THE  AMERICAN 
JOURNAL  OF  PHARMACY. 
APRIL,  1877. 
NOTES  ON  THE  JOYOTE  OF  MEXICO. 
By  Professor  Alfonso  Herrera,  Member  of  the  Mexican  Society  of  Natural  History, 
In  the  damp,  hot  regions  of  the  fertile  mountains  of  the  great  Mexi- 
can Cordillera  grows  a  tree  remarkable  for  its  thick  foliage,  eleganre 
and  beauty  of  its  golden  colored  flowers,  and  the  uncommon  form  of 
its  fruit.  The  Aztecs  called  it  Joyotli,  hawks-bell,  on  account  of  the 
use  they  made  of  the  nuts  as  bells,  but  others  say  that  it  takes  its  name 
from  the  property  of  the  seeds  to  cure  the  bite  of  the  Crotalus,  rattle- 
snake ;  and  the  wise  physician,  Felipe  II.,  says:  "  The  ancient: 
Mexicans  made  use  of  the  milky  juice  that  the  tree  produces  in  abund- 
ance, for  curing  deafness  and  cutaneous  diseases.  They  applied  the 
leaves  topically  in  toothache,  and  as  an  emollient  and  resolvent  to 
tumors,  and  lastly,  they  used  the  fruit  to  heal  ulcers." 
At  present  the  fruit  is  called  huesos  o  codos  de  fraile,  bones  or 
friar's  elbow,  perhaps  for  its  resemblance  to  the  human  elbow.  Among 
the  people  these  seeds  have  a  great  reputation  in  hemorrhoids,  ancL 
are  applied  topically  after  being  triturated  and  mixed  with  suet. 
The  joyote  is  the  Thevetia  yccotli^  De  C,  Cerbera  thebetioides  H.  B.;. 
nat.  ord.  Apocynaceae  tribe  Carisseae,  an  elegant  tree  whose  numerous, 
branches  are  covered  with  a  greenish  silver-gray  epidermis,  with  gray 
wrinkles,  longitudinal  furrows  and  protuberances  somewhat  spirally 
arranged  ;  its  leaves  are  sessile,  linear,  acuminate,  dark-green  above 
and  pubescent  and  of  a  lighter  color  beneath,  with  some  prominent 
transverse  veins ;  the  margin  is  entire  and  revolute ;  size,  fourteen, 
centimeters  long  and  seven  millimeters  wide.  Inflorescence  cymose^ 
calyx  five-parted,  lobes  lanceolate,  acuminate  and  beardless,  corolla 
salver-shaped,  pubescent  in  the  lower  part  of  the  tube  and  throat,  the 
1  Hernandez  has  corrupted  the  word  Joyotli  of  the  Aztecs  into  iccotli,  and  De 
Candolle  used  the  latter  as  the  specific  name  of  this  plant. 
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