47 



With the specimens received came some other leaves of different 

 plants including those of a Ficus. these were either mixed accident- 

 ally in gathering or intentionally to adulterate the bundle. 



The plant sent from Hongkong as having been imported from 

 Singapore was quite a different plant. It is apparently the seed- 

 lings of some tree, about a foot tall with solid stem and elliptic or 

 obovate leaves alternate and narrowed at the base cuspidate at the tip 

 6 inches long and three inches across with a petiole half an inch 

 long thinly coriacious and glabrous, nerves ten pairs. The specimens 

 are far too incomplete to furnish any idea as to what the plant 

 can be, but it is not the Combretum. It is presumably collected for 

 export only, but is perhaps as valuable as the genuine Combretum 



H. N. R. 



PLANT USED AS OPIUM HABIT CURE. 



About two months ago a Chinese Towkay sent to the Rev. W. E. 

 HORLEY in Kuala Lumpur a concoction made from the leaves of a 

 shrub growing about Seremban which he claimed was valuable for 

 the purpose of destroying in opium smokers the desire for the drug. 



At the same time anti-opium meetings were being held in 

 Kuala Lumpur owing to a visit of a zealous anti-opium preacher, 

 Mr. ALEXANDER, and large numbers of Chinamen applied for the 

 concoction. Big vats for its preparation were erected in Kuala 

 Lumpur and immense quantities of the " Medicine ' were distributed 

 amounting on some days to over 3,000 bottles. 



The plant is Combretum Sundaicum, Miq. a plant native to the 

 Malayan Peninsula and Archipelago. 



It has not been previously credited with any medicinal characters 

 but some species of Terminalia, neighbouring genus, are used in 

 India and Ceylon for medicinal purposes. Chemical analyses was 

 made by Mr. B. J. EATON the Government Chemist, Federated 

 Malay States, and no medicinal substances except tannin were 



Some plants which to some extent resembled in their foliage 

 Combretum Sundaicum, were, when the demand .for material to 

 manufacture the concoction was great pressed into the service but the 

 chief ingredient of infusion was the extract from the species of 

 Combretum. 



The method of administering the drug is ingenious. To each 

 dose of the concoction is added a proportion of half-burnt opium 

 from the patient's pipe, the adding of this opium seems to be left 

 to the patient and there is no control over the amount added if the 

 patient does not wish to reduce the amount of opium he is 

 consuming. 



