1837.] 



Dr. Wight on the Cassia Burmanni. 



7? 



Remarks on the Figure. — The long limb A, is independent of the 

 other, and the short tube B, with its cistern, stop cock, &c. screws on it 

 at C. By this arrangement the long limb can be easily filled and the 

 mercury boiled therein. When the short cistern limb is screwed on, 

 while the other lays horizontally, mercury can be poured into the 

 cistern to the level of the dotted line, and, from the peculiar shape 

 thereof, the cistern will be as full as requisite, and very little air can 

 remain in it on closing the stop cock. By inspection it will appear 

 evident, that, turn the instrument as you will, the end of the long limb 

 will be always immersed in mercury, and the contained air forced 

 against the sides of the cistern. To keep the air in the cistern always 

 in one part clear of the long or vacuum tube, if suspended in a box 

 large enough to allow of its swinging freely on the hooks DD, no error 

 will arise. The cistern end should always be carried uppermost in 

 travelling or moving. 



E. Iron bracket to support and steady the short limb. 



F. A suspending iron and ring at the end of the long limb. 



Notice (with a plate) of the Cassia Burmanni, with Remarks 

 on the Materia Medica of India. — By Robert Wight, Esq. m. d., 

 f. L. s.. 8fC. Member of the Imp. Acad. Naturae Curiosorum, 

 Surgeon on. the Madras Establishment. 



Madras, 20 th June, 1837. 

 My dear Sir,— At the close of my remarks on the cultivation of 

 Senna, page 362 of your last Number, I mentioned an indigenous species 

 possessing considerable medicinal properties, and added, that 1 should 

 endeavour to procure specimens, from which to prepare a figure. I 

 have now the pleasure to send you a drawing, rather too small to do 

 justice to the subject, but so perfectly characteristic, so far as it goesj 

 as to enable any one who may chance to meet with it to identify the 

 plant — which is all that is wanted. 



A recent notice in the public prints of a report by the ' Drug Com- 

 mittee' shows that it is the wish of government, to render this country 

 as much as possible independent of foreign aid in the medical store 

 department, by drawing on the resources of the country itself, for the 

 supply of those medicinal agents required in the treatment of its more 

 prevalent and dangerous forms of disease. As I have at different times 

 paid a good deal of attention to medico-botanical subjects, you will, 

 perhaps, under the protection of a medical plant, permit me to offer a few 

 remarks applicable to the occasion of this paper, though less strictly 



