The properties and preparation of the Rio Negro sarsaparilla, and of the angustura bark, practically examined / by John Hancock.

  • Hancock, John, -approximately 1840.
Date:
1829
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The properties and preparation of the Rio Negro sarsaparilla, and of the angustura bark, practically examined / by John Hancock. 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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    with whom the travellers lodged at Angostura, that they did not visit the missions of Carony, but sent an Indian, who re- turned with a sample (muestra) of the leaves, much to their disappointment, without flowers. It is therefore probable that their descriptions refer chiefly to specimens which they observed in the province of Cumana, where a sjjecies of the genus to which the Angustura Bark Tree appertains, may grow to the size mentioned. I shall now endeavour to lay before the Society, in as concise a manner as possible, the results of my observations on the ex- ternal appearance of the plant; the prominent differences be- tween my description and that of Humboldt and Bonpland in their splendid work on the ^Equinoctial plants; and, lastly, the medicinal properties I have noticed in the Bark, together with 3the manner in Avhich it was administered at Angostura, I was never enabled to learn from what source the illustrious travellers above mentioned derived the name Cuspare for the Carony Bark Tree, I resided for three years and a half at St. Thomas de Angostura in Spanish Guiana, whence I made several excursions amongst the missions of Carony, and the tracts inha- bited by Indian tribes between them and the mountains of Parime, but never once heard the term used; the vernacular name among' the Aborigines of this part of Guiana (the tribe called Guyanos, who had long been subject to the dominion of the Catalonian Capuchin Friars) being Orayuri; and among the Spaniards and Creoles, it was known by the name of Cascarilla or Quina de Carony. The Cuspa, however, Avhich is known as a tree of Cumana, has a bark that is bitter, and of a yellow tint; and although it is much lighter, nauseous to the taste, and altogether different from the Orayuri, it is fancied by the inha- bitants of Cumana to be allied to the Carony Bark Tree; at the same time they acknowledge its virtues to be much inferior. They usually judge of plants only from some similitude in the bark, leaves, fruit, &c. without regarding the flowers. So, also, in Demerara, some have identified the Carony Bark Tree,