[1455] Inquiry into the comparative effects of the Opium officinarum, extracted from the Papaver somniferum or White Poppy of Linnæus, and that procured from the Lactuca sativa or Common cultivated Lettuce of the same author.—Transact. of the American Philosophical Society, iv. (1799) 387.

[1456] Comptes Rendus, xv. (1842) 923.

[1457] Beautifully delineated by Hanstein in the work referred to at p. 352, note 2; see also Trécul, Ann. des Sciences nat. Bot. v. (1866) 69; Dippel, Entstehung der Milchsaftgefässe, Rotterdam, 1865. tab. 1. fig. 17.

[1458] We are indebted to Mr. H. C. Baildon for a specimen of Scotch lactucarium collected about the year 1844, and to Messrs. T. and H. Smith for a sample of Mr. Fairgrieve’s article.

[1459] Stillé, Therapeutics and Mat. Med. i. (1868) 756. Garrod (Med. Times and Gazette, 26 March, 1864), gave lactucarium in drachm doses, repeated 3 or 4 times a day, without being able to perceive that it had any effect either as an anodyne or hypnotic.

[1460] Acta Soc. Reg. Scient. Upsal. 1746. 23.

[1461] Mat. Med. Americana, Erlangæ, 1787. 128.

[1462] Treatise on the Bladder-podded Lobelia, Lond. 1829.

[1463] American Journ. of Pharm. xxxvii. (1866) 209; also Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann, 1866. 252.

[1464] Am. Journ. of Pharm. iii. (1838) 98; vii. (1841) 1; Pharm. Journ. x. (1851) 456.

[1465] Pharm. Journ. x. (1851) 270.

[1466] Murray, Apparatus Medicaminum, ii. (1794) 64-81.

[1467] Microscopic structure of the leaves, see Pocklington, Pharm. Journ. v. (1874) 301.

[1468] Gmelin, Chemistry, xvi. (1864). 28.

[1469] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 18 (1877).

[1470] As we learn from Dr. Rice.—Prof. Dymock (1876) gives Timbooree as the Bombay name.

[1471] Tom. iii. tab. 41.

[1472] Bengal Dispensatory, Calcutta, 1842. 428.

[1473] Etude sur le Plaqueminier (Diospyros), thèse, Paris, 1873. 28-30.

[1474] Benzoin in Malay and Javanese is termed Kamâñan, Kamiñan, and Kamayan, abbreviated to mâñan and miñan (Crawfurd); it is called in Siamese kom-yan or kan-yan; in Chinese ngán-si-hiáng.

The name Benzoin is also applied to the beautiful prisms C₁₄H₁₂O₂ obtained by treating Bitter Almond Oil with an alcoholic solution of potash.

[1475] Crawfurd suggests that the Malabathrum of the ancients is possibly benzoin.—Dict. of Indian Islands, 1856. 50.

[1476] Voyages d’Ibn Batoutah, traduit par Defrémery et Sanguinetti, Paris, 1853-59. iv. 228. 240.

[1477] Yule, Book of Ser Marco Polo, ii. (1871) 228.

[1478] Muratori, Rerum Italicarum Scriptores, xxii. (1733) 1170.—100 rotoli = 175 lb. avoirdupois.

[1479] L. de Mas Latrie, Hist. de l’île de Chypre, etc. iii. (1861) 483.

[1480] Ibid. iii. 406.

[1481] Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama em 1497, por Herculano e o Barão Castello de Paiva, segunda edição, Lisboa, 1861. 109.

The Roteiro is also found in Flückiger, Documente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie, Halle, 1876. 13.

[1482] Yule, op. cit. ii. 222.

[1483] Flückiger, l.c., page 14.

[1484] Cardanus, Les livres de la subtilité, Paris, 1556 (first edition, 1550), page 160 b. states: “belzoi est de vil prix pour l’abondance.”

[1485] Excellent et moult utile opuscule à touts necessaire qui desirent avoir cognoissance de plusieurs exquises receptes, 1556.

[1486] Alexii Pedemontani (or Hieron. Rosello), De secretis libri vi., Basil, 1560, page 107.

[1487] Quatre livres de secrets de medecine et de la philosophie chimique, Paris, 1579, page 146.

[1488] Traicté du feu et du sel, Paris, 1622, page 99.—Vigenère speaks distinctly of “filamens ou aiguilles,” i.e. crystals.—He died in 1596.

[1489] Flückiger, Pharm. Journ. vi. (1876) 1022.

[1490] The Rates of Marchandizes, London, 1635.

