028 



DRUGS, KARCOTICS, ETC. 



the streams in the sultry regions shaded by other trees. It is 

 said to be botli a. preventive and cure. 



Mr. Edward Otto, writing from Cuba to the " Gardener's Maga- 

 zine" for May, 1842, p. 286, describes the guaco as a tree grow- 

 ing from four to eight feet in height, with beautiful dark green 

 leaves, having a brown tinge round the margin. The blossoms are 

 small, of a bluish brown, and hang like loose bunches of grapes 

 at the points of the shoots, or even on the stem itself, as it has 

 seldom branches. The m Iky sap is said to have poisonous effects. 

 " I was told (he adds) that this plant is nsed efiiciently in 

 cholera and yelloAV fever." This tree is said to be the Camoeladia 

 ilicifolia of ISwartz, common in Antigua and Hayti, being known 

 in Antigua by the popular name of the holly-leaved maiden plum. 



Aloes. — The drug called aloes is the bitter, resinous, inspissated 

 juice of the leaves of various species of an arborescent plant 

 of the lily family, with a developed stem and large succulent 

 leaves, growing principally in tropical and sub-tropical regions, 

 and having a wide extent of range, being produced in Borneo and 

 the East, Africa, Arabia, and the "West Indies ; many are also 

 natives of the Cape of Grood Hope. The plant will thrive in 

 almost any soil, and, v»dien once established, it is extremely 

 difficult to eradicate. 



The cultivation and manufacture are of the most simple kind. 

 The usual mode of propagating the plants is by suckers ; and all 

 the care required is to keep them free from weeds. 



Erom the high price wliich the best Barbados aloes fetches in 

 the market, £7 per cwt., its culture might be profitably extended 

 to many of the other islands. The aloes plant is indigenous 

 to the soil of Jamaica, and although handled by thousands of 

 the peasantry and others, there is not perhaps one in five thou- 

 sand v.'ho understands its properties or the value of the plant. 

 With the Jamaicans it is commonly used in fever cases, by 

 slicing the leaves, permitting the juice to escape partially, and 

 then applying them to the head with bandages ; — this is the only 

 generally known property which it possesses there. 



A series of trials made recently in Paris proved that cordage 

 manufactured from the fibre of this plant grown in Algiers, 

 Avas far preferable in comparative strength to that manufactured 

 from hemp. Cables, of equal size, showed that that made of the 

 aloe raised a weight of one-fifth more than that of hemp. 



The drug is imported into this country under the names of 

 Sec )trine, iEast Indian or Hepatic, Barbados, Cape and Caballine 

 aloes. It contains a substance called Aloetine, which some regard 

 as its active principle. The various species now defined are — 

 Aloe sjjicata, vulgaris, Socotrina, Indica, ruhescens, Arahica, linr/uce- 

 formis and Commelina. The average imports in 1841 and 1842 

 were only about 170,780 ^cwts. ; it is now much larger, and a 

 great portion of the supply is drawn from the Cape colony. 



The mode of preparing the drug, w^hich I have my self seen in 



