Species Plant. Willd. ii. 982.

Cl. 12. Ord. 1. A. Icosandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Amygdaleae. G. 981. Cal. 5 cleft, inferior, Pet. 5. Drupe with a nut perforated.

1. A. Persica The Peach-tree.

2. A. communis.1 The common Almond-tree. Med. Pot. 3d edit. t. 183.

Varieties. β . Amygdalus dulcis. Sweet Almond-tree. ----- γ. Amygdalus amarus. Bitter Almond-tree.

1. Amygdalus Persica.

Officinal. Amygdalus Persica. Folia. Dub. Leaves of the Peach-tree.

The peach-tree is a native of Persia; at least there is reason to think so from the name. It resembles the Almond-tree in its general physiognomy; it is small, with spreading branches; the flowers appear before the leaves; they are sessile, of a delicate rose-colour. The leaves are alternate, lanceolate, narrow, pointed, serrated; dark green above, and of a glaucous or pale green on the under disk. The fruit is round, having a deep furrow on one side, with a delicate, downy cuticle when ripe.

In America the peach is very abundant; requiring little or no culture. It was cultivated in England prior to 1557.

Qualities.-The leaves of the peach-tree, when bruised, exhale an agreeable odour, and contain hydrocyanic acid in considerable abundance.

Theophrasti.

Medical properties and uses.-The same as those of the bitter almond, and of the leaves of the Primus Lauro-Cerasus, to which we refer our readers.

2. Amygdalus communis.

Officinal Amygdala amara.-Amarje, dulcis, Amygdalae oleum, Land, Amygdalus communis, Nuclei, Edin. Amygdalae amarae, dulces, Dab, Bitter and sweet almonds.

Sym. Amandes douces et ameres (F.), Bittere und Susse Mandeln (G), Amandel (Dutch), Mandel (Dan. Swed.), Migdalowe (Polish), Mandorli dolce ed amare (I.), Almendra (S.), Amendo (Portug.), Badamie Parsie (Hind. Pers.), Lowz (A.), Parise Vadomcotta ( Tarn.), Lonzan (Malay).

The almond-tree is a native of Syria and Barbary; but it is now naturalized in the South of Europe, and even in England1; where, however, the fruit seldom ripens. The flowers display themselves in March and April, before the leaves are expanded. It rises to the height of twenty feet, and divides into many spreading branches, which are covered with a dark gray bark. The leaves stand upon short foot-stalks, are about three inches long, and three fourths of an inch broad, elliptical, pointed at both ends, minutely serrated, with the lower serratures glandular, and of a bright green colour. The flowers, which are supported on very short peduncles, are of a pale rose or blush colour, varying to white; the calyx is tubular, with the lip divided into five blunt segments; the petals are five, oval, and convex; the filaments about thirty, inserted into the calyx, tapering, spreading, of unequal lengths, and furnished with orange-coloured, simple anthers; the germen is downy, with a simple style, supporting a round stigma. The fruit is of the Peach kind, but flatter, with a tough coriaceous covering instead of the rich pulp of the Peach: opens spontaneously at the longitudinal furrow when ripe.

The kernel or almond, which is enclosed in a tender, thick, brittle, spongy shell, is oblong, flattish, rounded at one end, and pointed at the other, and composed of two white cotyledons enveloped with a thin, pale brown, veined, bitter skin, covered with an acrid meal.

The two varieties of the amygdalus communis are not distinguished from each other but by the taste of the kernel of their fruit. The Valentia almond is a sweet, large, flat almond, pointed at one extremity, and compressed in the middle as if with the thumb. The Italian is not so sweet, is smaller, and less depressed in the middle. The Jordan almonds, which come from Malaga, and are the best sweet

1 It was cultivated in England by Lobel before 1570, almonds brought to England, are said to be the produce of a distinct species of amygdalus. They are longer, flatter, less pointed at one end, and less round at the other, and have a paler cuticle than those which we have described.

Sweet almonds are imported in mats, casks, and cases : the bitter, which come chiefly from Mogadore, arrive in boxes.

When the almond is not well preserved, it is preyed on by an insect that eats out the internal part: or, if this does not happen, the oil it contains is apt to become rancid.

Qualities.--The cuticle of both kinds of almonds has an unpleasant, bitterish, austere taste; but it is easily detached by putting the almonds into boiling water. When thus decorticated, they are said to be blanched.

