BUT AGE JE. 



4i9 



useful in plantations and replanting, on account of the facility with 

 which it grows in the most ungrateful soil, is used in feeding a 

 butterfly 1 which produces a textile silk less brilliant but stronger 

 than that of the silkworm. The leaves of this tree are irritant ; those 

 who touch them may be attacked by vesicular or pustular erup- 

 tions, caused by an acrid volatile substance. They have been tried, 

 as has also the powdered bark, as vermicides ; they kill ascarides, 

 but are of little use against teniae ; they moreover cause violent 

 colic, and treated with ether give a resinous vesicatory substance. 

 In India, A. excelsd' and malabaricc? have a bark used as a bitter and 

 aromatic ; it is administered in intermittent fever. The fruits of 

 the latter are recommended in severe cases of headache and 

 stomach affections. 



Among the Zygopliyllece the Guaiacums have long been the most 

 famous of sudorific, antirheumatical, and antisyphilitic woods. Two 

 species are especially employed : Guaiacum sanctum (fig. 514) and 

 G. officinale.* The latter is now most used. It is a beautiful tree 

 with blue flowers, from the Antilles, principally Cuba, Jamaica, 

 St. Lucia, and neighbouring parts of the mainland. The wood 

 reaches us in large logs, sometimes covered with bark, much 

 heavier than water, formed of a yellow sapwood and brown heart, 

 very compact, with the layers alternately directed from right to left. 

 Its transverse section shows close radiating stripes traversed by 

 vascular openings full of a greenish resin ; the powder is balsamic, 

 pungent, choking, and becomes green when in contact with the air 

 and light. There is in commerce a wood with irregular layers, and 

 another with an odour like vanilla. The bark is also met with 

 sometimes ; it contains, like the wood but in very different propor- 

 tions, several acids, gum, mineral substances, and especially a 

 greenish-brown resin with a slight odour of benzine and a pungent 

 flavour, much used in the same way as the wood itself; the resin of 

 the bark is different from that of the wood. 5 G. sanctum* is fre- 



1 Bombyx Cynthia. 



2 Roxb., PI. Coromand., i. t. 23. 



3 DC, Prodr., ii. 89, n. 4. — Pongelion 

 Rheed., Sort. Malab., vi. t. 15. 



4 L., Spec, 546. — Lame:., III., t. 342.— 

 Biackw., Herb., t. 350. — Sloan., Hist., t. 

 222, fig. 3. — Sw., Obs., 168. — Macfad., 

 Jam., i. 187. — Endl., Fnchirid., 617. — Guib., 

 Drog. Simpl., ed. 6, iii. 543, fig. 724. — Nees, 

 PI. Off., t. 380.— Lindl., Fl. Med., 214.— 



VOL. IV. 



R6v., ifl Fl. Med. du xix e Siecle, iii. 79, t. 8. — 

 Moq., JBot. Med., 152, fig. 49. — Rosenth., 

 Syn. PI. Diaphor., 886. — Bees. & Schm., Off. 

 Gew„ ii. t. 14, b (vulg. Jasmin d'Amerique, 

 d'Afrique, Lignum vita Oft*.). 



5 See Guib., loc. cit., 545. — Fluckig., Phar- 

 macog., 68. The acids are called guaiacie, 

 guaiaconic and resino-gu;iiacic. The extractive 

 bitter principle is called guaiacin. 



6 L., Spec., 546.— DC., Prodr., n. 4.— Guib., 



G G 



