Am.  Jour.  Phaem.  1 
Oct.  1, 1871.  J 
Radix  Galangce. 
453 
namom,  galangal^  mace,  myrobalans,  camphor,  nutmegs,  cloves  and 
cubebs.* 
The  Arabian  physicians,  from  Rhazes  and  Alkindi,  in  the  tenth  and 
eleventh  centuries  downwards,  make  frequent  reference  to  galangal 
as  an  ingredient  of  the  complicated  medicines  then  in  use. 
Among  the  later  Greeks  I  cannot  find  any  mention  made  of  this 
drug  prior  to  Myrepsus,  who  probably  resided  as  physician  at  the 
court  of  the  Greek  Emperors  at  Niceea  in  the  thirteenth  century : 
though  several  authors  declare  it  is  referred  to  much  earlier.  It  is 
constantly  named  by  Actuarius,  who  may  have  been  contemporary 
with  Myrepsus. 
In  a  work  published  some  years  ago  in  Paris,  entitled  Assises  de 
Jerusalem,  ou  Recueil  des  Ouvrages  de  Jurisprudence  composs  pen- 
dant le  xiii^  siecle  dans  les  Royaumes  de  Jerusalem  et  de  Chypre/'f 
there  is  a  remarkable  list  of  commodities  liable  to  duty  during  the 
twelfth  century  at  the  port  of  Aeon  in  Syria  (the  modern  Akka),  at 
that  period  a  great  emporium  of  Mediterranean  trade,  in  which  many 
Indian  spices  and  drugs,  including  galangal^  are  enumerated. 
We  find  galangal  also  noticed,  together  with  ginger  and  zedoary, 
as  productions  of  India  imported  into  Palestine,  by  Jaques  de  Vitri, 
Bishop  of  Aeon  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century  ;|  and  in 
the  "Romance  of  Godefroi  de  Bouillon,"  a  poem  written  in  the 
twelfth  century,  it  is  named  as  one  of  the  rarities  of  the  East,  which 
the  Crusaders  were  deluded  into  believing  would  be  found  in  plenty  , 
in  the  Holy  Land.§ 
Marco  Polo,  in  his  travels  in  Asia  in  the  thirteenth  century,  ob- 
served galangal  to  be  produced  in  Southern  China  (Province  of  Eoo- 
chow  ?),  as  well  as  in  Java.|| 
About  this  period  it  was  also  known  in  Western  Europe.  St. 
Hildegard,  Abbess  of  Bingen,  who  died  in  A.D.  1179,  names  it  as 
galgan^  and  comments  upon  its  medicinal  virtues. f 
*  "  Geographic  d'Edrisi,"  traduite  par  A.  Jaubert,  Paris,  1836-40, 4to,  tome  i 
p.  51. 
t  Paris,  1841-43,  fol.  tome  ii.  chap.  142. 
J.  Vitriaco  (Jac.  de),  "  Historia  Orientalis  et  Occidentalis,"  1597, 8vo,  p.  172. 
2  "  Bibliotheque  de  TEcole  des  Charles,"  tome  ii.  (1840-41),  p.  437. 
II  "Le  Livre  de  Marco  Polo"  (ed.  Pauthier :  Paris,  1865),  pp.  522,  561. 
f  "  S.  Hildegardis  Abbatissse  Opera  omnia,"  accurante  J.  P.  Migne,  Paris,. 
1855,  p.  1134. 