The blanched sweet almond is inodorous; has a sweet, pleasant, bland taste; and consists chiefly of fifty-four parts of fixed oil, three of gum, six of uncrystallizable saccharine matter, and twenty-four of albumen, a trace of acetic acid, and four parts of woody fibre. When eaten as food it is not very digestible, probably owing to the albumen; and requires to be well masticated. The bitter-almond is also inodorous when entire, but when triturated with water it has the odour of the peach-blossom; and the taste is the pleasant bitter of the peach kernel. It contains less fixed oil and more albumen than the sweet-almond; a volatile oil, and a portion of hydrocyanic acid, upon which its narcotic power is supposed to depend. The volatile oil of bitter almonds which contains hydrocyanic acid, is prepared from the cake remaining after the expression of the fixed oil, by submitting it to distillation with water. One hundred weight of the cake generally yields from two ounces to two and a half ounces of the volatile oil. From the experiments of Mr. Hennel it appears, that the hydrocyanic acid may be separated from this oil by digesting it with red oxide of mercury, which is converted into a cyanide.

When this is done the oil still retains its odour of the peach-blossom, a proof that it does not depend on the hydrocyanic acid. Neither the volatile oil nor the hydrocyanic acid pre-exist in the bitter almond; both are developed by the action of water. From the experiments of Leibig and Wohler oil of bitter almonds appears to be a hyduret of benzule, and hydrocyanic acid.

When the ordinary oil of bitter almonds is distilled after strong agitation with a solution of pure potassa and proto-chloride of iron, the oil is obtained distinct from the hydrocyanic acid; and by a second distillation with pure, dry lime, it is freed from water. It is then a colourless, volatile, inflammable fluid, retaining the odour of the peach blossom, and having a burning aromatic taste : sparingly soluble in water : very soluble in alcohol. It is a compound of 1 eq. of benzule (C 14 H 5 O 2) + 1 eq. of hydrogen = 107.68.

The fixed oil, which both varieties of the almond yield by expression in large quantity, is insipid and inodorous, when heat has not been employed.

Medical properties and uses.-Sweet almonds are used more as food than as medicine; but they afford little nourishment. Heartburn is said to be relieved by eating six or eight of them decorticated. When triturated with water, milky mixtures or emulsions are formed, which have a close affinity in their chemical characters to animal milk, with this difference, that the albumen concretes by heat alone. Almonds are also used in pharmacy for assisting, by trituration, the combination of some substances, such as camphor, and the resins, with water. Bitter almonds are scarcely ever used medicinally, although Bergius1 mentions a case of intermittent having been cured by them, when the Peruvian bark had failed; and reflecting on the effects which have been found to result from the use of the hydrocyanic acid, I have employed the bitter almond in pulmonary and dyspeptic affections, hooping cough, and asthmatic complaints, with the best success. As a local application, I have found the emulsion extremely beneficial when used as a lotion in acne rosacea, and in impetigo.

Owing to a peculiar idiosyncracy of some habits, the smallest quantity of the bitter almond taken into the stomach produces urticaria, and other unpleasant effects.2

This variety of the almond is said to operate as a poison on dogs, cats, foxes, and some other animals, but not generally, except in large quantity, on the human species.3 The distilled water, however, of the bitter-almond exerts an action not less deleterious than that of laurel water on the human frame; when taken to the extent of thirty drops, it produces vertigo, headach, or rather a sense of weight at the summit of the head, tinnitus aurium, dizziness of sight and vomiting: a drachm of it has killed a stout dog.4 When a large dose is taken, a paralytic state of the extremities supervenes, the pupil remains unalterably dilated, and the excitability of every organ of sense is diminished; indeed death almost instantly follows. In order to counteract its poisonous effects, when that can be done, we must have recourse to chlorine, both in solution taken into the stomach, and also in the gaseous state inhaled. This should be followed by diffusibles, as brandy and ammonia; or three or four spoonsful of oil of turpentine may be given at intervals of half an hour.

The volatile oil of bitter almonds operates as a sedative; but although its sedative effects depend on the hydrocyanic acid which it contains, yet it differs in its action from that acid, probably owing to the stimulant property of the volatile oil with which the acid is combined in it. It has been given in the same cases as hydrocyanic acid; but as the dose cannot be so well regulated, it is a more dangerous remedy than that acid.

Mat. Med. art. Amygdalus.

2 Dr. Gregory, the distinguished author of the Conspectus Medicinae Theoretical, was thus affected by bitter almonds. Many accidents have occurred from confectionary made with them.

3 For instances of their poisonous influence on man, see Wepfer; Cicutae Aqua-ticae Historia; Coullon, Recherches sur l'acide hydrocyanique; and Lond. Med. and Phys. Journ. vol. lvii. p. 150.

4 Much information on this subject may be obtained from the Works of Fodere Langrish, Orfila, Heberden, Watson, and a recent Treatise on Hydrocyanic Acid by Dr. Granville.

Officinal preparations.- Oleum Amygdala, E. D. Mistura Amygdalae, L. Mistura Amygdalarum, D. Emulsio Amygdalae comp. E. D. Emulsio Acacia Arabicae, E. D. Emulsio Camphorae, E. Confectio Amygdala, L.