Am.  Jour.  Pharm.  ) 
Aug.,  1876.  J 
The  History  of  some  Drugs. 
365 
One  of  the  most  curious  things  is  the  occurrence  of  coals,  carbones 
petrce,  among  the  drugs  of  the  tariff  of  the  city  of  Freiberg,  in  Saxony, 
A.D.  1680. 
Cacao  seeds  and  chocolate  were  to  be  found  with  German  pharma- 
ceutists as  early  as  1656  and  1683  ("  Documente,"  pp.  53  and  69),, 
and  Coffee — "  Bon  Com*  Grana" — in  1683  in  the  pharmaceutical  office 
of  the  court  of  Dresden.  It  is  much  more  striking  to  learn  from  the 
tariff  of  the  city  of  Nordhausen,  near  Gottingen,  that  in  1657 — Herba 
thece — was  there  a  pharmaceutical  aiticle.  It  also  occurs  in  the  tariff 
of  Liegnitz,  in  Silesia,  in  1662,  under  its  Chinese  name,  Herba  shak  ; 
it  then  commanded  a  most  extraordinary  price,  namely,  fifteen  florins  a 
handful. 
Gamboge. — I  have  afforded  some  new  information  about  the  history 
of  that  drug,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  u  Documente,"  pp.  41,  43,  44,  46,, 
48,  etc.  In  the  list  of  Frankfurt,  of  161 2,  Gutta  gemou  (gamboge)  is 
stated  to  be  a  purging  dried  juice,  coming  from  the  kingdom  of  Patana 
in  India.  The  meaning  of  Gutta  gemou  is  explained  in  the  "  Pharma- 
cographia,"  p.  77.  Patana  is  a  country  and  a  port  on  the  eastern  coast 
of  the  peninsula  of  Malacca,  where  the  Dutch  established  a  settlement 
in  1602,  and  were  followed  there  in  1612  by  the  English.  Gamboge 
may  have  been  imported  there  from  the  countries  on  the  opposite  shore 
of  Cambodja,  where  it  is  still  colleted.1  Its  early  introduction  in 
Europe  is,  no  doubt,  due  to  the  Dutch.  In  the  tariff  of  Copenhagen 
of  1 6 19,  and  in  many  tariffs  of  German  towns  down  to  the  eighteenth 
century,  gamboge  is  also  termed  Gummi  de  Peru,  which  is,  no  doubt,, 
simply  a  corruption  of  the  Javanese  word  gemou,  or  jamu — i.  e.,  a 
medicine  ("  Pharmacographia,"  p.  77,  note  4). 
Iris  Florentina. — As  may  be  seen  even  in  the  "  Divina  Commedia,'> 
cant,  xvi,  the  ancient  arms  of  Florence  were  a  white  iris  on  a  red  shield, 
which  were  subsequently  altered,  the  red  iris  or  lily  (giaggiold)  now  be- 
ing on  a  white  shield.  This  probably  indicates  an  early  cultivation  of 
orris  root  near  Florence.  In  the  early  ages,  that  of  Illyria  was  held  to 
be  the  best  (u  Pharmacographia,"  p.  599),  and  was  still  quoted  in  many 
of  the  German  lists  under  notice.  In  that  of  Schweinfurt,  in  i6i4> 
Radix  Iridis  Florentine,  however,  is  the  only  one  mentioned. 
Liquorice. — A  list  published  in  1582  at  Frankfurt  informs  us  that 
they  had  then  Russian  and  Spanish  liquorice  and  inspissated  liquorice 
1  See  Pharm.  Journ.,  iv.  (1874),  p.  803. 
