g PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



which is only about twenty years after the English 

 came into possession of this island (365). From this 

 point aloes soon became an article of export, appearing 

 in the London market in 1693 (239). In this con- 

 nection, however, it is strange that J. B. Labat (365), 

 a French monk and careful observer of nature, who 

 visited the island of Barbados in 1700, fails to mention 

 Barbadoes aloes among its staples (365). He says: 



"Formerly much tobacco was planted, and sub- 

 sequently ginger and indigo; cotton is now grown up in 

 some parts of the island, but sugar is at present the 

 only article to which attention is devoted." 



That this omission of aloes by Labat could not be 

 from ignorance, is shown by his careful reference to 

 aloes when, twenty-eight years afterwards, 1728, he 

 refreshingly described the resources and people of 

 Senegambia on the west coast of Africa (365), and 

 strongly advocates the use of aloes that might be made 

 from aloe plants grown in abundance in that district, 

 in place of aloes from the island of Socotra which, hi 

 his opinion, possessed an imaginary superiority, only 

 "because it comes from afar, and costs much." The 

 three commercial forms of the drug then known, 

 Socotrine, hepatic and caballine aloes, Labat ascribes to 

 one and the ^ame" origin, the differences resulting only 

 from the mode of preparation, caballine "or horse 

 aloes, the lowest grade, being made from refuse ma- 

 terial." 



In all this, Barbadoes aloes is not mentioned by 

 Labat. Whether this neglect is due to interruption of 

 cultivation, or to some other cause difficult to deter- 

 mine, may never be settled. It is established, however, 

 that Barbadoes aloes was exported from the island 



