- PHARMACOPGIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
the suborder of czsalpiniez, of the vast order of leguminosz, and dif- 
fers from the ordinary type of the order, as we usually know it, in hav- 
ing more regular flowers (papilionaceous), resembling in this respect 
our honey-locust (gleditschia triacanthos) and coffee-nut (gymno- 
cladus) tree. 
_ The various species of copaifera which grow in tropical America 
are usually small trees (sometimes shrubs). 
Flueckiger traced the record of what is probably the first printed 
statement regarding a resiniferous tree other than the pine, dating 
back to the last decade of the fifteenth century. He quotes from 
Michael Herr, “Die Neue Welt der Landschaften und Insulen,” Strass- 
burg, 1534, which contains a report made by Petrus Martyr of Ang- 
hiera to Pope Leo X, wherein this tree is mentioned under the name 
cope. 
The next available record dates from a publication of the year 
1625, wherein a Portuguese monk, probably Manoel Tristaon (651a), 
of the convent of Bahia contributes an extensive chapter on Brazil and 
its products. On page 1308, immediately following the description of 
Cabueriba (or Peru balsam tree) he says: “Cupayba. For wounds. 
Cuypaba is a fig tree, commonly very high, straite and big; it hath 
much oile, within; for to get it they cut the tree in the middest, where 
it hath the vent, and there it hath this oil in so great abundance that 
some of them doe yield a quarterne of oile and more; it is very clear 
of the color of oile; it is much set by for wounds, and taketh away 
all the skarre. It serveth also for lights and burne well; the beasts 
knowing the vertue thereof doe come and rubbe themselves thereat. 
There are great store, the wood is good for nothing.” 
The first explicit description and illustration of one of the trees 
yielding copaiba is to be found in the joint work of Piso and Marc- 
grav (511) (1648), whose statements form the basis of the subsequent 
literature on the subject. In this connection it appears rather remark- 
able that the Pharmacopceia Amstelodamensis, sixth edition, which an- 
tedates this publication, being of the year 1630, distinctly mentions 
Balsam copae yvae. Some of the statements of Piso and Marcgrav 
have given rise to discussion ; the fact that Piso figured and described 
the flowers with five sepals, whereas they are now known to bear only 
four, being one of the points. The pod, however, is figured and de- 
scribed correctly, and the statement is made that it contains an edible 
nut, which the monkeys of the forest are very fond of eating. As re- 
gards the mode of collecting the balsam, Piso relates that an incision 
books. Even Bentley and Trimen took up the mistake, particularly emphasizing that_Langs- 
dorfii is wrong. The mistake was pointed out long ago in the Pharmaceutical Journal, 
IX (1879), 773, and also by Flueckiger in Pharmacographia (see 2d ed., p. 228, foot- 
note) 
noome of the betscies! ste dros star 
without making any remarks. us, for instance, : i I 
for example, rd Histoire des Plantes, II, 163; also, Rosenthal in his Synopsis Plantarum 
Diaphoricarum, p. 1046, etc. They write Langsdorfhi (with g and two f’s). ges 
George Heinrich, Freiherr von Langsdorff, was born on April 18, 1773, at Woellstein in 
Rhenish Hesse, studied medicine in Goettingen, then went to Portugal, where he remained 
from 1797 to 1803. He then participated in Krusenstern’s Russian exploring Ge Sane 
Ringe igo Seen eg me Se ee se same ok Seem 
an ied at Frei in isgau on June 29, 1852. e wr x 
ition, under the title, “Bemerkungen auf einer Reise um die Welt,” 2 vols. 
stern's 
Frankfurt o. M., 1812. 
29 
to know better corrected the mistake 
Baillon has it right in all his works, 
