OLIBANUM. 133 



per cent, of quassiin. A watery infusion of quassia, especially if a 

 little caustic lime has been added to the drug, displays a slight fluor- 

 escence, due apparently to quassiin. Goldschmiedt and Weidel (1877) 

 failed in obtaining quassiin. They isolated the yellow resin which we 

 mentioned above, and stated that it j-ields protocatechuic acid when 

 melted with potash. Quassia wood dried at 100° C. yielded us 7*8 per 

 cent, of ash. 



Commerce — The quantity of Bitter Wood shipped from Jamaica 

 in 1871 was 56 tons.^ 



Uses — The drug Ls employed as a stomachic and tonic. It is 

 poisonous to flies, and is not without narcotic properties in respect to 

 the higher animals. 



Substitutes — The wood of Quassia aTtiara L., the Bitter Wood of 

 Surinam, bears a close resemblance, both external and structural, to the 

 drug just noticed ; but its stems never exceed four inches in diameter 

 and are commonly still thinner. Their thin, brittle bark is of a 

 grej'ish yellow, and separates easily from the wood. The latter Ls 

 somewhat denser than the quassia of Jamaica, from which it may be 

 distinguished by its medullary rays being composed of a single or 

 less frequently of a double row of cells, whereas in the wood of 

 Picrceiia excdsa, they consist of two or three rows, less frequently of 

 only one. 



Surinam Quassia Wood is exported from the Dutch colony of 

 Surinam. The quantity shipped thence during the nine months ending 

 30th Sept., 1872, was 264,675 Ib.^ 



The bark of Samadera indicoj Gartn., a tree of the same natural 

 order, owes its bitterness to a principle ^ which agrees perhaps with 

 quassiin. The aqueous infusion of the bark is abundantly precipitated 

 by tannic acid, a compound of quassiin probably being formed. A 

 similar treatment applied to quassia would possibly easier afford 

 quassiin than the extraction of the wood by means of alcohol, as per- 

 formed by Wiggers. 



BURSERACE^. 



OLIBANUM. 



Chimmi-resina Olibanum, Thus masculurti * ; Olibanum, Frank- 

 incense ; F. EiTceTis ; G. Weihrauch. 



Botanical Origin — Olibanum is obtained from the stem of several 

 species of Bosivellia, inhabiting the hot and arid regions of Eastern 



^ Blue Book, Island of Jamaica, for and the analogous sounds in other lan- 



1871. guages, are all derived from the Hebrew 



-Consular Reports, No. 3, presented to Lebonah, signifying milk: and modem 



Parliament, July 1873. travellers who have seen the frankincense 



'Rost van Tonningen, Jahresbericht of trees state that the fresh juice is milky, 



Wiggers (Canstatt) for 1858. 75 ; Phxxrm. and hardens when exposed to the air. The 



Journ. ii. (1872) 644. 654. word Thus, on the other hand, seems to 



*The Xi^avov of the Greeks, the Latin be derived from the verb 6viu>, to wicri- 



Olibanum, as well as the Arabic Lubdn, ficf. 



