Avicenna describes the two kinds of sandal wood (lignum pterocarpi santalini) still well known in practice. He says it is a cold and dry medicine, which repels determinations to parts, and this more especially the red. The diseases he most particularly recommends it in are, palpitation of the heart, fevers, weakness of the stomach, and this both in liniments and in draughts. The white, he says, is useful in hot fevers. (ii, 2, 649.) He quotes Galen under this head, but his translator is sensible of this being a mistake. Serapion describes the white, the yellow, and the red kinds of sandal-wood, and gives a very circumstantial account of them. He says sandal-wood is brought from Sini (China?). The various authorities quoted by him concur in giving the different kinds of sandal-wood the same characters as Avicenna, representing it as being useful in complaints of the stomach, and in cardiac disease; and mixed with camphor and rose oil as an external application in hot vertigo when rubbed into the temples. They also agree in representing it along with other cooling plants as being serviceable in gout. The sandal-woods, in short, they all hold to be cold in the third degree and dry in the second. (De Simpl. 346.) Rhases gives a brief account of the red and white sandal-woods, which his authorities recommend in weakness of the stomach, and pain of the head; and also for palpitation of the heart in fevers, when rubbed over the stomach, and for erysipelas when rubbed into the face. (Contin. l. ult. ii, 1, 609.)
Azedarach.
Avicenna describes it as being a well-known tree, having fruit like the Lotus Arbor (Celtis Australis?). He says it is a very large tree, and that its flower is hot in the third degree, and dry in the end of the first, and that it is possessed of deobstruent powers; and the decoction of its leaves kills lice in the hair and strengthens it. Its fruit is bad for the stomach and chest. It is anthelminthic, and useful in colics and in pituitous fevers along with fumitory and myrobalans. (ii, 2, 17.) Rhases gives the same account of the assedarach. (Contin. l. ult. i, 89.) It is barely mentioned by Serapion as being a large tree, but we have not been able to discover it in his Mat. Med. The Arabian authorities of Ebn Baithar give an elaborate account of it, representing it as being dangerous to persons who take it in large doses, but in smaller ones useful for various purposes, and more especially for promoting the growth of the hair. (i, 30.) There can be no question that it must have been the Melia azedarach or “bead tree.” Dr. Ainslie says of it that “in India the bark of the melia azedarach has been ascertained to possess powerful tonic and antifebrile virtues,” and that “it is ordered for almost every purpose that the cinchona is in Europe.” (Mat. Ind. i, 70, ii, 454.) See further on the tree, Miller (Dictionary); Lindley (Veg. Kingd. 464); and Crantz (Mat. Med. iii, 40.) The last of these says of it, that he had “read in the Encyclopedia (!!) that it kills lice, &c.” The azedarach is frequently noticed in the Susruta. See also Wise’s Book of Hindu Medicine. (119.)
Anacardium.
On this see Serapion (De Simpl. 356); Rhases (Cont. l. ult. i, 47); and Avicenna (ii, 2, 40.) Of these authorities Avicenna describes it most minutely. They all recommend it in mental diseases, and especially in loss of memory, and say it is useful in coldness of the nerves, in paralysis, and spasms. Avicenna recommends it as a fumigation to hemorrhoids. Without doubt it is the Semicarpus Anacardium, or “marking nut tree” of commerce. It has been used in modern practice, but has now fallen into disuse. See Hill (Mat. Med. 490.) Rhases quotes Galen on the anacardium, referring, as we suppose, to his χρυσοβάλανος. (De Comp. Med. sec. gen. viii.) That the latter was the semicarpus anacardium seems not unlikely. See Sprengel (R. H. H. i, 209.) It is briefly noticed also by Myrepsus and Actuarius under the name of ξανθοβάλανος. And further, it is deserving of remark that anacardia occurs as an ingredient in one of our author’s antidotes (c. 170, Ed. Basil.) To say the least then, it appears doubtful whether the Greeks were wholly ignorant of these substances as stated by Matthiolus. (Comment. in Dioscor. 189.)
