THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
[Jane 3,1871. 
COG 
may be employed when they are not procurable in a 
fresh state. 
According to the testimony of Dr. Gibson and 
others, the fresh capsules bruised form an efficient 
emollient poultice. 
The seeds are used in native practice in the pre¬ 
paration of a demulcent drink, corresponding to our 
use of barley, and the leaves are used for poultices. 
The musk mallow (H. Ahelmoschus , L. = Ahel- 
moschus moschatus, Mcencli) is also an annual her¬ 
baceous plant with irregularly-toothed hastate leaves. 
The flowers, like those of the former species, are 
yellow with a crimson base, and are succeeded by 
an oblong-lanceolate hairy capsule. The plant is a 
native of the East Indies, but has become naturalized 
in the West, and is also cultivated in most tropicali 
countries. 
Both in the East and West Indies the bruised 
seeds are used internally and externally as a sup¬ 
posed remedy for snake-bites ; they have a very 
strong musky odour, and possess cordial and sto¬ 
machic properties, and the Arabs mix them with 
their coffee to give it a perfume. They are also, 
used by perfumers in this country, chiefly, we. be¬ 
lieve, in the form of powder for sachets, being im¬ 
ported from the West Indies for this purpose. 
Both of the above-named plants abound in a strong i 
silky fibre. 
ORIENTAL SPICES. 
BY JAMES PATON, 
Assistant-Keeper in the Museum of Science and Art, 
Edinburgh. 
(Continued from page 923.) 
International commerce in the earlier ages of the 
world was very different in all its relations and sur¬ 
roundings from the conditions under which the traf¬ 
ficking of the world is conducted. Commercial treaties 
are modern, and free trade is yet only an idea; 
geographical knowledge was cultivated among the 
ancients only to the extent of knowing the strength 
and weakness of neighbouring estates; a foreigner 
all over the world was a natural enemy, a liighway 
through the nations there was therefore none, and 
he was indeed a brave man who trusted himself to 
the sea in the frail vessels which, creeping along 
the coasts, courted destruction at the first blast of a 
summer gale:— 
“ Ille robur et les triplex, 
Circa pectus erat, qui fragilem truci 
Commisit pclago rateru.” 
In these circumstances each people had to find [ 
within its own borders the necessities of life; to 
bring them from abroad was out of the ques¬ 
tion, and when home supplies became insufficient 
the people had to spread themselves outward over 
unoccupied lands. International commerce con¬ 
sisted in passing onward from State to State a very 
lew of the rarest luxuries and indispensable medi¬ 
cines, which the very wealthy and most civilized 
demanded; and these in their progress through each 
nation were made a source of revenue to the com¬ 
munities that commanded the route. Thus spices 
and odorous gums, the rich products of the Eastern 
tropics, of which no single grain has ever been raised 
on the less genial shores of Europe, along with 
precious stones and pearls, from the earliest ages. 
| formed the sole basis of the commerce of the West 
| with the East. 
The earliest glimpse we have of the spice trade 
j gives us a most characteristic and vivid impress of 
the traffic of the early world. As the sons of Jacob 
had just completed the execution of their plot against 
their envied brother Joseph, on the horizon appeared 
“ a company of Islimaelites from Gilead, bearing 
spicery, balm, and myrrh, going to carry it down to 
Egypt.” Thus 1700 years before the Christian era 
we find the Arabs possessed of the spice-trade, which 
their country, as a principal entrepot , continued to 
hold down to the sixteenth centurv, when the whole 
s} T stcm was overthrown by the discovery of the Cape 
passage. At this period Egypt was the capital of 
civilization, learning and luxury; and myrrh, cassia 
and other odoriferous substances, we are informed 
by Herodotus, were used for embalming the dead 
and in religious ceremonies. 
The southern portion of Arabia, called Sabaea or 
Sheba, was peculiarly well situated for commanding 
the great trade in spices (hence the name Arabia 
Felix or Araby the Blest), lying in the direct route 
from the east to the west, commanding the great 
caravan route by the valley of the Euphrates to the 
shores of the Mediterranean, and just opposite the 
Regio Cinnamomifera or Aromata, the north-east 
promontory of Africa, from which, and not from 
India, the main supply of the spices then used was 
drawn. The Sabeans had the necessary skill and 
enterprise for conducting this trade, and cunning 
did not fail them. They overclouded the mysteries 
of the prized commodities with fables, such as that 
cinnamon was gathered from the nests of the phoenix, 
which bird procured it in some miraculous way; that 
it was found in the land of the birth of Bacchus, in 
marshes guarded by winged serpents; that terrible 
bats flew at the eyes of those engaged in gathering 
cassia, and other such tales, all of which we presume 
1 served to keep up both the interest in and price of 
these spices, and to deter the much believing inha¬ 
bitants of the early world from prosecuting such 
! dangerous enterprises on their own account. 
The wealth and glory of Arabia Felix, acquired 
through this spice trade, was the wonder of ancient 
times, and the writers revel in descriptions of the 
grandeur of its cities, and the magnificence of its 
merchants’ houses. Vessels of silver and gold, 
pillars of houses of pure silver, furniture inlaid and 
■overlaid with pure silver, gold and precious stones 
are spoken of as common furnishings in the houses 
of the merchants; and our own Milton, in imaging 
the gorgeous state of the prince of the power of dark¬ 
ness, uses the comparison:— 
“ High on a throne of royal state which far 
Outshone the wealth of Ormuz or of Inch” 
Further, the fame of spices from Araby, and the 
poetical fallacy of winds laden with the spicy odours 
he alludes to in one of his magnificent images— 
“ North-west winds blow 
Sab can odours from the spicy shores 
Of Araby the blest.” 
Civilization and the trade in spices, from the 
earliest ages of which we have any records, marched 
steadily from East to West, hand in hand, till in the 
end of the fifteenth century, having reached the 
great ocean, this very spice trade carried civilization 
across this mighty obstacle, and added a new and 
