FRUCTUS CASSIA FISTUL.E. 221 



is certain however that druggists have been found who preferred senna 

 that contained a good percentage of argel. 



Nectoux, to whom we owe the fii-st exact account of the argel or 

 hargel plant/ describes it as never gathered with the senna by accident 

 or carelessness, but always separately. In fact he saw, both at Esneh 

 and Phile, the original bales of argel as well as those of senna : and at 

 Boulak near Cairo, at the beginning of the present century, the argel 

 used to be regularly mixed with senna in the proportion of one to 

 four. 



The leaves of argel after a little practice are very easily recognized; 

 but their complete separation from senna by hand-picking is a tedious 

 operation. They are lanceolate, equal at the base, of the same size as 

 senna leaflets but often larger, of a pallid, opaque, greyish-green, rigid, 

 thick, rather crumpled, wrinkled and pubescent, not distinctly veined. 

 They have an unmistakeably bitter taste. The small, white, star-like 

 flowers, or more often the flower buds, in dense corymbs are found in 

 plenty in the bales of Alexandrian senna. The slender, pear-shaped 

 follicles, when mature 1| inches long, with comose seeds are less fre- 

 quent. It has been shown by Christison^ that argel leaves administered 

 per 86 have but a feeble purgative action, though they occasion griping. 

 It is plain therefore that their admixture with senna should be 

 deprecated. 



The leaves or leaflets of several other plants were formerly mixed 

 occasionally with senna, as those of the poisonous Coriaria rayrtifolia 

 It., a Mediterranean shrub, of Colutea arhc/rescens L., a native of Central 

 and Southern Europe, and of the Egyptian Tephrosia Apollmea Delile. 

 We have never met with any of them.^ 



FRUCTUS CASSIiE FISTULiE. 



Cassia Fistula ; Purging Cassia; F. Casse Canefice, Fruit du Caneflcer ; 



G. RohreTicassie. 



Botanical Origin — Cassia Fistula L. {Cathariocarpus Fistula Pers., 

 Bactyrilohium Fistula Willd.) a tree indigenous to India, ascending to 

 4000 feet in the outer Himalaya, but now cultivated or subspontaneous 

 in Egypt, Tropical Africa,* the West Indies and Brazil. It is from 20 to 

 30 feet high (in Jamaica even 50 feet) and bears long pendulous racemes 

 of beautiful fragrant, yellow flowers. Some botanists have established 

 for this tree and its near allies a separate genus, on account of its 

 elongated, cylindrical indehiscent legume, but by most it is retained in 

 the genus Cassia. 



History — The name Casia or Cassia was originally applied ex- 

 clusively to a bark related to cinnamon which, when rolled into a tube or 

 pipe, was distinguished in Greek by the word crvpiy^, and in Latin by 

 that oi fistula. Thus Scribonius Largus,* a physician of Rome during 



^ Op. cU. (See p. 218). ^ Schweinfurth found it in 6° N. lat. and 



^ Digpematory, ed. 2. 1848. 850. 28-29° K long., in the country of the Dor, 



' The reader will find figures of these where the tree may also be indigenous. 



leaves contrasted with Senna in Pereira's » Compositiones Medicamentorum, cap. 4. 



Elern. of Mat. Med. ii. part ii (1853) 1866. sec. 36. 



