$44 Comparative Analysis of the Gum Resins. 
It results therefore, that’ 100° parts of this acid resinous 
substance are formed of 
Dry muriatioacid wy ie oe SU ea a 25 
Chartoalnagge oid Helin, sedlaap 28340 
Oxygen, hydrogen and carbon, in the aéri- 
formistate yes whee a. odd aime 
100°0. 
It will be seen with surprise that the muriatic acid exists 
in this substance in the same proportion as in the muriate 
of potash ; for 130 parts of this salt only contain at most 
30 of muriatic acid, according to M. Thenard: but on re- 
collecting the excellent researches of this chemist on the 
union of the principles of alcohol with the muriatic acid, 
we shall be less astonished upon seeing other hydrogenized 
substances act in the same manner with this acid. ; 
The great quantity of carbon which exists in this mu 
riated resinous matter authorizes me in thinking that it 1s 
not owing to the direct combination of the muriatic acid 
with the resin of camboge; for the muriatic acid when 
heated with this resin did not give the same acidiferous 
substance. It seemed much more probable to me that the 
resin of camboge has been partly de-hydrogenated by the 
oxygenated muriatic gas, and that in this state it must have 
contracted an union with the muriatic acid. 
These results also lead me to think that: during the dee 
coloration of vegetable substances by the oxygenated mu- 
riatic acid, a part of this oxygenated acid enters into com- 
bination, H 
§ VII. Tt results from these inquiries that camboge 1s 
truly a resinous gum in every sense of the word; since we 
find in it a peculiar resin well characterized, and a gum Te- 
sembling that which is furnished by several of our fruit- 
trees. It was formerly used in medicine as a remedy for 
gout, and hence its French name of Gomme gouite; but it 
has been disused as an anti-arthritic for nearly a century 
past, and is now only resorted to in order to aid the opera- 
tion of other drastics : its want of taste seems to infer that 
its medicine] virtues are not very energetic. 
ANALYSIS OF EUPHORBIA. 
§ I. Euphorbia flows naturally or by incision from se- 
veral plants of the same genus. In Malabar, the Ewphor- 
bia antiquorum still furnishes what is used by the Dutch at 
the present time; that which is brought into England is 
extracted from the Euphorbia canariensis, a very large 
species, 
