COMMENTARY. Under this head we cannot do better than quote the words of an excellent living authority: “_Macer_, a bark from the Barbaric region, has been thought to be _Wrightia antidysenterica_, supposing this to be the _macre_ described by Crist. d’Acosta. (Clus. Exot. 266.) Though _macer_ is always described as a bark, I had given me as such the highly aromatic leaves of _Rhododendron lepidotum_ under the name of _talisfur_. _Mafur_ and _mafurbooz_ are in Persian works assigned as the Greek names of _talisafar_, under which name the _macer_ of Dioscorides is alluded to by Avicenna.” (Antiq. of Hindoo Med. 91, by Dr. Royle). Though the _macer_ of the Greeks, then, was different from mace, there can be no doubt that the Arabians confounded the two substances together. Thus Avicenna, in his chapter on mace, quotes the words of Paulus on the macer. (ii, 2, 448.) Serapion in like manner, under mace, which he correctly describes as the rind or membrane of the nutmeg, gives the characters of macer from Dioscorides. (De Simpl. 2.) Μαλάβαθρον, Malabathrum; the leaf of it has powers like the spikenard. * * * * * COMMENTARY. Dr. Ainslie, treating of the Cassia Lignea, or Cassia bark, says, “the narrow-pointed leaves of the _Laurus Cassia_, as well as the oblong, ovate, shining leaves of the Cinnamon-tree, are sold in the Indian bazaars under the names of _lawangapatery_ and _tejpat_, from a notion that they are the leaves of the _Laurus Cassia_. In commerce these leaves are called _Folia Indica_, or _Malabathra_, a name which more especially applies to the leaves of the Laurus Cassia.” (Med. Ind. § 35.) Geoffroy, Sprengel, and Royle also agree in holding the Cassia, or Cinnamon-leaf, to be the _Folium Indicum_. Dr. Sontheimer, then, in his translation of Ibn Baithar, makes it to be a peculiar species of _Laurus_, calling it _Laurus Malabathrum_, and Dr. Pereira does the same. In the modern Greek Pharmacopœia, the query is put whether the Cassia-buds be the product of _Laurus Cassia_, or _L. Malabathrum_. Isidorus says of it, “_Folium_ dictum quod sine ulla radice innatans in Indiæ littoribus colligitur.” (Orig. xviii, 9.) It is always simply called _Folium_ by Apicius. Horace applies the word to an ointment. “Malabathro Syrio capillos,” (Od. ii, 7); on which passage his commentator, Porphyrion, remarks, “Malabathrum unguenti speciem esse scimus.” This is the Unguentum Malabathrinum of Dioscorides. (i, 76.) The ancients, as Dr. Hill remarks, have said much of the virtues of Malabathrum. They call it stomachic, sudorific, and cephalic. Dioscorides ascribes to it all the virtues of the Indian spikenard; but he says it possesses them in a superior degree. He also mentions it as a scent. (i, 11.) Galen and the other Greek authorities, like our author, dismiss it with a brief notice, comparing it to spikenard. The Arabians treat of it at greater length, but do little more, after all, than copy the