168 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



have been to increase the quantity; and as the great plenty in whicfe 

 this gum is produced, and its colour, makes it very proper for this 

 use; and, above all, as there is no reason to think there is another 

 gum-beariug tree, of equal qualities, in the country where the myrrli 

 grows, it seems to me next to a proof that this must have been the 

 opocalpasum. 



I must however confess, that Galen says the opocalpasum was so- 

 far from an innocent drug, that it was a mortal poison, and had 

 produced very fatal effects. But as those Troglodytes, though now 

 more ignorant than formerly, are still well acquainted with the 

 properties of their herbs and trees, it is not possible that the savage, 

 desiring to increase his sales, would mix them with a poison that 

 must needs diminish them. And we may therefore without scruple 

 suppose, that Galen was mistaken in the quality ascribed to this 

 drug; and that he might have imagined that people died of the 

 opocalpasum, who perhaps really died of the physician. First, be- 

 cause we know of no gum or resin that is a mortal poison : 2dly> 

 because, from the construction of its parts, gum is very ill adapted 

 for having the activity which violent poison has ; and considering 

 the small quantities in which myrrh is taken, and the opocalpasum 

 could have been but in an inconsiderable proportion to the myrrb, 

 to have killed, it must have been a very active poison : 3dly, these 

 accidents, from a known cause, must have brought myrrh into dis- 

 use, as certainly as the Spaniards mixing arsenic with the bark ; 

 would banish that drug when we saw people die of it. Now this 

 never was the case : it maintained its character among the Greeks 

 and the Arabs, and so down to our days; and a modern physician 

 thinks it might make man immortal, if it could be rendered per- 

 fectly soluble in the human body. 



Galen then was mistaken as to the poisonous quality of the opo* 

 calpasuni. The Greek physicians knew little of the natural history 

 of Arabia, still less that of Abyssinia; and we who have followed 

 them know nothing of either. This gum, being put into water, 

 swells and turns white, and loses all its glue : it resembles gum 

 adragant much in quality, and may be eaten safely. This specimen 

 came from the Troglodyte country in the year 1771: a piece 

 of myrrh from Arabia Felix, and a piece of gum of the 

 sassa from Abyssinia, were packed up in another separate box, 

 to be *ent you for comparison, but forgotten by my servant, 



