X. A Botanical and Medical Account of the 

 QUASSIA SIMARUBA, or Tree which produces 

 the Cortex Simaruba. By WILLIAM WRIGHT, M. D. 

 F. R. S. Lond. & Ed in. and Phyfician-general in Ja- 



maica *. 



An Hiftorkal Account of the Simaruba Bark. 



TH E firft knowledge we had of the cortex fimaruba was 

 in the year 17 13. Some of it was fent to France to 

 M. le Compte de Porch artrain, the Secretary of State, 

 as the bark of a tree, called by the natives Simarouba, which 

 they employed with good fuccefs in dyfentery. 



In 1741, M. Geoffroy, in fpeaking of this bark, fays, 

 Eft cortex radicis arboris ignotae, in Guiana nafcentis, et ab 

 incolis fimarouba nuncupate : coloris eft ex albo rlavefcentis, 

 nullo odore praeditus, faporis fubamari, lentifcentibus fibris 

 " conftans, candido, leviflimo, infipidoque, radicum, ftipitum, 

 u truncique ligno haerens, a quo facile feparatur." 



In 1753 and 1760, Linnjeus makes the fimaruba to be a 

 fpecies of piftacia, or the terebinthinus major, betulse cortice, 

 fructu triangulari of Sloan. Jam. 289. t. 99. 



In 1756, Dr Patrick Browne publifhed his Civil and 



Natural Hiftory of Jamaica. At page 345. he defcribes the 



terebinthinus, or birch and turpentine tree. The bark of 



Vol. II. k the 



* This paper was read before the Philofophical Society of Edinburgh, Auguft 6. 

 1778. It is now printed by order of the Committee for publication of the Tranfaclions 

 of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. 



