Substitutes—The odour of sassafras is common to several plants of the order Lauraceæ. Thus the bark of Mesphilodaphne Sassafras Meissn., a tree of Brazil, resembles in odour true sassafras. We have seen a very thick sassafras bark brought from India, the same we suppose as that which Mason[2003] describes as abundantly produced in Burma.
The bark of Atherosperma moschatum Labillardière, an Australian tree, is occasionally exported from Australia under the name of Sassafras bark. It has the odour of the true drug, but differs from it by its grey colour.
The large separate cotyledons of two lauraceous trees of the Rio Negro, doubtfully referred by Meissner to the genus Nectandra, furnish the so-called Sassafras Nuts or Puchury or Pilchurim Beans of Brazil, occasionally to be met with in old drug warehouses.
On the Orinoko and in Guiana an oleo-resin, called Sassafras Oil or Laurel Oil, is obtained by boring into the stem of Oreodaphne opifera Nees, which sometimes contains a cavity holding a large quantity of this fluid.[2004] A similar oil (Aceite de Sassafras) is afforded on the Rio Negro by Nectandra Cymbarum Nees.[2005]
THYMELEÆ.
CORTEX MEZEREI.
Mezereon Bark; F. Ecorce de Mézéréon, Bois gentil; G. Seidelbast-Rinde.
Botanical Origin—Daphne Mezereum L., an erect shrub, 1 to 3 feet high, the branches of which are crowded with purple flowers in the early spring, before the full expansion of the oblong, lanceolate, deciduous leaves. The flowers are succeeded by red berries. It is a native of the hilly parts of almost the whole of Europe, from Italy to the Arctic regions, and extends eastward to Siberia. In Britain it occurs here and there in a few of the southern and midland counties, and even reaches Yorkshire and Westmoreland, but there is reason to think it is not truly indigenous. Gerarde, who was well acquainted with it, did not regard it as a British plant.
History—The Arabian physicians used a plant called Mázariyún, the effects of which they compared to those of euphorbium; it was probably a species of Daphne. The word mázariyún is, we are told by competent Arabic scholars, not of Arabic origin, but in all probability derived from the Greek idiom, in which however we are unable to trace its origin. D. Mezereum was known to the early botanists of Europe, as Daphnoides Chamælæa, Thymelæa, Chamædaphne. Tragus described it and figured it in 1546 under the name of Mezereum Germanicum. The bark had a place in the German pharmacy of the 17th century under the name of cortex Coccognidii s. Mezerei; the berries were the Cocca gnidia s. knidia of the old pharmacy.
Description—Mezereon has a very tough and fibrous bark easily removed in long strips which curl inwards as they dry; it is collected in winter and made up into rolls or bundles. The bark, which rarely exceeds ¹/₂₀ of an inch in thickness, has an internal greyish or reddish-brown corky coat which is easily separable from a green inner layer, white and satiny on the side next the wood. That of younger branches is marked with prominent leaf-scars. The bark is too tough to be broken, but easily tears into fibrous strips. When fresh, it has an unpleasant odour which is lost in drying; its taste is persistently burning and acrid. Applied in a moist state to the skin, it occasions, after some hours, redness and even vesication.