_Cortex Winteri_, _Cortex Magellanicus_; _Winter’s Bark_, _Winter’s
Cinnamon_; F. _Ecorce de Winter_; G. _Wintersrinde_, _Magellanischer
Zimmt_.
=Botanical Origin=—_Drimys[77] Winteri_ Forster, a tree distributed
throughout the American continent from Mexico to Cape Horn. It
presents considerable variation in form and size of leaf and flower in
the different countries in which it occurs, on which account it has
received from botanists several distinct specific names. Hooker[78]
has reduced these species to a single type, a course in which he
has been followed by Eichler in his monograph of the small order
_Winteraceæ_[79].—In April, 1877, the tree was blossoming in the open
air in the botanic garden at Dublin.
[77] From δριμὺς, _acrid_, _biting_.
[78] _Flora Antarctica_, ii. (1847) 229.
[79] Martius, _Flor. Bras._ fasc. 38 (1864) 134. Eichler however admits
five principal varieties, viz. α. _Magellanica_; β. _Chilensis_; γ.
_Granatensis_; δ. _revoluta_; ε. _angustifolia_.
=History=—In 1577 Captain Drake, afterwards better known as Sir Francis
Drake, having obtained from Queen Elizabeth a commission to conduct a
squadron to the South Seas, set sail from Plymouth with five ships; and
having abandoned two of his smaller vessels, passed into the Pacific
Ocean by the Straits of Magellan in the autumn of the following year.
But on the 7th September, 1578, there arose a dreadful storm, which
dispersed the little fleet. Drake’s ship, the _Pelican_, was driven
southward, the _Elizabeth_, under the command of Captain Winter,
repassed the Straits and returned to England, while the third vessel,
the _Marigold_, was heard of no more.
Winter remained three weeks in the Straits of Magellan to recover the
health of his crew, during which period, according to Clusius (the fact
is not mentioned in Hakluyt’s account of the voyage), he collected
a certain aromatic bark, of which, having removed the acridity by
steeping it in honey, he made use as a spice and medicine for scurvy
during his voyage to England, where he arrived in 1579.
A specimen of this bark having been presented to Clusius, he gave it
the name of _Cortex Winteranus_, and figured and described it in his
pamphlet: “Aliquot notæ in Garciæ aromatum historiam,” Antverpiæ,
1582, p. 30, and also in the _Libri Exoticorum_, published in 1605.
He afterwards received a specimen with wood attached, which had been
collected by the Dutch navigator Sebald de Weerdt.
Van Noort, another well-known Dutch navigator, who visited the Straits
of Magellan in 1600, mentions cutting wood at Port Famine to make a
boat, and that the bark of the trees was hot and biting like pepper. It
is stated by Murray that he also brought the bark to Europe.
But although the straits of Magellan were several times visited about
this period, it is certain that no regular communication between
that remote region and Europe existed either then or subsequently;
and we may reasonably conclude that Winter’s Bark became a drug of
great rarity, and known to but few persons. It thus happened that,
notwithstanding most obvious differences, the Canella alba of the West
Indies, and another bark of which we shall speak further on, having
been found to possess the pungency of Winter’s Bark, were (owing to
the scarcity of the latter) substituted for it, until at length the
peculiar characters of the original drug came to be entirely forgotten.
The tree was figured by Sloane in 1693, from a specimen (still extant
in the British Museum) brought from Magellan’s Straits by Handisyd, a
ship’s surgeon, who had experienced its utility in treating scurvy.
Feuillée,[80] a French botanist, found the Winter’s Bark-tree in Chili
(1709-11), and figured it as _Boigue cinnamomifera_. It was, however,
Forster,[81] the botanist of Cook’s second expedition round the
world, who first described the tree accurately, and named it _Drimys
Winteri_. He met with it in 1773 in Magellan’s Straits, and on the
eastern coasts of Tierra del Fuego, where it grows abundantly, forming
an evergreen tree of 40 feet, while on the western shores it is but
a shrub of 10 feet high. Specimens have been collected in these and
adjacent localities by many subsequent botanists, among others by Dr.
