_Matico._
=Botanical Origin=—_Piper angustifolium_[2210] Ruiz et Pavon (_Artanthe
elongata_ Miq.), a shrub growing in the moist woods of Bolivia, Peru,
Brazil, New Granada and Venezuela, also cultivated in some localities.
A slightly different, somewhat stouter form of the plant with leaves
7 to 8 inches long (var. α. _cordulatum_ Cas. DC.), occurs in the
Brazilian provinces of Bahia, Minas Geraes and Ceará, as well as in
Peru and the northern parts of South America.
[2210] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s _Med. Plants_, part 18 (1877).
=History=—The styptic properties of this plant are said to have been
discovered by a Spanish soldier named Matico,[2211] who having applied
some of the leaves to his wounds, observed that the bleeding was
thereby arrested; hence the plant came to be called _Yerba_ or _Palo
del Soldado_ (soldier’s herb or tree). The story is not very probable,
but it is current in many parts of South America, and its allusion is
not confined to the plant under notice.
The hæmostatic powers of matico, which are not noticed in the works
of Ruiz and Pavon, were first recognized in Europe by Jeffreys,[2212]
a physician of Liverpool, in 1839, but they had already attracted
attention in North America as early as 1827.
=Description=—Matico, as it arrives in commerce, consists of a
compressed, coherent, brittle mass of leaves and stems, of a light
green hue and pleasant herby odour. More closely examined, it is seen
to be made up of jointed stems bearing lanceolate, acuminate leaves,
cordate and unequal at the base, and having very short stalks. The
leaves are rather thick, with their whole upper surface traversed by
a system of minute sunk veins, which divide it into squares and give
it a tessellated appearance. On the under side, these squares form
a corresponding series of depressions which are clothed with shaggy
hairs. The leaves attain a length of about 6 inches by 1½ inches broad.
The flower and fruit spikes which are often 4 to 5 inches long, are
slender and cylindrical with the flowers or fruits densely packed. The
leaves of matico have a bitterish aromatic taste; their tissue shows
numerous cells, filled with essential oil.[2213]
=Chemical Composition=—The leaves yield on an average 27 per
cent.[2214] of essential oil, which we find slightly[2215] dextrogyre;
a large proportion of it distills at 180° to 200° C., the remainder
becoming thickish. Both portions are lighter than water; but another
specimen of the oil of matico which we had kept for some years, sinks
in water. We have observed that in winter the oil deposits remarkable
crystals of a camphor, more than half an inch in length, fusible at
103° C.; they belong to the hexagonal system, and have the odour and
taste of the oil from which they separate.
Matico further affords, according to Marcotte (1864),[2216] a
crystallizable acid, named _Artanthic Acid_, besides some tannin. The
latter is made evident by the dark brown colour which the infusion
assumes on addition of ferric chloride. The leaves likewise contain
resin, but as shown by Stell in 1858, neither piperin, cubebin, nor any
analogous principle such as the so-called _Maticin_ formerly supposed
to exist in them.
[2211] Matico is the diminutive of _Mateo_, the Spanish for _Matthew_.
[2212] _Remarks on the efficacy of Matico as a styptic and astringent_,
3rd ed., Lond. 1845.
[2213] Microscopic examination of the leaves, Pocklington, _Pharm.
Journ._ v. (1874) 301.
[2214] As Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig, kindly informed me.—F. A. F..
[2215] Deviating only 0.7° in a column 50 mm. long.
[2216] Guibourt (et Planchon), _Hist. des Drogues_, ii. (1869) 278.—We
are not acquainted with “artanthic acid.”
=Commerce=—The drug is imported in bales and serons by way of Panama.
Among the exports of the Peruvian port of Arica in 1877, we noticed 195
quintales (19,773 lb) of Matico.
=Uses=—Matico leaves, previously softened in water, or in a state of
powder, are sometimes employed to arrest the bleeding of a wound. The
infusion is taken for the cure of internal hæmorrhage.
=Substitutes=—Several plants have at times been brought into the market
under the name of _matico_. One of these is _Piper aduncum_ L.[2217]
(_Artanthe adunca_ Miq.), of which a quantity was imported into London
from Central America in 1863, and first recognized by Bentley (1864).
In colour, odour, and shape of leaf it nearly agrees with ordinary
matico; but differs in that the leaves are marked beneath by much more
prominent ascending parallel nerves, the spaces between which are
not rugose but comparatively smooth and nearly glabrous. In chemical
characters, the leaves of _P. aduncum_ appear to accord with those of
_P. angustifolium_.
_Piper aduncum_ is a plant of wide distribution throughout Tropical
America. Under the name of _Nhandi_ or _Piper longum_ it was mentioned
by Piso in 1648[2218] on account of the stimulant action of its leaves
and roots,—a property which causes it to be still used in Brazil, where
however no particular styptic virtues seem to be ascribed to it.[2219]
The fruits are there employed in the place of cubebs. Sloane’s
figure[2220] of “Piper longum, arbor folio latissimo” also shows _Piper
aduncum_.
According to Triana, _Piper lanceæfolium_ HBK. (_Artanthe_ Miq.), and
another species not recognized, yield matico in New Granada.[2221]
_Waltheria glomerata_ Presl (_Sterculiaceæ_) is called _Palo del
Soldado_ at Panama and its leaves are used as a vulnerary.[2222] In
Riobamba and Quito, _Eupatorium glutinosum_ Lamarck, is also called
Chusalonga or _Matico_.[2223]
[2217] For a good figure, see Jacquin, _Icones_ II. (1781-1793) tab.
210.
[2218] _De Medicinâ Brasiliensi_, lib. 4. c. 57.
[2219] Langgaard, _Diccionario de Medicina domestica e popular_, Rio de
Janeiro, ii. (1865) 44.
[2220] _Voyage to Jamaica_ I. (1707) 135, and tab. 88.
[2221] Exposition de 1867—Catalogue de M. José Triana, p. 14.
[2222] Seemann, _Botany of the Herald_, 1852-57. 85.
[2223] Bentham, _Plantæ Hartwegianæ_, Lon. 1839. 198.