FRUCTUS AJOWAN…

FRUCTUS AJOWAN

Semen Ajavæ vel Ajouain; Ajowan, True Bishop’s weed.

=Botanical Origin=—Carum Ajowan Bentham et Hooker (Ammi copticum L. Ptychotis coptica et Pt. Ajowan DC.)—an erect annual herb, cultivated in Egypt and Persia, and especially in India where it is well known as Ajvan or Omam.

=History=—The minute spicy fruits of the above-named plant have been used in India from a remote period, as we may infer from their being mentioned in Sanskrit writings, as, for instance, by the grammarian Pānini, in the third century B.C. (or later?), and in Susruta.

Owing to their having been confounded with some other very small umbelliferous fruits, it is difficult to trace them precisely in many of the older writers on materia medica. It is however probable that they are the Ammi which Anguillara[1154] met with in 1549 at Venice, where it had then, exceptionally, been imported in small quantity from Alexandria. It is also, we suppose, the Ammi perpusillum of Lobel (1571), in whose time the drug was likewise imported from Egypt, as well as the Ammi alterum parvum, the seed of which Dodonæus (1583) mentions as being “minutissimum, acre et fervidum.” Dale,[1155] who says it is brought from Alexandria, reports it as very scarce in the London shops. Under the name of Ajave Seeds, the drug was again brought into notice in 1773 by Percival,[1156] who received a small quantity of it from Malabar as a remedy for colic; and still more recently, it has been favourably spoken of by Fleming, Ainslie, Roxburgh, O’Shaughnessy, Waring and other writers who have treated of Indian materia medica.

=Description=—Ajowan fruits, like those of other cultivated Umbelliferæ, vary somewhat in size and form. The largest kind much resemble those of parsley, being of about the same shape and weight. The length of the large fruits is about ⅒, of the smaller form scarcely ¹/₁₆ of an inch. The fruits are greyish brown, plump, very rough on the surface, owing to numerous minute tubercles (fructus muriculatus). Each mericarp has five prominent ridges, the intervening channels being dark brown, with a single vitta in each. The commissural side bears two vittæ. The fruits when rubbed exhale a strong odour of thyme (Thymus vulgaris L.), and have a biting aromatic taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The oil-ducts of ajowan are very large, often attaining a diameter of 200 mkm. The ridges contain numerous spiral vessels; the blunt tubercles of the epidermis are of the same structure as those in anise, but comparatively larger and not pointed. The tissue of the albumen exhibits numerous crystalloid granules of albuminous matter (aleuron), distinctly observable in polarized light.

=Chemical Composition=—The fruits on an average afford from 4 to 4·5 per cent. of an agreeable aromatic, volatile oil; at the same time there often collects on the surface of the distilled water a crystalline substance, which is prepared at Oojein and elsewhere in Central India, by exposing the oil to spontaneous evaporation at a low temperature. This stearoptene, sold in the shops of Poona and other places of the Deccan, under the name of Ajwain-ka-phul, i.e. flowers of ajwain, was showed by Stenhouse (1855) and by Haines (1856) to be identical with

{OH Thymol, C₆H₃ {CH₃, as contained in Thymus vulgaris. {C₃H₇

We obtained it by exposing oil of our own distillation, first rectified from chloride of calcium, to a temperature of 0° C., when the oil deposited 36 per cent. of thymol in superb tabular crystals, an inch or more in length. The liquid portion, even after long exposure to a cold some degrees below the freezing point, yielded no further crop. We found the thymol thus obtained began to melt at 44° C., yet using somewhat larger quantities, it appeared to require fully 51° C. for complete fusion. On cooling, it continues fluid for a long time, and only recrystallizes when a crystal of thymol is projected into it.

[1154] Semplici, Vinegia, 1561. 130.

[1155] Pharmacologia, 1693. 211.

[1156] Essays, Medical and Experimental, ii. (1773) 226.

