202 LEGUMINOS^. 



Uses— Red Sanders Wood is scarcely employed in pharmacy except 

 for colouring the Compound Tincture of Lavender ; but it has numerous 

 uses in the arts. The latter applies also to the wood of Pterocarpus 

 angolensis DC, which is largely exported from the French colony of 

 Gaboon ; it is the " Santal louge d'Afrique of the French," or Barwood of 

 the English commerce. 



BALSAMUM TOLUTANUM. 



Balsam of Tolu ; F. Baume de Tolu ; G. Toluhalsain. 



Botanical Origin — Myroxylon Toluifera H B K. (Toluifera Bal- 

 smnuriii Miller, Myrospernium toluiferitrn A. Rich.),^ an elegant and 

 lofty evergreen tree with a straight stem, often as much as 40 to 60 

 feet from the ground to the first branch. It is a native of Venezuela, 

 and New Granada, — probably also of Ecuador and Brazil. 



History — The first published account of Balsam of Tolu, is that of 

 the Spanish physician Monardes, who in his treatise on the productions 

 of the West Indies, which in its complete form first appeared at Seville 

 in 1574?,^ relates how the early explorers of South America observed 

 that the Indians collected this drug by making incisions in the trunk 

 of the tree. Below the incisions they afiixed shells of a peculiar black 

 wax to receive the balsam, which being collected in a district near Car- 

 tagena called Tolu, took its name from that place. He adds that it 

 is much esteemed both by Indians and Spaniards, that the latter buy 

 it at a high price, and that they have lately brought it to Spain, 

 where it is considered to be as good as the famous Balsam of Mecca. 



Francisco Hernandez, who lived in 1561-1577 in Mexico, stated ^ 

 that the balsam of the province of Tolu was thought to be quite as 

 useful as, if not superior to, " balsamum indicum," i.e. peruvianum. 



A specimen agreeing with this description was given to Clusius * in 

 1581 by Morgan, apothecary to Queen Elizabeth, but the drug was 

 certainly not common till a much later period. In the price-list of 

 drugs of the city of Frankfort of 1669, Balsamus tolutanum (sic) 

 is expressly mentioned,^ but there can be but little doubt that Bal- 

 scLTnum AmeHcanuTn resinosum ^ or siccuon or durum as occurring in 

 many other tarifi's of the 17th century, printed in Germany, was also 

 the balsam under notice ; '^ in a similar list emanating from the city of 

 Basle in 1646,® we noticed B. indicum album, B. peruvianum. and 



» Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. * Exotkor. etc. 1605. lib. x. fol. 305. 



Plants, part 23 (1877) under the name of ^ pkarm. Journ. vi. (1876) 102. 



Toluifera Balsamum. Though the change ^ Pharmaceutical tariff (" Taxa ") of the 



of names may be justified by the strict city of Wittenberg 1632 (in the Hamburg 



rules of priority, we are of opinion that at library). 



present it would be fraught with more of ^ Fliickiger, Documente zur Geschichte der 



inconvenience than advantage. — Myroxy- Pharmacie, Halle, 1876. 49. 50. 53. — 



Ion punctatum Klotzsch, a tree stated to Balsamum Peruvianum first occurs in the 



grow nearly all over the northern part of tariff of the city of Worms of 1609. — 



South America, is referred to the same Documente, p. 39; Pharm. Journ. I. c. 



species by Bentley and Trimen. ^Contained in the Medicine Tariffs, in the 



2 Historia de las cosas que se traen de library of the British Museum, bound to- 



nuestras Indias occidentales, caiJ, del Bal- gether in one volume (^"•). They include 



samodeTolu. ,,»„;.,,,.„; Schweinfurt 1614, Bremen 1644, Basle 



^ Aova Plantarum, animal, et mineral. ,„._ -r, , , ,„'.„ /-. n- i ii'nt^ 



u- , • v> 1,^'= «^i;+i^,i 1647, Rostock 16o9, Quedlinburg 1665, 



mexicanorum. Historia, Keccho s edition, ^ i r i. at • ^^r•n/ t j i? \ 



T? Ifi'il f 1 5^ rranktort on Main 1669 (quoted above). 



