EUGENIA CARYOPHYLLATA. 
51 
extracted, and the fraud is not easily discovered, as these latter 
regain part of their flavour by the mixture. The pungency of cloves 
resides in their resin, or rather in a combination of resin with 
essential oil, and to the latter they owe their odour, for the spirituous 
extract is very pungent; but if the oil and the resin contained in 
this extract are separated from each other by distillation, the oil will 
be very mild, and any pungency which it does retain proceeds 
from some small portion of adhering resin, while the remaining resin 
is quite inodorous. Water extracts their odour, but little of their 
pungency ; ether extracts completely their sensible qualities, and 
when the tincture is evaporated on water, a considerable portion of 
a very pungent, hot, unctuous resin, and some extractive, remain. 
Cloves acquire weight by imbibing water, and this they will do at 
some considerable distance: the Dutch, who trade in cloves, take 
advantage of this ; for as they sell them always by weight, when a 
bag of cloves is ordered, they hang it for several hours before it is 
sent in, over a vessel of water, at about two feet distance from the 
surface. No plant, or part of any plant, contains so much essential 
oil as cloves do ; from sixteen ounces, Neumann obtained by dis^ 
tillation two ounces and two drachms ; and Hoffmann obtained an 
ounce and a half of oil from two ounces of spice. This oil is 
specifically heavier than water, nearly colourless, but becoming 
yellow by age. It has the flavour of the cloves, but is much 
milder; it is frequently much adulterated, and when it has a hot, 
fiery taste, and a great depth of colour, it may be suspected. The 
Dutch oil generally exhibits these qualities, owing, it is supposed 
to its containing in solution some of the resin of the cloves extracted 
by alcohol.* The oil is brought here in bottles, but a considerable 
quantity is drawn in this country. 
Medical Properties and Uses. Cloves are accounted the 
hottest and most acrid of the aromatics, and by acting as a power- 
ful stimulant to the muscular fibres, may, in some cases of atonic 
gout, paralysis, &c. supersede most other stimulants of the aromatic 
class: they are sometimes given alone in dyspepsia, when it is 
attended with a very languid state of the circulation, and a sense of 
coldness in the stomach ; but their chief use is, as corrigents to 
other medicines. The oil is used as a corrigent to griping extracts, 
and sometimes as a local application for tooth-ache. In the 
* Vaaqaelin obtained an oil resembling that of cloves from the leaves of the Agatho' 
phjllam Rttveusara. 