Thymol is more conveniently and completely extracted from the oil by shaking it repeatedly with caustic lye, and neutralizing the latter.

The oil of ajowan, from which the thymol has been removed, boils at about 172°, and contains cymene (or cymol), C₁₀H₁₄, which, with concentrated sulphuric acid, affords cymen-sulphonic acid, C₁₀H₁₃SO₂OH. The latter is not very readily crystallizable, but forms crystallized salts with baryum, calcium, zinc, lead, which are abundantly soluble in water. In the oil of ajowan no constituent of the formula C₁₀H₁₆ appears to be present; mixed with alcohol and nitric acid (see p. 279) it at least produces no crystals of terpin.

The residual portions of the oil, from which the cymene has been distilled, contains another substance of the phenol class different from thymol.

We have found that neither the thymol nor the liquid part of ajowan oil possesses any rotatory power.

=Uses=—Ajowan is much used by the natives of India as a condiment.[1157] The distilled water which has been introduced into the Pharmacopœia of India, is reputed to be carminative, and a good vehicle for nauseous medicines. It has a powerful burning taste, and would seem to require dilution. The volatile oil may be used in the place of oil of thyme, which it closely resembles.

Ajowan seeds are largely imported into Europe since thymol has been universally introduced into medical practice (see Folia Thymi). They have proved much more remunerative for the manufacture of thymol than Thymus vulgaris. The largest quantities, we believe, of thymol have been made from ajowan at Leipzig.

=Substitutes=—Under the name Semen Ammi, the very small fruits of Ammi majus L. and of Sison Amomum L. have been often confounded with those of Ajowan; but the absence of hairs on the two former, not to mention some other differences, is sufficient to negative any supposition of identity.

The seeds of Hyoscyamus niger L. being called in India Khorāsāniajwān, a confusion might arise between them and true ajowan; though the slightest examination would suffice to show the difference.[1158]

[1157] Roxburgh, Flor. Ind. ii. (1832) 91.

[1158] To such a mistake may probably be referred the statement of Irvine (Account of the Mat. Med. of Patna, 1848, p. 6) that the seeds of henbane are “used in food as carminative and stimulant”!

FRUCTUS CARUI.

Semen Carui vel Carvi; Caraway Fruits, Caraway Seeds, Caraways; F. Fruits ou Semences de Carvi; G. Kümmel.

=Botanical Origin=—Carum Carvi L., an erect annual or biennial plant not unlike a carrot, growing in meadows and moist grassy land over the northern and midland parts of Europe and Asia, but to what extent truly wild cannot be always ascertained.

It is much cultivated in Iceland, and is also apparently wild.[1159] It grows throughout Scandinavia, in Finland, Arctic, Central, and Southern Russia, Persia, and in Siberia. It appears as a wild plant in many parts of Britain (Lincolnshire and Yorkshire), but is also cultivated in fields, and may not be strictly indigenous. The caraway is found throughout the eastern part of France, in the Pyrenees, Spain, Central Europe, Armenia, and the Caucasian provinces; and it grows wild largely in the high alpine region of Lahul, in the Western Himalaya.[1160]

[1159] Babington in Journ. of Linn. Soc., Bot. xi. (1871) 310.

[1160] Aitchison in Journ. of Linn. Soc., Bot., x. (1869) 76. 94.

But the most curious fact in the distribution of Carum Carvi is its occurrence in Morocco, where it is largely cultivated about El Araiche, and round the city of Morocco.[1161] The plant differs somewhat from that of Europe; it is an annual with a single erect stem, 4 feet high. Its foliage is more divided, and its flowers larger, with shorter styles and on more spreading umbels than the common caraway, and its fruit is more elongated.[1162]

=History=—The opinion that this plant is the Κάρος of Dioscorides, and that, as Pliny states, it derived its name from Caria (where it has never been met with in modern times) has very reasonably been doubted.[1163]

