SUCCUS GLYCYRRHIZ.E. 183 



SUCCUS GLYCYRRHIZiE. 



>iHCcus Liquiritice, ExtracUnn Glycyrrhizce Ikdicunt ; lUd'uiii Extract 

 of Liquorice, Spanish Liquorice, Spanish Juice ; F. Jus ou Sue de 

 Reglisse ; G. Sussholzsaft, LakHz. 



Botanical Origin — Glycyrrhiza glabra L., see preceding article, 

 p. 179. 



History — Inspissated liquorice juice was known in the time of 

 Dicseorides, and may be traced in the writings of Oribasius and 

 Marcellus Empiricus in the latter half of the 4th century, and in those 

 of Paulus ^gineta in the 7th. It appears to have been in common use 

 in Europe during the middle ages. In a.d. 1264, "Liquorice" is charged 

 in the Wardrobe Accounts of Henry III.;^ and as the article cost Zd. 

 ])er lb., or the same price as grains of paradise and one-third that of 

 cinnamon, we are warranted in supposing the extract and not the mere 

 root is intended. Again, in the Patent of Pontage granted by Edward 

 I., A.D. 1305, to aid in repairing the London Bridge, permission is given to 

 lay toll on various foreign commodities including Liquorice.' A political 

 song written in 1430^ makes mention of Liquorice as a production of 

 Spain, but the plant is not named as an object of cultivation by Herrera, 

 the author of a work on Spanish agriculture in 1513. 



Saladinus,* who wrote about the middle of the loth century, names 

 it among the wares kept by the Italian apothecaries ; and it is enumer- 

 ated in a list of drugs of the city of Frankfort written about the year 

 1450.' 



Dorsten,*^ in the first half of the 16th century, mentions the 

 liquorice plant as abundant in many parts of Italy, and describes the 

 method of making the Suae us by crushing and boiling the fresh root. 

 Mattioli" states that the juice made into 2)<istilU was brought everj^ year 

 from Apulia, and especially from the neighbourhood of Monte Gargano. 

 Extract of liquorice was made at Bamberg in Germany, where the plant 

 is still largely cultivated, as early as 1560.^ 



Manufacture — This is conducted on a large scale in Spain, Southern 

 France, Sicily, Calabria, Austria, Southern Russia (Astracan and Kasan), 

 Greece (Patras) and Asia Minor (Sokia and Nazli, near Smyrna); but 

 the extract with which England is supplied is almost exclusively the 

 produce of Calabria, Sicily and Spain. 



The process of manufacture varies only by reason of the amount of 

 intelligence with which it is performed, and the greater or less perfec- 

 tion of the apparatus employed. As witnessed by one of us (H.) at 

 Rossano in Calabria in May, 1872, it may be thus described from notes 

 made at the time. The factory employs about 60 persons, male and 

 female. The root having been taken from the ground the previous 



^ Bxigers, Hist, of Agriculture and PriceJi, ^ Fliickiger. Die Frankfurter Liste,B.aile, 



ii. (1866) 543. 1873, page 10, No. 204. 



- Chronide-s of London Bridge, 1827. 155. ^ Botanicon, Fraucof. 1540. 175. 



3 Wright, Political Poems and Som/^ 7 Comm. in lib. Biosc, Basil. 1574. 485. 



(Master of the Rolls series), ii. (1861) 160. « Gesner, fforti Germanici, Argent. 1561. 



* Compendium Aromatariorum^ Bonon. 257. b. 

 1488. 



