The museum report : a descriptive list of the donations for the years 1895-1902.

  • Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The museum report : a descriptive list of the donations for the years 1895-1902. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by Royal College of Physicians, London. The original may be consulted at Royal College of Physicians, London.

    73/80 (page 63)
    not known, but it comes from Mexico. In the Mexican Phar- macopoeia four species with tuberous roots are described, viz., Iponura piuria, J. Orizabnisis, I. .simiilans, and /. triflora (Volasco). The kst-named comes from Queretaro, and is called Jalapa de Queretaro, but only occurs in slices 10 centimetres broad, 2 centimetres thick, and is evidently a much larger root than the Jalap in question. The new Jalap was first noticed in January, 1901, by Messrs. Allen and ITanburys, and subsequently by Messrs. Wright, Layman and Umney, in September, 1902. It appears to be rather richer in percentage of resin than the Vera Cruz Jalap recently imported. There is a species, /. aniiata (Roem. and Schult.), growing at Tacupaya and other places in the valley of Mexico, which is used us a purgative, but I have not een an authentic sample. Monsonia ovata, Cav. This species, as well as M. hirlora, D.C., has long been used for dysentery and diarrhtea in Natal. It was introduced into this country by Dr. Maberly, who published a paper in the Lancet, September 30, 1899, in which he gives a tabular state- ment of 100 cases successfully treated with the tincture in nearly every instance. Figures of these plants are given in M'ood (Did J-:rans, Xatal Plants, Vol. I., Part II., pp. 96, 97. The Jkv. A. Smith, M.A., in his Contribution to South Africa Materia Mcilica, 2nd Edition, p. 7, states that it is called by the Hotten- tots, Keita or Nceta, and although it has a reputation for curing dysentery and chronic diarrhoea, yet in many cases it fails, while in others it effects a remarkable cure. It possesses astringent qualities like many of the (ieraniacccc, but not in a high degree. See also Phann. Joiirn. [4], XI., p. 728, and Chnnist and Druggist, Dec. 1, 1900, pp. 491, 988. Myrrh. The specimens of the myrrh tree brought home fi-om Somali- land by Mr. and Mrs. Lort Phillips {Pharm.. Jonrn. [4], VII., p. 295 ; XIII., p. 667; XI., p. 443) conclusively prove, by the fruits, leaves, and gum-resin attached to the bark, that true myrrh is the produce, at all events in Somaliland, of Bahamodendron Myrrha (Nees.), and that the native name for the tree is Didthin. It is still uncertain whether the Fadhli and Yemen myrrh of South Arabia are obtained from other species, or only from varieties of the Bahamodendron Myrrha. But it is tolerably certain that the Habaghadi of the Somalis, the Bissabol of the Arabs, the perfumed Bdellium of Bombay, and the opoponax of European perfumers is the produce of IkiUamodcndron Krythro'Ann var. glabrescens, Engl.; and Balm of Gilead or Balm of Mecca of /?. Opobalsamum, and African Bdellium that of Bahamodendron