GUTTA-PERCHA AND INDIA-RUBBER 



pufFs." In small doses haschisch (resin) has pleasant effects, 

 for people experience pleasant illusions, good appetite, ex- 

 citement, and laughter, followed, however, after an interval 

 by stupor and sleep. 



People addicted to the use of haschisch roll their eyes 

 violently, and have a wild, startled appearance. 



Naturally so dangerous a drug cannot be recommended 

 unless under the most exceptional circumstances, but it is 

 employed in cases of asthma and insomnia. Haschisch and 

 opium are the two great curses of the Chinese, Malays, and 

 the inhabitants of British India and the East. They may 

 be compared to "drink" in this country, but they are 

 important medicines. 



Among the most curious and interesting facts in Nature 

 is the extraordinary variety of the ways in which at present 

 gutta-percha and india-rubber are employed. We should 

 not be able to ride bicycles, or in motor-cars ; we could not 

 use Atlantic cables and many electrical apparatus ; our 

 railway carriages would be most uncomfortable ; golf would 

 be impossible ; we should have no waterproof coats and no 

 goloshes, if it were not for these valuable and extraordinary 

 substances, india-rubber or caoutchouc, and gutta-percha. 



Their history is full of romance, but perhaps the most 

 striking part of it is just this fact. Because a few (only a 

 very few) plants found it necessary to protect their wood from 

 burrowing beetles by a specially poisonous and elastic sub- 

 stance, therefore we can play golf and enjoy free-wheel 

 bicycles. 



The rubber is derived from the resinous latex or milky 

 juice, which pours out from any wound in the bark of certain 

 trees and creeping plants. This milk must be poisonous 

 enough to kill the rash and intrusive mother beetle, who 



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