DISPENSATORY OF THE U. S. OP AMERICA. 175 
*s an orange, very hard and heavy; of a ferruginous aspect 
externally; very rough when broken, and so full of sand as 
to be gritty under the teeth ; the other in cakes, originally, 
in all probability, globular, and of about the same dimen- 
sions, but flattened, and otherwise pressed out of shape be- 
fore being perfectly dried; sometimes adhering two together, 
as happens with the lumps of Smyrna opium, and closely 
resembling, in external and internal color, and in the cha- 
racter of their fracture, the quadrangular variety." "The for- 
mer kind is rare, and the specimens we have seen had been 
twenty years in the shop, and had very much the appear- 
ance of a factitious product. The latter is, in all probability, 
the kind known as Bombay catechu, as Dr. Hamilton, and, 
more recently, Major Mackintosh, in describing the mode 
of preparing catechu on the Malabar coast, of which Bom- 
bay is the entrepot, say, that while the extract is soft, it is 
shaped into balls about the size of an orange." 
To the second class, viz., non-officinal, belong, 1, Gambir, 
Terra Japonica. The plant which affords this product is 
the Uncaria gambir of Roxburgh and Decandolle, for- 
merly known as Nauclea gambir. Formerly, the East 
Indian kino was attributed to this plant, which has now 
been corrected, and the substance which it yields placed 
among the varieties of catechu. A peculiar white proxi- 
mate principle found in it is called catechuin, or catechuic 
acid. 2. Jireca catechu. 
Cinchona. — The botanical account of this valuable drug 
is somewhat altered from that of the last edition. This has 
been done in consequence of the information presented by 
Prof. Lindley, from close investigation of the materials for 
comparison and study. The author of the article on this 
subject years since distinguished himself by laborious devo- 
tion to it, and the learned essays resulting from his inquiries 
constituted a repository from which even skilful pharmacol- 
ogists could obtain valuable truths. Well able, then, has 
he been to appreciate the additions of another. For the de- 
