RADIX IPECACUANHiE. 375 



and allow the chloroform to evaporate. Two drops of water now added 

 will aflbrd a nearly colourless solution of emetine, which, placed in a 

 watch-glass, will readily give amorphous precipitates upon addition of 

 a saturated solution of nitrate of potassium, or of tannic acid, or of a 

 solution of mercuric iodide in iodide of potassium. To the nitrate 

 Power's test may be further applied. 



If the ivood separated as exactly as possible from the bark is used, 

 and the experiment performed in the same way, the solution wiU reveal 

 only traces of emetine. By addition of nitrate of potassium, no preci- 

 pitate is then produced, but tannic acid or the potassico-mercuric iodate 

 afford a slight turbidity. This experiment confii*ms the observation 

 that the bark is the seat of the alkaloid, as might indeed be inferred 

 from the fact that the wood is nearly tasteless. 



Ipecacuanhic Acid, regarded by Pelletier as gallic acid, but recog- 

 nised in 1850 as a peculiar substance by WiUigk,^ is reddish-brown, 

 amorphous, bitter, and very hygroscopic. It is related to caffetannic 

 and kinic acids ; Reich has shown it to be a glucoside. 



Ipecacuanha contains also, according to Reich, small proportions of 

 resin, fat, albumin, and fermentable and crystaUizable sugar ; also gum 

 and a large quantity of pectin. The bark yielded about 30 per cent., 

 and the wood more than 7 per cent, of starch. 



Commerce — The imports of ipecacuanha into the United Kingdom 

 in 1870 amounted to 62,952 lb., valued at £16,639.2 



Uses — Ipecacuanha is given as an emetic, but much more often in 

 smaU doses as an expectorant and diaphoretic. In India it has proved 

 of late a most important remedy for dysentery. Since the year 1858 

 when the administration of ipecacuanha in large (30 grains) doses began 

 to be adopted, the mortality in the cases treated for this complaint has 

 greatly diminished.^ 



Adulteration and Substitutes — It can hardly be said that ipeca- 

 cuanha as at present imported is ever adulterated. Although it may 

 contain an undue proportion of the woody stems of the plant, it is not 

 fraudulently admixed with other roots. But it very often arrives much 

 deteriorated by damp : we have the authority of an experienced drug- 

 gist for saying that at least three packages out of every four offered in 

 the London drug sales, have either been damaged by sea- water or by 

 damp during their transit to the coast. 



Several roots have been described as False IjMcacnanJia, but we 

 know not one that would not be readily distinguished at first sight by 

 any druggist of average knowledge and experience. 



In Brazil the word Poaya is applied to emetic roots of plants of at 

 least six genera, belonging to the orders Ruhiacece, Violariece, and Poly- 

 (jcdew ; while in the same country, the name Ipecacuanha is used for 

 various species of lonidiwm * as well as for Cephaelis. 



* Gmelin, Chemistry, xv. (1862) 523. treated : under the new method of treat- 



^ Annual Statement of the Trade and ment, it has been reduced to 13"o. In 



Navigation of the U.K.for 1870.— The more Bengal it has fallen from 88-2 to 28-8 per 



recent issues of this retvim have been sim- 1000. — Supplement to the Gazette of India, 



plified to such an extent that drugs are for January 23, 1869. 



the greater part included under one head. ■*As lonidittm Ipecacuanha Vent., /. 



*In the Madras Presidency, the death- Poaya St. Hil., /. parvijlorum Vent., the 



rate from dysenterj' was 71 per 1000 cases first of which aiffords the Poaya branca or 