J. D. Hooker, who states that about Cape Horn the tree occurs from the
sea-level to an elevation of 1000 feet.
Although the bark of _Drimys_ was never imported as an article of trade
from Magellan’s Straits, it has in recent times been occasionally
brought into the market from other parts of South America, where it is
in very general use. Yet so little are drug dealers acquainted with it,
that its true name and origin have seldom been recognized.[82]
[80] _Journ. des observations physiques_, &c. iv. 1714. 10, pl. 6.
[81] _Characteres Generum Plantarum_, 1775. 42.
[82] We have seen it offered in a drug sale at one time as “_Pepper
Bark_,” at another as “_Cinchona_.” Even Mutis thought it a Cinchona,
and called it “_Kinkina urens_”!
=Description=—We have examined specimens of true Winter’s Bark from the
Straits of Magellan, Chili, Peru, New Granada, and Mexico, and find in
each the same general characters. The bark is in quills or channelled
pieces, often crooked, twisted or bent backwards, generally only a few
inches in length. It is most extremely thick (⅒ to ³/₁₀ of an inch) and
appears to have shrunk very much in drying, bark a quarter of an inch
thick having sometimes rolled itself into a tube only three times as
much in external diameter. Young pieces have an ashy-grey suberous coat
beset with lichens. In older bark, the outer coat is sometimes whitish
and silvery, but more often of a dark rusty brown, which is the colour
of the internal substance, as well as of the surface next the wood. The
inner side of the bark is strongly characterized by very rough striæ,
or, as seen under a lens, by small short and sharp longitudinal ridges,
with occasional fissures indicative of great contraction of the inner
layer in drying. In a piece broken or cut transversely, it is easy to
perceive that the ridges in question are the ends of rays of white
liber which diverge towards the circumference in radiate order, a dark
rusty parenchyme intervening between them. No such feature is ever
observable in either _Canella_ or _Cinnamodendron_.
Winter’s Bark has a short, almost earthy fracture, an intolerably
pungent burning taste, and an odour which can only be described as
terebinthinous. When fresh its smell may be more agreeable. The
descriptions of Clusius, as alluded to above, are perfectly agreeing
and even his figures as nearly as might be expected.
=Microscopic Structure=—In full-grown specimens the most striking fact
is the predominance of sclerenchymatous cells. The tissue moreover
contains numerous large oil-ducts, chiefly in the inner portion of the
large medullary rays. A fibrous structure of the inner part of the bark
is observable only in the youngest specimens.[83] Very small starch
granules are met with in the drug, yet less numerous than in canella.
The tissue of the former assumes a blackish blue colour on addition of
perchloride of iron.
The wood of _Drimys_ consists of dotted prosenchyme, traversed by
medullary rays, the cells of which are punctuated and considerably
larger than in _Coniferæ_.
=Chemical Composition=—No satisfactory chemical examination has been
made of true Winter’s Bark. Its chief constituents, as already pointed
out, are tannic matters and essential oil, probably also a resin. In a
cold aqueous infusion, a considerable amount of mucilage is indicated
by neutral acetate of lead. On addition of potash it yields a dark
somewhat violet liquid. Canella alba is but little altered by the same
treatment. By reason of its astringency the bark is used in Chili for
tanning.[84]
=Uses=—Winter’s Bark is a stimulating tonic and antiscorbutic, now
almost obsolete in Europe. It is much used in Brazil and other parts of
South America as a remedy in diarrhœa and gastric debility.