[1491] Miquel, Prodromus Floræ Sumatranæ, 1860. 72; Marsden, Hist. of Sumatra, London, 1783. 123.—The latter author resided at Bencoolen, as an official of the English Government.

The statement of Crawfurd, l.c., that benzoin is collected in Borneo “on the northern coast in the territory of Brunai” is to us inexplicable. Mr. St. John, British Consul in Borneo, in an official report on the trade of Brunai, dated from that place 29 January 1858, enumerates the various productions of the district, but does not name benzoin.

[1492] The terms Head, Belly and Foot, equivalent to our words superior, medium and inferior, are used in the East to distinguish the qualities of many other commodities, as Borneo Camphor, Esculent Birds’-nests, Cardamoms, Galbanum, &c.

[1493] This account must have been derived from others, for Sir R. H. Schomburgk never visited the region producing benzoin.

[1494] Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 126.

[1495] In the Public Ledger, May 2, 1874, the prices are quoted thus:—Siam Gum Benjamin, 1st and 2nd qualities, £10 to £28 per cwt.; Sumatra, 1st and 2nd, £7 10s. to £12.

[1496] There were 8 cases of this drug offered at Public Sale, 13 April 1871.

[1497] Prod. Floræ Sumatranæ, 1860. 474.

[1498] Löwe (1870) and Rump (1878) attempted to prove that the acid is partly present in the form of a compound, but they have not shown with which substance it is combined in the drug.

[1499] Blue Book for the Colony of the Straits Settlements, Singapore, 1872.

[1500] Consular Reports, August 1873. 953.

[1501] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay for 1871-72, pt. ii. 26. 79.

[1502] Fraxinus Bungeana DC., a tree of Northern China, appears to be hardly distinct from F. Ornus.

[1503] Hanbury, Historical Notes on Manna, Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 326; or Science Papers, 355.

[1504] Commentarii Urbani, Paris, 1515. lib. 38. f. 413.

[1505] P. 46; we have not seen the edition of 1498.

[1506] Mastichina alludes probably to the granular form of that manna—perhaps it was that of Alhagi, which we shall mention further on, p. 414.

[1507] Phil. Trans. lx. (1771) 233.

[1508] Museo di Fisica, Venet. 1697. Obs. xiv.-xv.

[1509] Hanbury in Giornale Botanico Italiano, Ottobre 1872. 267; Pharm. Journ. Nov. 30. 1872. 421; Science Papers, 365.

[1510] Our account of the production of manna has been derived from the observations of Stettner, who visited Sicily in the summer of 1847 (Archiv der Pharm. iii. 194; also Wiggers’ Jahresbericht, 1848. 35; Hooker’s Journ. of Bot. i. 1849. 124), from those of Cleghorn (Trans. of the Bot. Soc. of Edinburgh, x. 1868-69. 132), and from personal investigations made by one of us in the neighbourhood of Palermo in May 1872. See Hanbury, Science Papers, 367.

[1511] Journ. de Pharm. vii. (1867) 401; viii. (1868) 5.

[1512] Report by Consul Dennis on the Commerce and Navigation of Sicily in 1869, 1870 and 1871.

[1513] Direzione generale delle Gabelle—Movimento commerciale del regno d’Italia nel 1870, Milano, 1871.

[1514] Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the U.K. for 1870, p. 102.

[1515] On artificial Flake Manna, in Pharm. Journ. xi. (1870) 629.

[1516] Tchihatcheff, l’Asie mineure, ii. (1856) 355.

[1517] Archiv der Pharmacie, 193 (1870) 32-52.

[1518] Stewart, Punjab Plants, Lahore (1869) p. 57; Davies, Report on the trade and resources of the countries on the N. W. boundary of British India, Lahore, 1862.

[1519] Angelus, Pharm. Persica (see appendix) p. 359.

[1520] Stewart, op. cit. p. 92.

[1521] Comptes Rendus, liii. (1861) 583; Pharm. Journ. iii. (1862) 274.

[1522] Archiv d. Pharmacie, 192 (1870) 246.

[1523] Loc. cit.

[1524] Davies in the work quoted at page 414, note 4.

[1525] Ed. Sontheimer, i. (1840) 375.

[1526] Tacuini Sanitatis, Argentorati (1531) 24.

[1527] Further particulars, see Flückiger, Ueber die Eichenmanna von Kurdistan, in Archiv der Pharmacie, 200 (1872) 159.

[1528] Loc. cit. p. 35.

[1529] Hanbury, Science Papers, p. 438.

[1530] Geoffroy, Mat. Med. ii. (1741) 584.

[1531] Dillon, Travels through Spain (1780) p. 127.

[1532] Gmelin, Chemistry, xv. 296.

[1533] Pharm. Journ. iv. (1863) 108.