Caraway fruits were known to the Arabians, who called them Karawya, a name they still bear in the East, and the original of our words caraway and carui, as well as of the Spanish alcarahueya. In the description of Morocco by Edrisi,[1164] 12th century, it is stated that the inhabitants of Sidjilmâsa (the south-eastern province) cultivate cotton, cumin, caraway, henna (Lawsonia alba Lamarck). In the Arab writings quoted by Ibn Baytar,[1165] himself a Mauro-Spaniard of the 13th century, caraway is compared to cumin and anise. The spice probably came into use about this period. It is not noticed by St. Isidore, archbishop of Seville in the 7th century, though he mentions fennel, dill, coriander, anise, and parsley; nor is it named by St. Hildegard in Germany in the 12th century. Neither have we found any reference to it in the Anglo-Saxon Herbarium of Apuleius, written circa A.D. 1050,[1166] or in other works of the same period, though cumin, anise, fennel, and dill are all mentioned.

On the other hand, in two German medicine-books of the 12th and 13th centuries[1167] there occurs the word Cumich, which is still the popular name of caraway, in Southern Germany; and Cumin is also mentioned. In the same period the seeds appear to have been used by the Welsh physicians of Myddvai.[1168] Caraway was certainly in use in England at the close of the 14th century, as it figures with coriander, pepper and garlick in the Form of Cury, a roll of ancient English cookery compiled by the master-cooks of Richard II. about A.D. 1390.

[1161] Leared in Pharm. Journ. Feb. 8, 1873. 623.

[1162] I have cultivated the Morocco plant in 1872 and 1873 by the side of the common form.—D. H.

[1163] Dierbach, Flora Apiciana, 1831. 53.

[1164] Description de l’Afrique et de l’Espagne trad. par Dozy et M. J. de Goeje, Leyde, 1866, 75. 97. 150.

[1165] Sontheimer’s translation, ii. 368.

[1166] Leechdoms, etc. of Early England, i. (1864).

[1167] Pfeiffer, Zwei deutsche Arzneibücher aus dem xii. und xiii. Jahrhundert, Wien 1863. 14.

[1168] Meddygon Myddfai, 158. 354.

The oriental names of caraway show that as a spice it is not a production of the East:—thus we find it termed Roman (i.e. European), Armenian, mountain, or foreign Cumin; Persian or Andalusian Caraway; or foreign Anise. And though it is now sold in the Indian bazaars, its name does not occur in the earlier lists of Indian spices.

=Cultivation=[1169]—In England, the caraway is cultivated exclusively in Kent and Essex, on clay lands. It was formerly sown mixed with coriander and teazel seed, but now with the former only. The plant, which requires the most diligent and careful cultivation, yields in its second year a crop which is ready for harvesting in the beginning of July. It is cut with a hook at about a foot from the ground, and a few days afterwards may be thrashed. The produce is very variable, but may be stated at 4 to 8 cwt. per acre.

=Description=—The fruits, which in structure correspond to those of other plants of the order, are laterally compressed and ovate. The mericarps which hang loosely suspended from the arms of the carpophore, are in the English drug about ⅙ of an inch in length and ¹/₂₀ in diameter, subcylindrical, slightly arched, and tipped with the conical, shrivelled stylopodium. They are marked with five pale ridges, nearly half as broad as the shining, dark brown furrows, each of which is furnished with a conspicuous vitta; a pair of vittæ separated from each other by a comparatively thin fibro-vascular bundle, occurs on the commissure.

Caraways are somewhat horny and translucent; when bruised, they evolve an agreeable fragrance resembling that of dill, and they have a pleasant spicy taste. In the London market, they are distinguished as English, Dutch, German, and Mogador, the first sort fetching the highest price. The fruit varies in size, tint and flavour; the English is shorter and plumper than the others; the Mogador is paler, stalky, and elongated—often ³/₁₀ of an inch in length.

=Microscopic Structure=—Caraways are especially distinguished by their enormous vittæ, which in transverse section display a triangular outline, the largest diameter, i.e. the base of the triangle, often attaining as much as 300 mkm. Even those of the commissure are usually not smaller.

