THE TROPICAL AGRICULTURIST. 
[October t, 1891. 
280 
or chloroform may bo readily preserved. Milk is at 
first coagulated by it, and aulisoquontly changed to 
ail aqueous liquid. Upon albumen, meat, and blood 
fibrin its effect is to soften and dissolve; the boat 
temperature for effecting this is, as appears from 
experiment, 30° to 40° C. It was also found to kill 
and practically dissolve lenia, ascaridea and other 
intestinal parssitos. 
From the milky juice of the fruit an active 
principle, papain, is isolated, which occurs as an 
aniorpnous wliite, or yellowish white powder, 
odorless, and with a scarcely perceptible taste. The 
couiposition of tlio substance is not _yet made out, 
but it indicates on ultimate analysis a content of 
lO'fi per cent, of nitrogen. Papaiu is soluablo in 
water, and OT part will dissolve 10 to 20 parts of 
blood fibrin. Tho aqueous solution is rendered turbid 
by boiling, and is precipitated by alcohol, by acetete 
of load, 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 principle dif- 
fers from tho animal substance in that first, it is 
most active in tho 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 tho solvent powers 
of papaln’woro first put in European medicine was 
for the breaking down and solution of the false 
membranes of diplitheria. It is used in S per cent, 
solution, and painted or sprayed on tlie affected parts. 
Ascii, Kohts, Oertel, Kossbacli, Schafi'er and others 
used such solutions, and fotuid them to be very suc- 
cessful- Dr. "Jacobi, president of the New York Aca- 
demy of Medicine, used papain in several cases of 
diphtliorin or croup, and observed that its local ap- 
plication was followed in a few hours, or at the most 
days, by tho disappearance of tho monibranos. Si- 
milar experience is recorded by I’rof. Croner, Dr. 
J. It. Uromwoll, of Washington, and otlier authorities. 
Dr. .1. 13. lliehardson cliaractorized 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 tlio 
treatment of the various affections of tlio skin as- 
sociated with a thickening of the epidermis and with 
tho formation of crusts. Drs. McKenzie and John- 
ston extended its emplovmont by applying a .'i per 
cent, solution, with half the welglit of sodium bicar- 
bonate, to the clearing out of the middle ear wlien 
it was plugged with masBcs of wu.x, or epithelium, or 
morbid secretion that syringing could not remove. 
Tho property already mentioned of softening and 
more or loss 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 oufoebled sto- 
mach of part of tlio work of digestion. It is further 
noteworthy that, besides exerting its peptonizing ac- 
tion on the albuminous and fibrinous contents of tho 
stomach, papain increases tho seoroliou of the gastric 
juice and prevents tho fermentation of tho food. By 
virtue of these properties, it has been given with 
considerable success in tho treatment of gastric 
cartarrh, and in dyspepsia, while in dysentery and 
the chronic diarrhoea of infanta it lias also proved 
a valuable remedy. 
Perhaps one of tho principal fields of usefulness in 
which popain has been widely employed is in the 
expulsion of intestinal parasiios.^ A nimiber of authors 
have recorded cases in which its administration lias 
been followed by tho discliarge of tinnia, ascaridos, 
etc , in a shrunken and partly digested condition. 
Unlike a majority of so-called antheliiiintics it is not 
dangerous to tlio patient, nor is it unpleasant to take. 
It must bo remembered tliat although papain destroys 
the parasites, it does not directly expel them from 
tho body ; this must be effected by following the dose 
pf papain with a laxativi; ijj; miltl purgative. 
In conclusion attention should be called to tho ne- 
cessity of oxcercising care in the selection of brands 
of papain, as there are many kinds which arc almost 
doatitulo of peptonizing power and therefore, useless 
for the purposes indicated above. The value of a 
good speciiiiou can bo readily estimated by digesting 
loo grains of finely minced' raw loan beef with I 
grain of the papain and 1 oz. of distilled water con- 
taining 2 grains of hydrochloric acid or bicarbonate 
of soda. After 20 minutes' digestion nt 1(0° p\ 
(with assiduous stirring) the liquid should ho strained 
tlirough muslin, tlio undissolvod residue wasliod, 
dried at 212° F. and weighed. Allowing 75 per cent, 
for moisture in tho raw beef, from (iO to 00 per 
cent, of the meat should bo dissolve d.— ATiiex on 
Aero Rtmediei, 
Kffhot op Cheap Aldminium.— “ What will he th® 
effect of tills roduotioii in price (to 50c. per pound),** 
»«J8 the American Manufacturer, “ renains to bo seen. 
We do not believe that aluminium will have the ex- 
tensive use in certain directions which was predicted 
for i^ owing to its lightness and tensile strength, 
but there is no doubt that for many piitposes, as for 
covering buildings, the manufacture of tableware and 
hirdwsre, the production of kitchen utensils, etc., 
there will be a market that will cousume all that cm 
be^made in the near future, if it can be produced 
in quantitio.sand sold at 60 0. a poniid. The tterman 
Government has been in tho market fur twenty tons 
of aluminium for utensils for the kits of soldiers. 
Wo question, however, if any quantity of aluminium 
has ever been made so that it can he sold nt a 
profit at 50 o. a pound. No doubt some method or 
a modifioatioii of a known method will bo discovered 
that will permit of its sale at a profit at 50 o. a 
pound, if not at 26 o., but that day is not yet.” 
Bradetreet's, An;,,', loth. 
The MuitUNtiA on Drdmstick. — A paper was 
recently road before the Bombay Natural History 
Society by Surgeon Major K. K. Kirtikar, 1. M. D., 
entitled •' Notes on a Rare Fungus Pound Growing 
on the Drumstick Tree.” The description is 
nooompanied by a plate. From the reniarks wo 
qnote as follows ; — 
iuu lOLuuiaiica iree ... m ,uo ixuii- 
kau fields and kitchen gardens. It is largely cultivated 
for its twisted trilateral follicles wrongly called ‘‘ pods,” 
which coiitsiii a rich fleshy pulp. This pulp when 
cooked with butter, salt and pepper yields an agreo- 
abio and by no moan.s unwholesome dish. Its root is 
used in the place of Hi rso raddrih at English tables 
in India.* Though a little coarse in fibre, the scra- 
pings cf the root are quite aa;gioii a substitute as one 
could expect to have in point of flavour and pungency. 
The flavour and pungency are due to an essential oil 
which is abundant in the loose parenchyma of the bark 
of the J/brinya. The soft imd poroms woody tis.-ue also 
ooiitains this essential oil. No wonder then that any 
parasite throwing Its myoolium on Us most vitally ac- 
tive cells Bh(>uld imbibe the casenlial oil and retain it 
in its own tissue. * * # 
question strikes one aa to whether this peculiar 
horse-raddisli odour has an nttrnction for the weevil 
that destroyed my fungus, for we find that it certainly, 
I ought to say presumably on aooouiit of that odour, 
attacks tho host, even in the living state of the latter 
Everybody who knows the habit of the Morinqa pUruao- 
sperma can call back to memory the gum-studded 
Stem of thifl tieo ruarko lwith burrows and furrows 
clogged with the millet-seed sized globules of tho 
weovils exoreti bound up iu inuuiiierablo chains with 
lloooulont ubres not Quiike a cobweb. Does this weevil 
[uid any special charm in tbe odour which the fungus 
inherited from the Jlonnga, ^ •The noiut 
is worthy oi investigntion, and I commend ft to 
the caretul study not only of those who aro inter- 
esUd in the study of fungi, but also of tho,se who 
watch tho habifci of the insects and moUuBCs which 
destroy our plant life. 
* make favourite ourriea 
