Volume 1

An account of the diseases, natural history, and medicines of the East Indies / Translated from the Latin of James Bontius ... To which are added annotations by a physician.

  • Bondt, Jakob de, 1592-1631.
Date:
1769
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: An account of the diseases, natural history, and medicines of the East Indies / Translated from the Latin of James Bontius ... To which are added annotations by a physician. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    231/262 (page 207)
    [ 2°7 3 On CHAPTER XXXV. Of Coftus. J N this chapter the author afferts, that there is only one kind of coftus, which I alfo affirm. For the diftindtion of three kinds, into which it was divided by the older phyficians, had been owing to the different appearances of the fame co¬ ftus, which grows carious by age. The roots of coftus are brought here from Cambodia in great quantity, as it is a medicine much ufed by all the Indians, and particularly the Chinefe. It is called by the Indian merchants Pucho, and by the Chinefe Potfiok. This coftus has all the charadters of that defcribed in this chapter* When I firft faw the root of the coftus, I ima¬ gined it to be the white hellebore; and I ftiould ftill have been of that opinion but for the fmell; becaufe, when the root of the coftus is cut through the middle, you will perceive the be¬ ginning of as many fibres as are in the hellebore. That this root is adulterated, as the author fays, I do not believe. For I have feen a whole picol, which contains an hundred and twenty pounds, fold by audtion for ten reals.