=Substitute=—_False Winter’s Bark_—We have shown that the bark of
_Drimys_ or True Winter’s Bark has been confounded with the pungent
bark of _Canella alba_ L., and with an allied bark, also the produce of
Jamaica. The latter is that of _Cinnamodendron corticosum_ Miers,[85] a
tree growing in the higher mountain woods of St. Thomas-in-the-Vale and
St. John, but not observed in any other of the West Indian islands than
Jamaica. It was probably vaguely known to Sloane when he described the
“_Wild Cinamon tree, commonly, but falsely, called_ Cortex Winteranus,”
which, he says, has leaves resembling those of _Lauro-cerasus_; though
the tree he figures is certainly _Canella alba_.[86] Long[87] in
1774, speaks of _Wild Cinamon_, _Canella alba_, or _Bastard Cortex
Winteranus_, saying that it is used by most apothecaries instead of the
true _Cortex Winteranus_.
[83] The structure of Winter’s Bark is beautifully figured by Eichler,
_loc. cit._ tab. 32.
[84] Perez-Rosales, _Essai sur le Chili_, 1857. 113.
[85] _Annals of Nat. Hist._, May 1858; also Miers’ _Contributions to
Botany_, i. 121, pl. 24, _Bot. Magaz._, Sept. 1874, vol. xxx. pl. 6121,
and Bentley and Trimens’ _Medicinal Plants_, part 10.
[86] _Phil. Trans._ xvii for 1693. 465.
[87] _Hist. of Jamaica._ London, iii. (1774) 705—also i. 495.
It is probable that both writers really had in view _Cinnamodendron_,
the bark of which has been known and used as _Winter’s Bark_, both in
England and on the continent from an early period up to the present
time.[88] It is the bark figured as _Cortex Winteranus_ by Goebel and
Kunze[89] and described by Mérat and De Lens,[90] Pereira, and other
writers of repute. Guibourt indeed pointed out in 1850 its great
dissimilarity to the bark of _Drimys_ and questioned if it could be
derived from that genus.
It is a strange fact that the tree should have been confounded with
_Canella alba_ L., differing from it as it does in the most obvious
manner, not only in form of leaf, but in having the flowers _axillary_,
whereas those of _C. alba_ are _terminal_. Although _Cinnamodendron
corticosum_ is a tree sometimes as much as 90 feet high[91] and must
have been well known in Jamaica for more than a century, yet it had
no botanical name until 1858 when it was described by Miers[92] and
referred to the small genus _Cinnamodendron_ which is closely allied to
_Canella_.
The bark of _Cinnamodendron_ has the general structure of Canella alba.
There is the same thin corky outer coat (which is _not_ removed) dotted
with round scars, the same form of quills and fracture. But the tint is
different, being more or less of a ferruginous brown. The inner surface
which is a little more fibrous than in canella, varies in colour, being
yellowish, brown, or of a deep chocolate. The bark is violently pungent
but not bitter, and has a very agreeable cinnamon-like odour.
In _microscopic structure_ it approaches very close to canella; yet
the thick-walled cells of the latter exist to a much larger extent and
are here seen to belong to the suberous tissue. The medullary rays are
loaded with oxalate of calcium.
Cinnamodendron bark has not been analysed. Its decoction is blackened
by a persalt of iron whereby it may be distinguished from Canella alba;
and is coloured intense purplish brown by iodine, which is not the case
with a decoction of true Winter’s Bark.
[88] It is so labelled in the Museum of the Pharmaceutical Society,
28th April, 1873.
[89] _Pharm. Waarenkunde_, 1827-29. i. Taf. 3. fig. 7.
[90] As shown by De Lens’ own specimen kindly given to us by Dr. J.
Léon Soubeiran. There are specimens of the same bark about a century
old marked _Cortex Winteranus verus_ in Dr. Burges’s cabinet of drugs
belonging to the Royal College of Physicians.
[91] Griesbach calls it a low shrubby tree, 10-15 feet high. Mr. N.
Wilson, late of the Bath Botanic Garden, Jamaica, has informed me it
grows to be 40-45 in height, but that he has seen a specimen 90 feet
high. (Letter 22 May 1862.)—D. H.
[92] _Loc. cit._