32 
ON THE MALAMBO BARK OF CARTHAGENA. 
furnishing any clue to the localities in which it is to be 
found, or the botanical character of the tree from which it 
is obtained, I turned with some eagerness to Mr. Ure's pa- 
per, in the hope of meeting in it some portion of that infor- 
mation which I had failed to procure from other sources; 
but in this expectation I was disappointed. 
It appears from Mr. Ure's paper, that a bark, known by 
the name of Malambo, was received in Europe at least nine 
years before the date of the letter which accompanied the 
specimens sent home from Carthagena by Mr. Watts, of 
which an analysis, made by M. Cadet Gassicourt, appeared 
in the 2d volume of the Journal de Pharmacie, and a 
second analysis, by the celebrated Vauquelin, is to be found 
in the 96th volume of the Annates de Chemie, from which, 
as Mr. Ure's paper informs us, the active constituents of the 
hark appear to be an aromatic volatile oil, a very bitter 
resin, and an extract soluble in water; but neither tannin, or 
any of the alkaloids of cinchona, were found, and only a 
slight trace of gallic acid. 
But in the absence of a satisfactory description of the 
botanical characters, we are unable to determine the iden- 
tity of the several specimens submitted to examination, and 
it remains as much a question as ever whether the tree 
which furnishes it belongs to the genus Drymis, as many 
botanists conjecture — to the genus Quassia, asM. Bonpland 
somewhat hastily concluded, or to some genus not hitherto 
submitted to botanical examination. 
I regret my inability to throw more light upon this part 
of the subject than those who have preceded me; but, as 
connecting links in the medical history of a substance which, 
although known in Europe for upwards of thirty years, 
still slumbers in mysterious obscurity, and is far from being 
appreciated to the extent it merits, the following fragments 
of its local history may not be deemed wholly misplaced 
among the Transactions of the Pharmaceutical Society. 
In a work, on the natural productions of the province of 
