132 SIMARUBEiE. 



The first to give a good account of Jamaica quassia was John 

 Lindsay/ a medical practitioner of the island, who writing in 1791 

 described the tree as long known not only for its excellent timber, but 

 also as a useful medicine in putrid fevers and fluxes. He adds that 

 the hark is exported to England in considerable quantity — " for the 

 purposes of the brewers of ale and porter." 



Quassia, defined as the wood, bark, and root of Q. amara L., was 

 introduced into the London Pharmacopoeia of 1788; in the edition of 

 1809, it was superseded by the wood of Picrcena excelsa. In the stock- 

 book of a London druggist (J. Gurney Bevan, of Plough Court, Lombard 

 Street) we find it first noticed in 1781 (as rasurce), when it was reckoned 

 as having cost 4s. 2d. per lb. 



Description — The quassia wood of commerce consists of pieces of 

 the stem and larger branches, some feet in length, and often as thick 

 as a man's thigh. It is covered with bark externally of a dusky grey 

 or blackish hue, white and fibrous within, which it is customary to 

 strip off* and reject. The wood, which is of a very light yellowish tint, 

 is tough and strong, but splits easily. In transverse section it exhibits 

 numerous fine close medullary rays, which intersect the rather obscure 

 and irregular rings resembling those of annual growth of our indigenous 

 woody stems. The centre is occupied by a cylinder of pith of minute 

 size. In a longitudinal section, whether tangential or radial, the wood 

 appears transversely striated by reason of the small vertical height of 

 the medullary rays. 



The wood often exhibits certain blackish markings due to the 

 mycelium of a fungus ; they have sometimes the aspect of delicate 

 patterns, and at others appear as large dark patches. 



Quassia has a strong, pure bitter taste, but is devoid of odour. It 

 is always supplied to the retail druggist in the form of turnings or 

 raspings, the former being obtained in the manufacture of the Bitter 

 Gups, now often seen in the shops. 



Microscopic Structure — The wood consists for the most part of 

 elongated pointed cells (libriform), traversed by medullary rays, each 

 of the latter being built up of about 15 vertical layers of cells. The 

 single layers contain from one to three rows of cells. The ligneous rays 

 thus enclosed by medullary parenchyme, are intersected by groups of 

 tissue constituting the above-mentioned irregular rings. On a longi- 

 tudinal section this parenchyme exhibits numerous crystals of oxalate 

 of calcium, and sometimes deposits of yellow resin. The latter is more 

 abundant in the large vessels of the wood. Oxalate and resin are the 

 only solid matters perceptible in the tissues of this drug. 



Chemical Composition— The bitter taste of quassia is due to 

 Quassiin, which was first obtained, no doubt, from the w^ood of Quassia 

 amara, by Winckler in 1885. It was analysed by Wiggers,^ who 

 assigned it the formula C^°H^^O^, now regarded as doubtful. According 

 to the latter, quassiin is an irresolvable, neutral substance, crystallizable 

 from dilute alcohol or from chloroform. It requires for solution about 

 200 parts of water, but is not soluble in ether ; it forms an insoluble 

 compound with tannic acid. Quassia wood is said to yield about -^ 



^ Trans. Roy. Soc. Edinburgh, iii. (1794) ^ Liebig's AnnaUn der Phnrm. xxi. 



205. tab. 6. (1837) 40. 



