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PHARMACOPCEIAL VEGETABLE DRUGS.

Nicolaus Poll (517), 1517; Leonard Schmaus (578), 1516; and Ulrichvon Hütten (332), 1518, by whom it is given a place. Oviedo (487),who landed in America in 1514, observed the tree, which was calledby the natives Guayacan. This drug, and its resin as well, was usedempirically in domestic (native) medicine before its introduction tothe profession.

Resin of Guaiacum is a product obtained from slow combustion,wherein, by a crude method, a horizontal guaiacum log, raised frornthe ground, is slowly burned, the resin collecting in grooves that arecut in the logs. It is used more extensively than is the wood.

GUARANA

Guarana, a dried paste from the crushed seeds of Paullinia cupana,was introduced into France from South America by a French officerin 1817, as a product of an unknown plant, this paste being made andused by the tribe of Indians (Guaranis) from whom it took its name.In 1826 Martius (409) identified the plant, which is called Paulliniasorbilis in deference to Simon Paulli (493). In 1840, (Am. Journ.Pharm., pp. 206-208), Dr. Gavrelle presented a specimen of guarana tothe Paris Society of Medicine, the same being analyzed by M. deChastetus, who discovered "a crystallizable matter, which possessed thechemical properties of caffeine." In 1888 Professor H. H. Rusby(564) (Amer. Jour. of Pharm., p. 267) authoritatively described themanner in which the natives prepared Guarana from the seed, and intheir crude way produced the smoked sausage-like rolls familiär incommerce. The date of its discovery by the Indian tribes whose prep-aration and use of the substance as "a stimulating substance" led to itsEuropean notice, is lost to record.

HiEMATOXYLON

Logwood (Hematoxylon campechianum, L.) is the wood of atree used throughout the civilized world as a dye stuff, in which direc-tion we find it is most largely consumed. The tree is native to CentralAmerica, being abundant in Campeachy, Honduras, and other sectionsof that country. Flückiger (239) accepts that the wood was intro-duced into England in the latter half of the sixteenth Century, becausein 1581 its use was abolished by act of Parliament, for the reason thatit was considered a poor Substitute for better dyes, and was viewed inthe light of a sophisticant. Eighty years later, probably because abetter study of the drug had rendered its use practicable, logwood wasagain permitted to enter England. According to De Laet (368), 1633,one of the names by which it was commonly known, peachwood, wasderived from the town of Campeachy, whence the wood was exportedin quantities to Europe. The accounts of travelers and sailors at thetime of the great excitement produced by the discovery of the abun-dant sources of wealth in the new world, almost universally men-tioned logwood. This is evident from the record found in suchnarratives as appear in sailors' descriptions of their voyages, in Cham-bers Miscellany, and elsewhere.

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