Diudar.
Avicenna says of it that it belongs to the genus abhel (sabina?) and is called the Indian pine; that it is pungent, and contains a milk which is hot and occasions thirst. He adds that it is good for relaxation of the nerves, paralysis, &c., also for cold apostemes (chronic inflammations?) of the brain, apoplexy, and catalepsy. He concludes by stating of it that it is lithontriptic, binds the bowels, and that its decoction removes relaxation of the anus. (ii, 2, 213.) In the Glossarium of Avicenna (l. c.) reference is here made to Rhases (Cont. l. ult. iii, 31), but we can find no notice of the Diudar there, nor in any part of the works of Rhases. Ebn Baithar’s account of this article is taken literally from Avicenna. Dr. Royle has ingeniously pointed out the correspondence both of name and characters between the Diudar of the Arabians and the Pinus Deodara. (Antiquity of Hindoo Med. 36.) See also Lindley (Veget. Kingd. 228.)
Sandaracha, or Gum vernix.
It is to be remarked, on the outset, that Serapion and Avicenna in treating of the vernix do not make any reference to Dioscorides and Galen, as is their wont, from which it may be inferred that they did not recognise it as one of the articles which had been described by their Grecian masters. Serapion’s Arabian authorities on this head are, Albugerig, Aben Mesuai, Badegoras, Mesarugie, Abrix, Alabari, Rhases, and Isaac Eben. They agree in recommending it in fumigations for catarrhs, for stopping immoderate menstruation, drying fistulæ; as an anthelminthic, and remedy for hemoptysis and hemorrhoids. One of his authorities (Isaac Eben) describes it as being a gum of a yellow colour, like the karabe, and says it is brought from the land of the Christians. He adds, respecting the karabe, that Galen says it is the gum haur romane (populi Romanæ [?]). Whether by this he meant amber, we shall inquire presently. Avicenna says of the sandaracha or vernix, that it is hot and dry in the second degree, and that it has some astringency, and the power of stopping hemorrhages. He says it is used for removing obesity, for drying fistulæ, that the smoke of it cures catarrhs, and is the best of all remedies for toothache; that it cures palpitation as well as the karabe, stops fluxes of blood, cures humid asthma, and is used by wrestlers to strengthen the breath. It is good, he concludes by saying of it, in diseases of the spleen, and its fumes cure old sores and hemorrhoids. (ii, 2, 619.) It may be proper to remark here, that although Avicenna applies the term sandarach both to realgar and gum vernix he does not fall into the mistake of confounding these substances with one another. This will be clearly seen by comparing ii, 2, 48, with l. c. The Latin translation of the chapter in Rhases’s ‘Continens,’ on Sandarach, is so particularly barbarous, that some passages of it are scarcely intelligible to us, albeit we have spent more time than most people in poring over these most unclassical productions. It is clear, however, that his Arabian authorities recommend vernix in exactly the same cases as Serapion and Avicenna do, namely, in fumigations for asthma and coryza, as a drying application to fistulæ and hemorrhoids, as a stimulant in diseases of the eyes, and as a remedy for defluxion and fluxes of blood from the womb. (Contin. l. ult. i, 610.)
Dr. Lewis, treating of the Juniperus, says, “In the warmer climates, particularly on the coasts of Africa, there exudes from a larger species of juniper a resinous juice which concretes into semi-pellucid, pale, yellowish tears, resembling mastich, but larger; the sandaracha and gummi juniperi of the shops, called by some, from the use to which it is principally applied, vernix. It has been given internally against hemorrhages, old fluxes, and ulcerations; but is principally employed externally in corroborant, nervine, and traumatic applications.” (Mat. Med. ii, 24.) Recent authorities have decided that the gum sandarach is not the product of the juniperus communis, as usually supposed, but of the Callitris quadrivalris. See Pereira (Mat. Med. 727); and Lindley (Veg. Kingd. 229.) On the vernix see further Gray (Suppl. to Pharmacop. 201.)