RADIX KRAMERI^. 81 



The same red substance may also be obtained, as stated by Rembold 

 (1868), from the tannic acid of the root of tormentil (Potentilla 

 Tonnentilla L.). 



As to rhatany root, Wittstein also found it to contain wax, gum and 

 un crystal lizable sugar (even in the wood! according to Cotton^). Cotton 

 further pointed out the presence in veiy minute quantity of an odorous, 

 volatile, solid body, obtainable by means of ether or bisulphide of carbon; 

 it occurs in a somewhat more considerable amount in the other sorts of 

 rhatany. The root contains no gallic acid. 



A dr}?^ extract of rhatany resembling kino used formerly to be 

 imported from South America, but how and where manufactured we 

 know not. It is however of some interest as containing a crystalline 

 body which Wittstein who discovered it (1854) regards as Tyrosin, 

 CH^NO'*, previously supposed to be exclusively of animal origin.^ 

 Stadeler and Ruge (1862) assigned to it a slightly different composition, 

 Q.o|£i3jsq^Q3^ and gave it the name of Rataiihin. It dissolves in hot water 

 which is acidulated by a little nitric acid ; the solution on boiling turns 

 red, blue, and lastly green, and becomes at the same time fluorescent. 

 Kreitmair (1875) extracted 07 per cent, of ratanhin from an old specimen 

 of commercial extract of rhatany ; but he did not succeed in obtaining 

 it from other specimens. He also showed that ratanhin is not a con- 

 stituent of the roots of Krameria. The same substance has been abun- 

 dantly found by Gintl (1868) in the natural exudation called Besina 

 (VAngeliifn pedra^ which is met with in the alburnum of Ferreirea 

 spectabilis Allem., a large Brazilian tree of the order Leguraiiiosce 

 (tribe Sophorece). Peckolt, who first extracted it, named it Angelin ; 

 it forms colourless, neutral crystals yielding compounds both with 

 alkalis and acids, which have been investigated by Gintl in 1869 

 and 1870. 



Uses — Rhatany is a valuable astringent, but is not much employed 

 in Great Britain. 



Other sorts of Rhatany — Of the 20 to 25 other species or 

 Kranieria, aU of them belongino: to America, several have astrinorent 

 roots which have been collected and used in the place of the rhatany ot 

 Peru. The most important of these drugs is that known as — 



Para Rhatany, — so called from having been shipped from Para in 

 Brazil. Berg who described it in 1865 termed it Brazilian Rhatany, 

 Cotton in 1868, Ratanhia cles Antilles. It is a drug nearly resembling 

 the following, but of a darker and less purple hue ; it is also in longer 

 sticks which are remarkably flexible, and covered with a thick bark 

 having numerous transverse cracks.^ It is apparently derived from the 

 Krameria argentea of Martins,'^ the root of which is collected in the 

 dry districts of the provinces of Bahia and Minas Geraes, that plant 

 growing throughout north-eastern Brazil. It is also called Rhatany 

 from Ceard. 



^ Etudes sur le Oenre Krameria (thfese), * For further particulars, see Fluckiger, 



Paris, 1868. 83. Pharm. Journ., July 30, 1870. 84. 



- Gmelin, Chemistry, xiii. (1859) 358. '^ Syst. Mat. Med. Bras., 1843. 51 ; Lang- 



* See Vogl's Paper on it in Pringsheim, gaard, Diccionario cle Medicina, Rio de 



Jahrhucher/ur wissmschaftUche Botanik, ix. Janeiro, iii. (1865) 384. — Krameria argentea 



(1874) 277 — 285. is figured in Flora Brasiliensis, Fascicul. 63 



(1874, pg. 71) tab. 28. 



