5.52

Materia Mjcdica.

pakt II.

Spec. 4. S. qfficinarum. Common Sugar-Cane. Shane's Jamaica, i.101. t. 66. Phil. Trans, lxix. 207—278. t. 3.

Officinal. Saccharum. Saccharum purificatum. Land. Sac-CHArum. a. non parificaiitm. b. purificatum. c. syrupus empyreu-maticus. Edin. Saccharum purificatum ; Saccharum ru-brum, ejusdemque syrupus. (Molasses.) Dub. Unrefined Su-gar. Refined Sugar, Molasses.

Syn. Sucre; Sucre-pur (F.) Zacfcer; Weisser Zucker (G.) Zncchero brutio ;Zucchero in pane ; Melassa (/.) Azucar; Atriaca (S.) Shukhir {Arab.) Chenee (H.)Sakkara [San ■}

The common sugar-cane is a native of both the East and- West Indies. It is cultivated in Persia, and very abundantlyin the West Indies. The root is jointed, and sends up severaljointed stems, which rise in general to the height of eight or tenfeet. A leaf springs from each joint, and the base of it embracesthe stem to the next joint above its insertion, before it expands.From this point each leaf is about three or four feet long, andcomparatively narrow, like a blade of grass ; with the midribbroad, and prominent on the under side, and the edges thin,and sharply toothed. The flowers are in terminal panicles, twoor three feet in length, and composed of subdivided spikes, withlong flexuose down or lanugo, which incloses the flowers, andhides them from the sight. The seed is oblong-pointed, andripens in the valves of the flowers.

Although the sugar-cane is undoubtedly a native of the Ame-rican continent and its islands, yet the culture of it, and the artof making sugar, were carried from Spain to the Canary Islands,and thence extended, about the end of the fifteenth century, tothe West Indies and the Brazils; the former of which suppliesthe greater part of the consumption of Europe 1 , a small propor-tion only being brought from the East Indies. The quantityof sugar yielded by the plant is varied by climate : thus, theOtaheitean cane contains more crystallized matter than that ofany other place.

In the West Indies the plant is propagated by cuttings of thestalk, taken from near its top, and laid horizontally in theo-round. The canes are cut, for the purpose of making sugar,between the sixth and thirteenth month of their growth, whenthe stems have acquired from seven to ten feet in height, aproportionable size, and the cuticle appears smooth, dry, andbrittle. This generally happens in the months of February,March, and April. As soon as they are cut, the canes arestripped of their leaves, and crushed between iron rollers, to ex-press the juice, which is received into large leaden vessels, call-ed receivers, whence it is immediately conveyed into a large cop-per vessel, named the clarifier, where it is mixed with lime, m

t The average importation into England and Scotland between 1787 and 2790,amounttdfciinually to 1,952,26a cwt. Moseley's Hist, of Sugar, p. 154.