186 THE ROOT OF COHATE, A NEW DIURETIC MEDICINE. 
calculated density would be 4.76 ; the experiment yielded 
an almost identical number, 4.77. 
To complete the history of this body, we have yet to 
study the action of chlorine on it; this gas is absorbed in 
large quantity under the solar influence, but the state of the 
weather has not as yet permitted us to obtain the definitive 
product of the reaction. — Ibid from Comptes Rendus. 
ART. LII. — ON THE ROOT OF COHATE , A NEW DIURETIC 
MEDICINE. 
By M. Arnozan. 
The rhizome of cohate, furnished by a vegetable of the 
family of the graminaceae, presents, like the suckering of mon- 
ocotyledanous plants, approximated and converging nodiform 
divisions : it sometimes presents remains of radical leaves? 
thick and fleshy fibres; its external colour, of a reddish brown, 
seems to denote that it must grow in a ferruginous soil. 
The plant itself reaches nearly to the height of a man, and 
is sometimes in advance of the bark of thick woods. 
Masticated and held for some time in the mouth, this root 
at first insipid, manifests an aromatic taste, which arises from 
its bark. M. Arnozan had an opportunity of examining 
old and recent roots, and both qualities presented the same 
characters. 
In examining this sample of cohate in a qualitative point 
of view only, this pharmacien found in it gum or mucous 
matter, starch, an insipid waxy substance, soluble only in 
alcohol, and a resinoid matter, possessing the same color as 
the root, and an evidently aromatic taste ; it is the latter 
