CROTON TIGLIUM 119 



the sixteenth century. The first account of the plant 

 in European literature, however, must be credited to 

 the Portuguese physician Christoval Acosta, who in 

 1578 described the wood as lignum pavance (or L. Pa- 

 navce or L. moluccense), and the seeds as pini nuclei 

 moluccani (3). The prominent writings of Rheede, 

 (1678), who gives the Malayan name cadel avanacu 

 (547), Ray, (1688), and others, later gave the drug due 

 consideration, while C. Bauhinus, (1671), differentiated 

 between several synonyms of the seeds and woods that 

 were then in use. To Caspar Commelyn (1667-1731) 

 is attributed the first use of the name cataputice minores 

 for the seeds, while the well-known synonym grana 

 tiglii is also stated to have been originated in his time. 

 And yet that author's work on the Flora Malabarica 

 (1696), does not record the first term, although the 

 name grana tiglii is therein accredited to Samuel Dale's 

 Pharmacologia, (the first edition of which appeared in 

 1693). (179). 



As regards the use of the oil derived from the seeds, 

 E. von Hirschheydt, in the exhaustive historical intro- 

 duction to his dissertation (318a), mentions that Peter 

 Borellus, a French physician (1620-1689), in 1657 

 lauds the cathartic virtues of the oil, which in as small 

 an amount as two drops caused purging, even when 

 merely rubbed into the skin. Similar mention of its 

 virtues is made by Rumphius (Herbarium Amboinense, 

 1750). Geoffroy (260), in his Materia Medica, (1756), 

 reports that the natives of India use the oil to make 

 what they call the royal purging apple (poma cathar- 

 tica), the mere odor of which was asserted to purge 

 persons of delicate constitutions. The directions for 

 making this potent "apple" are as follows: 



