142 
NOTE  ON  A  NEW  KIND  OF  KAMALA. 
drug  of  so  great  purity  ;  all  my  samples  yield  at  least  three 
times  that  amount  of  ash.  But  for  a  long  time  past  the  kamala 
we  have  had  on  the  Continent  has  been  of  bad  quality,  contain- 
ing more  than  half  its  weight  of  sand  and  sesquioxide  of  iron. 
Students  of  Materia  Medica  being  indebted  to  my  friend  Mr. 
Daniel  Hanbury  for  some  information  about  this  valuable  drug, 
I  lately  applied  for  a  specimen  to  that  gentleman,  who  presented 
me  with  an  evidently  fine  sample,  which, recommended  itself  by 
a  dark  red  and  somewhat  violet  color,  and  being  not  dense. 
The  color  indeed  is  different  from  the  brick-red  hue  we  are 
accustomed  to  see  in  kamala  as  found  hitherto  in  Europe,  and 
the  miscroscopic  examination  affords  full  evidence  that  this 
newly  imported  drug  cannot  be  furnished  by  the  same  plant, 
although  it  may  belong  to  one  closely  allied. 
The  general  structure  of  the  new  kamala  is  the  same  as  that 
of  the  common  kind, — that  is  to  say,  it  is  formed  of  small  resin- 
cells  covered*by  a  light  yellow  membrane.  But  their  form  is  not 
globular ;  the  glands  are  rather  of  cylindrical,  or  often  nearly 
conical  shape,  so  that  they  show,  when  seen  under  the  micro- 
scope, the  outlines  of  an  elliptical  or  ovoid  figure,  and  not  a 
circle.  Their  longer  diameter  is  of  170  to  200  micromillimetres, 
the  shorter  from  70  to  100.  The  smallest  glands  of  the  new 
sort  are  as  large  as  the  majority  of  those  of  the  true  kamala. 
Even  that  side  of  the  former,  by  which  they  were  fixed  upon  the 
fruit,  is  but  a  little  flat,  and  only  perceptible  when  the  glands  are 
allowed  to  swim  or  roll  in  a  liquid.  It  is  this  side  only  which 
shows  small  resin-cells  radiating  from  its  centre,  as  in  the  com- 
mon glands  of  Bottlera  ;  but  besides  these,  the  whole  arrange- 
ment of  the  other  small  cells  is  thoroughly  different,  and  they 
are  not  of  a  clavate  but  of  a  simply  subcylindrical  form.  The 
structure  of  the  glands  of  the  new  drug  may  be  explained  by 
stating  that  they  are  divided  into  four  or  five  transverse  sections 
or  stages,  each  of  which  contains  a  series  of  perhaps  twenty 
small  resin-cells,  arranged  in  a  parallel  vertical  order,  very  dis- 
similar from  the  radiate  arrangement  seen  in  common  kamala, 
as  will  be  distinctly  observed  if  the  drug  is  previously  exhausted 
by  alcohol  or  ether,  and  then  crushed  under  glass,  or  completely 
washed  by  weak  spirit  and  then  examined  under  water.  The 
