HISTORY OP SAGO. 
225 
ligneous fibres, white and broken, to which adhere small brown 
masses, that might be taken at first sight for the gum-resin 
opoponax. When examined with Raspail's microscope with 
a lens having a focus of four lines, small tubulous bodies are 
distinguishable, as also others which are alveolous, having in 
appearance some resemblance to the sagotiferous medulla of 
the Cycas circinalis, but more coloured, and in which the 
shining aspect of the fecula, so apparent in the latter, is not 
observed. Volume for volume, the substance obtained by 
M. Poiteau weighs one-half less than sago. When reduced 
to powder and treated successively, first by cold water, then 
by hot, it exhibits, in the first instance, no trace of starch 
with iodine, and in the second, the atoms are scarcely percep- 
tible. The brown matter analogous to opoponax, when treated 
with boiling alcohol, yields to it only a small quantity of 
yellowish insipid substance as soluble in w^ater as in alcohol. 
When thrown upon coals, it soon inflames and burns of itself 
slowly, and leaves a small quantity of slightly alkaline ash. 
Finally, it is affected by several chemical reagents in the same 
manner as ligneous fibre. 
From this examination it follows, that the substance extract- 
ed by M. Poiteau from the sago plant of Madagascar, is not true 
sago. 
Journal de Pharmacie. 