[1534] Comptes Rendus, xlvi. (1858) 1276; Gmelin, Chemistry, xv. 299.

[1535] Belon, Singularitez (1554) l. 2. cap. 91; Guibourt, Comptes Rendus (1858) 1213; Hanbury, Journ. Linn. Soc., Zoology, iii. (1859) 178; also Science Papers, 158.

[1536] Dobson, Proceedings of Royal Society of Van Diemen’s Land, i. (1851) 234; Pharm. Journ. iv. (1863) 108; Flückiger, Wittstein’s Vierteljahresschrift, xvii. (1868) 161; Archiv der Pharmacie, 196 (1871) 7; abstracted in the Yearbook of Pharmacy, 1871. 188.

[1537] Readers desiring full information about the olive tree, its oil, its history, etc., should refer to the extremely exhaustive work of Coutance, l’Olivier, Paris, 1877, 456 pages, 120 figures.

[1538] Grisebach states the elevation above the sea of olive-cultivation thus:—Portugal (Algarve) 1400 feet; Sierra Nevada 3000; do., southern slope 4200; Nice 2400; Etna 2200; Macedonia 1200; Cilicia 2000.—Die Vegetation der Erde nach ihrer klimatologischen Anordnung, i. (1872) 262. 283. 342.

[1539] Forest Flora of North-western and Central India, 1874, 307.

[1540] Brugsch-Bey, Reise nach der grossen Oase Kargeh, Leipzig, 1878. 80. etc.—See also Journ. of Botany, 1879. 52.

[1541] Erdkunde von Asien, vii. (part 2. 1844) 516-537.

[1542] Géographique Botanique (1855) 912.

[1543] Bot. Zeitung, 1868. 860.

[1544] Arnoux, Revue des Deux Mondes, Janvier 1879. 381.

[1545] Perez-Rosales, Essai sur le Chili, Hambourg, 1857. 133.

[1546] Hehn, Kulturpflanzen und Hausthiere in ihrem Uebergange aus Asien nach Griechenland und Italien, Berlin, 1877. 88-142,—an interesting account of the importance of the olive in ancient times.

[1547] Specimens may be seen among the antiquities found at Pompei.

[1548] Diploma of Chilperic, a.d. 716.—Pardessus, Diplomata, Chartæ, etc., Paris, ii. (1849) 309.

[1549] Winter, in Pharm. Journ. Sept. 7, 1872.

[1550] De Luca in Journ. de Pharm. xlv. (1864) 65.—Some further researches by Harz on the formation of olive oil may be found in the Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann (1870) 392.

[1551] The Grocer, April 25, 1868, supplement; Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii. (1850) 1505.

[1552] This according to our experience is the case even with oil as it runs from the pulp and therefore in the freshest condition; but the acrid after-taste is more perceptible in oil which has been long kept.

[1553] Exposition de 1867 à Paris, Rapports du Jury International, xi. 108.—In the work of Coutance, quoted p. 417, note 7, nearly 400,000 hectolitres are calculated for the year 1866.

[1554] Pharm. Journ. v. (1864) 387. 495, with figures.

[1555] Annales de Chimie et de Physique, March, 1869. 309.

[1556] From Dita, the name of the tree in the island of Luzon.

[1557] So named in honour of Charles Alston, Professor of Botany and Materia Medica (1740-1760) in the University of Edinburgh.—The plant is figured in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Pl. part 25 (1877).

[1558] Hortus Malabaricus, i. tab. 45.

[1559] Herb. Amboin. ii. tab. 82.

[1560] Pharm. Journ. xii. (1853) 422.

[1561] Geneesk, Tijdschr. Nederl. Indië, x. (1863) 209; also Archiv der Pharmacie, 212 (1878) 439.

[1562] Jahresbericht of Wiggers and Husemann, 1873. 51.

[1563] Yearbook of Pharm. 1878. 624, from Proc. of the American Pharm. Association, 1877.

[1564] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 6 (1876).

[1565] There is an Indian root figured as Palo de Culebra by Acosta (Tractado de las Drogas ... de las Indias Orientales, 1578, cap. lv.) which is astonishingly like the drug in question. He describes it moreover as having a sweet smell of melilot. The plant he says is called in Canarese Duda sali. The figure is reproduced in Antoine Colin’s translation, but not in that of Clusius.

[1566] Lond. Med. and Phys. Journ. lxv. 189.

[1567] Taken from excellent specimens obligingly sent to us from India by Dr. L. W. Stewart and Mr. Broughton.

[1568] Pharm. of India, 457; also Chem. Gazette, 1843. 378.

