APPENDIX, | 197 
LAURINEZ. 
Gum-barks. 
Gum-bark, or Pishin-puttat of the Tamils, does not refer to the bark 
of a tree which exudes a gum by bruising or incision, but denotes a 
‘park 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 the 
natural orders Malvacee and Laurinesx, 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 Aydia calycina, a malvaceous tree, growing ex- 
tensively on the slopes of the Nilgiris, and largely employed in sugar 
refinery under the Tamil name of Kadularangy-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 ps be removed like pieces of lace, and the gum is seen 
to be oc g the spaces between the longitudinally disposed fibres, 
ap piney formed from the cellulose of the broken cell-walls. The 
ark 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 Pharmacopeia of 
India,” gives Tetranthera Roxburghii as the botanical origin of 
Pishin-puttar, 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 Tetranthera 
laurifolie, or, as it is now calledin the “Flora of British India,”’ 
Litsea 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. 8. Mootooswamy, of Tanjore, and among 
them was a specimen of Pishin-puttai, which, he said, was collected 
from trees growing in the jungles near Point Calimere. This bark 
