2 
ESSAY ON SCAMMONY. 
in the British market;" which circumstance he further 
states, "can only be accounted for by supposing that 
authors have copied one from another, for some considera- 
ble time, instead of examining the commercial varieties of 
the drug for themselves." The application of these state- 
ments to this country is equally pertinent, and the present 
communication has been prepared, that the attention of this 
College may be directed to the topic, in which its members 
are deeply concerned. In preparing the essay, it has been 
thought, that it would be more satisfactory to treat of the 
subject as a whole, than merely to present the facts which 
some research has elicited ; that while the existing state of 
things is exhibited, prominent points of comparison may 
be afforded, and the whole truth if possible arrived at. In 
so doing, the proper credit will be awarded to those writers 
who have assisted the undertaking. 
The first writer on scammony, in whose treatise any 
attempt at description is met with, is Dioscorides. He was 
a native of Cilicia in Asia Minor, and lived during the 
second century ; he wrote in Greek, and his book has been 
much an object of comment. The description of the plant 
is defective, but yet so given as to apply to the species 
which has since been recognized as the true one, the 
Convolvulus scammonia of Linnseus, Sp. PI. 218. It was 
called Scammonea syriaca by Bauhin, Fin. 294, by 
Hht, 722 ; and Convolvulus syriacus by Morrison Hist. 
and by Tournefort. Syrian Bind- weed, wdiS i\\Q common 
term applied to it. Sibthorp in his Flora Grseca, has intro- 
duced the species of Linnseus by its name C. scammonia ^ 
and says, " that from this species Alleppo-scammony is pre- 
pared." He met with it at Rhodes, but he has thrown a 
doubt over the question of identity, with respect to this 
species and that of Dioscorides, and supposes that the latter 
was the C. farinosus. In treating this subject, Professor 
Lindley remarks, upon what ground Dr. Sibthorp re- 
ferred the scammony of Dioscorides to Convolvulus fainno- 
