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ON  STORAX. 
corides :  and  most  of  them  can  be  identified.  Gabala  is  the 
modern  village  of  Djebeleh,  a  few  miles  to  the  south  of  Latakia. 
The  ruins  of  Marathus  still  exist.  Casius  and  Amanus  are 
mountains  near  the  Gulf  of  Iskenderun,  still  to  be  traced  under 
Turkish  names.  The  position  of  the  ancient  countries  of  Pisidia, 
Pamphylia  and  Cilicia  in  the  south-eastern  part  of  Asia  Minor 
is  well  known  :  and  Si  don,  Cyprus  and  Crete  are  familiar  to  all. 
In  several  of  these  localities,  Styrax  officinale  is,  at  the  present 
day,  a  common  wild  shrub. 
The  drug  thus  described  by  these  ancient  authors,  is  that  which 
I  conceive  to  be  the  original  and  legitimate  Storax,  namely  a 
fragrant  resin  in  separate,  or  more  or  less  agglutinated  tears, 
somewhat  resembling  Benzoin,  exuded  either  spontaneously  or 
after  incision,  from  the  trunk  of  the  Styrax  officinale  of  Linnaeus. 
That  such  a  drug,  in  a  state  of  greater  or  less  purity,  was  in 
former,  and  even  in  comparatively  recent  times,  an  article  of 
commerce,  appears  certain  from  the  specimens  still  existing  in  a 
few  old  collections  of  Materia  Medica,  as  well  as  from  the  de- 
scriptions of  the  best  Storax  given  by  the  pharmacologists  of  the 
last  century  agreeing  very  fairly  with  the  account  left  by 
Dioscorides.* 
This  fine  kind  of  Storax,  always  extremely  scarce,  was  called 
amygdaloid,  from  the  small,  white,  almond-like  tears  of  which  it 
partially  consisted.  It  also  bore  the  name  Styrax  calamites,  a 
term  derived  from  the  ancient  method  of  packing  it  in  reeds 
[calamiy\  It  has,  however,  wholly  disappeared  from  commerce, 
its  name  alone  Styrax  catamites  or  calamita  being  retained  in 
favor  of  that  odoriferous,  sawdust-like  compound  which  we  are 
accustomed  to  find  in  the  shops.  In  France,  it  is  applied  to  a 
black,  extractiform,  odoriferous  substance  which  I  shall  more 
particularly  describe  in  a  future  paper. 
*  See  especially  Kirsten,  Exercitatio  de  Siyrace,  Altorf,  1736.  4to. 
t  According  to  Matthiolus,  the  allusion  to  Calami  in  connexion  with 
Storax  first  occurs  in  Galen.    I  find  the  passage  to  be  as  follows  : 
"  Manifestum  insuper  est  Styracem  qui  in  calamis  e  Pamphilia  apportatur, 
Andromachum  praecipere.  Paucissimus  autem  illic  styrax  nascitur :  tan- 
tumque  ab  hoc  vulgari  distat,  quantum  a  vino  quod  in  tabernis  venditur 
Falernum."  (Galen.  De  Antidotis,  lib.  i.  cap.  14.) 
The  term  Catamites  has  been  supposed  to  be  derived  for  k*t*/?«a/tjj?)  a 
vulgar  reading  for  y^v-ums,  as  explained  at  length  by  Matthiolus  {Comm. 
in  lib.L  Dioscorid.  cap.  LXVIII.) 
