Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

Friedrich August Flückiger

Date:: 1874

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

201/736 (page 175)

$LIGNUM PTEROCARPI. lignum Santalinum rubrum, Sant alum rubrum ; Red Sanders Wood, Ruby Wood; F. Bois do Santal rouge; G. Rothes Sandelholz. Botanical Origin—Pterocarpus santalinus Linn. fiL—A small tree not often exceeding ‘d\ to 4 feet in girth and 20 to 25 feet in height; it is closely related to Ft. Marsupium Roxb., from which it differs chiefly in having broader leaflets always in threes. It is a native of the southern part of the Indian Peninsula, as Canara, Mysore, Travancore and the Coromandel Coast. The districts in which the wood is at present chiefly obtained are the forests of the southern portion of the Kurnool Hills, Cuddapah and North Arcot (W. and N.W. of Madras). The tree is now being raised in regular plantations.1 The wood is a staple article of produce, and the felling of the trees is strictly controlled by the forest inspectors. The fine trunk-wood is highly valued by the natives for pillars in their temples and other buildings, as well as for turnery. The stumps and roots are exported to Europe as a dye-stuff, mostly from Madras. History—It is difficult to tell whether the appellation Red Sandal- wood used in connexion with Yellow and White Sandal-wood by some of the earlier writers on drugs, was intended to indicate the inodorous dye- wood under notice or the aromatic wood of a species of Santalum. Yet when Marco Polo2 alludes to the sandal-wood imported into China, and to the red sandal (“ Cendal vermeil ”) which grows in the island of Necuveran (Nicobar), it is impossible to doubt that he intended by this latter Dame some such substance as that under notice. Garcia d’Orta who wrote at Goa in the middle of the 16th century, clearly distinguished the fragrant sandal of Timor from the red inodorous wood of Tenasserim and the Coromandel Coast. It is remarkable that the wood of Ft. santalinus is distinguished to the present day in all the languages of India by names signifying red-coloured sandal-wood, though it has none whatever of the peculiarities of the odorous wood of Santalum. Red Sanders Wood was formerly supposed to possess medicinal powers : these are now disregarded, and it is retained in use only as a colouring agent. During the middle ages, it was used as well as alkanet for culinary purposes, such as the colouring of sauces and other articles of food. The price in England between 1326 and 1399 was very variable, but on an average exceeded 3s. per lb.3 Many entries for the purchase of Red Sanders along with spices and groceries, occur, in the accounts of the Monastery of Durham, a.d. 1530-34.4 Description—The wood found in English commerce is mostly that of the lower parts of the stem and that of the thickest roots. It appears in the market in ponderous, irregular logs, rarely exceeding the 1 [Beddome], Report of the Conservator of Forests, for 1869-70, Madras, 1870, pp. 3. 39. 123 ; for figure of the tree, see Flora Sylvatxca of Southern India of the same author, tab. xxii. 2 Pauthier, Livre de Marco Polo, 580— Pt. indicus Willd. grows in the adjacent Andaman Islands. 3 Rogers, Agriculture and Prices in England, 1866, i. 631, ii. 545, &c.—The average price of a sheep during the same period was about Is. 6d. 4 Durham Household Book, Surtees Society, 1844, 215 ; also Pegge, Form of Cury, Loud! 1780, p. xv.$