THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[February 10,1872. 
612 
may, with a mew both to permanence and efficiency, 
he made with a stronger solution of alcohol than 
that of 5 and 3, which constitutes our proof spirit. 
\The discussion upon this paper is printed at p. 652.] 
THE MADAGASCAR CARDAMOM OR 
L0NG0UZE.* * * § ** 
BY DANIEL HANBUKY, F.B.S. 
In several works on Materia Medica published 
within the last fifty years,j- mention is made of a 
Madagascar Cardamom the fruit of a zingiberaceous 
plant called Amomum angustifolium. Sonnerat the 
author of this botanical name, was a French tra¬ 
veller who visited Madagascar in the second half of 
the last century. Among the plants of that island 
which he described]; was the species in question, 
which he thought he identified with the Great Car¬ 
damom of ancient writers, a drug we now know to 
have a very different origin. The name Grand 
Cardamome had, however, been given to it more 
than a century before by Flavourt§ another ex¬ 
plorer of Madagascar. Both Flacourt and Sonne¬ 
rat state that the plant is known as Longouze, and 
the latter adds that it has been introduced into 
the Isle of France where it thrives well. The fruit 
is described as of a scarlet colour, filled with a white 
pulp of pleasant acidulous taste, in which are im¬ 
bedded numerous, spicy, brown seeds. The plant is 
said to grow in great plenty in marshy places, but 
no mention is made of the fruits being ever collected 
for the purposes of commerce. 
In 1854, Mr. Emile Fleurot of Mauritius con¬ 
tributed to the Museum of the Pharmaceutical So¬ 
ciety specimens and drawings of the Longouze which 
is now apparently wild in that island. They were 
labelled in accordance with Bojer’s Hortas Mauri¬ 
tian ms11 Amomum nemorosum , under which name 
they were not recognised as Sonnerat’s plant. It 
appears however that this A. nemorosum Bojer is 
but a synonym of A. angustifolium, Sonn., with 
which in fact the specimens communicated by Mr. 
Fleurot entirely agree. The plant is still claimed 
in Mauritius to be the Grand Cardamome de Mada¬ 
gascar 
A collection of Mauritius drugs sent to the Paris 
Exhibition of 1867 included fruits of Amomum an¬ 
gustifolium, from which I obtained a few seeds that 
germinated. During the past summer (1871) one of 
the plants thus raised produced flowers, which having 
been fertilized artificially, were succeeded by ripe 
fruits. 
Now a most interesting point about this plant is 
its complete identity with a species of Amomum 
growing in Tropical western Africa. Though Mr. 
* Read at the Evening Meeting of the Pharmaceutical 
Society of Great Britain, February 7, 1872. 
f Fee, Cours d'PList. Nat. pharmaceutique, I. (1828) 361; 
Guibourt, Hist, des I)rog. II. (1849) 216; Martiny, JEncy- 
klopddie d. med. u. pharm. Pohivaarenkunde, II. (1854) 77i ; 
Berg, Pharm. Waarenkunde, 1863. 425.; Wiggers, JPand- 
huch d. Pharmacognosie, 1864. 176.; Henkel, PPandhuch d. 
Pharmacognosie, 1862. 382. 
X Voyage aux Indes Orientates et d la Chine, II. (1782) 
242. pi. 137. 
§ PList. de la grande isle de Madagascar, Paris, 1658. 126. 
|| Maurice, 1837. p. 327. 
** Bouton, Medicinal Plants growing * * in Mauritius, 
1857. p. 152. 
Fleurot’s excellent drawings might well have raised 
suspicions that such was the fact, it was not until 
my plant flowered that I convinced myself that the 
Amomum Daniel!i of Hooker could in no way be 
distinguished from the A. angustifolium of Sonnerat. 
A. Danielli Hook. f. has been figured three times in 
the last twenty } r ears, ;:c yet its similarity to the Ma¬ 
dagascar plant has not been noticed, although of the 
latter there is in addition to Sonnerat’s plate, an 
excellent drawing in Roxburgh’s unpublished col¬ 
lection, now in the herbarium of the Royal Gardens, 
Kew. 
The West African area of the plant extends along 
the coast line from Sierra Leone to Gaboon, and 
perhaps still further south. Growing over this wide 
district and under considerable variation of altitude, 
the plant presents some variations ; the flower is 
either yellow or red, or has the labellum alone, 
yellow. The scape is simple or branched, short or 
long, and varies in the number of fruits it bears; 
and the fruits themselves differ much in size accord¬ 
ing to locality. But the labellum is always narrow 
and pendulous, and the seeds oblong and highly 
polished. The negroes of West Africa eat the plea¬ 
santly acidulous pulp of the fruit, and apparently 
do not use the seeds, but in Mauritius according to 
Bouton, the latter are chewed to sweeten the breath. 
I have no reason for believing that the fruits of 
Amomum angustifolium Sonn. have ever been even 
an occasional article of export, either from Eastern 
or Western Africa, and feel quite certain that they 
never formed a regular object of commerce with 
Europe. The seeds are weak in aroma and have a 
disagreeable irritating taste, so that they could with 
no advantage replace the cardamoms of Malabar 
or Ceylon. 
THE SEPARATION AND QUANTITATIVE 
DETERMINATION OF THE DIFFERENT 
CINCHONA ALKALOIDS.! 
BY DB. J. E. DE VBY. 
Since the publication of my paper “ On the De¬ 
termination of the Amount of Alkaloids in Cinchona 
Bark,” | my multiplied analyses of various barks 
have led me to adopt a new method for the detection 
of different alkaloids contained in the mixture ob¬ 
tained in determining the. total amount of alkaloids 
in any bark, and to ascertain their relative quan¬ 
tity. 
The alkaloids known at present with certainty to 
exist in cinchona barks are quinine, cinclionidine, 
cinchonine, quinidine, and an amorphous alkaloid 
soluble in ether. Of these five alkaloids, the two 
first mentioned are laevogyre, whilst the three last 
mentioned are dextrogyre. The fact that the amor¬ 
phous alkaloid, of which some Indian barks contain 
a relatively large quantity, turns the plane of pola¬ 
rization to the right, proves that it should not be 
considered as amorphous quinine. It is an alkaloid 
sui generis, which is perhaps identical with Pasteur’s 
quinicine. I am still investigating it, and, as I have 
recently received from Pasteur a sample of the qui- 
* Hooker’s Pourn. of Pot. IV. (1852) pi. V. sub noru. 
Amomum Afzelii ; Bot. Mag. tabb. 4764. 5250. 
! Read at the Evening Meeting of the Pharmaceutical 
Society of Great Britain, February 1, 1872. 
X PUAEilACEUTICAL J OUKNAL, August, 1864. 
