Chinese cantharides are often to be met with at the London drug sales. In colour and size, they differ from the Spanish, being larger, and having transverse bands of yellow on a black ground. They consist chiefly of two speoies of Mylabris, M. Cichorii and Al. phalerata, mixed in variable pro portions ; the latter are larger than the former, but similar in colour. Chinese cantharides frequently contain more cantharidin than the Spanish flies, but the yield is uncertain. Both contain a fatty matter, removable by bisulphide of carbon, in which cantharidio is insoluble. Recent researches show that Cantharis (Lytta) adspersa is a valuable source of cantharidin, being richer than the Spanish fly.
Capsicum.—The fruit of more than one species of Capsicum possesses a pungency which renders it useful as a looal stimulant, in the form of gargle, and liniment ; it is also administered to assist digestion. Its principal application, however, is as a condiment. (See Spices.) Cascarilla, Sweet-wood, or Eleuthera (Fe., Case,arille ; Garr., Cascarill).—The bark of Croton Eluteria is prescribed as a tonic, in the form of an infusion or a tincture. The plant is a shrub, usually 3-5 ft. high ; it is indigenous only to the Bahamas, where it is pretty plentiful, espe cially in the islands of Andros, Long, and Eleuthera. The drug occurs in quills and fragments, generally of very small dimensions, and derived from young wood. The colour of the cortical layers changes from pale-red in young bark, to deep-red in older samples. The surface is often coated with a minute lichen, which gives it a chalky-white appearance, speckled with small black dote (apothecig), about the size of a pin's head. By this character, and its aromatic taste, it is dis tinguished from Pale Cinchona bark, which it otherwise resembles. The flavour of the bark is bitter and nauseous; its odour is very fragrant and agreeable, and is abundantly emitted on burning, hence the drug is a favourite ingredient in fumigating pastilles. Packed in sacks, it is shipped from Nassau (Bahamas) in varying quantities. The exports, in 1876, were 1093 cwt. The market value is about 178.-24s. 6d. a cwt. The natives of the Bahamas employ the cortex, and tender shoots, for the preparation of decoctions, and select the leaves for medicating their warm bathe.
Another species, called Jamaica, or Caribbean, Cascarilla (Croton Sloane'), is indigenous to Jamaica, and very abundant there ; but it is unknown in the Bahamas, and though employed medi cinally by the colonists, does not enter into commerce. A third species is the Smooth-leaved, or False Bahama Cascarilla (C: !walls), locally termed " False-sweetwood bark." It is common in the Bahamas and most of the W. Indies ; its bark outwardly resembles the genuine drug, but is slightly bitter and astringent, and not aromatic, and is reddish externally, with the inner surface finely striated ; it forms an occasional adulterant of the true bark, and appears to possess emetic properties.
C. Cascarilla, which originally yielded the drug, is now extirpated, or nearly so. C. niveus (Pseudo chiva), yielding Copalehi-hark, or Quinn. Blanca, sometimes called Camarillo, is a native of Mexico, Central America, Colombia, Venezuela, and the W. Indies; it grows to a height of 10 ft., and furnishes quills of bark 1-2 ft. long. It presents no resemblance to Caacarilla, but has been sold in London for Cusparia hark (see Angostura.) Cassia (Fa., Casse Canefiee ; GER., R5hreneassie).—The pulp extracted from the pods of Cassia Fistula (Carthartocarpus Fistula ; Bactyrilobium Fistula) forms one of the ingredients of the well known lenitive electuary, and is in common domestic use as a mild laxative in S. Europe. The tree, 20-50 ft. high, is indigenous to India, up to 4000 ft. on the outer Himalayas, and probably also in the country of the Dor, Tropical Africa ; it is now acclimatized and partially cultivated in Brazil, W. Indies, and Egypt. The ripe legume is a dark chocolate-brown cylinder, ft. long, and /-1 in. thick, divided into 25-100 cells, each containing a seed, embedded in a soft saccharine pulp. In the fresh fruits, the cella are filled with this pulp ; but on their arrival here, the latter appears only as a thin layer of a viscid substance, of mawkish-sweet flavour. To prepare the pulp for use, it is separated from the pods, by crushing them, digesting them in hot water, and evaporat ing the strained liquid. The pulp is occasionally imported as such, but is much inferior to that newly prepared. The drug comes to us principally from the W. Indies ; in a minor degree also, from the East. Its market value is about 55-7s. a cwt. The pulp yielded by the legumes of some other species of Cassia is occasionally employed. That of C. granclis (Brasiliana), a native of Brazil and Central America, is bitter-astringent ; that of "C. moschata, growing in Colombia, is sweetish astringent. In Martinique, Liberia, Senegal, the Gaboon, Mauritius, &c., the roots of C. occidentalis are used as a diuretic, and its leaves as a purgative ; the chief value of the plant lies, however, in its seeds, which, when roasted, are largely employed as a substitute for coffee, under the name of " negro coffee," or café nOgre. (See also Spices—Cassia.) consists of the preputial follicles of the common beaver (Castor fiber). It is imported from Hudson's Bay, in the farm of flattened fig-shaped sacs, blackish and wrinkled exter nally, reddish brown with a resinous fracture internally, and a characteristic disagreeable odour. It melts when heated. Formerly it was imported also from Siberia, but Russian castor is practi cally unknown at the present day. The drug has had a high reputation as an antispasmodic, in hysteria and nervous diseases.