AmAur*x8P7h6arm*}         The  History  of  some  Drugs.  367 
by  Joachim  Camerarius  ;  and  was  to  be  found  in  1608  in  the 
"  Apotheke  "  of  the  city  of  Schweinfurt. 
One  of  the  most  costly  oils  used  to  be  that  of  cinnamon  ;  it  was 
even  quoted  at  a  higher  rate  than  otto  of  rose.  The  latter  was  a 
regular  article  of  pharmacy  in  Germany  as  far  back  as  the  year  1607, 
when  it  was  enumerated  in  the  list  of  Freiburg. 
The  oils  of  sassafras  and  of  cochlearia  were  sold  at  Dresden  in 
1683.  Crystallized  oil  of  sassafras  appears  to  have  been  first  obtained 
by  John  Maud,  F.R.S.,  in  1738.  He  stated  the  crystals  to  be  as  long 
as  four  inches ;  I  have  prepared  colorless  crystals  exceeding  that 
length  and  more  than  one  inch  in  diameter. 
Piper  cethiopicum,  or  Piper  nigrorum,  one  of  the  substitutes  for  pep- 
per, occurs  in  the  lists  of  Wittenberg,  1646,  Nordhausen,  1657, 
Magdeburg,  1666.  This  spice  consisted  of  the  fruit  bunches  of  a 
tree  of  the  order  Anonacece,  indigenous  throughout  Western  tropical 
Africa — viz.,  Xylopia  athiopica,  Richard  (Syn.  Habzelia  ceth.,  D.  C.  ; 
Unona,  Duval  ;  Uvaria,  Guill.  et  Perrott.).  It  is  figured  in  Mat- 
thiolus  "  Commentar.  in  sex  libr.  Diosc,"  Venetiis,  1570,  fol.  400; 
also  in  Guibourt's  "  Hist.  nat.  des  Drogues  simples,"  III  (1869),  p. 
736,  and  described  in  Lindley's  "  Flora  Medica,"  p.  27,  as  well  as  in 
Oliver's  "Flora  of  Tropical  Africa,"  I  (1868),  p.  30.  Nothing 
whatever  is  known  about  the  chemical  constituents  of  this  fruit, 
which  is  now  entirely  out  of  use. 
Saffron. — English  saffron  has  been  so  abundantly  exported  in  the 
seventeenth  century  that  it  is  found  in  the  tariff  of  Copenhagen  in 
1619,  and  is  even  termed  in  that  of  Celle,  in  Hanover,  1682,  Crocus 
communis  Anglicus.  This  agrees  well  with  our  statements  in  the 
"  Pharmacographia,"  p.  603. 
Sarsaparilla  was  known  in  England  about  the  year  1568  ;  it  appears 
to  have  been  sold  in  Frankfurt  in  1582. 
Sassafras  was  sent  to  England  in  the  beginning  of  the  seventeenth 
century,  as  may  be  supposed  from  the  facts  recorded  in  the  "  Pharma- 
cographia," p.  483.  The  drug  was  well  known  at  Frankfurt  in  1582, 
and  at  Hamburg  in  1587,  when  it  was  termed  Lignum  pavamum,  s. 
floridum,  s.  xylomarathri  (fennel-wood). 
Serpentary  root  of  Virginia  is  met  with  in  1697  ("  Documente," 
p.  77)  ;  in  England  it  was  in  regular  use  at  least  since  the  year  1650. 
