[1583] Drury, Useful Plants of India, 2nd ed. 1873. 101.
[1584] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 29 (1878).
[1585] Flora Indica, ed. Carey, ii. (1832) 33.
[1586] Fleming, Catalogue of Indian Plants and Drugs, Calcutta, 1810. 8.
[1587] Bengal Dispensatory (1842) 455.
[1588] Catalogue of Madras Exhibition of 1855,—list of Mysore drugs; also Pharm. of India, 458.
[1589] Drawn up from an ample specimen kindly presented to us, together with one of the root, by Mr. Moodeen Sheriff of Madras.
[1590] A figure of the leaves may be found in a paper on Unto-mool by M. C. Cooke, Pharm. Journ. Aug. 6, 1870. 105; and one of the whole plant in Wight’s Icones Plantarum Indiæ Orientalis, iv. (1850) tab. 1277.
[1591] Roxburgh’s assertion that the pulp “seems perfectly innocent,” induced us to examine it chemically, which we were enabled to do through the kindness of Dr. Thwaites, of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Ceylon. The inspissated pulp received from Dr. T., diluted with water, formed a very consistent jelly having a slightly acid reaction and very bitter taste. Some of it was mixed with slaked lime, dried, and then exhausted by boiling chloroform. The liquid left on evaporation a yellowish resinoid mass, which was warmed with acetic acid. The colourless solution yielded a perfectly white, crystalline residue, which was dissolved in water, and precipitated with bichromate of potassium. The crystallized precipitate dried, and moistened with strong sulphuric acid, exhibited the violet hue characteristic of strychnine.
To confirm this experiment, we obtained through the obliging assistance of Dr. Bidie of Madras, some of the white pulp taken with a spoon from the interior of the ripe fruit, and at once immersed per se in spirit of wine. The alcoholic fluid gave abundant evidence of the presence of strychnine.