268 
COPALCHI BARK. 
describe as yielding it is that formerly called by Humboldt 
the Croton Suberosum. Schiede, as well as Nees von. 
Esenbeck, found this Copalchi (which is the Indian name) 
sold in the Apothecaries' and Druggists' shops at Jalapa, 
and over the province of Mexico, under the name of Quina 
blanca and considered by them there as the finest and best 
sort of Cascarilla. Indeed, Schiede was so convinced (hat 
he had discovered the true source of the best cascarilla, that 
from the examination of the tree which produces this Quina 
blanca, he asserted that the best Cascarilla was the produce 
of the Croton Pseudo-china of Schlechtendal — now called 
by Professor Don the Croton Cascarilla. 
Nees von Esenbeck only went the length of considering 
the Copalchi as closely resembling the Cascarilla, and gave, 
in the supplement to his splendid work, the Piantse Medi- 
cinales, most beautiful colored figures of the copalke-croton 
in all its states, flowers, fruit, leaves, and bark, rendering 
it perfectly impossible ever hereafter to mistake the bark 
or plant which he describes. He also terms the tree the 
Croton Pseudo-china. 
Copalchi bark was subjected to a minute analysis by 
Mercadien, in 1826, who found it to contain no crystallizable 
alkaloid, but the following principles : — 1. An astringent 
matter of a deep brown color. 2. An excessively bitter 
principle (containing also an astringent principle,) soluble in 
water. It is in this bitter principle that the febrifuge pro- 
perties reside which the physicians at Vera Cruz have 
recognised it to possess. 3. A green fatty substance. 4. A 
clear brown resin, insipid and inodorous. 5. A brown 
animalized coloring matter, insoluble in ether and absolute 
alcohol, but soluble in dilute alcohol and in water. 
6. Starch. 7. Woody fibre. 8. Phosphate and oxalate 
of lime. The burnt ashes yielded hydrochlorate and sul- 
phate of potass, oxides of iron and of manganese, carbonate 
and phosphate of lime, with traces of magnesia and silica. 
Brandes, who analyzed this bark the year following, 