=Chemical Composition=—Caraways contain a volatile oil, which the Dutch drug affords to the extent of 5·5 per cent., that grown in Germany to the amount of 7 per cent.[1170]; in Norway 5·8 per cent. have also been obtained from indigenous caraways.[1171] The position and size of the vittæ account for the fact that comminution of the fruits previous to distillation, does not increase the yield of oil.

Völckel (1840) showed that the oil is a mixture of a hydrocarbon C₁₀H₁₆, and an oxygenated oil, C₁₀H₁₄O. Berzelius subsequently termed the former Carvene and the latter Carvol.

Carvene, constituting about one-third of the crude oil, boils at 173° C., and forms with dry hydrochloric gas crystals of C₁₀H₁₆ + 2HCl. It has been ascertained by us that carvene, as well as carvol, has a dextrogyrate power, that of carvene being considerably the stronger; there are probably not many liquids exhibiting a stronger dextrogyrate rotation. Carvene is of a weaker odour than carvol, from which it has not yet been absolutely deprived; perfectly pure carvene would no doubt prove no longer to possess the specific odour of the drug. By distilling it over sodium it acquires a rather pleasant odour; its spec. gr. at 15° C. is equal to 0·861.

[1169] Morton, Cyclop. of Agriculture, i. (1855) 390.

[1170] Information obligingly supplied by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig.

[1171] Schübeler, Pflanzenwelt Norwegens. Christiania, 1863-1875. 85.

Carvol at 20° C. has a sp. gr. of 0·953; it boils at 224° C.; the same oil appears to occur in dill (see Fructus Anethi), and an oil of the same percental constitution is yielded by the spearmint. The latter however deviates the plane of polarization to the left. If 4 parts of carvol, either from caraways, dill, or spearmint, are mixed with 1 part of alcohol, sp. gr. 0·830, and saturated with sulphuretted hydrogen, crystals of (C₁₀H₁₄C)₂SH₂ are at once formed as soon as a little ammonia is added.[1172]

Oil of caraway of inferior quality is obtained from the refuse of the fruit; we find it less dextrogyrate than the oil from the fruits alone; this is due to the admixture of oil of turpentine before distilling.

If the carvol is distilled there remains in the still a thickish residue, from which a substance of the phenol class may be extracted by caustic lye.

Oil of caraway distilled in England from home-grown caraways is preferred in this country. On the Continent, that extracted from the caraways of Halle and Holland is considered to be of finer flavour than the oil obtained from those of Southern Germany.

The immature fruit of caraway is rich in tannic matter, striking blue with a salt of iron. It occurs abundantly in the tissue around the oil-ducts, where the presence of sugar may be also detected by alkaline tartrate of copper. Sugar occurs likewise in the embryo, but not in the albumen, in which latter protein substances predominate.

=Production and Commerce=—Caraways are exported from Finmark, the most northerly province of Norway; from Finland and Russia. In Germany, the cultivation, recommended by Gleditsch in 1776, is now largely carried on in Moravia, and in Prussia, especially in the neighbourhood of Halle. The districts of Erfurt and Merseburg, also in Prussia, are stated to yield annually about 30,000 cwt. Dutch caraways are produced in the provinces of North Holland, Gelderland and North Brabant, in the latter two from wild plants.[1173] Caraways are frequently shipped from the ports of Morocco; the quantity exported thence in 1872 was 952 cwt. and 288 cwt. in 1875.[1174]

The import of caraways into the United Kingdom in 1870 amounted to 19,160 cwt., almost all being from Holland.

The essential oil is manufactured on a large scale. According to a statement of the Chamber of Commerce of Leipzig,[1175] four establishments of that district produced in 1872 no less a quantity than 30,955 kilo. (68,277 lb.), valued at £24,000.

