ON BEBEERINE FROM THE GREENHEART TREE. 141 



It is then invariably mixed with about one third part its bulk of 

 decayed wallaba (another native wood), pounded to powder and sifted, 

 on a like quantity of cassava pap, put into the press, and the farinaceous 

 substance thus expressed, baked into bread. This mixture is probably 

 intended to correct the bitter of this seed, for the wallaba wood is rich 

 in tannin, which precipitates and renders tasteless bebeerine. Green- 

 heart bark adheres firmly to the tree even when full of sap, requiring to 

 be gently beaten, so as to crush the liber, or inner rind, when it can be 

 parted in flat pieces of six to twelve inches square, and from one-eighth 

 to one-fourth of an inch thick. On subjecting it to the process by which 

 quinine is made, two alkaloids are obtained, and the term bebeerine has 

 been applied to them collectively. One of these only, when combined 

 with a slight excess of sulphuric acid, and the solution reduced to the 

 consistence of syrup, appeared to form small circular crystals, which 

 could not be separated from the mass. 



Its infusion, like that of the cinchonas, reddens litmus paper ; is 

 clearer, though darker coloured than the latter, and deposits much less 

 sediment on standing. Its productiveness, compared with that of yellow 

 cinchona, appears to be nearly as 3 J to 5. When long subjected to a 

 boiling temperature (212°), or long contact with alkaline and caustic 

 earthy substances, its bitter is destroyed. Bebeerine, when properly ad- 

 ministered, generally cures intermittents where quinine has failed, seems 

 not to affect the head, nor to produce its effects by counter-morbid 

 action, as the alkaloids of the cinchonas are supposed to do. 



, Green-heart wood, bark, and seeds are well known now in commerce, 

 and the sulphate has also come into use here. The British Guiana col- 

 lection in the International Exhibition contains specimens of the wood, 

 bark, and seeds, which may be referred to by those who desire to identify 

 them. We may state that the green-heart wood has a reputation for 

 fishing-rods, as well as for shipbuilding purposes. 



An esteemed correspondent supplies us with the following personal 

 testimony as to the value of bebeerine : — 



" In the latter part of 1848, when in Jamaica, a very heavy loss threw 

 me into great affliction (grief), and concomitant with that came a very 

 severe pain in the left hind portion of my head : the palm of my hand 

 covered it. It was not to be called ' intolerable,' as I did bear it, nor 

 could I imagine it so acute as I have heard tic doloreux described. But 

 it became very constant and wearying (distressing). I placed myself 

 under Dr. Gilbert M'Nab (son of Mr. M'Nab, of Edinburgh), who stood 

 justly very high in colonial repute. He prescribed one drachm of sul- 

 phate of bebeerine, mixed with a sufficient quantity of colocynth to 

 make, I think, about twenty good sized pills ; two pills to be taken 

 every three or four hours, according to the intensity of the pain, and at 

 longer intervals as the pain decreased. The cause of the pain — mental 

 anxiety — did not subside ; the pain was entirely relieved for intervals — 

 it returned three or four times — but repeating the remedy, it finally 

 vanished. 



