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.

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$Amboyna before tlie arrival of the Portuguese, and is still cultivated there and in the neighbouring islands of Haruku, Saparua and Nusalaut, also in Sumatra and Penang. It is likewise now found in Malacca, the Mas- carene Islands, the islands of Zanzibar and Pemba on the eastern coast of Africa, and the West Indies. The tree which is grown for the spice appears to be a cultivated variety, of lower stature and more aromatic than the'wild form. History—The Greek name Kapv6<f>vXX.ov is supposed to refer to the ball-like petals of the bud, which as above described, might be compared to a small nut (tcdpvov). Put the name is very variably written, as 7apovpb$ov\ Kap4>ov(Jjov\ japocpaXa,1 whence it becomes probable that it is not really Greek, but an Asiatic word kellenized. Cloves have been long known to the Chinese. Mr. Mayers, late Chinese Secretary to the British Legation at Pekin, has communicated to us the interesting fact that they are mentioned by several Chinese writers as in use under the Han dynasty, B.c. 266 to a.d. 220, during which period it was customary for the officers of the court to hold the spice in the mouth before addressing the sovereign, in order that their breath might have an agreeable odour.2 The first European author to mention Caryophyllon is Pliny, who describes it after pepper, as a grain resembling that spice but longer and more brittle, produced in India, and imported for the sake of its odour. It is doubtful whether this description really refers to cloves. By the 4th century, cloves must have become well known in Europe, if credence can be placed in a remarkable record preserved by Vignoli,3 which states that the emperor Constantine presented to St. Silvester, bishop of Borne, A.d. 314-335, numerous vessels of gold and silver, incense and spices, among which last were 150 pounds of Cloves,—a vast quantity for the period. Cosmas Indicopleustes4 in his Topographia Christiana written about a.d. 547, states in the account of Taprobane (Ceylon) that silk, aloes[-wood], cloves (KapvoepvWov) and sandal wood, besides other pro- ductions, are imported thither from China and other emporia, and trans- mitted to distant regions. A century later, Paulus iEgineta5 distinctly described cloves as Caryophyllon—ex India, veluti flores cujusdam arboris . . odorati, acres. . . and much used for a condiment and in medicine. In the beginning of the 8tli century, the same spice is noticed by Benedictus Crispus,6 archbishop of Milan, who calls it Cariophyhis ater; and in a.d. 716, it is enumerated with other commodities in the diploma granted by Chilperic II. to the monastery of Corbie in Normandy.7 We find cloves among the wares on which duty was levied at Aeon (the modern Acre) in Palestine at the end of the, 12th century, at which period that city was a great emporium of Mediterranean trade.8 They 1 Langkavel, Botanilc der spider en G-ricchcn, Berlin, 1866. 19. 2 At this period, the clove was called Ki shSh liicmg, i.e. fowl’s tongue spice. The modern name Ting Mang, i.e. nail-scent or -spice, was in use in the 5th or 6tli century of our era. 3 Liber Pontificalis, sen de Ocstis Iloman- onim Pontificum, Roma?, i. (1724) 94. 4 Migne, Patrologice Cursus, series Grseca, Ixxxviii. (1860) 446. 5 Dc re medica, lib. vii. c. 3. 0 Potmativm Medicum—Migne, Patrologia' Cursus, lxxxix. (1850) 374. 7 Pardessus, Diploniata, Charter, etc., ii. (1849) 309. 8 Rccueil des Historicns dcs Croisades, Lois, ii. (1843) 173.$