6 PHARMACOPEIA!, DRUGS 



Persia, Armenia and Arabia as sources of aloes of com- 

 merce. Ibn el Beithar (214) speaks of aloes from the 

 island of Socotra as being superior to that of the 

 Arabian districts of Yemen. 



The name Aloe socotrina was undoubtedly derived 

 from the island of Socotra, off the entrance to the Red 

 Sea. Yet, some authors maintain that the name was 

 by some given to the inspissated juice of aloe (succus 

 citrinus), on account of the lemon-yellow color of its 

 powder. 1 Not all the earlier medico-pharmaceutical 

 writers who afterwards considered the drug refer to 

 socotrine, or any other special kind of aloes. Hierony- 

 ' mus Bock (82), 1556, merely alludes to the drug being 

 brought from India and Arabia, a statement already 

 found in Dioscorides. He relates an instance where 

 the aloe plant is cultivated in Germany as an indoor 

 ornamental plant, under the name sempervivum. 



Samuel Purchas (527), however, in his important 

 collection of travels, 1625, gives prominence to Soco- 

 trine aloes, and places on record the commercial trans- 

 actions of British merchants with the king of Socotra. 

 One of his contributors, (William Finch, merchant), 

 gives the following interesting information, which he 

 gathered about 1607 A. D., concerning the preparation 

 of aloes in the island of Socotra: 



"I could learne of no merchandise the iland yeeldeth, 

 but Aloes, Sanguis Draconis, and Dates and, as they 

 say on the shore of Aba del Curia, Blacke Ambergreese. 

 Of Aloes I suppose they could make yearly more than 

 Christendome can spend, the herbe growing in great 

 abundance, being no other than Semper vivum, in all 



' Usage accepts that Aloe succotrina is the plant described by Lamarck, and that 

 aloe iocotnna is the commercial extract derived from crru.in gteciee of aloes. Exceptions 

 in the spelung of the latter word have occurred ia older Pharmacopeias. 



