Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Savage Of America, Like The Savage Of The
South Sea Islands, Has Learned To Dulcify The Fecula, By Pressing And
Separating It From Its Juice.
In the milk of plants, and in the milky
emulsions, matter extremely nourishing, albumen, caseum, and sugar,
are found
Mixed with caoutchouc and with deleterious and caustic
principles, such as morphine and hydrocyanic acid.* (* Opium contains
morphine, caoutchouc, etc.) These mixtures vary not only in the
different families, but also in the species which belong to the same
genus. Sometimes it is morphine or the narcotic principle, that
characterises the vegetable milk, as in some papaverous plants;
sometimes it is caoutchouc, as in the hevea and the castilloa;
sometimes albumen and caseum, as in the cow-tree.
The lactescent plants belong chiefly to the three families of the
euphorbiaceae, the urticeae, and the apocineae.* (* After these three
great families follow the papaveraceae, the chicoraceae, the
lobeliaceae, the campanulaceae, the sapoteae, and the cucurbitaceae.
The hydrocyanic acid is peculiar to the group of rosaceo-amygdalaceae.
In the monocotyledonous plants there is no milky juice; but the
perisperm of the palms, which yields such sweet and agreeable milky
emulsions, contains, no doubt, caseum. Of what nature is the milk of
mushrooms?) Since, on examining the distribution of vegetable forms
over the globe, we find that those three families are more numerous in
species in the low regions of the tropics, we must thence conclude,
that a very elevated temperature contributes to the elaboration of the
milky juices, to the formation of caoutchouc, albumen, and caseous
matter.
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