The shells of the seeds (testa) yield upon incineration 2·6 per cent. of ash; the kernels dried at 100° C. 3·0 per cent.
Commerce—The shipments of croton seeds arrive chiefly from Cochin or Bombay, packed in cases, bales or robbins; but there are no statistics to show the extent of the trade.
Uses—Croton seeds are not administered. The oil is given internally as a powerful cathartic, and is applied externally as a rubefacient.
Substitutes—The seeds of Croton Pavanæ Hamilton, a native of Ava and Camrup (Assam), and those of C. oblongifolius Roxb., a small tree common about Calcutta, are said to resemble those of C. Tiglium L., but we have not compared them. Those of Baliospermum montanum Müll. Arg. (Croton polyandrus Roxb.) partake of the nature of croton seeds, and according to Roxburgh are used by the natives of India as a purgative.
SEMEN RICINI.
Semen Cataputiæ majoris; Castor Oil Seeds, Palma Christi Seeds; F. Semence de Ricin; G. Ricinussamen.
Botanical Origin—Ricinus communis L., the castor oil plant, is a native of India where it bears several ancient Sanskrit names.[2104] By cultivation, it has been distributed through all the tropical and many of the temperate countries of the globe. In the regions most favourable to its growth, it attains a height of 40 feet. In the Azores, and the warmer Mediterranean countries as Algeria, Egypt, Greece, and the Riviera, it becomes a small tree, 10 to 15 feet high; while in France, Germany, and the south of England, it is an annual herb of noble foliage, growing to a height of 4 or 5 feet. In good summers, it ripens seeds in England and even as far north as Christiania in Norway.
Ricinus communis exhibits a large number of varieties, several of which have been described and figured as distinct species. Müller, after a careful examination of the whole series, maintains them as a single species, of which he allows 16 forms, more or less well marked.[2105]
History—The castor oil plant was known to Herodotus who calls it Κίκι, and states that it furnishes an oil much used by the Egyptians, in whose ancient tombs seeds of Ricinus are, in fact, met with.[2106] At the period when Herodotus wrote, it would appear to have been already introduced into Greece, where it is cultivated to the present day under the same ancient name.[2107] The Kikajon of the Book of Jonah, rendered by the translators of the English Bible gourd, is believed to be the same plant. Κίκι is also mentioned by Strabo as a production of Egypt, the oil from which is used for burning in lamps and for unguents.
Theophrastus and Nicander give the castor oil plant the name of Κρότων. Dioscorides, who calls it Κίκι or Κρότων, describes it as of the stature of a small fig-tree, with leaves like a plane, and seeds in a prickly pericarp, observing that the name Κρότων is applied to the seed on account of its resemblance to an insect [Ixodes Ricinus Latr.], known by that appellation. He also gives an account of the process for extracting castor oil (Κίκινον ἔλαιον), which he says is not fit for food, but is used externally in medicine; he represents the seeds as extremely purgative. There is a tolerably correct figure of Ricinus in the famous MS. Dioscorides which was executed for the Empress Juliana Anicia in a.d. 505, and is now preserved in the Imperial Library at Vienna.