\ 



G80 LILIACEiE. • 



Haworth are stated to produce a portion of the Ccqoe Aloes of com- 

 merce.^ 



Various species of Agave, especially A. americana L., are largely 

 grown, since the first half of the ICth century, in the south of Europe, 

 and popularly called Aloe. All of them are plants of Mexico, while the 

 true aloes are natives of the old world. Botanically the genus Agave 

 differs from Aloe, in that the former has the ovary inferior, while in 

 the latter it is superior. From a chemical point of view there is also 

 no analogy at all between Aloe and Agave. 



History — Aloes was known to the Greeks as a production of the 

 island of Socotra as early as the 4th century B.c, if we might credit a 

 remarkable legend thus given in the writings of the Arabian geographer 

 Edrisi.^ When Alexander had conquered the king of the Persians and 

 his fleets had vanquished the islands of India, and he had killed Pour, 

 kincr of the Indies, his master Aristotle recommended hini to seek the 

 island that produces Aloes. So when he had finished his conquests in 

 India, he returned by way of the Indian Sea into that of Oman, 

 conquered the isles therein, and arrived at last at Socotra, of which he 

 admired the fertility and the climate. And from the advice which 

 Aristotle gave him he determined to remove the original inhabitants 

 and to put Greeks in their place, enjoining the latter to preserve care- 

 fully the plant yielding aloes, on account of its utility, and because that 

 without it certain sovereign remedies could not be compounded. He 

 thought also that the trade in and use of this noble drug would be a 

 great advantage for all people. So he took away the original people 

 of the island of Socotra, and established in their stead a colony ot 

 lonians, who remained under his protection and that of his successors, 

 and acquired great riches, until the period when the religion of the 

 Messiah appeared, which religion they embraced. They then became 

 Christians, and so their descendants have remained up to the present 

 time {circa a.d. 1154:). 



This curious account, which Yule^' says is doubtless a fable, but 

 invented to account for facts, is alluded to by the Mahoraeclan 

 travellers of the 9th century' and in the 10th by Masudi,' who says 

 that in his time aloes was produced only in tlie island of Socotra, where 

 its manufacture had been improved by Greeks sent thither by Alexander 



the Great. 



Aloes is not mentioned by Theophrastus, but appears to have been 

 well known to Celsus, Dioscorides, Pliny and the author of the Perip/ui' 

 of the Erythrean Sea, as well as to the later Greek° and the f'f^^^ 

 physicians. From the notices of it in the Anglo-Saxon leech-booK^^ 

 and a reference to it as one of the druo-s recommended to Alfred tu^ 

 Great by the Patriarch of Jerusalem, we'^raay infer that its use was no 

 unknown in Britain as early as the 10th century.' 



1 In the above revision of the medicinal 3 Marco Polo, ii. 313. ^ , , ,t deU 



species of Aloii we have made free use of * Ancknnes Bdadons des Mesj]'^ „■ 



the observations on the same subject Chine de deux Voya:jcurs ^''^"'''J^f^d es 



mentioned m the Dktionnaire de Botanhnie. y amrcnt dans h nenvieme sihck, traau 



«nu;n w w'^,'''''^''^ advantage of con- de I'Arahe, Paris, 1718. 113. 



whn.l^ In ■ \ '^'°v S'}""'l'^«-«' ■Esq- . F. R. S. , « Tome iii. 36. -See Appencbx. ,^ 



?r, .nif !-■ ^^™^li^"ty with these plants « Alexander Trallia.nis, m Pj^^f f ^yg, 



opiS '"'^''' ^"'"* ^"^^^'^^ *« ^'^ «^'tion (quoted in the ApP^»'^f;;i;.«. 



Gio<jrai^hiz rXEdym, i. (1836) 47. ^^ See d. 439. note 1. 



opinion. 



