PHARMACOPCIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
is made through the bark deep into the pith, at the season of the full 
moon, which causes such an abundant flow of fatty and oily liquid that 
twelve pounds may exude in three hours. In case no oil should appear, 
the opening is at once closed with wax or clay, and after two weeks 
the yield is sufficient to make up for the delay. The fact that the resi- 
niferous ducts in these trees often attain a diameter of one inch, as 
has been observed more “recently by Karsten, seems to be quite 
in harmony with the statement regarding the abundant yield. It is 
also related that frequently the balsam accumulates in these ducts and 
exerts pressure enough upon the enclosing wall to burst the tree with 
aloud report. According to Piso, the copaiba tree is not very frequent 
in the Province of Pernambuco, but thrives luxuriantly in the Island of 
Maranhao, which, he says, furnishes the balsam of commerce in great 
quantity. He also enumerates the many medicinal virtues of the bal- 
sam, making the curious statement that its healing virtues are also ex- 
perienced as an efficient means to check the flow of blood in the Jewish 
practice of circumcision. 
Labat (365) reports that in 1696 he had an opportunity to observe 
for the first time the tree yielding copaiba in the Island of Guadeloupe. 
He relates in detail the manner of collecting the balsam, which he calls 
huile de copau. The vessels in which the balsam is collected are made 
of the fruit of the calabash, a kind of gourd. The collection, he states, 
takes place about three months after the rainy season ; that is, in March 
for the countries north of the equator, and in September for the coun- 
tries south of this line. The balsam, he states, closes all kinds of 
wounds except those inflicted by gunshot. He declares it to be a power- 
ful febrifuge, having been used with almost marvelous effect in the 
fever epidemics at Rennes and Nantes in 1719. 
Nic. Jos. Jacquin (338a), a noted Viennese botanist who traveled 
in the West Indies in Linnzus’s time, first observed the tree yielding 
copaiba in cultivation in the village of Le Carbet at Martinique, and 
subsequently (1760 and 1765) described it under the name of copaiva 
officinalis. He states that this tree was indigenous to the continent, 
where it grows frequently around the town of Tolu near Carthagena 
promiscuously among trees yielding balsams of Tolu and Peru. Jac- 
quin described the flowers of this tree as having four petals, and the 
calyx as being nonexistent; yet he considers it identical with that of 
Piso and Marcgrav, which is, however, emphatically denied by De Tus- 
sac (656a) in Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturelles. 
Linneus (385), in 1762, gave Jacquin’s plant the name Copaifera 
officinalis. 
Until 1821 it was generally believed that copaifera officinalis was 
the only tree yielding copaiba; in this year, however, Desfontaines 
(189a) added two new species, C. guianensis and C. Langsdorfhi. At 
the same time Desfontaines changed the name of C. officinalis to C. Jac- 
quini, in honor of its discoverer. The fact that Jacquin’s plant was 
foreign to Brazil and yielded a balsam of inferior quality would indi- 
cate that it could not well have been the official balsam tree, while by 
reason of the publication of Piso’s account Brazil had been generally 
considered the geographical source of the official balsam. However, 
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