106 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



in Arabian literature the text for a man's disposition. 

 Thus, Al Dalhamah is described as a bitter gourd (colo- 

 cynth), a viper, a calamity. (Burton, Arabian Nights, 

 Vol. II, p. 78.) 



The colocynth plant occupies the vast area extending 

 from the west coast of Northern Africa (Senegambia, 

 Morocco, and the Cape Verde Islands), eastward 

 through the Sahara, Egypt, Arabia, Persia, Beluchistan 

 and through India, as far as the Coromandel Coast 

 and Ceylon, touching northward the Mediterranean 

 and Caspian Seas. At the Red Sea, near Kosseir, it 

 occurs hi immense quantities (239, 240). It is also 

 found here and there in Southern European countries, 

 e. g., Spain and the islands of the Grecian archipelago. 

 Isolated specimens occur in the Cape of Good Hope, 

 Japan, and Sicily, (57), and even from our own hemi- 

 sphere we have recent reports of its successful cultiva- 

 tion, on a small scale. 1 It is suggested that birds of 

 passage have much to do with the distribution of the 

 seed. 



In the island of Cyprus the raising of colocynth has 

 been a source of revenue since the fourteenth century, 

 and till the breaking out of the world's war it still 

 formed an article of export from that country. 



Colocynth is a characteristic desert plant. Hooker 

 and Ball (323a), met with it in the oasis of Sheshuaua 

 in Morocco, and state that in northern Africa it rarely 

 approaches the sea shore. The fruit of colocynth is 

 used in Morocco for the purpose of protecting woolen 

 clothing from moths, but according to the testimony 

 of observers, the purgative quality of the drug does not 



1 Mr. C. B. Allaire, founder of Allaire, Woodward & Co., now a resident of San Antonio, 

 New Mexico, has investigated the native colocynths of the western deserts with a view to 

 their introduction to American medicine* 



