QUASSIA. GAMBOGE. 135 
common footstalk is edged on each side with a leafy membrane. 
The flowers are bright red, and terminate the branches in long 
clusters. 
This drug was first brought into use in Surinam, by 
a negro whose name was Quassia, and who employed 
it with great success in the cure of intermittent and 
other malignant fevers, which prevail in that flat and 
marshy country. The offer of a valuable consideration 
induced him to reveal the secret to Daniel Rolander, 
a Swede, who carried specimens of the wood, together 
with a branch of the tree, the flower, and fruit, to 
Stockholm, in 1756. 
Since this period the drug has been generally em- 
ployed in Europe ; and its efficacy in the removal of 
many diseases has been perfectly ascertained. Di*. 
Cullen, however, observes, that though it is an excel- 
lent bitter, and that it will do all that any pure or 
simple bitter can do, yet his experience of it had not 
led him to think it would do more. Quassia is said to 
possess antiseptic properties, and consequently to have 
considerable influence in retarding a tendency to pu- 
trefaction. It is also sometimes used instead of hops 
in the brewing of malt liquor. 
The root t wood, and bark of the quassia tree are all 
occasionally employed in medicine, and the bark is said 
to be more intensely bitter than either of the other two. 
CLASS XL DODECANDRIA. 
MONOGYNIA. 
145. GAMBOGE is a yellow resinous gum obtained from a 
tree (Garcinia cambogia) which grows in several parts of 
Camboga or Camboya in the empire of Tunkin. 
The leaves of this tree are oval, but acute. The flowers have 
each five petals, and fifteen stamens: they are solitary, terminate 
