782

ELEMENTS OF MATERIA MEDICA.

vegetable. This oil is sometimes liquid and highly aromatic, as oil of cinna er tieSiat others it is solid at ordinary temperatures, and is endowed with narcotic propeas camphor. The acrid principle of some species is probably a volatile oil- v |,jcl>In the bark and leaves, the volatile oil is usually associated with tannic acid, ' ^

gives them astringency, as in cinnamon. In the fruit and seeds, on the otherit is usually combined or mixed with fixed oil, as in bay-berries.

Cinnamo'mum zeylariicurn, Nees, E.— The Cinnamon.

Laurus Cinnamomum, Linn. L. D.

Sex. Syst. Enneandria, Monogynia.

(Cortex; et Oleum e cortice destillatum, L. —Bark; and Volatile oil of the bark, E .—Cortex et

volatile, D.)

History. —Cinnamon iKinman, Hebr .) is mentioned in the Old 1®^.ment ( Ewod . xxx. 23), about 1490 years before Christ. In all I ,rbility the Hebrews received it from the Arabians, who must, there \have had commercial dealings with India at this early period {P tCtBible, vol. i. p. 222). The first notice of cinnamon (kip vhfiMfiov) 1A .3Greek writers occurs in Herodotus ( Thalia , cvii. & cxi.), who diedyears before Christ. Probably both the Hebrew and Greek nai» eSthis bark are derived from the Cingalese cacyn-nama ( dulce liynufflbthe Malayan kaimanis (Royle, Essay on Hindoo Medicine, pp. 84 & 1 .

Hippocrates (pp. 265, 575, & 609, ed. Faes.) employed cinnamon e*nally. Dioscorides (lib. i. cap. 13) describes several kinds of cinna*Botany. Gen. Char. — Flowers hermaphrodite or polygamous. ^six-cleft; with the limb deciduous. Stamina twelve, in four rows j j jgnine external ones fertile, the three inner ones capitate, abortive ,three most internal of the fertile stamina having two sessile glands a ^ c .base: anthers four-celled, the three inner turned outwards. Ovary 1celled, with one ovule. Fruit (a berry) seated in a cup-like c . a Z.,j.Leaves ribbed. Leaf-buds naked. Flowers panicled, rarely fas ® 1(Condensed from Endlicher, Gen. Plant.) , a pj

Sp. Char. — Branches somewhat four-cornered, smooth. Leaves o'or ovate-oblong, tapering into an obtuse point, triple-nerved, or t j.nerved, reticulated on the under side, smooth, the uppermost the sin a .

Panicles terminal and axillary, stalked. Flowers hoary and silky ?ments oblong, deciduous in the middle (Nees, Laurin.)

Botanists admit several varieties of this species: the most important are,— j aI1 t

a. Broad leaved, Moon Cat. of (Ceylon Plants ): Mu-pat (Cingalese ). Tl* e ^above described. _ niiJtF"

3. Narrow-leaved, Moon ,zeylanicum var. Cassia, Nees. ti | )JlV e

(Cingalese ). This variety which

received from Ceylon , under tb e 0 r

of Bastard Cinnamon, has obm' » t |,e*- • - - ' -1r w

Fig. 165.

elliptical leaves, much taperni;

of

point, and acute at the base. j o!

Percival (Account of the / ^ v |,icbCeylon ) mentions four varietiesare harked : 1st, Rasse curundu, . jjsney cinnamon, with broad leaves, j gttbe best bark; 2dly, Nai curV ? eSl ieSisnake cinnamon, also with large e p )r .not greatly inferior in quality 40 ‘ „hofmer; 3dly, Capuru curundu, or c8 ^[j,Jy,cinnamon , are inferior species:

Cinnamomum zeylanicum.

cabatte curundu, or astringent ^ j ja pb

with smaller leaves; its bark hastaste.