THE 
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF PHARMACY. 
OCTOBER,, 1 850. 
ART. LXIV.— OBSERVATIONS ON COPAIBA. 
By William Procter, Jr. 
Copaiba as a drug, under the name of Balsam of Copai- 
va, has been known and written about for more than two 
hundred years, and its valuable remedial powers have at- 
tracted and received the deliberate attention of physi- 
cians, pharmaceutists, and chemists, for many years past, 
The genus Copaifera is an extensive one ; its species 
though occurring most largely in the forests of Northern and 
Eastern Brazil, are found in those of Guiana, Venezuela, and 
in some of the West India Islands. As yet no writer has 
described accurately the botanical sources of the several 
kinds of copaiba found in commerce, nor have travellers 
satisfactorily ascertained whether each of these is invariably 
the product of a single species of Copaifera, or whether they 
are sometimes the mixed products of several species grow- 
ing together in the region of collection. " According to 
Hayne, the species from which most of the copaiba of com- 
merce is derived is the C. multijuga, growing in the pro- 
vince of Para." (U. S. Disp.) But the C. Martii of Hayne, 
and perhaps other species, grow in that neighborhood, and 
may contribute to the Para balsam. The copaiba derived 
from the vicinitv of Rio Janeiro is attributed to C. Langs- 
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