jS On the Senna lifed in Commerce?- 



of commerce is nothing elfe than a compound of the three 

 kinds, which C. Neftoux collected and preferved feparately. 



The two old kinds were fubjeclcd feparately to examina- 

 tion, and their produfts without much impropriety may be 

 ranked m the fame ctafs. Jt remained therefore to fubjeft 

 to the fame refearches the plant arguel, called fenna of Mecca, 

 placed in the clafs of the cynanchum by C. Ne«Sloux, who 

 has given an ample defcription of it. The following is the 

 Tcfult of the chemical experiments niade with it by Bouillon-' 

 Lagrange. 



♦' It appeared to me,^' fays he, *' that this fubflance con- 

 • tained a fmaller quantity of extractive matter. Infufion, either 

 cold or hot, decoction, and evaporation of the liquors gave 

 only afmall quantity of extraft, and this extra6l in regard to 

 its principles was ahvavs analogous to the extracls of the two 

 old kinds of fenna. The fame eflecfs therefore, but in a 

 weaker degree, are to be expected from it. But this differ- 

 ence is of great importance in the practice of medicine, and 

 ought to be attended to, as well as ihe foruaupder which the 

 remedy is adminiftercd. 



The refearches made at the fame time bv our colleague 

 Vauquelin and Bouillon-Lagrange on a conitituent part of 

 fenna, which has been confidered as refinous, and confe- 

 quently as the moft a6live, will eltablifli more certain ideas 

 refpc(5fing this kind of purgative. 



C. Neftoux fent with the leaves, fmall twigs and pods of 

 the fenna guebelly, and the flowers which he gathered from 

 that plant. Thcfc flowers, according to the refearches of 

 Bouillon-Lagrange, give the fame relults, only that they do 

 not communicate fo much colour to the liquor in which they 

 are infufed or boiled. They have not fo falinc and bitter a 

 taite as the leaves ; their odour ulfo is different, and every 

 thing announces tliat they contain Icfs of the purgative prin- 

 ciples. 



This memoir appears to us particularly important in an 

 economical point of view, as the author propofes to tranlplant 

 the Egyptian and Nubian fenna to St. Domingo, where it 

 may be cultivated in dirtricts abandoned by the planters. C, 

 Ne6loux affures us that thefe plants would fucceed equally 

 well in the Illes of France and Keunion, aud alfo in Cayenne, 



X. Bio. 



