298 
I saw a certain person use it who had a piece, well—a span long. He 
divided it into two pieces and put them into a jar of water and left 
it there for six or eight days, and I saw him with my own eyes fill 
a chamber-pot to more than one-half every day, and at the end of 
15 days, I saw him quite well, and yet before he had suffered much 
from retention of urine.” 
ernandez’ account of the Coatli and its peculiar reaction on 
water and medicinal use is supported by contemporaneous and quite 
independent witnesses, the monks Bernardino de Sahagun and 
Alonso de Molina. Bernardino de Sahagun went out to Mexico in 
1529 and died there, probably towards the end of the century, at the 
age of 90. He left a manuscript of a ‘Historia General de las 
Cosas de Nueva Espafia,’ which in 1829-30 was published in a 
Spanish, and in 1880 in a French, version (by D. Jourdanet and 
R. Simeon). To quote from the latter, he refers to ‘ Coatli’ in 
‘these terms (p. 731): “There is a wild tree, know as Coatli, of 
which they cut rods for making baskets called ‘uacales. It is a 
co wood, and if it is put in water, this turns blue. It is used 
icinally for the urinary tracts.” Alonso de Molina, who in 
1571 published in Mexico a vocabulary of the language of the 
conquered Aztecs, also has the word ‘ Coatli,’ and explains it thus : 
“Certain rods which are soaked and the water drunk thereof.” 
: “ came rendered any attempt at botanical classification a priori 
Musory. Only Cesalpini,* with his usual ingenuity, hazarded a 
ange _ Relying on the remarkable property of the Mexican wood 
of making water ‘appear blue, and kno wing that a similar effect was 
produced bh soaking the Inner bark of the ash in water, he 
suggested that the Mexican wood might also be referable to the 
genus Frazinus, Caspar Bauhin accordin 
d 
ee Hiese vee 
Giestlpinus, De Plantis Libri Xvi., p. 44, 
a, , Theatr, Bot. (1640), p. 1664. is usually quoted as the author of 
