368 
The  History  of  some  Drugs. 
Am.  Jour.  Pharm. 
Aug.,  1876. 
Sugar. — Some  interesting  contributions  to  its  history  may  be  derived 
from  the  "  Documente,"  p.  32.  There  were  in  the  sixteenth  and 
seventeenth  centuries  many  sorts  and  kinds  of  sugar  illustrating  the 
migration  of  the  sugar  cane  from  India  to  the  new  world.  Thus, 
Saccharum  candum,  or  also  sometimes,  Sal  indum,  is  sugar  of  Indian 
origin  ;  Saccharum  tabarzeth  means  in  Persian  a  very  hard  crystallized 
sugar  ;  Saccharum  Melitense  alludes  to  Malta  ;  whereas,  strange 
enough,  neither  Egyptian  nor  Sicilian  sugar  is  ever  mentioned  in  the 
tariffs.  From  the  Mediterranean  the  plant  was  introduced  into  the 
Atlantic  islands — hence  Saccharum  Madeirense,  Canariense,  and  at  last 
sugar  from  the  island  of  San  Tome,  in  the  Gulf  of  Guinea,  Saccha- 
rum Thomasinum.  In  this  place  the  sweet  cane  had  been  transplanted: 
by  the  Portuguese  about  the  year  1500,  but  in  a  later  period  they 
stopped  its  cultivation  in  the  island  in  favor  of  its  introduction  into 
Brazil.  All  these  various  kinds  of  sugar  are  mentioned  in  the  Ger- 
man lists  under  examination  ;  and  besides  them  there  is  frequently  to 
be  met  with  Saccharum  penidium,  or  Saccharum  turbinatum,  the  prepara- 
tions now  known  under  the  names  of  boiled  or  pulled  sugar,  the 
amorphous  barley  sugar  of  the  confectioners. 
Zinc  seu  Spiautr  is  an  article  of  the  tariff  of  Copenhagen  of  1672; 
in  a  German  list  of  1682  it  is  distinguished  as  Marchasita  pallida  v. 
Zinck  from  Marchasita  officinarum,  plumbum  cinereum — i.  e.,  bismut. 
The  "  Documente,"  if  I  am  correct,  afford  a  very  curious  illustra- 
tion of  the  state  of  pharmacy,  especially  in  Germany,  during  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  as  the  above  abstracts  from  my 
pamphlet  may  prove.  They,  at  the  same  time,  furnish  many  little 
contributions  to  the  history  of  drugs,  and  are  the  more  remarkable  as 
similar  documents — at  least,  in  so  great  a  number  and  variety — seem 
not  to  exist  in  any  other  country  than  in  Germany,  and  perhaps  a  few 
other  countries  where  the  German  idiom  is  spoken.  I  thought  them 
well  deserving  of  a  somewhat  minute  investigation,  inasmuch  as  they 
must  be  considered  as  a  real  picture  of  ancient  times,  full  of  actuality. 
— Phar.  Jour,  and  Trans.,  1876.  June  24. 
