This substance subsides spontaneously from the juice of the fruit; and occurs in commerce in little thin cakes, or broken pieces, bearing the impression of the muslin upon which it is dried; its colour is greenish, its taste bitter, and somewhat acrid; and when tolerably pure it is light, pulverulent, and inflammable. Notwithstanding its extreme activity, it does not, according to our experiments,[407] contain more than a tenth part of active matter, which is a vegetable proximate principle, _sui generis_, and to which we have given the name of ELATIN. By treating the Elaterium with alcohol, this principle may be obtained; it imparts to the spirit a most brilliant, and beautiful grass green colour—but see our experiments upon this subject. The action of elaterium is that of a most violent drastic cathartic, especially affecting the rectum. It destroys life by its local action, and consequently finds a place in the third division of our classification. COLOCYNTH. _Coloquintida_; _Bitter Apple_. This is the fruit of the _Cucumis Colocynthis_ (Monœcia Monodelphia, _Nat. Ord._ Cucurbitaceæ) an annual of Turkey and Nubia. It is of the size of an orange, of a yellowish-white colour, devoid of smell, round, dry, light, spongy, and smooth on the outside, when ripe; it is trilocular, each cell containing many ovate, compressed, whitish seeds, enveloped by a white spongy pulp. It is imported into this country, after having been peeled, and dried in a stove. Its taste is extremely bitter and acrimonious. It acts upon the human body as a powerfully drastic purgative. _Fordyce_,[408] relates the case of a woman who was subject to colics for the space of thirty years, in consequence of having taken an infusion of this fruit in beer. _Tulpius_[409] has also furnished us with an account of the tremendous effects produced by an overdose of the same article; and _Orfila_ has shewn, with his usual accuracy, that it acts not only locally upon the _primæ viæ_, but by being absorbed, and carried into the circulation. EUPHORBIUM. _Euphorbia Officinarum_ (Dodecandria Trigynia. _Nat. Ord._ Tricoccæ Lin. Euphorbiæ _Juss._)