ADDITIONAL OBSERVATIONS ON STORAX. 147 



resin of vyia explains that it is synonymous with Liquid Storax. 

 The Arab authors are then reviewed, and subsequently the 

 pharmacologists of the last and present century. The learned 

 author then points out that the word %wyla, properly signifying &yia, the 

 maple, is now applied in the south-west of Asia Minor to 

 Liquidambar orientale, a tree which resembles a maple or a 

 plane. He also states that about the year 1841, he proved that 

 Liquid Storax was obtained from this tree, and that an account 

 of this fact was published at the time in the Melissa, an Athens 

 newspaper. 



The second proposition of Professor Krinos is that the text Proposal to 

 of Dioscorides is incorrect. Dioscorides states that the Storax- c a f Di OS coridep. 

 tree- resembles the quince, which is certainly the case if Styrax 

 officinale is intended, but by no means so if Liquidambar orien- 

 tale. 1 But Professor Krinos holds that the Storax (solid and 

 liquid) of ancient authors is not the produce of Styrax at all : 

 hence the difficulty of admitting the statement of Dioscorides, 

 and the extraordinary proposal of altering the text so as to cause 

 that author to say that the tree resembles not a quince but a 

 maple. In reply to this I may remark that it would be needful 

 to alter Pliny also, and that such a mode of disposing of 

 the difficulty, unless supported by some obvious ambiguities in 

 the early MSS. of these ancient authors, is surely inadmissible. 



The third proposition, that the Solid Storax of the ancients 

 was derived from Liquidambar and not from Styrax, is one from 

 which I entirely dissent ; still, I am free to admit that a solid 

 resin derived from the former tree may have passed as Storax 

 in ancient times, though I am entirely unacquainted with such 

 a substance. Professor Krinos assumes that as no resin pro- 

 duced by Styrax officinale now finds its way into commerce, it 

 is impossible to believe that that tree ever really yielded any. 

 In this I do not concur : I have already shown that two respect- 

 able authors of the last century, Duhamel and the Abbe Mazeas, 

 actually collected Storax from this tree, the one in Provence, 



1 In modern Greek, the Storax-trce is called 'Aypia KvSwrja, i.e. Wild 

 Quince. 



L 2 



