AmAprn;ffirtn'}  False  Kamala.  193 
It  is  improbable  that  Urechites  suberecta  will  ever  prove  to  be  of 
value  as  a  cardiac  tonic,  as  it  possesses,  in  a  high  degree,  the  objec- 
tionable accumulative  properties  which  have  been  so  often  remarked 
in  the  case  of  digitalis. 
A  FALSE  KAMALA.1 
By  Henry  G.  Greenish,  F.L.S., 
Lecturer  on  Materia  Medica  to  the  Pharmaceutical  Society  of  Great  Britain. 
Although  few  drugs  are  subject  to  such  systematic  admixture, 
accidental  or  intentional,  as  kamala,  substitutions  are  comparatively 
rare.  I  was  therefore  attracted  by  the  unusual  appearance  of  five 
samples  of  kamala  from  Bombay  (representing  a  bulk  of  about  7^ 
cwt.)  that  were  exhibited  on  a  broker's  table  a  few  days  ago ;  the 
drug  was  coarser  than  genuine  kamala  usually  is,  not  so  mobile  and 
evidently  of  a  heterogeneous  nature,  a  dark  brown  powder  adhering 
to  the  finger  when  passed  through  it.  For  a  second  sample  of  this 
drug  I  am  indebted  to  Mr.  Moss. 
A  cursory  examination  under  the  microscope  showed,  amongst 
much  vegetable  debris,  a  number  of  dark  reddish-yellow  particles  ; 
these,  under  a  higher  power,  proved  to  be  pollen  grains  ;  they  are 
marked  with  numerous  projections,  and  provided  with  three  pores 
from  which,  under  the  influence  of  suitable  reagents,  the  pollen 
tubes  can  be  made  to  protrude. 
The  nature  of  the  vegetable  debris  that  accompanies  these  grains 
became  more  evident  after  warming  for  a  few  minutes  in  dilute  (1 
per  cent.)  solution  of  caustic  potash  and  washing  with  water.  Por- 
tions of  narrow  petals,  a  bifid  style,  and  other  fragments  were  iso- 
lated without  difficulty,  and  enabled  me  to  identify  the  bulk  of  the 
drug  as  consisting  of  a  coarse  powder  of  safflower  florets  (Carthamus 
tinctorius).  To  confirm  this,  safflower  florets  were  dissected,  the 
parts  examined,  and  compared  with  fragments  separated  from  the 
kamala  in  question. 
The  pollen  grains  are  identical  in  shape,  appearance  and  size. 
The  corolla-limb  of  the  safflower  floret  is  sharply  characterized  by 
the  secretion  tubes  which  run  parallel  to  the  two  fibrovascular 
bundles  and  between  them  and  the  margins ;  they  are  usually  more 
or  less  completely  filled  with  a  red-brown  mass ;  the  epidermal  cells 
1  Phar.  Jour,  and  Trans.,  March  11,  1893,  p.  745. 
