676 ORD. XL: Oleracec. LAURUS SASSAFRAS. 
have been cultivated in England sometime before the year 1633, 
for in Johnson’s edition of Gerard, he says, “ I have given the 
figure of a branch taken from a little (Sassafras) tree, which grew 
in the garden of Mr. Wilmote at Bow.’”’t It is said that the Sassafras 
tree was first discovered by the Spaniards in 1538, when they pos- 
sessed themselves of Florida ;4 and the wood was first imported into 
Spain about the year 1560, where it acquired great reputation for 
curing various diseases.* It is now usually imported here in long 
straight pieces, very light, of a spongy texture, and covered ith 
a rough fungous bark. It has a fragrant smell, and a sweetish 
aromatic subacrid taste: the root, wed: and bark, agree in their 
medical qualities, and are all mentioned in the pharmacoporias; 
but the bark is the most fragrant, and thought to be more effica- 
cious than the woody part, “and the small branches are preferred 
ion the large picces.  ~ The virtues of Sassafras arc extracted 
totally by spirit, but not perfectly by water. Distilled with the 
latter it yields a fragrant essential oil of a penetrating pungent 
taste, and so ponderous as to sink in water. Rectified spirit ex- 
tracts the whole taste and smell of Sassafras, and elevates nothing 
in evaporation; hence the spirituous extract proves the most 
elegant and efficacious preparation, as containing the whole virtue 
of the root.” Sassafras, according to Bergius, is “ sudorifera, 
diuretica, purificans,” and useful in ‘“ rheumatism, cutaneous 
diseases, and ulcers,” Lewis says that it is used as a mild corrobo- 
{ This account differs from that given by Ray, who says, that — <‘ Tho. 
Johnsonus in Gerardo suo emaculato; qui Sassafras arbuscule 4 se vise in horto 
D. Guliel. Coys Stratfordia propé Londinum ramulum describit & depingit, &c. 
Hist. 1. c. «- 
4 It is called cinnamon-wood on account of its smell, which made the Spaniards, 
when they conquered Florida, in 1538, under Ferdinand de Soto, hope te find 
that valuable spicery there, which grows only in Ceylon.” Savary Dict. ii. 1487. 
©  Ligni quoddam genus ex Florida, nunc recens in Hispaniam invehitur, cujus 
ante paucos annos, notitiam Gallus quidam mibi dedit, ejus facultates miram in 
modum predicans adversus varios morbos, ut Galli experti erant, ab incolis edocti 
Dicitur Iudis Pavame, Gallis, nescio quam ad causam, Sassafras,” Monard. Hist. 
ed, anno 1569. 
