XL. Some observations upon Myrrh, made in Abyssinia, in the year 1771, and sent to William Hunter, M.D. with specimens, in February, 1775

Abstract The ancients, and particularly DIOSCORIDES, have spoken of myrrh in such a manner, as to leave us no alternative, but to suppose either that they have described a drug which they had never seen; or, that the drug seen and described by them is absolutely unknown to modern naturalists and physicians. The Arabs, however, who form the link of the chain between the Greek physicians and ours, in whose country the myrrh was produced, and whose language gave it its name, have left us undeniable evidence, that what we know by the name of myrrh, is in nothing different from the myrrh of the ancients, growing in the same countries from which it was brought formerly to Greece; that is, from the East coast of Arabia Felix, bordering on the Indian Ocean, and that low land in Abyssinia on the South-east of the Red-sea, included nearly between the 12th and 13th degree of North latitude, and limited on the West by a meridian passing through the island Massowa; and on the East by another, passing through Cap Guardfoy, without the straits of Bab el Mandel.