MYRRH PARE1RA BRAVA. 499 



LETTEE EEOM THE EDITOE OF THE NEUES 

 REPERTORIUM FUR PHARMACIE. 



" MUNICH, 3rd January, 1875. 



"MY DEAR SIR, 



"I desire now at the beginning of the new year, 1875 - 

 not only to express to you my best wishes for your future well- L. A. Buchner. 

 being, but also to thank you most warmly for your last very 

 valuable literary present. Your Pharmacoyraphia, compiled 

 in union with Professor Eliickiger, which the latter had 

 the kindness to forward to me in your and his name, is an 

 excellent work, one only possible to be produced by the 

 association of two authorities in this branch, an English and 

 a German savant. I hope shortly to be able to notice this work 

 in my journal, in order to aid in spreading the knowledge of 

 the same in Germany ; in England and America it will, without 

 this, have a widespread circulation. All your later and very 

 interesting papers, which have been sent to me, 1 have trans- 

 lated with great pleasure into German, and have inserted them 

 in my new Repertorium for Pharmacy. Your communication 

 about the origin and native country of myrrh reminds me of 

 what my late colleague Dr. Eoth in the year 1844 communicated 

 on this subject from his own observations (Buchner's Repertorium, 

 second series, xxxv. 19). Eoth, who was for almost three years 

 member of an English expedition in Bombay, Calcutta and 

 especially in Abyssinia, found two kinds of myrrh trees on the 

 way by the sea-coast from the Gulf of Aden to the foot of the 

 Shoa Mountains, where by reason of the unbearable heat and 

 want of water few plants grow. On account of the fearful heat 

 in those low-lying districts they calL the neighbourhood 

 ' Tehama ' which means hell. The ground is basaltic, mostly 

 bare. The myrrh-tree grows only as a shrub. The passing 

 camel-drivers generally injure it in this way. They tear out 

 the branches and stronger twigs at their axil, or bruise the bark, 

 by which means the sweetly-smelling Milk-sap flows out. On 

 their return journey the camel-drivers often find the myrrh 

 hardened into considerable lumps. 



K K 2 



