CATECHU. 241 



4 to 6 feet in girth, straggling thorny branches, light feathery foliage, 

 and dark grey or brown bark, reddish and fibrous internally. 



It is common in most parts of India and Burma, where it is highly 

 valued for its wood, which is used for posts and for various domestic 

 purposes, as weD as for making catechu and charcoal, while the ajstrin- 

 gent bark serves for tanning. It also grows in the hotter and drier 

 parts of Ceylon. A. Catechu abounds in the forests of Tropical Eastern 

 Africa; it is found in the Soudan, Sennaar, Abyssinia, the Noer 

 country, and Mozambique, but in none of these regions is any astringent 

 extract manufactured from its wood. 



2. A. Suma Kurz^ (Mimosa Suma Roxb.), a large tree with a red 

 heartwood, but a white bark, nearly related to the preceding but not 

 having so extensive a geographical range. It grows in the South of 

 India (Mysore), Bengal and Gujerat. The bai'k is used in tanning, 

 and catechu is made from the heart-wood. 



The extract of the wood of these two species of Acacia is Catechu 

 in the true and original sense of the word, a substance not to be con- 

 founded with Gamhier, which, though very similar in composition, is 

 widely diverse in botanical origin, and always regarded in commerce as 

 a distinct article. 



History — Barbosa in his description of the East Indies in 1514 ' 

 mentions a drug called Cacho as an article of export from Cambay to 

 Malacca. This is the name for Catechu in some of the languages of 

 Southern India.* 



About fifty years later, Garcia de Orta gave a particular account of 

 the same drug * under its Hindustani name of Kat, first describing the 

 tree and then the method of preparing an extract from its wood. This 

 latter substance was at that period made up with the flour of a cereal 

 (Ehusine coracana Gartn.) into tablets or lozenges, and apparently not 

 sold in its simple state : compositions of this kind are still met with in 

 India. In the time of Garcia de Orta the drug was an important 

 article of traflic to Malacca and China, as well as to Arabia and Persia. 



Notwithstanding these accounts, catechu remained unknown in 

 Europe until the l7th century, when it began to be brought from 

 Japan, or at least said to be exported from that country. It was known 

 about 1641 to Johannes Schroder,^ and is quoted at nearly the same 

 time in several tariffs of German towns, being included in the simples 

 of mineral origin.^ 



In 1671, catechu was noticed as a useful medicine by G. W. Wedel 

 of Jena,' who also called attention to the diversity of opinion as to its 



^ Brandis, Forest Flora of North- Western 1649. lib. iii. 516. "Est et gentis terrse 



and Central India, Lond. 1874. 187, from exoticae, colore purpureum, punctulis albis 



whicli excellent work we also borrow the intertextum, ac si situm contraxisset, sapore 



description of A. Catechu. austeriusculum, masticatum liquescens, 



- Published by the Haklnyt Society, snbdulcemque post se relinquens saporem, 



Lond. 1866. p. 191. Catechu vocant, seu Terram japonkam. . . 



* As Tamil and Canarese, in which ac- Particulam hujus obtinui a Phannacopceo 

 cording to modem spelling the word is nostrate curiosissimo Dn. Matthia Bansa. " 

 written Kdsku or Kdchu. — Moodeen The preface is dated Frankfurt a.d. 1641. 

 Sheriff, Suppl. to PhamuKopceia of India, ^ Phann. Joiim. vi. (1876) 1022. 



1879. 96. " Usus novus Catechu seu Terrce Japonic^, 



* Aromatum Historia, ed. Clusius, 1574. — Ephemerides Nai. Cur. Dec. i. ann. 2 

 44. -He writes the word Cate. (1671) 209. 



' Pharmacopoeia mtdico-physica, Ulmae, 



