDIX, 197 



LAUEINE^. 



Gum-barks. 



Gum "bark, or Pishln-piiitai of the Tamilsj does uot refer to tlie bark 

 of a tree which exudes a gum by bruising or incision, but denotes a 

 bark which has such mucilaginous properties that it could be used for 

 special purposes in medicine and the arts, where the white of egg 

 would be used elsewhere. Barks of this description occur in tlic 

 natural orders Malvaceae and Laurinese, and students of materia 

 medica know that drugs of these orders, marsh-mallow root, and the 

 barks of arboreous cinnamons, for instance, contain a peculiar muci- 

 lage, which is not precipitated by alcohol. A typical gum-bark of 

 the East is that of Kydia ccilycina, a malvaceous tree, growing ex* 

 tensively on the slopes of the Nilgiris, and largely employed in sugar 

 refinery under the Tamil name of Kudulara)igy -puttai. On soaking 



a portion of this dried bark in water it rapidly swells, and the 

 inside becomes coated with a slimy mucilage. The inner layers of 

 the liber may then be removed like pieces of lace, and the gum is seen 

 to be occupying the spaces between the longitudinally disposed fibres, 

 appai'cntly formed from the cellulose of the broken cell-walls. The 

 bark of Kydia is sold in the bazaars, and the decoction is taken as an 

 astringent and tonic, and the Vythians or native doctors consider it 

 to be a specific for diabetes. 



Dr. Mohideen Sheriff, in the ^* Supplement to the Pharmacopoeia of 

 India," gives Teiranthcra Hoxburghii as the botanical origin of 

 Pishin-pnttai^ but offers no description of the drug under that heading. 

 Mr. Hollingsworth, of the Madras Medical College, some time ago 

 supplied me with an authentic specimen of the bark of Tctranthera 

 Imirifolia^ or, as it is now called in the *TIora of British India/' 

 Litsma sebifera. The bark was of a reddish-brown colour and slightly 

 balsamic odour, very different to that of cassia or cinnamon. The 

 thickness was a quarter of an inch, and when soaked in water 

 it became very mucilaginous. It afforded, on analysis, distinct 

 reactions for an alkaloid, which had the characters of laurotetanine, 

 a poisonous base lately discovered by Dr. Greshoff in the barks of 

 several species of Javanese lauraceous plants. 



About two years ago a collection of drugs for identification was 

 sent to me by Dr. P. S. Mootooswamy, of Tanjore, and among 

 them was a specimen of PuUn-piUtai, which, he said, was^ collected 

 from trees growing in the jungles near Point Calimere. This bark 



