Dub. Nutmeg; Mace; Oil of Nutmeg, essential and expressed;

Oil of Mace.

Spi. Of the Nutmeg.; Noix muscadc (F.), Moscatnuse (G.), Nooten-moskat (Butch), Muskad (Dan.), Muskot (Swed.), Nosce moscata (I.), Neuz moscada ( S.), Noz moscada (Port), Jaephal (H.), Jattipullum ( Cyng.), Jouzbewa (Pers.), Jouzalteil (Arab.), Woh pala (Jav.), Jadicai ( Tarn.), Jayaphula (Beng.), Jatiphalo (San.), Pela {Malay)----Of the Mace: Moshat blumen (G.), Macis (I.),

Macias (S.), Jawatri (H.), Jatipatri ( San.), Jadiputrie( Tarn.), Bunga buae-pala (Malay), Kambangpala (Jav.), Wassawasel (Cyng.), Bezbaz (Pers.).- The Oil: Jadikai tylum (Tarn.), Jatipullum tail (Cyng.).

The nutmeg-tree is a native of the Molucca Islands. It has, however, been nearly extirpated from the greater number of them by the narrow policy of the Dutch, and is cultivated at Band a2, and also at Bencoolen, in the island of Sumatra, where a sufficient quantity is raised to supply with mace and nutmegs the whole of Europe. Mr. Crawfurd states that the tree is also found in Cochin China and in New Holland. It rises to the height of thirty feet, producing many erect branches, which, as well as the trunk, exude, when wounded, a red glutinous juice, and are covered with a smooth, ash-coloured exterior bark. The leaves, which stand alternately on short petioles, are elliptical, pointed, undulated, entire, and obliquely nerved; of a bright green colour on the upper surface, and greyish underneath, with an aromatic taste. The flowers are present at the same time with the fruit, inodorous, small, supported on axillary peduncles; and male and female on the same, and on separate trees: the calyx in both is fleshy, smooth, and divided at the edge into three moderately spreading segments. There are no corollas. The filaments in the male flowers are short, united into one columnar bundle, inserted into the receptacle, and bear each a linear anther, which surrounds the upper half of the filament.

The germ in the female is superior, oval, and crowned with a style terminated by two stigmas. The fruit is an elliptico-spheroidal, one-celled, superior berry, marked with a shallow longitudinal groove on one side, fleshy, smooth, one-celled, and the size of a small peach; the flesh is thick, rather solid, and finally dries up to a coriaceous crust, which opens on one side, and displays the nutmeg in its shell covered with an arillus, which is the officinal mace, and by it fixed to the bottom of the cell. The mace is a fleshy, coriaceous, saffron, or yellow-coloured substance, divided deeply into many slips, which closely invest the shell of the nutmeg. The kernel, which is the proper nutmeg, is of a roundish-oval form, marked on the outside with many vermicular furrows, within of a fleshy, farinaceous substance; variegated whitish and bay, and having a cavity at the bottom for the embryo.1

1 In our description, we have followed Gartner, who denominates the fruit " bacca monosperma;" although, in our translation of the generic character by "Willdenow, we have not altered the term "drupr".

2 This term includes six smaller islands: Ncyra, Lenteira, Pulo-Aya, Goenenga Apia, Polerona, and Rossengenia; but the first three only bear nutmeg-trees.

The nutmeg-tree produces fruit at the age of seven years; its productiveness is at the height at fifteen; and it continues to bear for seventy or eighty years in the Moluccas. It yields three crops annually: the first in April, the second in August, and the third, which is the best, in December; yet the fruit requires nine months to ripen it. When it is gathered2, the outer coriaceous covering is first stripped off, and then the mace, carefully separated, is flattened by the hands in single layers, and dried in the sun. The nutmegs in the shell are next exposed to heat, not exceeding 140° of Fahr., and to smoke for three months. Much care is necessary in drying them, as they require to be turned every second or third day. The criterion of due preparation is their rattling in the shell. They are then broken, and the kernels thrown into a strong mixture of lime and water, at Banda; but at Bencoolen they are simply rubbed over with dry lime : after which they are cleaned and packed up in casks and chests, smoked, and covered within with a coating of lime and water.3 This process is necessary for their preservation, for the nutmeg freed from the shell is very perishable: with the same intention the mace is sprinkled with salt water.

There are several varieties of the tree; but that denominated the queen nutmeg, which bears a small round nut, is the best. They are imported in chests, which contain each from 100 to 140 lbs. weight4; the mace comes in chests also of different sizes: the essential oil, which is obtained in Banda by the distillation of the nuts, is brought in bottles, and the expressed oil in stone jars. Nutmegs are frequently punctured and boiled in order to obtain the essential oil, and the orifices afterwards closed with powdered sassafras. The fraud is detected by the lightness of the nutmeg. Both the nutmeg and the mace are perforated by the larva of dermestes Surinamensis.1

1 Gartner de Fructibus, t. 41.

2 The fruit which falls from the trees affords an inferior nutmeg. A good tree yields annually from ten to fourteen pounds of nutmegs and mace; and the produce of an English acre about 265 pounds.

