SACCHARUM OFFICINARUM. 
25D 
gout. The watery infusion is the best form of administering the 
drug; it may be given alone, or in combination with aromatics, 
acids, or other medicines suited to the disorder. Quassia is some- 
times given in powder, but it cannot be sufficiently pulverized to 
admit of being conveniently given in substance; it is also adminis- 
tered in the form of tincture and extract. Quassia is said to be 
much used by the brewers instead of hops, but the beer does not 
keep so well as when hops are used. 
Off. The Wood of Quassia. 
Off. Pp. Infusum Quassise, L. 
Tinctura Quassias, E. D. 
SACCHARUM OFFICINARUM. 
Common Sugar Cane.* 
Class Triandria. — Order Digynia. 
Nat. Ord. Gramina. 
Gen. Char. Calyx two-valved, enveloped in long wool. 
Corolla two-valved. 
Spec. Char. Leaves entire, smooth. Panicle loose. Calyx 
lanceolate, naked, except at the base. 
The common sugar cane is a native of Africa and Lower Asia ; it 
is also supposed to be indigenous to America, but this point appears 
to be undecided, some asserting that it is an undoubted native of 
the American continent, whilst others affirm that it was unknown in 
those regions till Europeans possessed it ; however this may be, it 
has now been extensively cultivated in the West Indies for upwards 
of three hundred years ;t and although the sugar cane grows 
* Fig. a. and b. represent the flower in different stages. 
+ Mr. Loudon, in his Encyclopoedia of Agriculture, p. Ill, informs aS"that the sugar 
cane has been cultivated upwards of seven hundred years in Spain. 
