114 PHARMACOPEIAL DRUGS 



balsam, making the curious statement that its healing 

 virtues are also experienced as an efficient means to 

 check the flow of blood in the Jewish practice of circum- 

 cision. 



Labat (365), reports that in 1696 he had an oppor- 

 tunity to observe for the first time the tree yielding 

 copaiba in the Island of Guadeloupe. He relates in 

 detail the manner of collecting the balsam, which he 

 calls huik de copau. The vessels in which the balsam 

 is collected are made of the fruit of the calabash, a kind 

 of gourd. The collection, he states, takes place about 

 three months after the rainy season; that is, in March 

 for the countries north of the equator, and in September 

 for the countries south of this line. The balsam, he 

 states, closes all kinds of wounds except those inflicted 

 by gunshot. He declares it to be a powerful febrifuge, 

 having been used with almost marvelous effect in the 

 fever epidemics at Rennes and Nantes in 1719. 



Nic. Jos. Jacquin (338a), a noted Viennese botanist 

 who traveled in the West Indies in Linnaeus' time, first 

 observed the tree yielding copaiba in cultivation in the 

 village of Le Carbet at Martinique, and subsequently 

 (1760 and 1765), described it under the name of Co- 

 paiva offidnalis. He states that this tree was indig- 

 enous to the continent, where it grows frequently 

 around the town of Tolu near Carthagena, promis- 

 cuously among trees yielding balsams of Tolu and Peru. 

 Jacquin described the flower of this tree as having four 

 petals, and the calyx as being nonexistent; yet he con- 

 siders it identical with that of Piso and Marcgrav. 

 which is, however, emphatically denied by De Tussac 

 .. , (656a) in Dictionnaire des Sciences Naturettes. 