3 Report on the Cultivation of Spices at Bencoolen, etc. by J. Lumsdaine, Esq. -Edin. Phil, Journ. vol. vii. p. 127.

4 The annual consumption of nutmegs in England is 56,960 lbs., and of mace 3620 lbs. Crawfurd's Indian Archipelago.

Qualities.-The nutmeg has a fragrant, agreeable, spicy odour, and a warm, aromatic taste. It is easily cut with a knife, but is not very pulverulent. When cut transversely, and examined by the microscope, the dark coloured veins which run through its substance appear to consist of cellular matter filled with oil, which is the active matter of the nutmeo-. Alcohol and ether extract completely the active qualities of nutmeg. When the ethereal tincture, which is limpid, and of a golden-yellow colour, is evaporated on water, a small portion of volatile essential oil unites with the water, whilst a white, opaque, granular sebaceous substance, heavier than water, which has much the appearance of the expressed oil, is deposited. When alcohol is digested on this substance, it dissolves very little of it, but becomes yellow, and acquires the qualities of a spirituous solution of the essential oil. The undissolved substance, if washed in water, is nearly insipid, melts at a temperature of 150°; and, on cooling, concretes into a translucent, brittle cake, which has the properties of wax. The part of the nutmeg insoluble in ether is chiefly gum and starch.

In distillation with water, nutmegs yield 1/32 part of their weight of essential volatile oil, and by expression one third of a sebaceous fixed oil.2 Hence, the components of the nutmeg seem to be starch, gum, volatile oil, wax, and a fixed, fat oil. Bonastre obtained from 500 parts of nutmeg, 120 of stearine, 38 of elaine, 30 of volatile oil, 12 of fecula, 6 of gum, 4 of acid, and 290 of lignine and loss. The volatile oil possesses the odour and taste of the nutmeg in a concentrated degree, is of a pale straw-colour, limpid, transparent, and lighter than water. The expressed oil, which is erroneously called oil of mace, when first drawn, is limpid and yellow, but on cooling acquires the consistence of spermaceti, and somewhat of the appearance of Castile soap, being whitish, mottled with reddish brown. It is imported wrapped up in flag-leaves. Its odour is agreeable and slightly aromatic : its taste fatty, pungent, and bitterish. It appears to be a vegetable cerate, or a triple compound of fixed oil, volatile oil, and wax.

Besides the genuine expressed oil, there are two other sorts found in the shops; one, which is said to come from Holland, of a paler colour, and in flat square cakes; and another, which is an artificial composition of suet, palm oil, and spermaceti, scented with a little volatile oil of nutmeg. Mace resembles the nutmeg in its odour and taste, but is more pungent and bitter. It is in laciniated, flexible, thin pieces, unctuous to the feel, and of a deep reddish-yellow colour. Alcohol and ether extract its active principles; and, when the ethereal tincture is evaporated on water, a thick, deep, yellow-coloured, very pungent, and odorous oil is left in drops on the surface of the water," with some resin: and a small portion of extractive is deposited, but no waxy granular matter.

1 Leuwenhoek, Epist. 92. 2 Neumann's Chymistry, 404.

Medical properties and uses.1-As the medical properties of nutmeg and mace depend on the essential oil they contain, they agree in these circumstances; and both are stimulant, carminative, and, in large doses, narcotic. Mace is more generally used as a culinary spice; but the nutmeg and its volatile oil are in frequent use to cover the disagreeable taste of other medicines; and are sometimes ordered in cases of languors, vomiting, and diarrhoea, and in flatulent colic. On account of the narcotic property of the oil, the nutmeg should be cautiously employed in apoplectic and paralytic habits. In India, its dangerous effects have been frequently felt2; and in this country, instances have occurred in which the nutmeg, taken in large quantity, produced drowsiness, great stupor, and insensibility; and, on awakening, delirium which alternated with sleep for several hours.8 The volatile oil is sometimes used as an external stimulant:-the expressed oil is seldom employed for any other purpose. The dose of the nutmeg and the mace is from grs. v. to Эj.; that of the volatile oil, j. to iv., combined with sugar as an oleosaccharum.

Officinal preparations.-Spiritus Myristicce, L. E. D. Spir. Ammonia aromat., L. D. Spiritus Armoracece comp., L. D. Spir. Lavandulae comp., L. E. D. Confectio aromatica, L. D. Electua-rium Catechu, E.