May 13, 1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
901 
ORIENTAL SPICES.* 
BY JAMES BATON, 
Assistant-Keeper in the Museum of Science ancl Art, 
Edinburgh. 
In the early history of the world, and down to 
comparatively modern times, the trade in spices oc¬ 
cupied a very different position from that in which 
we now find it. The name itself indicates that they 
were the chief medium of international exchange; 
and in our language, to the present day, we have 
the word specie applied to gold used for such ex¬ 
change. Both words are derived from the Latin 
species, land or quality; thus both spice and specie 
mean the special kind or medium of trade. Spice 
was thus in ancient times the staple of foreign com¬ 
merce, as cattle was that of domestic trade; in pro¬ 
cess of time men found it convenient, instead of 
dragging about their oxen, to use the image of an ox 
on a bit of leather, hence pecunia and pecuniary, or 
cattle transactions; so also in foreign commerce 
specie or gold tokens came into the place of, or to ex¬ 
change for spices. 
As the primary object of tliis paper is to give an 
outline of the commerce in these substances, only 
such notes of their natural history will be prefixed 
as may enable us to comprehend what we mean by 
Oriental spices, and some of the conditions under 
which they grow. 
All spices have in common a hot pungent taste, 
and are possessed of stimulant properties, in which 
their value chiefly lies; they possess, in addition, 
a more or less pleasing aromatic flavour, and 
these properties reside in an essential oil, or other 
chemical bodies they contain. They are drawn from 
widely different sections of the vegetable kingdom, 
and from very various organs and parts of plants. 
Thus we have spices from rhizomes or root-stocks, 
from bark, twigs, leaves, flower-buds, fruit and from 
the appendages of the fruit, so that almost every part 
of the living plant is in turn employed to yield these 
precious products. Notwithstanding this, the series 
of substances used to any considerable extent in the 
form of spice is not at all extensive; and it is only to 
the two or three, which have had much commercial 
importance, including cinnamon and its allies, com¬ 
mon pepper, the clove, the nutmeg and mace, that 
we may at the present time refer. 
Foremost in order of antiquity, most highly prized 
for delicacy of flavour, and most generally esteemed, 
stand the spices of the cinnamon series. In regard 
to these, a considerable amount of confusion long 
existed, and still, to some extent, remains. Cinna¬ 
mon, cassia, or cassia lignea, and cassia vera are the 
recognized commercial distinctions of these sub¬ 
stances ; and as regards properties and value they 
are quite sufficient. They are the barks of various 
species of trees or shrubs belonging to the Natural 
Order Lcairacece, or Laurels ; and, as cultivated, are 
in their foliage and general appearance not unlike 
the so-called laurels or bay bushes common along all 
garden and park walks. "Were the plants allowed 
to develope they would become trees of considerable 
size; but as the most valuable bark is procured 
from young shoots, the coppice system is pursued in 
their cultivation; that is, they are treated as we 
treat our plantations for yielding oak bark, the main 
* Paper read before the North British Branch of the Phar¬ 
maceutical Society at Edinburgh, April 24, 1871. 
Third Series, No. 4G. 
stem being cut down, a vigorous growth of shoots 
springs from the roots, and from these shoots cinna¬ 
mon and cassia are prepared. 
The true cinnamon of modern times is derived 
from Ginnamomum Zeylanicum ; so named from the 
impression that Ceylon is the native country of 
cinnamon. Undoubtedly the best, and, till within 
very recent times, the only true cinnamon brought 
to Europe, since the Portuguese opened up the Cape 
passage, came from Ceylon. But it is remarkable 
that, previous to the settlement of the Portuguese in 
Ceylon, only the most obscure hints regarding its 
existence in that country are to be found. And it 
was not till well into the seventeenth century, after 
the Dutch had long held the island and devoted 
very great attention to the cultivation of this spice, 
that the fame of Ceylon cinnamon arose, as being 
the finest and richest in the world, Ceylon may, 
notwithstanding, have been its native country ; but, 
in that case, the cinnamon of the earlier ages must 
have been a variety of cassia, which we find by 
Pereira is in much greater esteem than cinnamon 
in the East of Europe—the countries of the early 
overland traffic. Or it has also been suggested 
that cinnamon, as well as coffee, is a native of 
north-east Africa, the country marked in ancient 
maps Begio Cinnamomifera or Aromata ; now known 
as Guardafui, from two Arabic words, meaning the 
promontory of spices; and that the enterprising 
Arabs conveyed the plants to both the Malabar 
coast of India and Ceylon ; in the latter of which all 
the conditions for the most perfect development of 
their properties existed, whereas in India they 
quickly degenerated, and have only left their traces in 
valueless wild plants found among the Coorg Hills. 
The sources of the less delicate spice, cassia, are 
more numerous, being produced by several species 
of Ginnamomum; ancl geographically, it is compa¬ 
ratively widespread. . The species of Ginnamomum 
yielding cassia have not yet been very clearly esta¬ 
blished ; but there is no doubt that Chinese cassia, 
which is most largely imported, is yielded by a dif¬ 
ferent species from that which flourishes in Hin- 
dostan. The old Dutch naturalist Rumphius re¬ 
marked that cinnamon, cassia, and clove bark, 
though so very much alike, are scarcely ever found 
in the same countries; it is, therefore, probable that 
cassia is produced in the different regions where it 
grows from different but allied species. However, 
as no commercial distinction is maintained betwixt 
these, it is sufficient for our purposes to know that 
cassia is a comparatively widespread spice, culti¬ 
vated in China, the Malay Peninsula, Hindostan, 
and many of the islands of the Indian Archipelago. 
The bark known as Cassia vera, is the thick 
pieces taken from the old stems of the species of 
Ginnamomum, and differs from the others only in 
containing a very large proportion of woody fibre to 
an exceedingly small percentage of aromatic matter. 
The less important spices yielded by the Ordei: 
Lauracece we simply enumerate as cassia buds, the 
flower-buds of species of Ginnamomum ; clove bark, 
the Culitlawan or Kulit-lawang bark (Ginnamomum 
culitlawan) of the Moluccas or Spice Islands; and 
the Ravensara nuts of Madagascar (Agathophyllum 
aromaticum ). The commercial relations of these are 
unimportant. 
Cloves, which are the flower-buds of a tree, the 
Garyophyllus aromaticus, belonging to the Natural 
I Order Myrtacece or Myrtles, were originally confined 
