THE 
.AMERICAN  JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY, 
JUNE,  1871. 
ON  THE  SEEDS  OF  TWO  SPKOJES  OF  STRYCHNOS. 
By  J.  M.  Maisch. 
(Read  at  the  Pharmaceutical  Meeting  of  the  Philadelphia  College  of  Phar- 
macy, May  16.) 
Last  fall,  I  was  informed  that  a  vessel,  which  had  arrived  at  the 
port  of.  New  York  from  the  East  Indies,  had  brought,  as  ballast,  a 
quantity  of  seeds  of  a  species  of  Strychnos.  To  the  kindness  of 
Dr.  Fr.  Hoifmann  I  owe  a  small  sample  of  the  same,  and  subsequently, 
Messrs.  McKesson  &  Robbins  very  kindly  went  to  the  trouble  of 
hunting  up  for  me  a  few  pounds  of  the  same  seeds,  which,  under  the 
name  of  Indian  gum-nuts^  were  offered  for  sale  in  New  York,  without 
finding  a  purchaser.  I  felt  interested  to  ascertain  whether,  like 
the  seeds  of  some  other  strychne^,  they  contain  strychnia.  I  ex- 
hibited the  seeds  at  the  piiarmaceutical  meeting  in  February,  and 
showed,  at  the  samie  time,  from  my  cabinet,  some  seeds  of  Strychnos 
Tieute,  Leschinault.  This  plant  grows  in  the  mountainous  districts 
of  Java,  and  its  juice  is  used  by  the  Malays  to  prepare  the  poison 
called  upas  radja  or  upas  tieute  tjettek.  The  tieute  seeds  are  orbicu- 
lar or  somewhat  oblong,  disc-like,  resembling  in  shape  nux  vomica, 
five- eighths  to  three-quarters  of  an  inch  in  diameter,  yellowish  grey 
in  color,  and  covered  with  soft,  appressed  hairs,  having  a  silky  lustre ; 
the  disc  is  rather  sharp-edged,  with  a  slightly-projecting  point,  indi- 
cating the  hilum,  and  covering  the  somewhat  club-shaped  radicle  of 
the  embryo.  As  in  nux  vomica,  the  white  horny  albumen  has  the 
shape  of  the  seed,  and  is  composed  of  two  discs  united  near  the  cir- 
cumference, thus  enclosing  a  hollow  space,  into  which  the  cotyledons 
project,  occupying  one-quarter  to  one-third  the  diameter  of  the  cav- 
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