30 
Note  on  Scammony. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm 
Jan.,  1875. 
examinations  here  referred  to  were  made  on  the  finest  samples  of  vir- 
gin scammony. 
In  these  investigations  I  think  it  very  desirable,  having  determined 
the  presence  of  starch,  to  distinguish  the  granules  of  the  scammony 
starch  from  those  of  wheat.  I  consider  that  the  presence  of  the  scam- 
mony starch  indicates  an  admixture  of  inferior  scammony,  and  more 
especially  when  it  is  accompanied  by  some  of  the  tissue  of  the  root. 
There  exists  a  theory  to  account  for  the  wheat  starch,  that  it  is  used 
to  prevent  the  semi-solid  gum  resin  from  sticking  to  the  hands.  If 
this  were  correct,  I  should  expect  to  find  it  especially  in  that  powder 
which  adheres  to  the  outside  of  the  lumps  of  scammony,  constituting 
what  may  be  termed  the  bloom  upon  it;  but  I  do  not  find  this  to  be 
the  case  in  the  samples  which  I  have  examined,  neither  does  the  grey- 
ish-white powder  which  covers  the  lump  consist,  as  far  as  I  have  ob- 
served, of  chalk.  It  seems  to  me  to  be  merely  the  particles  of  scam- 
mony reduced  to  a  powder  by  the  friction  of  the  lumps  against  each 
other,  and  it  is  of  the  same  quality  in  every  respect  as  the  lump  from 
which  it  has  been  detached. 
I  can  only  account  for  the  presence  of  starch  in  the  powdered  vir- 
gin scammony,  by  reference  to  the  practice  of  picking,  the  vir- 
gin scammony  in  lump  from  the  chest,  and  suggesting  that  after  a  good 
deal  of  picking  there  must  remain  a  quantity  of  fragments,  too  small 
for  further  picking,  but  not  for  grinding.  To  this  must  be  added  the 
fact,  that  sometimes  in  a  chest  a  good  piece  of  virgin  scammony  may 
have  a  very  inferior  one  stuck  to  it,  so  as  to  escape  observation.  It  is 
much  to  be  desired  that  flour  and  starch,  when  spoken  of  in  connec- 
tion with  scammony,  should  not  be  considered  synonymous.  I  have 
never  met  with  cellular  tissue,  such  as  I  should  expect  to  find  if  flour 
had  been  present. 
It  is  an  intesting  question,  whether  the  gum  resin  possesses  any  value 
over  the  more  uniform  and  less  costly  resin  obtained  from  the  dry 
root.  If  it  should  prove  that  the  resin  is  equally  active  and  more  re- 
liable than  the  exuded  gum  resin,  then  the  pharmacist  would  be  inde- 
pendent of  the  Greek  of  the  Levant,  or  the  Turk  nearer  home. 
I  have  examined  the  mineral  matter  scraped  from  the  outside  of  a 
fine  specimen  of  the  root,  and  find  it  to  be,  as  already  shown  by  Pro- 
fessor Attfield,  a  calcareous  earth,  which  effervesces  with  hydrochloric 
acid,  indicating  that  it  was  grown  on  a  chalky  soil. 
