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 Sap Of The Palo De Vaca Furnishes Unquestionably The Most
Striking Example Of A Vegetable Milk In Which The Acrid And
Deleterious Principle Is Not United With Albumen, Caseum, And
Caoutchouc:
The genera euphorbia and asclepias, however, though
generally known for their caustic properties, already present us with
a few species, the juice of which is sweet and harmless.
Such are the
Tabayba dulce of the Canary Islands, which we have already mentioned,*
(* Euphorbia balsamifera. The milky juice of the Cactus mamillaris is
equally sweet.) and the Asclepias lactifera of Ceylon. Burman relates
that, in the latter country, when cow's milk is wanting, the milk of
this asclepias is used; and that the ailments commonly prepared with
animal milk are boiled with its leaves. It may be possible, as
Decandolle has well observed, that the natives employ only the juice
that flows from the young plant, at a period when the acrid principle
is not yet developed. In fact, the first shoots of the apocyneous
plants are eaten in several countries.
I have endeavoured by these comparisons to bring into consideration,
under a more general point of view, the milky juices that circulate in
vegetables; and the milky emulsions that the fruits of the
amygdalaceous plants and palms yield. I may be permitted to add the
result of some experiments which I attempted to make on the juice of
the Carica papaya during my stay in the valleys of Aragua, though I
was then almost destitute of chemical tests.
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