_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.
[2126] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s _Med. Plants_, part i. (1875.)—A
beautiful figure in Roxburgh, _Plants of the Coast of Coromandel_, ii.
(1798) tab. 168.
[2127] _Journey through Mysore, Canara_, etc., (Lond. 1807) i. 168.
204. 211, ii. 343.
[2128] Hanbury, _Pharm. Journ._ xii. (1853) 386. 589; or _Science
Papers_, 73.
[2129] _Ibid._ xvii. (1858) 408; _Science Papers_, 75.
An analogous drug is mentioned by Paulus Ægineta[2130] in the 7th
century as well as by the Arabian physicians[2131] as early as the
10th century, under the name of _Kanbil_ or _Wars_. Ibn Khurdádbah,
an Arab geographer, living A.D. 869-885, states that from Yemen come
striped silks, ambergris, _wars_, and gum.[2132] It is described to
be a reddish yellow powder like sand, which falls on the ground in
the valleys of Yemen, and is a good remedy for tapeworm and cutaneous
diseases. One writer compares it to powdered saffron; another speaks of
two kinds,—an Abyssinian which is _black_ (or violet), and an Indian
which is _red_. Masudi,[2133] in the first half of the 10th century
speaks of _qinbil_, which he says consists of sandy fruits of red
hue. They are useful as an anthelminthic and for cutaneous diseases.
A similar explanation of the qinbil is found in Qamus, a dictionary
writer in the 13th century in Yemen. About the year 1216, a learned
traveller, Abul Abbas Ahmad Annabati,[2134] (Annabati = the botanist)
or Abul Abbas el-Nebáti, who was a native of Seville, remarks that
the drug is known in the Hejaz and brought from Yemen, but that it is
unknown in Andalusia and does not grow there.
Kazwini,[2135] nearly at the same period, was also acquainted with
_wars_, a plant _sown_ in Yemen and resembling Sesam; Constantinus
Africanus likewise mentioned “_huars_.” Wars, Wors, Wurrus or Warras in
Arabia properly signifies saffron.
In modern times, we find Niebuhr[2136] speaks of the same substance
(as “_wars_”), stating it to be a dye-stuff, of which quantities are
conveyed from Mokha to Oman.
=Production=—Kamala is one of the minor products of the Government
forests in the Madras Presidency, but is also collected in many other
parts of India. The following particulars have been communicated to us
by a correspondent[2137] in the North-west Provinces:—
“ ... Enormous quantities of _Rottlera tinctoria_ are found growing
at the foot of these hills, and every season numbers of people,
chiefly women and children, are engaged in collecting the powder for
exportation to the plains. They gather the berries in large quantities
and throw them into a great basket in which they roll them about,
rubbing them with their hands so as to divest them of the powder, which
falls through the basket as through a sieve, and is received below
on a cloth spread for the purpose. This powder forms the _Kamala_ of
commerce, and is in great repute as an anthelminthic, but is most
extensively used as a dye. The adulterations are chiefly the powdered
leaves, and the fruit-stalks with a little earthy matter, but the
percentage is not large. The operations of picking the fruit and
rubbing off the powder commence here in the beginning of March and last
about a month....”
[2130] Adams’ translat. iii. 457.
[2131] Quoted by Ibn Baytar,—see Sontheimer’s translation, ii. (1842)
326. 585.
[2132] Ibn Khordadbeh, _Livre des routes etc.—Journ. Asiatique_, v.
(1865) 295.
[2133] _Les Prairies d’or_, i. (Paris, 1861) 367.
[2134] Quoted by Ibn Baytar.
[2135] Ed. Lichtenfels, i. (Göttingen, 1849).
[2136] _Description de l’Arabie_, 1774. 133.
[2137] F. E. G. Matthews, Esq., of Nainee Tal.
A similar powder is collected in Southern Arabia, whence it is shipped
to the Persian Gulf and Bombay. It is also brought, under the name of
_Wars_, from Hurrur, a town in Eastern Africa, which is a great trading
station between the Galla countries and Berbera.[2138] Yet the Arabian
and African drug consists in most cases not of kamala, but of those
dark glands which we describe further on, at p. 575.
[2138] Burton, _Journ. of R. Geogr. Society_, xxv. (1855) 146.
Haggenmacher, _Reise in das Somaliland_, in Petermann’s _Geogr.
Mittheilungen_, Ergänzungsheft, xlvii. (1874) 39.
=Description=—Kamala is a fine, granular, mobile powder, consisting of
transparent, crimson granules, the bright colour of which is mostly
somewhat deadened by the admixture of grey stellate hairs, minute
fragments of leaves and similar foreign matter. It is nearly destitute
of taste and smell, but an alcoholic solution poured into water emits
a melon-like odour. Kamala is scarcely acted on by water, even at a
boiling heat; on the other hand, alcohol, ether, chloroform or benzol
extract from it a splendid red resin. Neither sulphuric nor nitric acid
acts upon it in the cold, nor does oil of turpentine become coloured by
it unless warmed. It floats on water, but sinks in oil of turpentine.
When sprinkled over a flame, it ignites after the manner of lycopodium.
Heated alone, it emits a slight aromatic odour; if pure, it leaves
after incineration about 1·37 per cent. of a grey ash.
=Microscopic Structure=—The granules of kamala are irregular spherical
glands, 50 to 60 mkm. in diameter; they have a wavy surface, are
somewhat flattened or depressed on one side, and enclose within their
delicate yellowish membrane a structureless yellow mass in which are
imbedded numerous, simple, club-shaped cells containing a homogeneous,
transparent, red substance. These cells are grouped in a radiate manner
around the centre of the flattened side, so that on the side next the
observer, 10 to 30 of them may easily be counted, while the entire
gland may contain 40 to 60. In a few cases, a very short stalk-cell is
also seen at the centre of the base.
