95 ACACIA CATECHU 



average total imports from British India into the United Kingdom 

 for the years 1871, 1872, 1873, and 1874, was about 5000 tons, 

 and the value in each year about 120,000. The best catechu 

 comes from Pegu. It is imported into the United States either 

 directly from British India, and chiefly from Calcutta, or indirectly 

 from Great Britain. It is packed in mats, bags, or boxes. 



General Description and Composition. This kind of catechu, 

 which is commonly known under the name of Kutch or Cutch, is 

 generally distinguished from the official Catechu pallidum by its 

 blackish colour ; hence the name of Catechu nigrutn by which it is 

 also known. Several varieties of this catechu have been distin- 

 guished by pharmacologists from their varying forms and colours, 

 &c., but it is generally found in large masses each of which weighs 

 several pounds, and even in some cases as much as a hundred- 

 weight ; these masses are made up of layers composed of more or 

 less oblong pieces of catechu, which vary in length from six to ten 

 inches, in breadth and depth from one to two inches or more, and 

 each piece commonly enveloped in the large rough leaf of Dipte- 

 rocarpus tuberculatuSj Koxb. Cutch has a dark rusty-brown or 

 blackish-brown colour externally ; it is hard and brittle, and when 

 broken, it presents a more or less shining bubbly surface of a 

 blackish-brown colour or various shades of reddish brown. 

 It dissolves slowly in the mouth, and has a very astringent 

 and slightly bitter taste, succeeded by a sensation of sweetness ; 

 it has no odour. When recently imported it is sometimes soft 

 and tenacious internally, and if it be then pulled out into a thin 

 film it commonly presents a translucent granular appearance, and 

 a bright orange-brown colour ; or if examined under the micro- 

 scope after being further softened in water, it exhibits in the 

 same manner as gambier or pale catechu an abundance of very 

 small acicular crystals of Catechin or Catechuic acid. 



The ordinary cutch of commerce is essentially composed of catechin 

 or catechuic acid, and catechu-tannic or mimotannic acid; but the 

 pale-coloured cutch described above as being prepared at Kumaon, 

 in Northern India, is almost entirely composed of the former. 

 These two constituents may be readily distinguished by immers- 



