PHARMACOPGIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS. 
Two early statements concerning the fruit may, however, now be 
recorded. 
Caspar Bauhinus (48), who named the sassafras tree “arbor ex 
Florida ficulneo folio,” in 1623 reports that specimens of the leaves 
and the fruit of the tree were sent to him by Dr. Doldius, of Nurem- 
berg, and he describes the fruit as oblong, rugose, and attached to very 
long pedicels. 
Likewise Jean de Laet (368), in the index to the chapter on sassa- 
fras of his afore-mentioned book, requests the reader to insert in the 
text that the fruits of this tree were brought to the notice of the author 
by a person returning from Novo Belgio, and adds that the fruit does 
not differ much in form from the berries of the laurel, although it is 
much smaller. It contains a white nut of bitterish taste, divided into 
two parts. 
As far as we can ascertain, Plukenet (514a), as late as the year 
1691, was the first to give an illustration of the berry, which, however, 
is faulty, because it is void of the acorn-like calyx. The trilobed leaves 
are also illustrated, and the botanical name affixed to it by Plukenet 
is “cornus mas odorata, foliis trifido, margine plano, sassafras dicta.” 
Catesby (130), true to his task as set forth in the title of his 
book on the natural history of Virginia, etc., viz.: to correct faulty 
illustration of plants by preceding authors, gives (in 1731) a good pic- 
ture of sassafras, including the fruit and flowers. 
In the middle and latter part of the eighteenth and the earlier part 
of the nineteenth century sassafras was studied in its native country 
by such celebrated travelers as Peter Kalm (350), J. David Schoepf 
(582), F. A. Michaux (433), and Fred Pursh (528). Peter Kalm’s 
account especially (350) contains many points of interest. 
The author’s boyhood was spent in the country, in Kentucky, 
where sassafras abounds. I do not remember to have smelled the fra- 
grance of sassafras trees, mentioned by these early authorities, unless 
the trees were broken or bruised. I have passed through great thickets 
of young and old trees and am sure that the statement that the fra- 
grance is wafted far out to sea is overdrawn, as I observed no odor 
whatever, and am satisfied that sassafras exhales no aroma. When 
land in Kentucky is “worked poor” and turned out to rest it is likely 
to spring up in thickets of sassafras, persimmon, and black locust. I 
have heard old farmers, in speaking of a farm, say it was “too poor to 
raise sassafras,” and no greater reflection could be cast on that land. 
No especial value is put on sassafras wood, it is not sought for fence 
posts nor is it used to drive away insects of any description. © 
As a remedy the bark is used in the spring to “thin the blood,” be- 
ing drunk as a tea. Indeed, I do not dislike it as a beverage, early im- 
pressions leading me now to take a package of fresh bark home with me 
occasionally for a family dish of sassafras tea. This is made exactly 
as coffee is prepared as a beverage, and is sweetened and used with 
cream in the same way. That sassafras tea was a very common beverage 
in my boyhood days may be shown by the following incident: I was 
traveling up the Ohio River on one of the palatial steamers of other 
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