OCR Text |
Show 448 BITTER QUASSIA. HISTORY. This is the root of a tree growing near to Surinam, in South America ; it got its name from a slave who was first known to use it in the cure of fevers. The tree is described by Dr. Bloom in the sixth volume of Linneus’s Ameenitates Academica, where we have likewise an account of the useof the root. This root is about the thickness of a man’s arm; its woodis whitish, becoming yellowish by exposure to the air. It hasa thin, gray, fissured, brittle bark, which is deemed, in Surinam, more powerful than the wood. Quassia has no sensible odour, but is one of the most intense, durable, pure bitters known. Its infusion, decoction, and tincture, are almost equally bitter and yellowish, and are not blackened by chalybeates. ‘The properties of the extract of quassia have been detailed by Dr. Thomson, underthetitle of the bitter principle. MEDICAL USE. This root is extremely bitter; it has been given in powder from ten grains to half a drachm for a dose, every three, four, or six hours; or one or two ounces ofan infusion, madeof two drachms of it anda pint of boiling water, have been given as often, in bilious, remitting, and intermitting fevers. In the year 1767, Mr. Farley, of Antigua, sent home an account of three or fourcases of bilious and putrid fevers in which the bark would not stay on the stomach, but in which this root produced every goodeffect that could have been wished ; and his account was published in the fifty-eighth volume of the Philosophical Transactions. SiMARUBA QUASSIA. QUASSIA SIMARUBA. Class X. Decandria. Order I, Monogynia. Essen. Gen. Cuan, The same as the last. Spec. Cars Flowers moncecious: Leaves abruptly pinnate: Leaflets alternate, subpetioled: Flowers in panicles, <a I have frequently ordered, with suecess, both the powder and the infusion of the root, in fevers; and have likewise found it to be a good stomachic bitter in many cases. DESCRIPTION. Tus tree reaches a considerable height. The leaves are nu- merous, and stand alternately on the branches. Eachleaf is composed of several pinnz, of anelliptic shape. The flowers are small and yellow, and placed on panicles, which are only branched spikes. Calyx small. Corolla composed of five small petals. Nectary ten hairy scales. HISTORY. This tree grows in Guiana and in Jamaica. The simarouba of the shopsis the bark of the root of this tree, and not of the quassia amara, as stated by the Dublin college, It is brought to us in pieces some feet long, and some inches broad, folded 26 |