The exports of castor oil from Calcutta[2121] in the year 1870-71 amounted to 654,917 gallons, of which 214,959 gallons were shipped to the United Kingdom. The total imports of castor oil into the United Kingdom[2122] in the year 1870 were returned as 36,986 cwt. (about 416,000 gallons), valued at £82,490. Of this quantity, British India (chiefly Bengal) furnished about two-thirds; and Italy 11,856 cwt. (about 133,000 gallons), while a small remainder is entered as from “other parts.” In 1876 the imports were 79,677 cwt., valued at £133,838.
Italian Castor Oil, which has of late risen into some celebrity, is pressed from the seed of plants grown chiefly about Verona and Legnago, in the north of Italy. The manufactory of Mr. Bellino Valeri at the latter town produced in the year 1873, 1200 quintals of castor oil, entirely from Italian seed. Two varieties of Ricinus are cultivated in these localities, the black-seeded Egyptian and the red-seeded American; the latter yields the larger percentage, but the oil is not so pale in colour. The seeds are very carefully deprived of their integuments, and having been crushed, are submitted to pressure in powerful hydraulic presses, placed in a room which in winter is heated to about 21° C. The outflow of oil is further promoted by plates of iron warmed to 32-38° C. being placed between the press-bags. The peeled seeds yield about 40 per cent. of oil.[2123]
All the castor oil pressed in Italy is not pressed from Italian seed. By an official return[2124] it appears that in the year 1872-73 there were exported from Bombay to Genoa 1350 cwt. of castor oil seeds, besides 2452 gallons of castor oil. There are no data to show what was exported from the other presidencies of India in that year.
Uses—Castor oil is much valued as a mild and safe purgative; while the commoner qualities are used in soap-making, and in India for burning in lamps. The seeds are not now administered. The leaves of the plant applied in decoction to the breasts of women are said to promote or even to occasion the secretion of milk. This property, which has long been known to the inhabitants of the Cape Verd Islands,[2125] was particularly observed by Dr. M’William about the year 1850. It has even been found that the galactagogue powers of the plant are exerted when the leaves are administered internally.
KAMALA.
Kamela, Glandulæ Rottleræ.
Botanical Origin—Mallotus philippinensis[2126] Müller Arg. (Croton philippensis Lam., Rottlera tinctoria Roxb., Echinus philippinensis Baillon), a large shrub, or small tree, attaining 20 or 45 feet in height, of very wide distribution. It grows in Abyssinia and Southern Arabia, throughout the Indian peninsulas, ascending the mountains to 5000 feet above the sea-level, in Ceylon, the Malay Archipelago, the Philippines, the Loochoo islands, Formosa, Eastern China and in North Australia, Queensland and New South Wales.
The tricoccous fruits of many of the Euphorbiaceæ are clothed with prickles, stellate hairs, or easily removed glands. This is especially the case in the several species of Mallotus, most of which have the capsules covered with stellate hairs, together with small glands. In that under notice, the capsule is closely beset with ruby-like glands which, when removed by brushing and rubbing, constitute the powder known by the Bengali name of Kamala. These glands are not confined to the capsule, but are scattered over other parts of the plant, especially among the dense tomentum with which the under side of the leaf is covered.
History—In India the glands of Mallotus have been long known, for they have several ancient Sanskrit names: one of these is Kapila, which as well as the Telugu Kapila-podi, is sometimes used by Europeans, though not so frequently as the word Kamala or Kamela, which belongs to the Hindustani, Bengali and Guzratti languages. The Sanskrit word Kapila signifies tawny or dusky red, the Tamil Podi means the pollen of a flower or dust in general.
It does not appear that as a drug the glandular powder of Mallotus, or as it is more conveniently called, Kamala, attracted any particular notice in Europe until a very recent period, though it is named by Ainslie, Roxburgh, Royle and Buchanan, the last of whom gives an interesting account of its collection and uses.[2127] In 1852, specimens of it as found in the bazaar of Aden, under the old Arabic name of Wars, were sent to one of us by Port-Surgeon Vaughan, with information as to its properties as a dye for a silk and as a remedy in cutaneous diseases.[2128] But the real introduction of the drug as a useful medicine is due to Mackinnon, surgeon in the Bengal Medical Establishment, who administered it successively in numerous cases of tapeworm. Anderson of Calcutta, C. A. Gordon, and Corbyn in India, and Leared in London, confirmed the observations of Mackinnon, and fully established the fact that kamala is an efficient taenifuge.[2129] It was introduced into the British Pharmacopœia in 1864.