Pharmacopoeia Edinburgensis: or, the dispensatory of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh / Translated and improved from the fourth edition of the Latin. By Peter Shaw.

Date:: 1746

Credit: Pharmacopoeia Edinburgensis: or, the dispensatory of the Royal College of Physicians in Edinburgh / Translated and improved from the fourth edition of the Latin. By Peter Shaw. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$Cochlearia hortenfis, Garden Scur¬ vy-grafs. --marina, Sea Scurvy-grafs. Coffee, the Arabian Jafmin Its Fruit. Cdocynthis, the bitter Gourd. Its Fruit. Confolida major [*Symphytum majus\ Comfreys or the greater Confound. Its Root, Leaves and Flowers. erva [Drakena.] Its Root. $ Various and contradi&ory were the accounts given by Botanifts and Travellers of the growth of Coffee, ’till that excellent Botanift M. juffieu, having an opportunity of examining the tree in the king’s garden at Paris, at length, in the year 1715, gave an exadt and ample defeription thereof. The Coffee-tree, according to him, may be cal¬ led jajminum Arabicutn, Lawi folioy cujus femen Coffee eli¬ cit ur ; the Jafmin of Arabia, with a Bay-leaf, and bear¬ ing the feed called Coffee-berries: and indeed by confider- ing its marks, it appears to be no other than a kind of Jaf¬ min, both with regard to the figure of its flower, the ftru- dture of its fruit, and the difpofition of its leaves; and this Commelin of Amjlerdam. But for the particular account of this tree, and its fruit, with the manner of its cultivation, growth, &c. as being too large to give here, we refer the curious reader to the original itfelf. Memoir. de VAcadem. R. An. 1713. f Contrayerva, the root, is brought to us from New Spainy as alfo from Peru\ being found in great plenty in the Province of Charcis, where it is faid to have taken its name from the word Yerva, which in Spanijh fignifies white hellebore ; an herb whofe juice is a ftrong poifon, where¬ with the Peruvians poifon their arrows : Contra-yerva thus meaning as much as counter-poifon. The leaves of the plant creep on the ground, appear green and veiny, and refemble the figure of a heart; a naked Item, of the thick- nefs Contray >The Herb.$