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 (3, 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, at our request, have made regarding the use of this medicine in a large 
number of cases. 
The remedy to which we wish to call attention is gynocardic chaulmoogra 
oil, extracted from the seeds of Gynocardia odorata. 
