212 
Commercial  Aloes. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1903. 
evaporated  on  open  fire.  At  Aruba  there  is  a  steam  machine  for 
its  evaporation,  but  this  does  not  work  through  vacuum  process." 
"  In  these  islands  the  juice  is  never  evaporated  spontaneously." 
This  latter  statement  is  also  borne  out  by  the  fact  that  Curacao 
aloes  never  contains  any  appreciable  amount  of  foreign  materials, 
and  usually  contains  a  comparatively  high  percentage  of  water-solu- 
ble ingredients.  The  method  of  gathering  the  juice  is  usually 
described  as  being  similar  to  that  employed  formerly  on  the  island 
of  Barbadoes  ;  according  to  some  descriptions  the  V-shaped  troughs 
appear  to  be  arranged  about  a  central  receptacle  for  gathering  and 
containing  the  exuding  juice. 
UGANDA  OR  CROWN  ALOES. 
In  the  spring  of  1 900  there  appeared  on  the  London  market  what 
appeared  to  be  a  new  variety  of  aloes.  Some  one  had  given  it  the 
name  Uganda,  and  as  such  it  was  soon  widely  known  and  gener- 
ally referred  to.  This  new  variety  of  aloes  had  many  of  the  physi- 
cal properties  of  a  good  quality  of  hepatic  aloes.  It  differed,  how- 
ever, from  the  ordinary  hepatic  or  West  Indian  aloes,  in  that  it  did 
not  give  the  well-known  red  color  reaction  with  nitric  acid. 
It  was  afterwards  learned  that  this  supposed  new  variety  was  true 
Cape  aloes,  but  prepared  in  an  entirely  different  way.  Professor 
Tschirch,  in  his  paper  on  the  origin  of  Cape  aloes,18  mentions  this 
new  variety  and  gives  an  outline  of  its  preparation.  It  appears  that 
instead  of  evaporating  the  exuded  juice  of  the  aloe  plant  over  an 
open  fire,  as  is  done  for  Cape  aloes,  it  is  allowed  to  undergo  partial 
fermentation,  and  then  the  clear  juice  is  decanted  from  the  formed 
precipitate.  This  clear  juice  is  then  allowed  to  evaporate  sponta- 
neously by  exposure  to  the  sun. 
Professor  Tschirch,  in  this  same  paper,  also  states  that  the  name 
Uganda  is  a  misnomer  and  has  no  origin  in  fact ;  where,  when  or  by 
whom  it  was  originated  appears  to  be  a  mystery,  particularly  as 
the  manufacturers,  by  stamping  a  crown  on  the  packages,  appear 
to  have  intended  that  this  particular  quality  of  aloes  be  known  as 
crown  aloes. 
Dr.  George  Weigel,  in  a  paper  published  in  the  Pharmaceutische 
Centralhalle^  gives  a  review  of  the  literature  that  has  accumulated 
on  this  variety  of  Cape  aloes.  He  states  that  it  is  being  produced 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Mossel  Bay,  Cape  Colony,  and  differs  from 