When the glands are exhausted by alcohol and potash, and broken by
pressure between flat pieces of glass, they separate into individual
cells which swell up slightly, while the membranous envelope is
completely detached, and appears as a simple coherent film. After
this treatment the cells, but not their membranous envelope, acquire
by prolonged contact with strong sulphuric acid and iodine water
a more or less brown or blue colour: the walls of the cells alone
correspond therefore to cellulose. Vogl (1864) supposes that a cell of
the epidermis of the fruit first develops a young cellule, which by
partition is resolved into the stalk-cell and the true mother-cell of
the small clavate resin-cellules. At first, the contents of the latter
do not differ from the mass in which they are imbedded, and perhaps
pass gradually into resin by metamorphosis of the cellular substance.
The glands of kamala are always accompanied by colourless or brownish,
thick-walled, stellate hairs, two or three times as long as the glands,
often containing air, which do not exhibit any peculiarity of form, but
resemble the hairs of other plants, as _Verbascum_ or _Althæa_.
=Chemical Composition=—Kamala has been analysed by Anderson of Glasgow
(1855) and by Leube (1860). From the labours of these chemists, it
appears that the powder yields to alcohol or ether nearly 80 per cent.
of resin. We find it to be soluble also in glacial acetic acid or in
bisulphide of carbon, not in petroleum ether. By treatment of the resin
extracted by ether with cold alcohol, Leube resolved it into two
brittle reddish yellow resins, of which the one is more easily soluble
and fuses at 80° C., and the other dissolves less readily and fuses at
191°. Both dissolve in alkaline solutions, and can be precipitated by
acids without apparent change.
Anderson found that a concentrated ethereal solution of kamala
allowed to stand for a few days, solidified into a mass of granular
crystals, which by repeated solution and crystallization in ether
were obtained in a state of purity. This substance, named by Anderson
_Rottlerin_,[2139] forms minute, platy, yellow crystals of a fine
satiny lustre, readily soluble in ether, sparingly in cold alcohol,
more so in hot, and insoluble in water. The mean of four analyses gave
the composition of rottlerin as C₂₂H₂₀O₆.
We have been able to confirm the foregoing observations so far as that
we have obtained an abundance of minute acicular crystals, by allowing
an ethereal solution of kamala to evaporate spontaneously to a syrupy
state. But the purification of these crystals, which was also attempted
by our friend Mr. T. B. Groves,[2140] was unsuccessful, for when freed
from the protecting mother-liquor, they underwent a change and assumed
an amorphous form. We have, on the other hand, succeeded in isolating
the crystals from the “_Kamalin_,” as sold by E. Merck of Darmstadt. By
fusing them with caustic potash we obtained paraoxy-benzoic acid (see
page 408).
=Uses=—The drug is administered for the expulsion of tapeworm; it has
also been used as an external application in _herpes circinnatus_. In
India it is employed for dyeing silk a rich orange-brown.
=Adulteration=—Kamala is very liable to adulteration with earthy
substances, even to the extent of 60 per cent. This contamination may
easily be known by the grittiness of the drug, and by a portion of it
sinking when it is stirred up with water, but in the most decisive
manner by incineration. Sometimes kamala contains an undue proportion
of foreign vegetable matter, as remains of the capsules, leaves, etc.,
which can partly be separated by a lawn sieve. We have met with a large
quantity of very impure Kamala in the London market (1878), which was
offered for cleaning polished metallic surfaces.
=Substitute=—A very remarkable form of so-called kamala was imported
in 1867 from Aden by Messrs. Allen and Hanburys, druggists, of
London.[2141] It arrived neatly packed in oblong, white calico bags,
of three sizes, each inscribed with Arabic characters, indicating
with the name of the vendor or collector, a native of Hurrur, the net
weight, which was either 100, 50, or 25 Turkish ounces. No more than
two supplies, in all 136 lb., could be obtained.
[2139] See _Science Papers_, 78.
[2140] _Yearbook of Pharmacy_, 1872. 599.
[2141] It has been particularly described by one of us in _Pharm.
Journ._ ix. (1868) 279, with woodcuts.
The drug was in coarser particles than kamala, of a deep purple, and
had a distinct odour resembling that which is produced when a tincture
of kamala is poured into water. It had been carefully collected and was
free from earthy admixture, yet it left upon incineration 12 per cent.
of ash. Under the microscope it presented still greater differences,
the grains being cylindrical or subconical, 170 to 200 mkm. long,
by 70 to 100 mkm. broad, with _oblong_ resin-cells, arranged
perpendicularly in three or four storeys; mixed with the grains were
a few long, simple hairs. Another fact of some interest is, that at a
temperature of 93° to 100° C., this drug becomes quite black, while
kamala undergoes no change of colour.
In 1878 our friend Professor Schär was informed by a Swiss firm,
Messrs. Furrer and Escher of Aden, that Kanbil, Qinbil or Kamala are
unknown there. But they sent under the name of _Vars_ a powder, which
Prof. Schär as well as one of us (F.) find identical with the drug
which had been imported by Messrs. Allen and Hanbury. Prof. Schär was
also informed that Vars is used chiefly in the coast districts of
Mascat (Oman) and Hadramaut, in skin diseases, for expelling the tape
worm and as a dye.
Thus the appellation Wurrus or Waras is to be restricted to the dark
purple or violet glands occurring in eastern Africa and Yemen, although
the Waras sent to one of us[2142] by Vaughan was kamala.
As to the mother plant of Waras[2143] we have no information to offer;
we attempted in vain to ascertain its origin. It is evident that it is
the “black Abyssinian” powder already alluded to at page 573.