THE CHAULMOOGRA TREE AND RELATED SPECIES. 5 



to the king, who was none other than Rama's son. The king came 

 with a great retinue to Rama and asked him to return to the palace, 

 but Rama refused, saying " I will found a new city here. Get your 

 men to clear away all the kalaw trees." The new city was called 

 " Kalanagara," as it was built on the spot where kalaw trees once 

 grew. It was also known as " Byetgyapata," as the tigers used 

 to eat their prey in this place. Rama's son then returned to Benares. 



So much for ancient native legends regarding the curative prop- 

 erties of the kalaw tree in leprosy. 



For nearly a hundred years the seeds of the kalaw tree, now known 

 as Taraktogenos kurzii, were thought to be those of a tree listed by 

 Dr. William Roxburgh in 1815 in his Hortus Bengalensis (22) as 

 Chaulmoogra odorata. This was accepted as the source of chaul- 

 moogra oil. In 1819 R. Brown (23, p. 95) described the plant under 

 the name of Gynocardia odorata, discarding Roxburgh's Chaulmoogra 

 odorata, as no description was published, the name only being given. 

 Warburg (24, p. 22, fig. 6, M N) figures the seeds of Taraktogenos 

 kurzii King as those of Gynocardia odorata R. Br. 



M. G. Desprez, a French pharmacist, was the first to discover that 

 the seeds of what is now known as Taraktogenos kurzii were not 

 those of Gynocardia odorata, and he decided that they belonged to an- 

 other species of this genus, which he called G. prainii in honor of 

 Col. David Prain, director of the botanical survey of India. This was, 

 however, a mistake, as the seeds sold as chaulmoogra seeds in the 

 bazaars of India were not those of a Gynocardia. Their identity was 

 left for Col. Prain himself to discover. 



In 1898 A. Bories, in the introduction to a paper entitled "Con- 

 tribution a l'Etude therapeutique de l'Huile de Chaulmoogra gyno- 

 cardee (S, p. 12) makes the following statement : 



The skepticism professed by a large number of physicians is to a certain 

 extent justified and must be respected when one considers the numberless adver- 

 tisements of panaceas with which a shameless quackery fills the fourth page of 

 our newspapers ; but it seems to us that this restraint should be broken down by 

 well-attested records of cures which have been presented by men whose studies 

 and experience entitle them to our confidence. 



For several years, therefore, our efforts have been toward the end of popu- 

 larizing and recommending in France a medicine of remarkable efficacy, the 

 value of which has been proved empirically by the natives of a far-eastern 

 country during a period of more than two centuries. . . . We have never pre- 

 tended to offer the medical world a new remedy ; our aim has been simply to call 

 attention to its efficacy and to prove its value by presenting an abundance of 

 evidence. We are presenting herewith the observations which certain physi- 

 cians, ;it our request, have made regarding the use of this medicine in a large 

 number ot eases. 



The remedy to which we wish to call attention is gynocardic chaulmoogra 

 oil, extracted from the seeds of Gynocardia >><\<>nt\<i. 



