■m JO UB.NAL., BOMBA Y NA TURAL HIBTOR Y SOCIETY, Vol. X. 



is yellow, having been tinged with the colour of turmeric, while it is 

 greyish in the real Calumha root. 



The reader will ask ^' why this digression ? " " You are speaking of 



the poisonous properties of the Bryony root ; what have you to do 



with the Calumha root?" My answer is simple. I have already said, 



on high authority, that the root of Calumha is adulterated with 



turmeric-dyed bryony-root ; I have also referred to my own experience 



that the true Calumha root never produces vomiting or diarrhoea. 



But on referring to the article on the Calumha toot in Dr. Dymock's 



*' Pharmacographia Indioa,"* I find very much to my astonishment 



that the experiments therein referred to as having been made by 



M. Houde (Rep'^rtoire^ March, 1886, p. 113) and as resulting in 



M. Hondo's being able to separate a crystalline principle, energetically 



productive of diarrhoia and vomiting (^N.B.—Th.Q italics are mine — 



K.R.K.)j are puzzling unless it be supposed that the CaZwwiSa root 



vras examined in an adulterated form. Because on the authority of 



Charles E. Sohn.f I am able to say that the two active principles 



hitherto found in the Calumha root— ^/.e., Calumhin and Calumhic acid — 



are amorphous. It is only "from acetic acid," says Sohn, that Calwnbin 



'^ crystallizes in prisms." He attributes no poisonous properties to 



itj such as noted by Houte. Houte's specimeuj as analysed by him, 



must therefore be considered to be an adulterated one. It certainly 



could not have been adulterated with the root of any of the .BryoniaS), 



as their active principles are glucosides, and none of them crystallized. 



It is possible some other tuberous root yielding a poisonous crystalline 



principle was adulterated with it, or sold in the market in the place 



of the true root of Calumha, The " tricks of trade " are unending. 



The Calumha root is such an invaluable tonic that any adulteration 

 of its root J with roots of a poisonous kind, likely to destroy its high 

 Biedicinal value as a perfectly harmless tonic, and tending to credit it 

 with not only purgative but even emetic properties, either of which 

 properties as a matter of fact do not exist in it, should be jealously 

 guarded. This I have ventured to do as a side-issue of this paper : for 

 I know, and O'Shaughnessy supports me in my experiencej that the 



* Tol. I, p. 47, Bombay, 1890. 



t P. 24, Edition 1894, London. "Dictionary of Active Principles of Plants," &c. See 

 also page 116 where Calumhin is said to be •'Amorphous" in coluinu l. 



