Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
July,  1890. 
Manioc,  or  Cassava. 
359 
MANIOC,  OR  CASSAVA. 
By  E.  Chenery,  M.D.,  of  Boston. 
From  the  brief  allusions  to  this  substance  by  writers  on  materia 
medica,  one  would  get  but  a  slight  idea  of  its  importance  as  an 
article  of  diet  in  tropical  countries,  being  the  staple  food  for  unnum- 
bered millions  of  human  beings — the  staff  of  life  in  the  West  Indies, 
Brazil  and  on  the  Continent  of  Africa. 
The  plant  from  which  this  food  is  derived  is  known  to  botanists 
as  Janipha  Manihot,  and  is  a  shrub,  six  to  twelve  feet  high  and  one 
or  two  inches  in  diameter.  Except  for  the  young  leaves,  which 
are  used  as  greens,  its  whole  value  consists  in  its  tuberous  roots, 
which  sometimes  reach  the  enormous  weight  of  thirty  pounds,  but 
usually  range  from  one  to  three  inches  in  diameter  and  from 
six  to  eighteen  inches  in  length.  The  shrub  is  said  to  be  a  native 
of  Brazil,  where  it  is  known  as  mandioca  or  tapioca.  Cassada  (or 
cassava)  is  its  name  in  the  West  Indies.  It  is  not  grown  from  the 
seeds,  but  from  cuttings,  having  surprising  vitality ;  for  a  cane  of  it, 
like  Aaron's  rod,  will  bud  and  grow  leaves  in  your  hand.  Hence, 
it  is  only  necessary  to  cut  the  stick  into  pieces  of  six  to  twelve 
inches  in  length,  and  thrust  them  into  the  ground,  and  it  matters 
little  whether  the  ground  has  been  first  broken  for  it  or  not.  In 
eight  to  eighteen  months  the  tubers  are  in  their  best  state  to  pro- 
duce the  nutritious  food — seventy  per  cent,  gluten  and  thirty  of 
starch ;  but,  at  a  later  period,  the  gluten  becomes  less  and  the 
starch  increases.  There  is  no  food  product  which  compares  with 
it  in  resisting  drought.  Even  in  the  dryest  seasons,  it  is  like  other 
trees  "  planted  by  the  rivers  of  water,"  and  whole  fields  are  green 
with  its  foliage,  while  all  else  is  brown  with  the  scorching  sun. 
There  are  two  varieties  of  the  manioc,  known  as  the  sweet  and 
the  bitter ;  the  first  of  which  may  be  eaten  with  impunity,  while 
the  latter  has  a  bitterish,  milky  juice,  which  is  poisonous  from  con- 
taining prussic  acid.  But  these  roots  are  grated  or  otherwise 
reduced  to  a  pomace,  and  then  suspended  in  grass  bags,  when  the 
poisonous  juice  drips  out,  or,  being  volatile,  is  dissipated  by  the 
heat  in  baking  bread  from  it.  The  bitter  variety  is  the  principal 
kind  used  in  British  Guiana,  while  the  sweet  is  the  one  mostly 
cultivated  in  Africa.  The  tapioca  which  comes  into  our  houses 
is  almost  pure  starch,  and  is  made  from  the  expressed  juice  of 
