THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[April l», 1873. 
822 
elicited no information, it may tend to stimulate 
those who are located in positions favourable for re¬ 
search if the state of our knowledge on the subject is 
briefly explained. The direction in which investi¬ 
gations should be made will thus become more ap¬ 
parent. 
Myrrh is a gum-resin exuding from the stem of a 
small tree or shrub which is a native of the hot and 
dry countries around the southern extremity of the 
Red Sea. Though the substance itself has been 
known to mankind from the remotest period of his¬ 
tory, and though it has been among the most pre¬ 
cious articles of ancient commerce, the tree which 
affords it is almost—perhaps altogether—unknown 
to botanists. Whether the myrrh-tree belongs to a 
single species is doubtful; it is more probable that 
the drug is furnished by two or three distinct but 
allied species. 
Let us now consider what has been ascertained 
on the subject. In 1820-26, the German traveller 
Ehrenberg visited the countries bordering the Red 
Sea, and among other places, Ghizan (Jhizan or 
Jezan), a town or village lying on the Arabian coast 
in latitude 16°40'N., opposite to the group of islands 
called the Earsan Archipelago,—that is to say, about 
,200 miles north of the straits of Bab-el-Mandeb 
Balsamodendron Myrrha (after N. v. Esenbeck). 
Here, and on the neighbouring mountains of Djara 
and Kara (which I do not find on any map I have 
been able to consult), he discovered myrrh-trees, 
forming, as he says, the underwood of a forest of 
Acacia, Moringa, and Euphorbia. From these myrrh- 
trees, he states, he picked some very fine myrrh. 
He also obtained herbarium specimens which the 
botanist Nees von Esenbeck described and figured 
under the name of Balsamodendron Myrrha ,—thus, 
as it would seem, completely settling the question. 
A few years ago Ehrenberg’s herbarium was incor¬ 
porated in the Royal Herbarium of Berlin, and these 
myrrh-tree specimens were re-examined by Dr. Otto 
Berg, with results which doubtless occasioned him 
some surprise. He found in fact, that Ehrenberg’s 
Arabian myrrh-tree comprised two very distinct 
plants, namely, that figured by Von Esenbeck, and 
another to which was attached {correctly, let us hope) 
Ehrenberg’s own tickets, stating that from it he had 
got myrrh. Berg gave the new myrrh-tree the name 
of B. Ehrenbergianum. 
Whether myrrh is collected from both we do not 
know. Ehrenberg himself does not assert that the 
natives about Ghizan collect myrrh at all; and the 
myrrh of commerce is certainly not brought from 
that neighbourhood. 
Whence, then, is myrrh brought ? Vaughan, who 
was port-surgeon at Aden in 1852, says that a little 
is obtained on the south coast of Arabia, about 40 
miles to the east of Aden. But this Arabian myrrh, 
of which I have seen samples, has not (although pure 
and clean) exactly the characters of true myrrh, and 
there is good reason to believe it the produce of an¬ 
other species than that affording the latter. However 
this may be, the Aden myrrh-tree is wholly unknown 
to botanists. Vaughan further pointed out that 
B. Ehrenbergianum (after Berg). 
myrrh, which is more commonly known at Aden by 
its Indian name of Hera-b6l than by its Arabic de¬ 
signation of Mur, is collected in great quantities 
by the Somali tribes occupying the country between 
Zeila and Cape Gardafui; and that it is also brought 
from Harar (otherwise called Hurrur or Adari), a 
commercial town of the interior, about 175 miles 
