On storax / by Daniel Hanbury.

  • Hanbury, Daniel, 1825-1875.
Date:
1857
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On storax / by Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    Dirt, which is commonly mixed with it; and the way to try it is by washing it in Salt Water which will cleanse it: The Arabs and Turks call it Cotter Miia. N.B. A Barrel is 4201.'' A statement so precise and circumstantial was received with more or less credit, and we find it quoted by Geoffroy,f Hil],J Al8ton,§ Merut and De Len8,|| Martiny,^ Guibourt,** Pereira,f f Royle.t}: &c. Hill, indeed, quaintly remarks, it is a little unlucky that nobody has given us any description of this Rosa Mallas.—But is this the only ambiguity? Let us first ask,—Does there exist any island of Cobross at the upper end of the Red Sea? Thanks to the excellent chart of the Red Sea made from the surveys of Messrs. Moresby and Carless in 1830-33, and to the minute Sailing Directions for the Red Sea, both published by the Hon. East India Company, we have a mass of very exact and positive information relating to its coasts, and to its islands from the largest, down to the very rocks and shoals. Now Petiver makes his island of Cobross to be near Cadess, which is 3 days journey from Suez. To what distance we ought to consider this to be equivalent, I know not; but it is evident from the chart already referred to, that there is no island in the Ked Sea nearer to Suez than about 160 miles. Neither this island, nor any other in the Red Sea, bears the name of Cobross, or any other name which can be supposed to represent it,—that is, so far as my researches have gone, and I have taken much pains in investigating the subject. Again,—are there any islands in the Red Sea extensively wooded, as Petiver's account would lead us to suppose ? On this point, the minute information in the Sailing Directions, is entirely of a negative character. Distrusting my own judgment in such a question, I applied to John Walker, Esq., Geographer to the Hon. East India Company, and to the Rev. Charles Forster, author of the Historical Geography of Arabia, gentlemen whose ac- quaintance with sources of information on such matters, might, I thought, suggest some explanation of Petiver's statement: but neither of them has been able to throw any light upon it. Although I am unable to find a Cobross in the Red Sea, I must state that D'Herbelot in his Bibliotheque Orientale gives Cobros, as a synonym of Cyprus: and also, that Pliny mentions an island of Coboris or Covoris, which has been identified as one of the Sohar Isles, near Burka, a town situated on the East coast of Arabia, near the entrance to the Persian Gulf.§§ The position of either of these islands is, of course, perfectly irreconcilable with that of Petiver's Cobross. It is somewhat surprising that of the many authors that have quoted Petiver's account of Liquid Storax, none appears to have been struck with the fact that the drug is not said to be conveyed from Cobross to Europe, but that it is brought to Judda and so to MocAa,—that is to say, it is carried to a spot some 1300 miles south of Suez. So much for the fallacies in Petiver's account of The manner of making Slyrax Liqtiida. In a future part of this notice, I will endeavour to show what traces of truth it contains. The next statement on which I propose to offer some remarks, is that of Philosophical Trnnsactions, 1708-1709. Vol. xxvi. p. 44. t Tract, de Mat. Med. (1741), T. II. p. 493. J History of the Materia Medica (1751), p. 713. ^ Lecture.'! on the Materia Medica (1770), Vol. II. p. 418. d Dictionnaire de Matiere Medicale, T. IV. (1832), p. 128. % Encukiop d. med.-phartn. Nat. u. Rohwaarenk. Bd. I. (1843) p. 94. •« nistoire des Drogues Simples. T. II. (1849), p. 294. ++ Elem. of Mat. Med. Vol. II. (1860) p. 1216. tt Manual of Mat. Med. (lS5?i) ^. 639. §§ Forster's Historical Geography of Arabia, Lend. 1844. Vol. y. p. 230.