SPECIES OF FECULA EMPLOYED IN PHARMACY. 25 
that in America an abundant fecula is extracted, by the ordi- 
nary methods, and is known in the colonies by the names of 
cipipa and moussache* The laundresses make use of it to 
whiten linen, although they prefer for this purpose the fecula 
of the arrow root, which they improperly name sagou. Arrow 
root, in fact, should furnish a less sticky starch. 
The pulp of the root which remains upon the strainer, is 
dried and slightly torrefied; it is reduced to coarse meal, and 
sold under the name of coucousse, or tapioca; when boiled 
with milk, it forms an aliment as nutritive as agreeable. 
The cassava or cassava bread, is a nutritious preparation, 
likewise derived from the root of the tapioca plant. When 
it attains the size of the arm it is washed; the pulpy matter 
is pressed out into sacks several times doubled, and then 
spread in layers one or two inches in thickness on iron plates, 
where, by baking, it assumes the form of cakes, which are dried 
in the sun upon the roofs of the negro huts. 
The juice of the bitter manioc contains a poisonous prin- 
ciple, which appears to be a mixture of hydrocyanic acid. 
Barley Fecula. 
(Hordeum vulgare, L.) The grains of this fecula, which do 
not exceed J~ of a millimetre, have the aspect and form of 
wheat fecula. The starch makers, submit this grain to the 
same processes as the last mentioned, to obtain starch. 
Fecula of Corn, 
(Zea mais, L.) Nearly all the grains of this fecula are 
injured by the mill, in consequence of great adhesion pro- 
duced in drying by the oil, gum, and sugar contained in the 
perisperm of this cereal product. The greater number re- 
main agglutinated together, and present the aspect of a cel- 
lular tissue with small meshes: all are puckered or more or 
less wrinkled, and more or less irregularly rounded; the 
largest scarcely exceed the ^ of a millimetre, and these are 
* In the French Islands of the West Indies. 
vol. v. — no. i. 4 
