670 PALM^. 



improve digestion, has not until recently been regarded as possessing 

 any particular medicinal powers beyond those of a mild astringent/ 

 It has often been administered as a vermifuge to dogs, and in India and 

 China is given with the same intent to the human subject. Some suc- 

 cessful trials recently made of it for the expulsion of tapeworm have 

 led to it being included in the A dditions to the British Pharmacopceia 

 of 1867, published in 1874. 



Description — The areca palm produces a smooth ovoid fruit, of the 

 size of a small hen's egg, slightly pointed at its upper end, and crowned 

 with the remains of the stigmas. Its exterior consists of a thick pericarp, 

 at first fleshy, but, when quite mature, composed of fine stringy fibres 

 running lengthwise, with much coarser ones below them. This fibrous 

 coat is consolidated into a thin crustaceous shell or endocarp, which 

 surrounds the solitary seed. The latter has the shape of a very short 

 rounded cone, scarcely an inch in height ; it is depressed at the centre 

 of the base, and has frequently a tuft of fibres on one side of the depres- 

 sion, indicating its connexion with the pericarp. The testa, which seems 

 to be partially adherent to the endocarp, is obscurely defined, and insepa- 

 rable from the nucleus. Its surface is conspicuously marked with a net- 

 work of veins, running chiefly from the hilum. When a seed is split 

 open, it is seen that these veins extend downwards into the white 

 albumen, reaching almost to its centre, thus giving the seed a strong 

 resemblance both in structure and appearance to a nutmeg. The embryo, 

 which is small and conical, is seated at the base of the seed. Areca nuts 

 are dense and ponderous, and very difficult to break or cut. They have 

 when freshly broken a weak cheesy odour, and taste slightly astringent. 



Microscopic Structure — The white horny albumen is made up of 

 large thick- walled cells, loaded with an albuminoid matter, which on 

 addition of iodine assumes a brown hue. The cell-walls display large 

 pores, the structure of which, after boiling in caustic ley, becomes clearly 

 evident in polarized light. The brown tissue which runs into the albu- 

 men is of loose texture, and resembles the corresponding structure in a 

 nutmeg. The thin walls of its cells are marked with fine spiral stria- 

 tions, and in this tissue, as well as on the brown surface of the seed, 

 delicate spiral vessels are scattered. All the brown cells assume a rich 

 red if moistened with caustic ley, and a dingy green with ferric 

 chloride. 



Chemical Composition — We have exhausted the powder of the 

 seeds, previously dried at 100° C, with ether ; and thereby obtained a 

 colourless solution, which after evaporation left an oily liquid, concreting 

 on cooling. This fatty matter, representing 14 per cent, of the seed, 

 was thoroughly crystalline and melted at 89° C. By saponification we 

 obtained from it a crystalline fatty acid fusing at 41° C, which may'' 

 consequently be a mixture of lauric and myristic acids. Some of the 

 fatty matter was boiled with water: the water on evaporation afforded 

 an extremely small trace of tannin but no crystals, which had catechin 

 been present should have been left. 



^ J. J. Berlu, The Treasury of Drugs a nutmeg in shape, in chewing turns red ; 



Unlocked, London, 1724, no doubt had it is said they will make one drunk .... 



before him the areca nuts in speaking of but I could never find it." 

 "Nucea indicce (see also p. 503, note 2), like 



