ANGOSTURA BARK, .or ANGOSTURA BARK, the aromatic bitter bark of certain trees of the natural order rubiacece and tribe cuspariece, natives of the tropical parts of South America. It derives its name from the town of Angostura, where it is a considerable article of commerce. It was first brought to England in 1788. It is used in medicine as a remedy for weakness of digestion, diarrhoea, dysentery, and fevers. It is tonic and stimulant. The most important of the trees producing it is the galipea ofileinalis, which grows upon the mountains of Columbia and near the Orinoco. It is a tree of 12 to 20 ft. high, and 3 to 5 ft. in diameter, having a gray bark, trifoliate leaves, with oblong leaflets about 10 in. long, which, when fresh, have the odor of tobacco, and flowers about an inch long, in racemes, white, hairy, and fragrant. The bark contains a chemical substance not yet sufficiently examined, called angosturin, cusparin, or galipein, to which its medicinal efficacy is ascribed. It is supposed that a variety of A. B. is pro
duced by galipea eusparia (called by some bonplawlia trifoliata), a majestic tree of 60 to 80 ft. in height, with fragrant trifoliate leaves more than 2 ft. long. A. B. is believed to be one of the most valuable of febrifuges; but its use is at present very limited, and has, indced, in some countries of Europe, been prohibited, in consequence of its frequent adulteration with the poisonous bark of the strgehnos nuz minim, or the substitution of that bark for it. This poisonous bark is sometimes called false A. B. It differs from the true A. B. in having no smell, in its much greater weight and compactness, in its inner surface being incapable of separation into small lam'_nw, and in the effects which are produced upon it by acids and other tests, particauly in its outer crust being rendered dark-green or blackish by nitric Acid, whilst that of the true A. B. is rendered slightly orange-red.