2 
BICINUS COMMUNIS. 
the east, we may reasonably conclude that this plant was well known 
to the ancients, and accordingly we find it spoken of by Dioscorides, 
under the names of Kim and Kporwv, and the purgative properties 
of its seeds are recorded by him. Pliny, ^tius, and other ancient 
authors likewise make mention of it. As early as the year 1562, it 
was cultivated in Britain, and is now annually reared in many of the 
^gardens in the neighbourhood of London, and in that of Dr. Saunders 
at Highbury, but with us it seldom rises above five or six feet high. 
According to Dr. Ainslie, this species of Ricinus is abundant 
throughout India. 
The root is biennial, long, thick, whitish, and beset with many 
small fibres ; the stem is round, thick, jointed, channelled, glaucous, 
of a purplish red colour towards the top, and rises to the height of six 
or eight feet ; the leaves are large, and deeply divided into seven lobes, 
or pointed serrated segments, of a bluish green colour ; the leaf-stalks 
are long, and inserted into the disc of the leaf ; the flowers are male 
and female on the same plant, and produced in clustered terminal 
spikes : the male flowers occupy the lower part of the spike, and the 
female the upper ; the male flowers consist of a calyx divided into 
five oval, pointed, purplish segments, enclosing numerous long 
stamina, which unite at the base ; the female flowers consist of a 
calyx cut into three narrow segments, of a reddish colour; the styles 
are three, and forked at the apex ; the capsule is a large three-celled 
nut, covered with tough spines, and contains three flattish oblong 
seeds, which are forced out on the bursting of the capsule. 
There are two methods by which the oil (which is more generally 
used for medicinal purposes than the seeds) is obtained, namely, by 
expression, and by coction. The oil obtained by the former process, 
is known in commerce by the name of " cold-drawn," and is of a 
paler colour, and less disagreeable to the smell and taste than that 
obtained by coction, which latter sooner becomes rancid. The 
method of obtaining the oil by coction, as practised in the West 
Indies, is as follows: — "The seeds being freed from the husks or 
pods, which are gathered upon their turning brown, and when begin- 
ning to burst open, are first bruised in a mortar, afterwards tied up 
in a hnen bag, and then thrown into a large pot with a sufficient 
quantity of water, (about eight gallons to one gallon of seeds) and 
boiled until the oil has risen to the surface, when it is carefully skim- 
med off", strained, and kept for use. Thus prepared, the oil is 
entirely free from acrimony, and will stay upon the stomach when 
other medicines are rejected." Mr. Long remarks that ** the oil 
intended for internal use is more frequently cold-drawn, or extracted 
