28o 
THE TROPiCAL AQRiCULTURIST. [October t, 1891. 
or chloroform may be readily preserved. Milk is at 
first coagulated by it, and subsequently changed to 
au aqueous liquid. Upon albumen, meat, and blood 
fibrin its effect is to soften and dissolve ; the best 
temperature for effecting this is, as appears from 
experiment, 30° to 40° C. It Vfas also found to kill 
and practically dissolve eenia, ascarides and other 
intestinal parasites. 
From the milky juice of the fruit an active 
principle, papain, is isolated, which occurs as an 
amorphous white, or yellowish white powder, 
odorless, and with a scarcely perceptible taste. The 
composition of the substance is not yet made out, 
but it indicates on ultimate analysis a content of 
10-6 per cent, of nitrogen. Papain is soluable in 
water, and O'l part will dissolve 10 to 20 parts of 
blood fibrin. The aqueous solution is rendered turbid 
by boiling, and is precipitated by alcohol, by acetate 
of lead, by tannin, by nitric acid, etc. 
This principle has been proved to possess the pep- 
tonizing properties of the juice in a very high degree 
of concentration, and the experiments of careful ob- 
servers have shown that papin, in concentrated solu- 
tion, will dissolve more meat-fibrin or coagulated 
albumen than will pepsin in the same time. It must 
also be pointed out that the vegetable princi^.le dif- 
fers from the animal substance in that first, it is 
most active in the presence of a small quantity of 
fluid, and secondly, it is almost equally effective in 
acid, neutral, or alkaline solutions. 
One of the first uses to which the solvent powers 
of papain' were first put in European medicine was 
for the breaking down and solution of the false 
membranes of diphtheria. It is used in 5 per cent, 
solution, and painted or sprayed on the affected parts. 
Asch, Kohts, Oertel, Kossbach, Schaffer and others 
used such solutions, and found them to be very suc- 
cessful. Dr. Jacobi, president of the New York Aca- 
demy of Medicine, used papain in several cases of 
diphtheria or croup, and observed that its local ap- 
plication was followed in a few hours, or at the most 
days, by the disappearance of the membranes. Si- 
milar experience is recorded by Prof. Croner, Dr. 
J. R. Bromwell, of Washington, and other authorities. 
Dr. J. B. Richardson characterized it as the best 
and most rapid solvent for diphtheritic membrane he 
had used. 
It was in virtue of the same solvent property that 
the principle was recommended and employed in the 
treatment of the various affections of the skin as- 
sociated with a thickening of the epidermis and with 
the formation of crusts. Drs. McKenzie and John- 
ston extended its employment by applying a 5 per 
cent.- solution, with half the weight of sodium bicar- 
bonate, to the clearing out of the middle ear when 
it was plugged with masses of wax, or epithelium, or 
morbid secretion that syringing could not remove. 
The property already mentioned of softening and 
more or less peptonizing flesh and fibrin, at a tem- 
perature of 30° to 40° C, evidently indicates its adap- 
tation to internal administration — in doses of 1 to 
5 grains — as a means for relieving an enfeebled sto- 
mach of part of the work of digestion. It is further 
noteworthy that, besides exerting its peptonizing ac- 
tion on the albuminous and fibrinous contents of the 
stomach, papain increases the secretion of the gastric 
juice and prevents the fermentation of the food. By- 
virtue of these properties, it has been given with 
considerable success in the treatment of gastric 
cartarrh, and iu dyspepsia, while in dysentery and 
the chronic diarrhcea of infants it has also proved 
a valuable remedy. 
Perhaps one of the principal fields of usefulness in 
which popain has been widely employed is in the 
expulsion of intestinal parasiies. A number of authors 
have recorded cases in which its administration has 
been followed by the discharge of toenia, ascarides, 
etc , in a slirunken and partly digested condition. 
Unlike a majority of so-called anthelmintics it is not 
dangerous to the patient, nor is it unpleasant to take. 
It must be romenibered tliat although papuin destroys 
the parasites, it does not diri ctly expel them from 
the body; Diis )nust bo effected by following the dose 
of papain with a Uxativo oi' milil purgative. 
