NOTE ON A NEW KINO OF KAMALA. 
281 
on the Continent has been of bad quality, containing more than half its weight 
of sand and sesquioxide of iron. 
Students of Materia Medica being indebted to my friend Mr. Daniel Han- 
bury for some information about this valuable drug, I lately applied for a spe¬ 
cimen to that gentleman, who presented me with an evidently fine sample, 
which recommended itself by a dark red and somewhat violet colour, and being 
not dense. The colour indeed is different from the brick-red hue we are accus¬ 
tomed to see in kamala as found hitherto in Europe, and the microscopic exami¬ 
nation affords full evidence that this newly imported drug cannot be furnished 
by the same plant, although it may belong to one closely allied. 
The general structure of the new kamala is the same as that of the common 
kind,—that is to say, it is formed of small resin-cells covered by a light yellow 
membrane. But their form is not globular ; the glands are rather of cylindrical, 
or often nearly conical shape, so that they show, when seen under the micro¬ 
scope, the outlines of an elliptical or ovoid figure, and not a circle. Their longer 
diameter is of 170 to 200 micromillimetres, the shorter from 70 to 100. The 
smallest glands of the new sort are as large as the majority of those of the true 
kamala. Even that side of the former, by which they were fixed upon the fruit, 
is but a little flat, and only perceptible when the glands are allowed to swim or 
roll in a liquid. It is this side only which shows small resin-cells radiating from 
its centre, as in the common glands of Rottlera; but besides these, the whole 
arrangement of the other small cells is thoroughly different, and they are not of 
a clavate but of a simply subcylindrical form. The structure of the glands of 
the new drug may be explained by stating that they are divided into four or 
five transverse sections or stages, each of which contains a series of perhaps 
twenty small resin-cells, arranged in a parallel vertical order, very dissimilar 
from the radiate arrangement seen in common kamala, as will be distinctly ob¬ 
served if the drug is previously exhausted by alcohol or ether, and then crushed 
under glass, or completely washed by weak spirit and then examined under 
■water. The empty resin-cells are ruptured at the boiling-point; the observer 
can count five, seven, or ten of them in each of the three, four, or five ranges or 
transverse divisions of the gland, if he adjusts the microscope exactly so that 
only the upper side of the gland occupies the field. The point of insertion of 
the gland is marked though, but rarely, in the very centre of the base, by a very 
small stalk-cell. The formation of common kamala has been well explained by 
Dr. Yogi, of Vienna, as occasioned by a successive 'perpendicular division of a 
mother cell; here we have a transverse horizontal division. There can be no 
doubt that the kamala in question must belong to another plant than Mallotus 
philippinensis , and I am glad to state that Dr. Muller (Argoviensis), the learned 
author of the Euphorbiacece in De Candolle’s ‘ Prodromus,’ is of the same 
opinion. In the genus Mallotus (formerly Rottlera) there are some other species 
besides M. philippinensis which bear coloured fruit,—as for instance, M. atro- 
virens , M. japonicus , M. albus , M. oreophilus , M. ricinoides ; further researches 
are needfui to make out to which of them our new drug may belong, if indeed 
it belongs to any one of them. Besides its peculiar form, structure, and dimen¬ 
sions, I have observed, moreover, that the new kamala is mixed with nearly 
colourless hairs, but that they are quite simple, not stellate or tufted as in com¬ 
mon kamala. I will not mention other accidental fragments of the plant which 
accompany the glands • they may become of comparative utility in the determi¬ 
nation of the plant from which the drug is derived. 
Another fact of some interest is the curious behaviour of the new kamala at 
the temperature of 200° to 212° Fahr., when it takes an intense black colour, 
losing only 5-6 per cent, of water. I presumed that this strange change 
might be due to the presence of an acid body, like a sulphate or sulphuric acid, 
but none such was found. Common kamala does not undergo any apparent 
