The mirror., 1922-04-06
CHAULMOOGRA OIL
CONTINUED from page I

stantly developed in all large countries, in
spite of the care taken to prevent it.
The ohaulmoogra oil remedy is regarded
as new discovery, for we heard nothing
of it until comparatively recently. 1t was
only in 1902 that DR.. Frederick B. Power,
director of chemical research laboratories
in London, began experiments with the
oil from which he isolated some new active
acids. He also prepared the "ethyl ester"
of these acids in which form it can be
injected into the muscles so as to effect
cure. 1t was in this form that it was used
on 200 Hawaiian lepers who were cured.
But this oil was used as remedy long
before DR.. Powers time. Probably very
few have any idea of the source of chaul-
moogra oil, and even they will be sur
prised to find what job it is to get it.
The voyages of Sindbad the sailor the
search of De Soto in the American wilds
for the fabulous Ell Dorado, or of Ponce
de Leon for the fountain of youth, were
tame affairs compared with trip recently
made to get some seeds of the tree, "tarak-
togenos kurzii," from which chaumoogra
oil is produced. Very few white men have
ever seen this tree, and it was only last
June that the first photograph of it was
exhibited. This was shown to the Botan-
nical Society in Washington by Prof. ].
T. D. L.
get some of the seeds, and who spent II
months in doing SO.
The story of Prof. Rocks search and his
success is thrilling one of modern ad
venture. 1t may be mentioned that he
first tried in 1919 but failed. In the first
place, no white man knew where a single
tree was, and even the natives who sold
the seeds could not tell where they came
from. Those seeds had a way of coming
into the market in the Far East from time
to time, very irregularly, and of being
sold in the bazars to the small trade with
out question as to origin or extent of the
supply. Until the Hawaiian experiment
the remedy was regarded as palliative
rather than cure.
The names of the places visited by
Prof. Rock in his search sound as if they
had been taken from the poems of Rud
yard Kipling. He made his start at
Bangkok, the principal city of Siam, and
journeyed north about 800 miles to the
town of Chieng Mai. A part of the trip
was made by railroad. After camping in
the mountain forests of Dol Sootep and
Dol Choin Chieng, northwest of Cieng
Mai, where he found three species of
chestnuts, he went by house boat on the
Meh Ping river to Roheng and thence
across range of hills lying between that
river and the Sawen river to Moulmein,
lower Burma.
On this journey Prof. Rock discovered
many new trees but no "taraktogenos
kurzii" From Moulmein he went to Ran
goon by boat and then made a difficult
journey of many days. to Mawaik on the
upper Chindwin river. He had been told
he would find the looked-for tree there,
but at Mawlaik he was told that he would
have to go five or six days into the coun-
try to Kyokta. AT this place the trail be-
came warm and he got some definite in
formation. He was directed into the hill
country back of Kyokta, and there he found
the object of his long, painful and hazard
cur journey.
The tree is large one and grows to be
very old. 1t hourishes in the depths of
the jungles, which are infested by all
kinds of wild animals, and this is one of
the reasons the natives gather the seeds at
such irregular intervals. The fruit is
about the size of an orange, with the seeds
so closely packed as to make them angular
in appearance. The fruit ripens in July,
and at that time the natives will not go