362 
The  History  of  some  Drugs. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharrci. 
Aug  ,  1876. 
the  same  periods  which  I  have  not  yet  been  able  to  consult.  No  other 
country,  as  far  as  I  know,  can  boast  of  such  a  number  of  similar  docu- 
ments, which  I  think  must  be  considered  as  an  evidence  of  a  somewhat 
advanced  state  of  the  pharmacy  in  those  ages,  although  the  fact  may 
partly  be  explained  by  the  extreme,  and  we  may  say  absurd,  self-gov- 
ernment then  prevailing  among  the  Germans.  In  1872  at  last  the  way 
has  been  cleared  for  ever  by  the  "  Pharmacopoea  Germanica." 
In  abstracting  the  said  tariffs,  I  have  met  with  a  good  deal  of  informa- 
tion which  may  some  day  prove  useful  to  any  author  engaged  in  the 
history  of  Pharmacy.  I  have  therefore  communicated  my  notes  to  the 
Archiv  der  Pharmacie,  volumes  204  and  205  (1875  and  1876),  from 
which  they  are  reprinted  under  the  title  "  Documente  zur  Geschichte 
der  Pharmacie,"  Halle,  1876,  96  pages.  A  few  pages  from  this  pam- 
phlet may  be  permitted  to  be  quoted  in  this  place  in  order  to  show  that 
they  afford  even  some  further  elucidation  to  questions  which  had  been 
treated  with  a  certain  amount  of  care  in  the  "  Pharmacographia."  The 
sources  from  which  the  following  facts  have  been  borrowed  are  pointed 
out  in  the  pamphlet  : 
Balsamum  Canadense  is  stated  ("  Pharmacographia,"  p.  553)  to  have 
been  noticed  in  England  A.D.  1761,  but  in  my  "  Documente,"  p.  92, 
it  is  found  to  have  been  sold  at  Strassburg  as  early  as  1759  as  a  current 
article  of  the  pharmacy  of  that  country. 
Balsamum  Copaivce. — Its  history  is  somewhat  exhaustively  traced 
out  in  "Pharmacographia,"  p.  201,  and  also  (p.  184)  that  of  a  certain 
white  American  balsam,  the  latter  being  derived  from  several  species 
of  Myroxylon  and  Myrocarpus.  It  would  appear  from  some  tariffs 
abstracted  in  the  "  Documente,"  pp.  47,  52,  65,  68  and  69,  that  in 
some  cases  Balsamum  Americanum,  s.  Indicum,  s.  Mexicanum  album  was 
probably  intended  for  copaiba — for  instance,  in  the  private  tariff  of  an 
apothecary  of  the  city  of  Gorlitz,  of  the  year  1629.  But  in  the  Phar- 
macopoeia of  Amsterdam,  A.D.  1636,  editio  sexto,  Balsam.  Copce.  yvez  is 
distinctly  enumerated.  The  authors  of  the  "  Pharmacographia  "  had 
not  been  able  to  find  it  mentioned  in  English  pharmacy  previous  to  the 
year  1677. 
Balsamum  Peruvianum. — Perhaps  Balsamum  Indicum,  of  the  tariffs  of 
1605  and  J6o7,  quoted  in  the  tC  Documente,"  pp.  35  and  36,  may  mean 
Peru  balsam  ;  it  is,  however,  expressly  termed  Balsamum  Peruvianum 
in  the  tax  of  Mainz  (Mayence),  A.D.  1609,  and  what  is  more  curious, 
