252 
BRUCEA SUMATRANA. 
This drug seems well to maintain its reputation, although it has 
not received everywhere the attention it deserves. MonGEOT and 
MATHIEU in Nouveaux Remedes 1906, 22, 386 say, “ Kosam seeds 
or an aqueous alcoholic extract thereof have been employed in the 
French Colonies with marked success in the treatment of dysentery. 
The dose is the kernel of one seed or a compressed tablet or dragee 
of the alcoholic aqueous extract equivalent thereto, four of which are 
given the first day, eight the second, twelve the third, eight the fourth 
and one the fifth. Ninety-six per cent of cases treated are stated 
to have been completely cured.” ( Pharm . Journ. February 2, 1907, 
p. 104) a good deal has been written in the Bulletin about this drug, 
the seed of Brucea S?4matrana , which has been so well spoken of 
that one wonders that it has not as yet come into general use for 
so terrible and common a disease. 
H. N. R. 
RUBBER FROM A TUBER AT LAST. 
A Plant found in Portuguese West Africa, and not hitherto known 
to science as a source of rubber, is the subject of a recent report by 
Professor CARLOS EuGENIO DE MeLLO GeralDES, of the agronomi- 
cal institute at Lisbon. The plant is referred to as flourishing in 
the sandy, treeless plateaus around Bailundo and Bihe, inland from 
the seaport of Benguela, and lying^particularly between the Kwanza 
and Zambesi rivers. This region was described in The India Rubber 
World, May 1st, 1 903, p. 26, as the source of large quantities of 
“ root rubber, ” which grade has been exported extensively from 
Benguela, though the plant now described has no relation to those 
producing the class of rubber here referred to. It is ascribed by 
Professor J HenriQUES, of Coimbra, to the natural order 
Asclepiadacme , while the Landolphia Thollonii and other “ root 
rubber ” species belong to the Apocynaceae. The new plant, known 
by the natives in different localities' as “Ekanda” and “ Marianga ” 
is a stemless biennial plant, with a fleshy yellow tubers root, some- 
times turnip shaped, but most frequently in form resembling a 
flattened sphere, the entire substance of which is permeated with 
latiferous ducts. The plant ends at the top in a simple or bifurcated 
prolongation or pseudo stem, 2 to 4 inches in length. The leaves 
are dark green, in two to five pairs forming a rosette near the earth ; 
they are simple, oval shaped, with a small point, and slightly hairy. 
The featherlike veins are light green in the young leaf, but turn 
violet-red shortly before blossoming. The blossoms are five fold, 
small, violet-red, and mostly sterile. In form they suggest a bunch 
of grapes, and are enclosed in a sheath prior to opening. The fruit 
is a spindle-shaped bag capsule, sometimes as long as four inches, 
and containing up to 50 seeds. 
