rOL. LXXX.J PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 653 



XIIL An Account of the Tabasheer. By Patrick Russell, M. D.* F. R. S. 



p. 173. 



This drug was first introduced to the knowledge of the western world through 

 the works of the Arabian physicians, all of whom mention it as an important 

 article in their Materia Medica ; and, from what Dr. R. could observe in Syria, 

 it still continues to be in much more general use in Turkey than in India. To 

 the Arabs and Turks it is known under the name of Tabasheer only ; under that 

 name also it is mentioned by the Arabian writers. In this country, [Vizagapatam,] 

 besides that of Tabasheer, which they had from the Persians, it is known under 

 several other names. In the Gen too language it is called Vedroo-Paloo, bamboc- 

 milk ; in the Malabar, Mungel Upoo, salt of bamboo ; and in the Warriar, 

 Vedroo Carpooram, bamboo camphor. Don Garzia dall' Horto has long ago ex- 

 posed a dangerous error, common to the old translators of the Arabian writers, 

 respecting this drug. In the Latin versions of Rhazis and Avicenna, Tabasheer 

 is constantly rendered spodium ; and this interpretation has been adopted by most 

 of the subsequent translators of other Arabian medical writers. 



The late Mr. Channing, when engaged in the translation of Rhazis on the 

 small-pox, applied to Dr. R. then in Syria, for such information as he might be 

 able to collect on the subject of Tabasheer at Aleppo. Dr. R. accordingly trans- 

 mitted to him various specimens of the drug, together with several extracts 

 relative to it, from books found in the Aleppo libraries. Some of those speci- 

 mens differed considerably from these now laid before the r. s. ; and from what 

 he has had occasion to observe during his residence in India, he is convinced that 

 much of the drug commonly vended in Turkey is fictitious or adulterated. He 

 thinks the Arabian medical writers generally agree in the Tabasheer being a pro- 

 duction of the Indian reed ; more especially of such as have suffered from fire, 

 kindled by the friction of the reeds one against the other ; an accident supposed 

 to happen frequently in the dry season, among the hills, where the bamboo 

 forms vast and impenetrable thickets. Several of the mountaineers assured him 

 that the bamboo is not the only tree subject to accidental ignition by friction, 

 and named one or two other trees liable to the same accident ; but added, they 

 never looked for Tabasheer in the half-burnt fragments of the bamboo, though 

 they doubted not it might sometimes be found there as well as in others. The 

 genuine Tabasheer is doubtless a production of the Arundo Bambos of Linnaeus, 

 the Ily of the Hortus Malabaricus, and the Arundo Indica arborea maxima, 

 cortice spinoso, of Herman. It is no less certain that fire is not a necessary 



• Brother to Dr. Alexander Russell, (for a biographical notice of whom see Vol. X. p. 667 of 

 these Abridgements,) and formerly physician to the British Factory at Aleppo. Dr. Patrick Russell 

 was author of a Treatise on the Plague, (particularly valuable for the observations on quarantine, and 

 for the regulations recommended to be adopted during the prevalence of a pestilential contagion,) 

 and of a Natural History of Indian Serpents^ illustrated by coloured engravings. He died in Lon- 

 don in 1805. 



