a new Genus of Compositse. 27 



(Koost Arabee and KSost buhree j^. Ij^ . j jp kw5), is sweet, light, 



white and fragrant. The second, called Indian K6ost, is of a dirty yellowish 

 colour, light, thick, bitter to the taste, and having but little fragrance. The 

 third is of a dirty red colour, and heavy, and in weight* like box-wood, and 

 fragrant, and without a bitter taste. What follows refers to the first sort, 

 or sweet Koost. The best is what is fresh, white, not worm-eaten, and having 

 a hot biting taste. It retains its virtues good for four years; and the differ- 

 ence between it and Elecampane (?) (Rasun ,^^1 .), or Damascus Kdost, 



is in this, that Elecampane is harder, and has not the fragrant odour and 

 biting taste of Koost. Koost is hot and dry in the third degree; it is di- 

 uretic, revulsive, emmenagogue, hepatic, deobstruent, a universal antidote to 

 animal poisons, attenuates the secretions, a p«»werful aphrodisiac, vermi- 

 fuge, lithontriptic, &c. &c." He then goes on to enumerate the diseases in 

 which Koost is efficacious, a list comprising nearly the whole chapter of 

 human ills. 



That the root of Aucklandia is the Costus Arabicus of the ancients, is sup- 

 ported on numerous grounds. 1st. It corresponds with the descriptions of 

 the Costus given by the ancient authors. 2nd. The coincidence of names : in 

 Cashmeer the root is called Kbot ; and the Arabic synonym is said to be 

 Kdost, both given as synonyms by the Persian Hukeems, and names by which 

 the medicine is known in all the bazars of Hindoostan Proper ; in Bengal the 

 Cashmeer Kdot is called Putchuk: and it appears by a note in Dr. Royle's 

 ' Illustrations,' that Garcias ab Horto gives " Pucho" as the Malay synonym of 



* The reading adopted by Dr. Royle, and what occurs in all the Persian manuscripts to which I have 

 been able to refer, is tiliv*^ s^*^', A-^s^ CJJi J^ 5 .♦,^aX.<UJ, "heavy, and in weight 

 like box-wood :" but it appears to me that this is erroneous, and that ■ _ J JLi. " colour," ought to be 



read instead of i*j) }• " weight :" 1st, because the description would then accord with that of Diosco- 

 rides ; 2nd, because the Persian Materia Medica authors, in hardly any one other instance, give a si- 

 militude in weight, while they constantly quote some corresponding colour ; 3rd, because the root is 

 already declared to be heavy: writing "wuzun" for "rung" is an error quite within the probable 

 contingencies of transcription. 



E 2 



