ESSAY ON SCAMMONT. 
5 
Smyrna scammony was made in commerce for at least a 
century and a half, it has but recently been abandoned, for 
reasons to be stated directly. When the Dictionnaire Uni- 
versel des Brogues Simples of Lemery, of 1733, was pub- 
lished, the distinction between them was well established. 
This author has stated that the first is preferable to the 
second, and is <^ clean, light, tender, friable, resinous, grey, 
easily reduced to an ash-grey powder, of a stale, disagree- 
able odour, and a taste a little bitter the latter is ^' more 
close or compact, heavier, blacker, less resinous, breaking 
with difficulty, less grey in powder, and whitening less the 
liquor in which it is dissolved." It is evident from the peru- 
sal of the description given by Lemery, of the Aleppo kind, 
and a comparison of it with that presently to be presented 
of Virgin scammony, that the same substance is referred 
to. The writers of drugs of nearly the same date, (the 
middle of the eighteenth century) asTournefort, Lewis and 
Pomet, describe the article in the same terms, and con- 
trast it with Smyrna scammony. In the course of time, 
the application of the name Aleppo was made to an 
article of infinitely inferior quality, fabricated from the 
pure drug, and sufficiently differing from Smyrna to main- 
tain the impression that it was genuine. 
The question now arises, why was there a difference be- 
tween the two varieties just noticed.^ It is agreed by all 
authorities from Dioscorides of ancient date, to Russel in 
modern times, that the best, the purest product, is the re- 
sult of natural exudation from the root of the plant; the 
description given by these writers with an interval of six- 
teen centuries closely correspond. Mesne, the younger, 
who flourished during the tenth century, an Arabian, and 
consequently well instructed, informs us, however, that this 
was not the only method, three others being mentioned, 
viz., by heating the root, by bruising it and compressing 
the juices, and by performing the same operation on the 
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