iv HIS INVESTIGATIONS OF DRUGS 35 



amazed that this great and wealthy city possessed no 

 university till the year 1837, and then one that merely 

 held examinations for degrees. So long the two ancient 

 English universities with their formal courses dominated 

 the field. Fothergill saw the need of medical teaching 

 in London, and he proposed to himself to give lectures 

 on Materia Medica in its relation to general medicine. 

 During several years he made preparations for this purpose, 

 and formed a fine collection to illustrate the subject ; but 

 his time became otherwise filled, so that in the end he 

 abandoned the project, and presented his collection to 

 his old college at Edinburgh. 



His investigations of several drugs formed the subject of 

 papers. Thus he brought before the Royal Society in 1744 

 an account of a specimen of Persian Manna derived from a 

 prickly shrub, and discussed, with the help of references to 

 Greek writers and modern travellers, the origin of the drug ; 

 describing also the method of obtaining it in Italy and Sicily 

 as an exudation from the bark of species of ash-tree. 1 



In 1756 Fothergill introduced the astringent gum now 

 known as Kino to the medical profession ; it was the dried 

 juice of a tree (Pterocarpus) growing on the river Gambia in 

 Africa. The story of his chance meeting with a specimen, 

 and his search for more, shows how keen was his interest in 

 all remedies that promised to be of use. 2 Catechu had been 

 brought from Japan in the previous century, but was errone- 

 ously thought to be an earth, and was known under the name 

 of Terra Japonica. Fothergill showed in 1773, by evidence 

 sent him from Behar in Hindostan, that it was an extract of 

 the wood of a species of acacia. He proposed to send the 



1 Observations on the Manna Persicum, Phil. Trans, xliii. 86, with additions 

 in the A bridgement ; Works, i. 257 ; MSS. Alston. Manna, a mild sweetmeat- 

 like laxative, a favourite with children, is now disused in England, and was 

 omitted from the British Pharmacopoeia in 1898. It was still a familiar 

 object on the medicine shelves fifty years ago. 



2 A Letter to the Medical Society concerning an Astringent Gum brought 

 from Africa. Fothergill called it Gummi Rubrum astringens Gambiense. 

 Medical Observations and Inquiries, i. 358 ; Works, ii. 19 ; Cullen, Materia 

 Medica, 1789, ii. 43 ; Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia, p. 170. It 

 was at first confused with Dragon's Blood, which is an inert resin from various 

 trees, no longer used in medicine ; and with Gum Senegal, a yellowish-red 

 acacia gum. The name Gummi rubrum was later applied to the red gum 

 obtained from Eucalyptus bark (Kino Eucalypti, B.P. 1914), introduced by 

 Sir Ranald Martin as a powerful astringent. 



