290 GRANATE^. 



by the ancients, and among the Romans was in common use for tanning 

 leather/ as it still is in Tunis. 



Description — The fruit of the pomegranate tree is a spherical, 

 somewhat flattened and obscurely six-sided berry, the size of a common 

 orange and often much larger, crowned by the thick, tubular, 5- to 

 9-toothed calyx. It has a smooth, hard, coriaceous skin, which when the 

 fruit is ripe, is of a brownish yellow tint, often finely shaded with red. 

 Membranous dissepiments, about G in number meeting in the axis of the 

 fruit, divide the upper and larger portion into equal cells. Below these 

 a confused conical diaphragm separates the lower and smaller half, 

 which in its turn is divided into 4 or 5 irregular cells. Each cell is filled 

 with a large number of grains, crowded on thick spongy placentae, which 

 in the upper cells are parietal but in the lower appear to be central. 

 The grains, which are about | an inch in length, are oblong or obconical 

 and many-sided, and consist of a thin transparent vesicle containing an 

 acid, saccharine, red, juicy pulp, surrounding an elongated angular 

 seed. 



The only part of the fruit used medicinally is the peel. Cortex 

 Granati of the druggists, which in the fresh state is leathery. When 

 dry as imported, it is in irregular, more or less concave fragments, some 

 of which have the toothed, tubular calyx still enclosing the stamens and 

 style. It is tV to uV of an inch thick, easily breaking with a short 

 corky fracture ; externally it is rather rough, of a yellowish brown or 

 reddish colour. Internally it is more or less brown or yellow, and 

 honey-combed with depressions left by the seeds. It has hardly any 

 odour, but has a strongly astringent taste. 



Microscopic Structure — The middle layer of the peel consists of 

 large thin-walled and elongated, sometimes even branched cells, among 

 which occur thick-walled cells and fibro-vascular bundles. Both the 

 outer and the inner surface are made up of smaller, nearly cubic and 

 densely packed cells. Small starch granules occur sparingly throughout 

 the tissue, as well as crystals of oxalate of calcium. 



Chemical Composition — The chief constituent is tannin, which in 

 an aqueous infusion of the dried peel produces with perchloride of iron 

 an abundant dark blue precipitate. The peel also contains sugar and a 

 little gum. Dried at 100° C. and incinerated, it yielded us 5 "9 per 

 cent, of ash. 



Uses — Pomegranate peel is an excellent astringent, now almost 

 obsolete in British medicine. Waring ^ asserts that when combined 

 with opium and an aromatic, as cloves, it is a most useful remedy in 

 the chronic dysentery of the natives of India, as well as in diarrhoea. 



CORTEX GRANATI RADICIS. 



Pomegranate-root Bark; F. Ecorce de racine de Grenadier; 

 G. Granatwurzelrinde. 



Botanical Origin — unica Granatum L., see page 289. 



History — In addition to the particulars regarding the pomegranate 



^ See also Hehn, Kulturr>flanzen, Berlin, ^ Pharm. of India, 1868. 93. 447. 



1877, 206. 



