4.54 5.2
----- -----
100. 100.

The average imports of gamboge into the port of London, during the
past five or six years, have been from 400 to 500 chests of one to two
cwt. each.

Gentian.--The yellow gentian root (_Gentiana lutea_) is the officinal
species, and a native of the Alps of Austria and Switzerland.

The stems and roots of _G. amarella_ and _campestris_, British
species, and _G. cruciata, purpurea, punctata_, &c., are similar in
their effects, having tonic, stomachic, and febrifugal properties. So
has _G. kurroo_ of the Himalayas. The root is generally taken up in
autumn, when the plant is a year old. It is cut longitudinally into
pieces of a foot or a foot and a half long. They are imported into
this country in bales from Havre, Marseilles, &c., and a good deal
comes from Germany. In 1839, 470 cwts. were entered for home
consumption.

Chiretta is the herb and root of _Agathotes Chirayta_, Don; _Gentiana
Chirayta_, Fleming; or _Ophelia chirayta_, a herbaceous plant, growing
in the Himalaya mountains about Nepaul and the Morungs.

Ipecacuan.-- _Cephaelis Ipecacuanhae_, Richard, yields the ipecacuan of
the shops. The plant is met with in the woods of several Brazilian
provinces, as Pernambuco, Bahia and Rio Janeiro. It is found growing
in moist shady situations, from 8 to 20 degs. south latitude. The
roots, which are the officinal part, are contorted, knotty and
annulated, and about the thickness of a goose quill.

Besides this brown or gray annulated ipecacuan, there are spurious
kinds, such as the striated or black Peruvian, the produce of
_Pyschotria elliptica_, and other species; and white or amylaceous
ipecacuan, furnished by _Richardsonia scabra_, an herbaceous
perennial, native of the provinces of Rio Janeiro and Minas Geraes.
_Manettia glabra_ or _cordifolia_, also furnishes ipecacuan in Buenos
Ayres. It is imported into this country from Rio in bales, barrels,
bags, and serons, and the average annual imports in the eight years
ending in 1841 were 10,000 lbs. In 1840, the shipments from Rio were
as much as 20,000 lbs.

Castelnau states, that one expert hand can gather 15 lbs. of the
ipecacuan root in a day, which will fetch in Rio one dollar per pound.
He estimates that, from 1830 to 1837, not less than 800,000 lbs. of
this drug were exported from the province of Matto Grosso to Rio.

Jalap.--This drug is obtained from the dr