460 
Dragon  s  Blood. 
A.rn.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Sept.,  1893. 
DRAGON'S  BLOOD.1 
By  Professor  Fluckiger. 
In  an  article  in  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal  of  July  15,  p.  47, 
Monardes  is  quoted  as  the  first  author  who  mentioned  American 
dragon's  blood.  In  his  4<  Primera  y  segunda  y  tercera  partes  de  la 
Historia  medicinal  de  las  cosas  que  se  traen  de  nuestras  Indias 
Occidentales  que  sirven  en  Medicine,"  Sevilla,  1574,  page  78,  the 
figure  "  El  dragon  "  shows  three  pods  of  a  tree  from  which  the  drug 
was  collected  in  the  time  of  Monardes,  in  the  country  of  Carthagena. 
One  of  the  pods  is  open  and  exhibits  the  outline  of  an  animal  of  the 
fabulous  kind  of  a  dragon,  just  as  described  in  the  said  paper  in  the 
words  of  Gerard's  "  Herbal." 
The  question  to  be  solved  is,  says  the  author  of  the  paper  inserted 
in  the  Pharmaceutical  Journal  (from  Gardeners'  Chronicle),  what 
was  the  fruit  mentioned  by  Monardes,  which  contained  so  striking 
a  verisimilitude  to  a  dragon  ? 
The  figures  of  Monardes  are  so  extremely  crude  that  they  can- 
not afford  any  idea  of  the  plant  to  which  they  belong.  Still,  they 
may  be  allowed  to  represent  the  pods  of  some  species  of  the 
leguminous  order. 
Dragon's  blood  was  certainly  never  an  important  article  of  com- 
merce in  Europe,  and  that  from  Carthagena  probably  made  its 
appearance  in  the  market  but  very  irregularly,  and  has  completely 
disappeared  long  ago.  It  was,  however,  to  be  met  with  at  that 
time  ;  thus  we  find  it  plainly  described  by  one  of  the  most  competent 
pharmacologists  of  the  middle  of  our  century.  Theodore  W.  C. 
Martius  (see  Hanbury's  ''Science  Papers,"  p.  7  and  25),  Professor  of 
Materia  Medica  in  the  Bavarian  University  of  Erlangen  (+1863), 
enumerates  three  varieties  of  dragon's  blood  in  his  "  Grundriss  der 
Pharmakognosie,"  Erlangen,  1842,  p.  366  to  369,  viz:  that  from 
Calamus,  that  from  Dracaena  (see  "  Pharmacographia,"  2d  edition,  p. 
672  to  676),  and,  thirdly,  that  from  Carthagena,  the  source  of  which 
according  to  Martius,  is  Pterocarpus  Draco,  L.  This  tree  having 
been  named  by  Linne,  the  knowledge  of  its  product  must  have 
induced  Linne  to  bestow  on  it  the  specific  name  of  Draco. 
Pterocarpus  Draco,  indeed,  is  pointed  out  as  the  mother  plant  of  the 
drug  under  notice  as  early  as  A.  D.  1749,  in  the  first  edition  of 
1  From  Pharm.  Jour.  Trans.,  Aug.  5,  1893,  p,  108. 
