ON COLCHICIA. 
249 
larger pieces as much as 7 oz., smaller about 1 oz. Mean length 3 inches, greatest 
thickness 2J inches. More compact than former, and rarely porous. Colour darker, 
externally as well as inside. Microscopic texture and appearance under the magnifier 
similar to former, but more compact, the veins darker to greyish-brown. IStarch 
granules in some specimens smaller than in former. 
I do not consider here the rarer and inferior kinds, particularly the so-called cylin¬ 
drical Canton rhubarb (stick rhubarb), which appears to be cultivated in the East Indies, 
probably a kind of rhapontic root, nor the so-called red Canton rhubarb, which does not 
appear ever to become an important commercial variety. 
4. Bucharian rhubarb .—Besides the facts related above, nothing can be stated regard¬ 
ing the manner in which it enters commerce, since it is mostly offered in small quantities 
and by pedlars ; but all its qualities characterize it pretty well. From the desire to im¬ 
part to it a resemblance to the Moscovitic rhubarb, the perforations for suspending the 
root while drying are met with, and also frequently imitations of the bore-holes, the 
former being in many instances made after drying. We have mundified and so-called 
half mundified kinds, the former frequently liberated from the cambium very carefully, 
and, at the same time, most economically, often by means of a file; the latter, after dry¬ 
ing, usually not further treated with the knife, and therefore with numerous longitu¬ 
dinal wrinkles on the surface. In most cases the dimensions of the roots are greater 
than in the preceding kinds, and they are cleft longitudinally into two halves ; the ex¬ 
posed cut having contracted, on drying, to a somewhat convex (concave ?) shape, this 
might be called the conchoidal form of rhubarb. Mean length 3| inches, width 24 inches, 
thickness 14 inch; mean weight of a whole root, 8 oz. The surface is usually inten¬ 
tionally sprinkled with powdered rhubarb, sometimes also with other yellow powders, 
like turmeric; sometimes it may be observed that the specimens have been previously 
wetted to make the powder adhere better. 
In compactness this rhubarb resembles the South-Chinese; its texture is the most 
fibrous and woody of all varieties. The shape of the cells of the medullary rays and of 
the clusters of oxalate of lime resembles that of the North and South Chinese rhubarbs; 
the starch granules show no important difference from those of the Moscovitic rhubarb, 
with which it also agrees in the indication of several radiating circles within the pul¬ 
verulent ring, which, however, is more marked. These radiating systems are wanting 
outside of the ring, like in the Chinese, and the medullary rays radiate very accurately, 
becoming gradually narrower towards the circumference, and their colour is in most 
cases darker than in the South Chinese rhubarb.— Amer. Journ. of Pharmacy, from 
Pharmaceut. Zeitschr. fur Russland , 1866, Nov., 473-481. 
ON COLCHICIA. 
BY JOHN M. MAISCH. 
Some years ago the active principle of colchicum was repeatedly made the subject of 
investigation with results frequently differing in the most essential particulars. Very 
few of these papers have found their way into American journals, and it may therefore 
not be without interest to review the chemical examinations of this interesting sub¬ 
stance which have been published within the last ten or twelve years. 
Since Geiger and Hesse prepared what they stated to be an alkaloid, now more than 
thirty years ago (1833), this compound had excited very little interest until this was 
awakened again in consequence of four fatal cases of poisoning in Berlin, by wine of 
colchicum seed, the forensic analyses by Schacht andWittstock being widely circulated, 
and a condensed account was published in this journal, 1855, page 539. Dr. J. Muller, 
apothecary of Berlin, accused in the above case of unlawful sale of poison, was found 
“ not guilty,” because Tinct. Colchici Sern. was not enumerated in the Prussian Phar¬ 
macopoeia (6th edition) among the poisons; he published a long paper in Buchner’s 
‘Neues Repertorium,’ 1855, pp. 246-268, wherein he attempts to confute the results of 
Schacht and Wittstock, and wherein he states, “that not only the alkaloids and active 
principles strychnia, hyoscyamia, daturia, emetia, atropia, solania, veratria, sabadillia, 
aconitia, delphinia, picrotoxin, brucia, cusparin, theina, scillitin, but also the active 
principles of Convallaria Polygonatum , Paris quadrifolia, Triglochin palustre , Alisma 
