236 
mistake of confounding under one name 
both of the trees described by the Dutch 
Botanist! And in 1788, Professor Mur- 
ray of Gottingen, after carefully examining 
the manuscripts and dried specimens of 
Koenig, a Polish physician in the Danish 
service, who was long in the East Indies, 
and had studied this particular subject with 
attention, was unlucky enough to take his 
description from a specimen, which, it now 
appears, had been patched up from two 
distinct species;? and thus, in constituting 
a new genus as the true Gamboge-tree, 
under the name of Stalagmitis Gambogi- 
oides, he has described a plant which really 
does not exist, although in almost every 
modern Pharmacopeia it has been adopted 
as the botanical source of officinal Gam- 
boge. Such is one of the results of the 
investigations of my colleague, Dr. Gra- 
ham, who further makes out that Ceylon 
Gamboge is produced by a tree which 
must constitute an entirely new genus, and 
to which he proposes to assign the name 
of Hebradendron Gambogioides. Any 
one who compares Dr. Graham’s descrip- 
tion with the brief notice given by Her- 
mans, must come to the conclusion, that 
the latter author took his description from 
the very same plant. 
Although the inquiries of Dr. Graham 
have made us accurately acquainted with 
the true source of the Gamboge of Ceylon, 
it does not absolutely follow, that we are 
likewise acquainted with the true botanical 
source of the common article of the shops, 
the Gamboge of Siam. In truth no com- 
petent European Botanist has hitherto seen 
! Flora Zeylanica sistens plantas Indices 
1670—1677 lectz fuerea Paulo Hermanno. 
ledami, 1748. p. 87. 
? Commentationes Gottingenses, ix. 169, 
quzolim, 
Amste- 
ON THE SOURCES AND COMPOSITION OF GAMBOGE, 
that, as the Bhoodist religion is believed - 
to have passed from Siam to Ceylon, and E 
along with it the practice of painting the E 
temples and holy dresses with Gamboge, 
the tree which yields Gamboge may have 
passed from one country to the other at the 
same time. When we add, however, to 
the presumptions thus constituted that, as 
will presently be seen, the Gamboge of 
the two countries is as nearly as possible 
identical in composition and properties, the 
probability certainly becomes very strong, 
that both varieties are the produce of the 
same species of tree. 
Gamboge has long been an object of in- 
terest in a chemical point of view. In the 
earlier periods of organic chemistry it was 
considered the most perfect variety or type 
of the gummy-resinous principle, as pre- 
senting in the highest degree the proper 
ties of a substance intermediate in chemi- 
cal relations between gum on the one hand, 
and resin on the other. It is now univer 
sally admitted that there is no such prn- 
ciple as a gum-resin, the name being te 
tained in the chemistry of the present day 
merely as a convenient term for a set 
natural productions consisting of -— 
principles. But the gum-resins are 
with justice considered as among the most 
interesting of all the natural productions 
of the vegetable world ; and none has been 
hitherto discovered which presents their 
general characters better marked than 
Gamboge.* 
ensi by the earliest analyses, —: 
those of Boulduc,5 Cartheuser,° and : 
froy,7 which lead to no useful a 
will be sufficient for me to mention * 
researches of Braconnot and of John, by 
each of whom its true nature was n 
torily ascertained. Braconnot, in 
i 179. 
s Gottin enses, IX. 
Com mentatione g 
a 
inclusum." Cynos. Mat. Med. p- 
5 Hist. de l'Acad. des Science 
179. : 
6 Fundamenta Materia Medice, 
furti, 1749. : à 
7 Geoflroy, Matière Médicale, tt. 682. 
685. a 
s de Paris, mip o 
p. 559. Franco- 
