no  Literature  Relating  to  Pharmacy.  {AFe'bJruaryfi897m" 
RECENT  LITERATURE  RELATING  TO  PHARMACY. 
NOTES  ON  THE  TREES  YIELDING  MYRRH. 
E.  M.  Holmes  read  an  interesting  paper  on  this  subject  at 
an  evening  meeting  of  the  Pharmaceutical  Society,  of  Great 
Britain  (Pharmaceutical  Journal,  December  12,  1896),  in  which  he 
detailed  his  own  investigations  and  at  the  same  time  incorporated 
some  literature  on  this  subject,  which  appeared  in  the  Kew  Bulletin 
for  March  and  April,  1896. 
Myrrh  is  imported  into  England  chiefly  from  Aden,  to  which  port 
it  is  sent  from  Arabia  and  Abyssinia.  Some  comes  from  Bombay, 
and  is  known  in  the  London  market  as  "  red  Zanzibar "  myrrh. 
Writers  on  materia  medica  distinguish  four  varieties  :  Somali  myrrh ; 
Arabian  myrrh,  of  Hanbury ;  Arabian  myrrh,  of  Dymock,  or 
Meetiya,  and  Yemen  myrrh.  There  are  also  three  others  men- 
tioned in  Pharmacographia  Indica,  I,  p.  307,  as  occurring  in  the 
Bombay  market :  Persian  myrrh,  sent  principally  from  Mekran, 
Chinese  myrrh  and  Siam  myrrh  or  Meetiya  ;  the  same  authority 
states  that  myrrh  appears  to  have  been  shipped  from  China  as  early 
as  A.  D.  1340. 
Judging  from  the  taste  and  odor  of  the  four  principal  varieties  of 
myrrh  mentioned  above,  it  might  reasonably  be  supposed  that  they 
are  the  product  of  one  species  of  Commiphora,  or  of  varieties  of 
the  same  species  modified  by  conditions  of  soil,  elevation  and 
climate. 
Concerning  the  plant  which  yields  Somali  myrrh,  we  have  no 
exact  information,  for  there  exists  very  little  evidence  connecting 
the  gum  resin  with  the  trees  supposed  to  yield,  owing  partly  to  the 
fact  that  collectors  of  plants  are  not  usually  well  acquainted  with 
the  drugs  of  commerce. 
With  respect  to  Arabian  myrrh  the  case  is  different.  About  the 
year  1820,  Ehrenberg  collected  specimens  of  a  myrrh  tree  at  Gezan, 
in  South  Arabia.  These  were  referred  to  Balsamodendron  myrrha, 
Nees.  Subsequently,  however,  Berg  showed  that  two  species  were 
mixed  under  this  name,  and  he  separated  the  second,  which  has 
obcordate  leaflets,  under  the  name  of  B.  Ehrenbergiana,  Berg.  The 
first  of  these,  Balsamodendron,  or,  as  it  is  now  called,  Commiphora 
myrrha,  has  recently  been  stated  by  Schweinfurth  to  yield  no  resin 
at  all,  and  the  second  has  been  identified  as  a  variety  of  the  Balm  of 
