340 



The World's Commercial Products 



use is in the East, where they are in universal demand among the natives as a masticatory 

 or chewing material. For this purpose the nuts are cut into thin, narrow slices, which are 

 rolled up with lime in leaves of the betel pepper (Piper Betle). The mixture has a hot and 

 acrid taste when chewed, and its immediate effect is to increase the flow of saliva, which is 

 turned a brilliant red colour. The teeth of the consumer are also stained, but there are said 

 to be no evil results of the habit, which is so firmly established among the natives " that they 

 would rather forego meat and drink than their favourite areca nuts." - The importance of 

 the trade in the nuts may be judged from the fact that, in Ceylon alone, the export trade 

 in 1905 was valued at considerably over £100,000 sterling. 



BARKS AND WOODS 



Cinchona Bark is the source of the invaluable alkaloid quinine, so largely used in the 

 treatment of fevers. The medicinal value of the bark first became definitely known in 1638, 

 when the Countess Chinchon, wife of the Viceroy of Peru, was cured of fever by use of an 



extract of the bark, and it was not long 

 before the drug became recognised in 

 Europe as a valuable febrifuge. Cin- 

 chona bark is obtained from several 

 species of Cinchona, a genus of trees 

 belonging to the Rubiaceae found truly 

 wild only in South America, but now 

 extensively cultivated in Java, India, 

 Ceylon, and, to a smaller extent, in the 

 West Indies and tropical Africa, whence 

 the drug is now chiefly obtained. 



The commercial supplies of the drug 

 are obtained from the following species 

 of Cinchona, the first three of which 

 are the most important : — C. Ledge- 

 riana, C. Calisaya, C. officinalis, and C. 

 succirubra. The method of collecting 

 the bark which is becoming generally 

 adopted at the present time is known 

 as " uprooting." As the name indi- 

 cates, the trees, as soon as they have 

 • reached the period of growth when the 

 bark contains the maximum amount of quinine, are grubbed up, and the bark stripped 

 from the trunk, branches, and roots, the root, bark being especially rich in the alkaloid. 

 The land is then replanted. A method which has met with considerable success in 

 India consists in removing the bark in alternate longitudinal strips and covering the 

 wounds with damp moss or litter in order to allow a new bark to develop on the exposed 

 surface. Analysis shows that the secondary bark is richer in quinine than the "natural" 

 bark, and is, therefore, of greater commercial value. A third method, known as the 

 "shaving," is a. modification of that just mentioned, and consists in removing only the 

 outer part 'of the bark by shaving with a tool, so that the " renewed " bark may be formed 

 without the necessity. of binding damp moss round the tree. The South American method, 

 as stated above, -is to fell the tree and strip off -all the bark, subsequently drying it in the sun 

 or over. fires. The larger pieces are pressed under heavy weights and constitute the "flat 

 bark '\ of the trade,. while the thinner'bark of the smaller branches is known as " quilled bark," 

 on account of its rolling up into quills while drying. The finer qualities of quills are obtained 

 from the young branches which arise from the crowns of plants which have been coppiced. 



BELLADONNA 



Showing leaves in unequal pairs (reduced) 