[1569] Hence the specific name gigantea.

[1570] The botanical distinctions between the two species may be stated thus:—

C. procera, corolla cup-shaped, petals somewhat erect, flower-buds spherical, appendages of corona with a blunt upward point. See Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 25 (1877).

C. gigantea, corolla opening flat, flower-buds bluntly conical or oblong, appendages of corona rounded.

[1571] Information for which we are indebted to Dr. Rice.

[1572] Ibn Baytar, translated by Sontheimer, ii. (1842) 193.

[1573] De Plantis Ægypti, Venet. 1592. cap. xxv.

[1574] Rarior. plantar. hist. ii. (1601) lxxxvii.

[1575] Hortus Malabaricus, ii. tab. 31.

[1576] Illustrations of Indian Botany, Madras, ii. (1850) tab. 155.—C. procera is figured by the same author in his Icones Plantarum Indiæ Orientalis, iv. tab. 1278.

[1577] Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journ. xxxii. (1829) 60.

[1578] We are indebted for an authentic specimen to Dr. E. Burton Brown of Lahore.

[1579] Roots of C. gigantea kindly supplied to us by Dr. Bidie of Madras consist of light, woody truncheons, ½ to 2¼ inches in diameter.

[1580] It is evidently with a view to the retention of this juice, that the Pharmacopœia of India orders the bark to be stripped from the roots when the latter are half-dried. Moodeen Sheriff remarks of C. gigantea, that although it is frequently used in medicine, no part of it is sold in the bazaars,—no doubt from the circumstance that the plant is everywhere found wild and can be collected as required.

[1581] List’s Asclepione (Gmelin’s Chemistry, xvii. 368) might then be sought for.

[1582] Supplement to the Pharmacopœia of India, Madras, 1869. 364; for further information on the therapeutic uses of mudar, see also Pharm. of India, 458.

[1583] Drury, Useful Plants of India, 2nd ed. 1873. 101.

[1584] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 29 (1878).

[1585] Flora Indica, ed. Carey, ii. (1832) 33.

[1586] Fleming, Catalogue of Indian Plants and Drugs, Calcutta, 1810. 8.

[1587] Bengal Dispensatory (1842) 455.

[1588] Catalogue of Madras Exhibition of 1855,—list of Mysore drugs; also Pharm. of India, 458.

[1589] Drawn up from an ample specimen kindly presented to us, together with one of the root, by Mr. Moodeen Sheriff of Madras.

[1590] A figure of the leaves may be found in a paper on Unto-mool by M. C. Cooke, Pharm. Journ. Aug. 6, 1870. 105; and one of the whole plant in Wight’s Icones Plantarum Indiæ Orientalis, iv. (1850) tab. 1277.

[1591] Roxburgh’s assertion that the pulp “seems perfectly innocent,” induced us to examine it chemically, which we were enabled to do through the kindness of Dr. Thwaites, of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Ceylon. The inspissated pulp received from Dr. T., diluted with water, formed a very consistent jelly having a slightly acid reaction and very bitter taste. Some of it was mixed with slaked lime, dried, and then exhausted by boiling chloroform. The liquid left on evaporation a yellowish resinoid mass, which was warmed with acetic acid. The colourless solution yielded a perfectly white, crystalline residue, which was dissolved in water, and precipitated with bichromate of potassium. The crystallized precipitate dried, and moistened with strong sulphuric acid, exhibited the violet hue characteristic of strychnine.

To confirm this experiment, we obtained through the obliging assistance of Dr. Bidie of Madras, some of the white pulp taken with a spoon from the interior of the ripe fruit, and at once immersed per se in spirit of wine. The alcoholic fluid gave abundant evidence of the presence of strychnine.

[1592] According to Cleghorn by the hornbill (Buceros malabaricus); according to Roxburgh by “many sorts of bird.” Beddome (Flora Sylvatica, Madras, 1872. 243) says the pulp is quite harmless, and the favourite food of many birds.

In Garnier, Exploration en Indo-China ii. (Paris, 1873) 488, allusion is made to a tree similar to that under notice having fruits which are devoid of poison before maturity.

[1593] Catalogue of Indian Med. Plants and Drugs, Calcutta, 1810. 37.

[1594] Hist. Stirpium, edited by C. Gesner, Argentorat. 1561. lib. iv. c. 21.

[1595] Clusius and others held the opinion that the Nux methel of the Arabs was the fruit of a Datura, and an Indian species was accordingly named by Linnæus D. Metel.

[1596] It is remarkable that parasitic plants of the order Loranthaceæ growing on Strychnos Nux vomica acquire the poisonous properties of the latter.—Pharm. of India, 1868. 108.