APPENDIX. 203 
piace of production is very little over this amount. (Pharm, Journ, 
June 13th, 1891.) 
EUPHORBIACEA. 
Phyllanthus Niruri. 
The bitter principle of this plant, which we provisionally named 
pseudo-chiratan, has been examined by M. Ottow (Nederl. Tijds. 
voor Pharm., 1891, 3, 128), who calls it phyllanthin and gives its 
chemical composition as O*H*’0*, It crystallizes in colourless 
needles or fakes, possesses an intensely bitter taste, and is almost in- 
soluble in water, but easily soluble in alcohol, petroleum ether, 
ether, eidoroltni, benzene, and glacial acetic acid. At 200° C, it is 
volatilized and condenses in the upper part of the vessel as an amor- 
phous mass, but in a few days this amorphous deposit changes to 
the crystalline state, 
Manioe or Cassava. 
From the brief allusions to this substance by writers on Materia 
Medica, one would get but a slight idea of its importance as an arti- 
ele of diet in tropical countries, being the staple-food for unnumbered 
millions of human beings—the staff of life in the West Indies, Brazil, 
and on the Continent of Africa. 
The plant from which thig food id derived is known to botanists as 
Janipha Manihot, and is a shrub six to twelve feet high and one or two 
inches in diameter. Except for the young leaves, which are used as 
greens, its whole value consists in its tuberous roots, which sometimes 
reach the enormous weight of thirty pounds, but usually range from 
one to three inches in diameter and from six to eighteen inches in 
length, The shrub is said to be a native of Brazil, where it is known 
as Mandioca or Tapioca, Cassada (or Cassava) is its name in the West 
Indies. Itis not grown from the seeds, but from cuttings, having 
surprising vitality; for a cane of it, like Aaron’s rod, will bud and 
grow leaves in your hand. Hence, it is only necessary to cut the 
stick into pieces of six to twelve inches in length, and thrust them 
into the ground, and it matters little whether the ground has been 
first broken for it or not. In eight to eighteen months the tubers 
are in their best state to produce the nutritious food—seventy per cent. 
gluten and thirty of starch ; but, at a tater period, the gluten bee 