In conclusion attention should be called to the ne- 
cessity of excercising care in the selection of brands 
of papain, as there are many kinds which are almost 
destitute of peptonizing power and therefore, useless 
for the purposes indicated above The value of a 
good specimen can be readily estimated by digesting 
100 grains of finely minced raw lean beef with 1 
gram of the papain and 1 oz. of distilled water con- 
taining 2 grains of hydrochloric acid or bicarbonate 
of soda. After 20 minutes' digestion at HOO F 
(with assiduou- stirring) the liquid should be strained 
through muslin, the undissolved residue washed 
dried at 212° F. and weighed. AUowing 75 per cent' 
for moisture in the raw beef, from 60 to 90 per 
cent, of the meat should be dissolve Notes on 
New Remedies. 
Eff EOT OF Cheap Aluminium.— " Wfaat will be th® 
effect of tins reauctiou ii, pricf^ (to 50c. per pounn)/ 
Btji-s the American MoMufactv.rei-, " re- ains to be seen. 
We do not beliuvt that -.lumiuium will have the ex- 
tensive use in oertaii. dirpctions which whs pred icted 
for it, owing to its iightness aud tensile strength, 
but there is no doubt that for many purpr ses, as for 
covering building.-', the msnutacture of tableware and 
hardware, the production of kitchen utensils, etc. 
there will be a market that will consume all that c^n 
be made in the near future, if it can be produced 
in quantities and eold at 50 c. a pound. The German 
Government has been in the market for tweatyions 
of aluminium for utensils for the kits of sold era. 
We questioD, however, if any quantity of alumiDiaiii 
has ever been made so that it can be sold at a 
profit at 50 c. a pound. No doubt some method or 
a modification of a known methoa will be H.Krovered 
that will permit of its sale at a profit at 50 c. a 
pound, if not at 25 c, bat that day is not y>-t." 
Bradstreet's, Au^', I5th. 
The MuiiUNGA or Drdm-,tick. — A paper waa 
recently read before the Bombay Natural Hisiocy 
Society by Surgeon Major E. R. Kirtikar, I. M. D., 
entitled " Notes on a Ears Fungus Found Growing 
on the Drumstick Tree." The description is 
accompanied by a plate. From the remarks we 
quote as follows : — 
The DruQ-stick tree is a familiar fig^ure in the Kon- 
kan fields and kitchen gardens. It is largely cultivated 
for its twisted trilateral follicles wrongly called " pods," 
which contain a rich fleshy pulp. This pulp whe'u 
cooked with butter, salt and pepper yields an agree- 
able and by no means unwholesome dieh. Its root is 
used in the place of Hi rse-raddish ao English tables 
in India.* Though a little coarse in fibre, the scra- 
pings of the root are quite as'gtod a substitute as one 
could expect to have in point or flavour and pungency. 
The flavour p.nd pungency are dae to an essential oil 
wL'cn ie abn.-idant in ti e loose parenchyma of the bark 
ot the Moringa. The sofo and porous woody tissue also 
contains this essential oil. No wonder then that any 
parasite throv?ing its myceliam on its most vitally ac- 
tive cells should imbibe the essential oil and retain it 
in its own tissue, s * * jj^g 
question strikes one as fo whether this peculiar 
liorse-raddigh odour has an attraction for the weevil 
that destroyed my fungus, for we find that it certainly, 
I ought to say presumably on account of that odour, 
attacks the boat, even in the living state of the latter. 
Everybody -.ho kcows the habit of the Mloringa pterygo- 
sperma can call back to memory the gum-studOed 
stem of this tree maikedwith burrows and furrows 
clogged with the millet-seed sized globules of the 
weevils' excreta bound up iu innumerable chains with 
floooulent fibres not unlike a cobweb. Does this weevil 
fiud any special ol.arm iu the odour wbich the fungus 
inherited from the Moringa. « # » rjijjg pQjjj^ 
is worthy ol investigation, and I commend it to 
the careful study not only of those who are inter- 
ested in the study of fungi, but also of those who 
wiitch the habits of the insects and molluscs which 
de.'stroy our plant life. 
* Si) in Oeylon, but the pods make favourite curries 
