EXAMINATION  OF  KINO. 
541 
creosote  is  carbolic  or  phenylic  acid,  or  whether  it  is  adulterated 
with  this  body,  the  boiling  point  perfectly  affords  the  safest  conclu- 
sion. But  much  simpler,  and  quite  as  certain,  is  to  test  the  sus- 
pected fluid  with  chloride  of  iron  and  ordinary  acetic  acid.  In  the 
presence  of  carbolic  acid,  chloride  of  iron  causes  always  a  blue 
violet  coloration,  and  afterwards  a  whitish  turbidity  ;  and  acetic 
acid  completly  dissolves  carbolic  acid,  in  a  gentle  heat.  Creosote 
prepared  from  beech-wood  tar  is  not  changed  by  chloride  of  iron, 
and  is  only  partly  dissolved  by  ordinary  acetic  acid  in  the  heat. 
To  those  accustomed  to  the  odor  of  real  creosote,  the  odor  of  the 
false  will  be  a  sufficient  guide. 
Whether  in  wood  tar,  and  generally  among  the  products  of  the 
dry  distillation  of  wood,  carbolic  acid  is  contained,  was  by  an  ex- 
tensive research  of  this  nature  principally  to  be  learnt.  In  tar 
water,  obtained  by  the  digestion  of  3  pounds  of  beech-wood  tar, 
with  18  pounds  of  water,  I  could  detect  readily  creosote,  but  not 
phenylic  acid. — Annals  of  Pharmacy,  Sept.  1853  from  Liehig's 
Annalen. 
CHEMICAL  AND  PHARMACOLOGICAL  EXAMINATION  OF  KINO. 
By.  C.  Hennig. 
The  author  first  satisfied  himself,  by  a  comparison  of  the  most 
trustworthy  statements,  that  the  officinal  kino  known  among  drug- 
gists as  the  East  Indian,  should  more  correctly  be  called  African, 
because  it  is  for  the  most  part  the  air-dried  juice,  which  exudes 
from  incisions  made  in  the  stems  of  several  species  of  Pterocarpus, 
P.  erinaceus,  and  P.  senegalensis  growing  in  the  forests  of  Sene 
gambia,  and  P.  indicus  and  P.  marsupium  growing  upon  the  coast 
of  Malabar,  and  other  parts  of  the  East  Indies. 
These  so-called  oriental  varieties  of  kino  all  present  the  follow- 
ing physical  characters :  color  garnet-red;  fracture  conchoidal. 
When  chewed  they  color  the  saliva  red  by  transmitted,  and  violet 
by  reflected  light ;  the  taste  is  purely  astringpnt.  The  fragments 
of  kino  treated  with  distilled  water  dissolve  partially,  communica- 
ting a  yellowish  red  color  to  the  water,  which,  when  allowed  to 
stand  and  even  when  excluded  from  the  air,  deposits  a  fine  orange 
colored  powder,  forming  a  deposite  of  sometimes  as  many  as  three 
layers.    This  is  again  almost  entirely  dissolved  by  hot  water  or 
