320 MYRTACE.E 



Preparation of Caryophyllin. Treat ethereal extract of cloves with water, 

 collect precipitate, and purify with ammonia. 



ACTION AND USES. Stimulant and carminative, used mostly as a syner- 



gist. Dose: 5 to 10 gr. (0.3 to 0.6 Gm.). 

 OFFICIAL PREPARATION. 



Tinctura Lavandulse Composita (0.5 per 



cent.), Dose: % to 2 fl. dr. (2 to 8 mils). 



Tinctura Rhei Aromatica. 



371 a. CAROPHILLI FRUCTUS. The ripe fruit, or Mother Cloves, resembles 

 cloves in appearance, but is thicker and somewhat lighter in color and less 

 aromatic; the corolla is absent, but the calyx-teeth still adhere. 



371 b. OLEUM CARYOPHYLLL OIL OF CLOVES. A pale yellowish- 

 brown, thin liquid, becoming reddish-brown on exposure. It has a 

 specific gravity of 1.060, and boils at about 25oC.; slightly acid; 

 taste aromatic and hot; odor characteristic, aromatic. Oil of cloves 

 consists of two oils one lighter than water, the other heavier; the 

 light oil, caryophyllene, CisH^, sp. gr. 0.91, is a pure hydrocarbon, 

 and is thought to be inactive; the heavy oil is a phenol-like liquid 

 termed eugenol, or eugenic acid, doHi 2 O 2 , sp. gr. 1.064 to 1.070. 



ACTION AND USES. Used for the same purposes as cloves, more com- 

 monly, however, for introduction into an aching, carious tooth. 

 Dose: i to 5 HR (0.065 to 043 mil). 







372. PIMENTA, N.F. PIMENTA 



ALLSPICE 



The nearly ripe dried fruit of Pimen'ta officina'lis Lindley, including not more than 

 5 per cent, of stems and foreign matter. 



BOTANICAL CHARACTERISTICS. An elegant tree about 30 feet high, evergreen. 

 Leaves pellucid-punctate, petiolate. Flowers in racemes, white. Calyx and 

 petals 4-fold, the latter greenish-white. Fruit a berry, covered by the round- 

 ish, persistent base of the calyx. After ripening, they lose their aromatic 

 warmth and acquire a somewhat juniper-like taste; hence they are gathered 

 in the unripe state. 



SOURCE. West Indies, Mexico, and South America, the principal source being 

 Jamaica from which it has received the name of Jamaica pepper. 



DESCRIPTION OF DRUG. Globular, about the size of a large pea; picked while 

 yet green, becoming wrinkled and brownish on drying, with the four calyx- 

 teeth and the short style still adherent to the apex, or a raised ring marking 

 the position of the calyx-teeth; it is divided into two cells, each of which con- 

 tains a single, brownish, plano-convex seed. The pericarp is finely tuber- 

 culated with numerous oil tubercles. Odor spicy and agreeably pungent; 

 taste clove-like. 



Powder. Reddish-brown. Characteristic elements: Parenchyma of endo- 

 sperm, with starch and resin; parenchyma of pericarp, with starch, resin, and 

 calcium oxalate in aggregate crystals about iOp in diam.; sclerenchyma with 

 stone cells, having simple, branching pores; trichomes, short, one-celled; large 

 oil and resin ducts; starch grains, spherical, io/z simple or compound. See Fig. 301. 



