CORTEX GRANATI RADICIS. 291 



tree given in the preceding article, the following which concern the 

 drug under notice may be stated. 



A decoction of the root of the pomegranate was recommended by 

 Celsus/ Dioscorides,- and Pliny ' for the expulsion of tape-worm ; but 

 the remedy had fallen into complete obli\aon, until its use among the 

 Hindus attracted the notice of Buchanan* at Calcutta about the 

 year 1805. This physician pointed out the efficacy of the root-bark, 

 which was further shown by Fleming and others. Pomegranate root 

 is known to have been long used for a similar purpose by the 

 Chinese.^ 



Though the medicine is admitted to be efficient, and is employed 

 with advantage in India where it is easily procured both genuine and 

 fresh, it Ls hardly ever administered in England, the extract of male- 

 fern being generally preferred; but it has a place in several continental 

 pharmacopceias. 



Description — The bark occurs in rather thin quills or fragments, 3 

 to 4 inches long. Their outer surface is yellowish grey, sometimes 

 marked with fine longitudinal striations or reticulated wrinkles, but 

 more often fiu-rowed by bands of cork, running together in the 

 thickest pieces into broad flat conchoidal scales. The inner surface, 

 which is smooth or marked with fine striae and is of a greyish 

 yellow, has often strips of the tough whitish wood attached to it. 

 The bark breaks short and granular; it has a purely astringent 

 taste, but scarcely any odour. 



Microscopic Structure — On a transverse section, the liber is 

 seen to be the prevailing part of the cortical tissue. The former 

 consists of alternating layers of two kinds of cells — one of them loaded 

 with tufted crystals of oxalate of calcium, the other filled with starch 

 granules and tannic matter. The bark is traversed by narrow 

 medullary rays, and very large sclerenchymatous cells are scattered 

 through the liber. Touched with a dilute solution of a persalt of 

 iron, the bark assumes a dark blackish blue tint. 



Chemical Composition — The bark contains, according to Wacken- 

 Toder (1824), more than 22 per cent, of tannic acid, which Rembold 

 (1867) has ascertained to consist for the most part of a peculiar variety 

 called Punico-tannic Acid, O*ff®0"; when boiled with dilute sul- 

 phuric acid, it is resolved into Mlagic Acid, C^H^O", and sugar. Punico- 

 tannic acid is accompanied by common tannic acid, yielding, by means 

 of sulphuric acid, gallic acid, which appears sometimes to pre-exist in 

 the bark. K a decoction of pomegranate bark is precipitated by 

 acetate of lead, and the lead is separated from the filtered liquid, the 

 latter on evaporation yields a considerable amount of mannite. This 

 is probably the Puniein or Granatin of former observers. 



The taenicide power is due, according to Tanret (1878) to Pelle- 

 tiei-ine, C*H"NO, a liquid dextrogyre alkaloid, boiling at 180° to 185° C. 

 It can be obtained colourless by evaporating its ethereal solution in a 

 vacuum, but in the open air becomes yellow. Pelletierine, so called in 



^ De Medicina, lih. iv. c. 17. * Edinh. Med. and Surg. Joum., iiL 



2 Lib. i. c. 153. (1807)22 



^ Lib. xxiii. c. 60. » Debeaui, Pharmacie et Mat. Mid. des 



Chinoig, 1865, 70. 



