254 MEDICAL BOTANY. 



Description. — A middle-sized tree, much branched towards the top. The bark is 

 brownish, or dark ash-coloured, and very much furrowed and cracked. The wood is soft 

 and white. The leaves are alternate, and composed of four to six pairs of ovate, pointed, 

 smooth leaflets, of a pale-green colour, supported on short petioles. The flowers are large, 

 odorous, yellow, and produced in long pendant axillary racemes. The calyx has five oblong, 

 obtuse sepals. The corolla consists of five petals which are concave, unequal, spreading, 

 and waved. The ovary is slender, cylindrical and curved. The fruit is a long, woody 

 brown pod about an inch in diameter, and nearly two feet in length, cylindrical, with two 

 longitudinal furrows on one side, and one on the other, divided into numerous cells by 

 thin plates or partitions, each containing a single, smooth, somewhat compressed seed, 

 embedded in a soft black pulp. 



This species of Cassia is a native of Egypt and the East Indies, but is now 

 naturalized in the West Indies and South America. It was known to the 

 Arab and Greek physicians of the middle ages, and is supposed to have re- 

 ceived its name from its agreeable odour, somewhat resembling that of the 

 celebrated spice. The pods, which are but seldom imported into this country, 

 come from the West Indies, though it is stated that the East Indian afford a 

 far sweeter and more grateful pulp. Those found in the shops do not appear 

 to have undergone any preparation, but Hasselquist {Voyage) says that in 

 Egypt they are collected before they are quite ripe, and carried into a close 

 room, in which is prepared a layer of palm leaves and straw six inches thick, 

 on which they are laid, the room closed, and the next day the heap sprinkled 

 with water, and this process repeated. In this way they are treated for forty 

 days till they become black. 



The pulp is the part used, has a faint nauseous odour, and a sweet, rather 

 pleasant mucilaginous taste. It contains sugar, gum, a matter resembling 

 tannin, a glutinous substance, and a colouring principle (Henry, Jour. Chim. 

 Med.) To prepare the pulp for use, the bruised pods have boiling water 

 poured on them, so as to wash out the pulp, which is strained and then evapo- 

 rated to a due consistence. 



Medical Properties, SfC — In small doses, the pulp is a mild and agreeable 

 laxative, and in larger ones purgative; but from the quantity required to pro- 

 duce this latter effect, it is apt to occasion nausea, flatulence and griping. It 

 does not appear to possess any advantage over the pulp of prunes and is not 

 as agreeable. It is seldom or never used in this country, and but seldom in 

 England except in certain confections. The leaves and the flowers are also 

 purgative. 



The root also contains a bitter principle, and has been employed as a sub- 

 stitute for Peruvian bark. It contains a peculiar principle, which has been 

 examined by Caventou, who regards it as a powerful diuretic. It forms solu- 

 ble combinations with the mineral acids. 



The pulp from the pods of several other species belonging to this group 

 are possessed of the same qualities, but are not as agreeable to the taste; 

 among these may be noticed the C. brasiliana and the C. bacillaris, the pod 

 of which latter is very like the C. fistula, but smaller and pointed at the ex- 

 tremities. 



Sec. 2. Senna, Goert. — Sepals obtuse. Anthers with 2 pores. Legumes membranaceous, 

 flat, compressed, with many transverse partitions ; scarcely dehiscent, almost pulpless. 

 Seeds vertical or parallel to the valves, compressed, somewhat obcordate. 



This section contains the officinal Senna, respecting which so much discre- 

 pancy of opinion exists among the writers on medical botany, scarcely 

 any two of them agreeing as to the species. The following is the result of 

 much study and comparison of descriptions and authorities, and although by 



