ANGOSTURA BARK, or ANGOSTURA BARK, or CUSPARIA BARK. The aromatic bit ter bark of certain trees of the natural order Rubiaee:e and tribe Cuspariea., natives of Vene zuela and other countries of South America. It derives its name from the town of Angostura, whence it is exported. It is said to have been used in Spain as early as 1759. It has been em ployed as a remedy for weakness of digestion, di arrhea, dysentery, and fevers. It is tonic and stimulant. The most important of the trees pro ducing it is the Galipea ollicinalis, which grows upon the mountains of Colombia and near the Orinoco. It is a tree 12 to 20 feet high and 3 to 5 feet in diameter, having a gray bark, tri foliate leaves, with oblong leaflets about TO inches 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 called coillostarin, •nsparin, or gaiipcin, to which its medicinal effi cacy is ascribed. It is supposed that a variety of Angostura bark is produced by Galipea cus paria (called by some Bonplandia trifoliate), majestic tree of 60 to SO feet in height, with fragrant trifoliate leaves More than 2 feet. long.
Angostura bark was formerly believed to be one of the most valuable of febrifuges; but its use is at present very limited, and has, indeed, in some countries of Europe been prohibited, in con sequence of its frequent adulteration with the poisonous bark of the Stryehnos nux voiniea, or the substitution of that bark for it. This poi sonous bark is sometimes called false Angostura bark. It differs from the true Angostura bark in having no Odor, in its much greater weight and compactness, in its inner surface being in capable of separation into small laminte, and in the effects which are produced upon it by acids and other tests, particularly in its outer surface being rendered dark-green or blackish by nitric arid, while that of the true Angostura bark is rendered slightly orange-red.