84 Mr. Rovr&E on the Lycium of Dioscorides. 
favourably situated in the north-western provinces of India for carrying on 
such investigations, I offer the following as an attempt to trace out one of the 
articles mentioned by Dioscorides as procured from India. 
The Lycium, Xwxw», of Dioscorides is one of those articles of the ancient 
Materia Medica which still remains undetermined, owing in some measure to - 
its not being at present employed in European practice, and also to Dios- 
corides having described two different kinds under the above name, one the 
produce of Lycia and Cappadocia, and the other of India. The former, he 
says, is by some called Pyracantha, zv£exa»ów, and is a thorny shrub, with 
branches of three cubits or more in length; leaves like box thickly set, full of 
fruit like pepper, black, light and bitter; bark pale-coloured ; roots numer- 
ous, crooked, woody; and that it grows in stony places. The mode of making 
the medicinal article is then described, and is that universally employed for 
making vegetable extracts. The bruised roots and branches being macerated 
for some days in water, the liquor is strained, and boiled until it becomes of 
the consistence of honey. The Indian kind, Dioscorides says, is more va- 
luable and efficacious as a medicine; and he adds, that it is said to be made 
from a shrub called Lonchitis, ^oyy;ric, which is thorny, and has branches three 
or more cubits in length, thicker than those of Rubus, with numerous roots ; 
that the bark, when bruised, becomes of a reddish colour, and that the leaves 
are like those of the olive. That a considerable degree of uncertainty still 
prevails respecting the plant or plants alluded to in the above descriptions 
will be evident, if we refer to the latest authors who have noticed the sub- 
ject. 
In the Dictionnaire Universel de Matiére Médicale of Merat and De Lens 
(1832), where the opinions of some previous authors are given under the ar- 
ticle “ Lycium,” the authors conclude with saying, *Aujourd'hui on ne connait 
plus cette composition," and do not hint at the plant producing it. In Rees's 
Cyclopedia, the author of the article under that name says, “ Lycium, vir, 
of Dioscorides, so called from Lycia, where it is said to have been abundant, 
but what was the precise plant has never been settled by commentators :" 
while under the article “ Rhamnus infectoria, frequent in rough stony places in 
Greece," apparently the same author observes, * rightly considered by Dr. Sib- 
thorp as the Avzsov, Lycium, of Dioscorides." Sprengel, in Historia Rei Her- 
