^ebJ°uaryT?895m'}    The  Apocynacea  in  Materia  Medica.  101 
mon  with  a  little  greenish,  even  to  a  chocolate  brown.  It  is  dull 
and  ordinarily  uniform. 
The  surface  presents  always  quite  large  ridges,  due  to  drying,  but 
is  not  regularly  and  finely  striated,  as  are  those  of  Wrightia.  Viewed 
with  a  lens,  it  is  finely  granulated,  or  even  rugose.  The  fracture 
is  easy,  ordinarily  greenish  white,  or  at  times  brownish.  The  odor, 
while  not  marked,  upon  crushing  approaches  that  of  Strophanthus. 
The  taste  is  frightfully  bitter. 
Macerated  in  water  the  seeds  rapidly  give  to  the  liquid  a  disa- 
greeable and  nauseating  odor  and  dissociate  into  their  three  ele- 
ments. The  envelope,  brown  and  quite  thin,  often  carries  away 
with  it  the  albumen  in  the  form  of  a  thin,  peripheral  sac  of  the 
embryo.  The  embryo  is  large,  brownish  ;  the  cotyledons  are  refolded 
several  times  upon  themselves,  a  little  rumpled,  but  not  rolled  up. 
Five  large  nerves,  well  marked,  start  all  at  the  base.  The  radicle  is 
conical  and  relatively  short.  Sulphuric  acid  slowly  produces,  with 
the  transverse  section,  a  yellow  coloration,  changing  to  orange  and 
finally  red.  The  active  principle  is  an  alkaloid  first  isolated  by 
Haines  in  1858,  and  to  which  he  gave  later  the  name  conessine. 
Stenhouse,  in  1864,  isolated  from  the  seeds  the  same  principle  under 
the  name,  Wrightine  and  recently  Warnecke  obtained  the  Wrightine 
in  a  crystalline  state.1  The  name  Wrightine  is  still  erroneously 
retained,  as  Wrightia  does  nut  yield  this  substance. 
In  India  this  drug  is  considered  a  valuable  remedy  against  mala- 
dies of  the  bowels,  especially  dysentery.  Its  use  is  constant  as  a 
febrifuge,  astringent  and  bitter  tonic.  It  was  imported  into  Europe 
toward  the  middle  of  the  last  century.  Antoine  de  Jussieu  employed 
it  in  1730  and  compared  it  with  simaruba.  It  is  said  to  be  an  excel- 
lent astringent,  useful  in  dysentery,  diarrhoea,  vomiting  of  cholera 
and  all  inflammations  of  the  digestive  tract.  It  is  used  in  hemor- 
rhages, angina,  as  a  lithontriptic,  and  as  an  antipyretic.  Externally  it 
is  employed  for  haemorrhoids,  itch,  ulcers,  etc.,  and  has  given  good 
results  in  epizooty.  The  thick  red  fixed  oil  extracted  from  the  seeds 
is  considered  an  anthelmintic. 
1  Herr  Warnecke  obtained  on  analysis  of  Wrightine  figures  corresponding  to 
the  formula  CuHi3N,  and  it  is  interesting  as  one  of  the  few  solid,  11011  oxygen- 
ated alkaloids  occurring  in  nature.  G.  M.  B. 
