Pharmacopeceial Vegetable Drugs. 
ACACIA 
Acacia has been an article of commerce since the most remote 
records of historical antiquity. Representations of the Acacia tree, 
together with heaps of gum, were pictured in the reign of Ramses III 
of Egypt. Acacia was exported from the Gulf of Aden, seventeen 
hundred years before Christ. Mention of the gum is of frequent 
occurrence in Egyptian inscriptions, where it is referred to as the Gum 
of Canaan. Theophrastus (633), in the third and fourth centuries be- 
fore Christ, described it, as also did Dioscorides (194) and Pliny (514), 
under the name “Egyptian Gum.” It has been employed in the arts 
from all time and in domestic medicine and commerce, as well as by 
the Arabian physicians and those of the renowned school of Salerno. 
During the Middle Ages it was obtained from Egypt and Turkey, be- 
ing an article of commerce in the bazaars of Constantinople, A. D. 
1340. The drug was distributed through Europe from Venice, as 
early as A. D. 1521. Among the most interesting and instructive 
recent contributions to the subject are the reports of the Wellcome 
Research Laboratory, Kartoum (678), 1904. 
ACONITUM 
Aconite, Aconitum napellus, was familiar to the ancients as a 
poisonous plant, and was used by the ancient Chinese as well as by 
the hill tribes of India. In a work published for the Welsh MSS. 
Society, 1861, entitled “The Physicians of Myddvai,” (507), aconite 
was designated as a plant that every physician should grow.* In 
1763, Stérk (617), of Vienna, introduced the drug to medical prac- 
tice, from which date it crept into the practice of the dominant school. 
Aconite has ever been a Homeopathic favorite. 
ALOE 
(ALOE SUCCOTRINA.) 
The genus aloe comprises a large family of succulent-leaved 
plants native to tropical countries. Most of the species have showy 
*Physicians of Myddvai. The domestic physician of Rhys Gryg, prince of South Wales, 
who died 1233, made a collection of recipes used in medicine at that date in hiscountry. He 
was assisted by his three sons, the collection being a valuable historical record concerning re- 
medial agents and methods of that date. Of these, twocompilations have been issued, the two 
appearing together, 1861, with a translation by John Pughe (470 pp). The original manuscript 
is in the British Museum. [See page 761 Pharmacographia. ] 
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