23G MALLOTUS PHILIPPINENSIS 



through the basket as through a sieve, and is received below on 

 a cloth spread for the purpose. This powder forms the Kn-'nudn 

 of commerce, and is in great repute as an anthelminitic, but is 

 most extensively used as a dye. The adulterations are chiefly the 

 powdered leaves, and the fruit- stalks with a little earthy matter, 

 but the percentage is not large. The operations of picking the 

 fruit and rubbing off the powder commence here in the beginning 

 of March and last about a month." Kamala is also collected in 

 Eastern Africa and Southern Arabia. 



General Characters and Composition. Kainala is a fine, 

 granular, mobile powder, of a brick-red or madder colour, with 

 but little smell or taste. It is insoluble in cold water, and nearly 

 so in boiling water, but ether, alcohol, chloroform, and benzol 

 dissolve its resinous portion, and form deep red solutions. It 

 resembles lycopodium by floating on water, and by igniting when 

 sprinkled over a flame. When examined by a microscope it is 

 seen to consist of minute irregular spherical, semi-transparent, 

 garnet-red glands with a wavy surface, more or less mixed with 

 stellate hairs and sand. The glands or pure kamala may be 

 removed by sifting. 



Much doubt exists as to the chemical constitution of kamala. 

 Some years since Dr. Thomas Anderson, of Glasgow, obtained a 

 principle, which he called Rottlerin, in the form of minute, yellow, 

 platy crystals with a satiny lustre. These crystals were readily 

 soluble in water, sparingly soluble in cold alcohol, but more so in hot 

 alcohol, and insoluble in water. Leube, who afterwards examined 

 kamala, was unable to obtain this principle, but he found two 

 resins which together formed 80 per cent, of the drug, and these 

 he regarded as the active constituents. It is certain, however, that 

 minute crystals may be obtained in some cases from an ethereal 

 solution of kamala by spontaneous evaporation, but the exact 

 nature of these crystals is unknown. 



Medical Properties and Uses. Kamala acts speedily and actively 

 as a purgative, but it not unfrequently causes much nausea and 

 griping. In India it has long been employed as an anthelmintic, 

 being especially adapted for the expulsion of tape-worm. Dr. Mac- 



