204 
Commercial  Aloes. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
May,  1903. 
Dr.  Squibb,10  in  a  report  on  the  state  of  the  drug  market  during 
the  early  years  of  the  Civil  War,  says:  "  The  better  grades  of  aloes 
have  been  scarce,  while  the  inferior  grades  of  aloes,  such  as  Cape, 
Curacao,  Bonaire  and  Barbadoes,  have  been  quite  abundant."  This 
appears  to  be  one  of  the  early  references  to  Bonaire  aloes  as  a  dis- 
tinct variety. 
Professor  Maisch,u  in  his  Materia  Medica,  mentions  Socotrine, 
Barbadoes,  Cape,  Mocha,  Caballine  and  Natal  aloes.  The  latter  is 
described  as  "  light  yellowish  gray-brown,  dull  and  opaque,  crystal- 
line under  the  microscope." 
The  United  States  Dispensatory  of  about  the  same  date  mentions 
Natal  aloes  as  a  variety  of  Cape  aloes.12 
At  the  present  time  the  different  national  Pharmacopoeias  recog- 
nize but  three  separate  kinds  of  aloes : 1 
Socotrine,  official  in  the  United  States,14  British,15  Roumanian  and 
Portuguese  Pharmacopoeias. 
Cape,  a  glossy,  transparent  variety,  is  official  in  all  the  European 
Pharmacopoeias. 
Barbadoes,  official  in  the  United  States,14  British15  and  several  of 
the  European  Pharmacopoeias. 
In  addition  to  these  official  varieties,  we  find  the  following  names 
mentioned  either  in  the  price-lists  of  wholesale  druggists  or  in  con- 
temporary pharmaceutic  literature :  Curacao,  Bonaire,  Uganda  and 
Jaffarabad.  These  different  trade  names  will  be  referred  to  more  in 
detail  in  a  later  portion  of  this  paper. 
BOTANICAL  ORIGIN  AND  SOURCES. 
Engler  and  Prantl,  in  their  exhaustive  work  on  the  useful  plants, 
say:  "There  are  more  than  eighty-five  species  of  Aloe,  of  which 
uoward  of  sixty  are  found  in  Cape  Colony  and  are  indigenous  to  it. 
There  is  but  one  variety  on  the  island  of  Socotra  (Aloe  Perryi, 
Baker),  and  this  is  usually  mentioned  as  the  source  of  the  so-called 
Socotrine  aloes." 
The  most  northern  species  of  aloes  (Aloe  Vera,  Lin.,  Aloe  Barba- 
densis,  Miller)  is  probably  indigenous  to  the  northern  shore  of 
Africa,  and  from  there  has  gradually  spread  to  the  southern  shores 
of  Europe,  to  Syria,  Arabia,  the  East  Indies,  and  later  to  the  islands 
of  the  West  Indies,  principally  Barbadoes. 
Aloe  Chinensis,  Baker,  is  regarded  by  Engler  and  Prantl  as  belong- 