=Uses=—Caraway in the form of essential oil or distilled water is used in medicine as an aromatic stimulant, or as a flavouring ingredient. But the consumption in Europe is far more important as a spice, in bread, cakes, cheese, pastry, confectionary, sauces, etc., or in the form of oil as an ingredient of alcoholic liquors. The oil is also used for the scenting of soap.

[1172] Pharm. Journ. vii. (1876) 75.

[1173] Oudemans, Aanteekeningen, etc., Rotterdam, 1854-1856. 351.

[1174] Consular Reports, 1873 and 1876.

[1175] Pharmaceutische Zeitung, 15th April 1874.

FRUCTUS FŒNICULI.

Fennel Fruits, Fennel Seeds; F. Fruits de Fenouil; G. Fenchel.

=Botanical Origin=—Fœniculum vulgare Gärtn. (Anethum Fœniculum L.), an erect, branching plant with an herbaceous stem and perennial rootstock, growing to the height of 3 or 4 feet, having leaves 3 or 3 times pinnate with narrow linear segments. In allusion to the latter the plant had also been named Fœniculum capillaceum by Gilibert.

It appears to be truly indigenous to the countries extending from the Caspian regions (or even China?) to the Mediterranean and the Greek Peninsula, but is a doubtful native in many parts of Central and Southern Russia. The plant on the other hand is also found apparently wild, over a large portion of Western Europe as far as the British Isles, especially in the vicinity of the sea.

Fennel is largely cultivated in the central parts of Europe, as Saxony, Franconia and Wurtemberg, also in the South of France about Nîmes, and in Italy. It is extensively grown in India and China. The Indian plant is an annual of somewhat low stature.[1176]

The plant varies in stature, foliage, and in the size and form of its fruits; but all the forms belong apparently to a single species.

=History=—Fennel was used by the ancient Romans, as well for its aromatic fruits, as for its edible succulent shoots. It was also employed in Northern Europe at a remote period, as it is constantly mentioned in the Anglo-Saxon medical receipts, which date as early at least as the 11th century. The diffusion of the plant in Central Europe was stimulated by Charlemagne, who enjoined its cultivation on the imperial farms. Fennel shoots (turiones fœnuculi), fennel water, and fennel seed, as well as anise, are all mentioned in an ancient record[1177] of Spanish agriculture dating A.D. 961.

=Description=—The fennel fruits of commerce, commonly called Fennel Seeds, are of several kinds and of very different pecuniary value. The following are the principal sorts:—

1. Sweet Fennel,—known also as Roman Fennel, is cultivated in the neighbourhood of Nîmes in the south of France. The plant is a tall perennial with large umbels of 25 to 30 rays.[1178] As the plants grow old, the fruits of each succeeding season gradually change in shape and diminish in size, till at the end of 4 or 5 years they are hardly to be distinguished from those of the wild fennel growing in the same district. This curious fact, remarked by Tabernæmontanus (1588), was experimentally proved by Guibourt.[1179]

[1176] It is an annual even in England, ripening seeds in its first year, and then dying.

[1177] Le Calendrier de Cordoue de l’année, 961, publié par R. Dozy, Leyde, 1873.

[1178] The Nîmes fennel has been usually referred to Fœniculum dulce DC., but that plant has the stem compressed at the base, and only 6 to 8 rays in the umbel; and is the fennel which is eaten as a vegetable or as a salad.

[1179] Hist. des Drogues, iii. (1869) 233.

The fruits of Sweet Fennel as found in the shops are oblong, cylindrical, about ⁴/₁₀ of an inch in length by ⅒ in diameter, more or less arched, terminating with the two-pointed base of the style, and smooth on the surface. Each pericarp is marked by 5 prominent ridges, the lateral being thicker than the dorsal. Between the ridges lie vittæ, and there are two vittæ on the commissural surface,—all filled with dark oily matter. The fruits seen in bulk have a pale greenish hue; their odour is aromatic, and they have a pleasant, saccharine, spicy taste.

2. German Fennel, Saxon Fennel, produced especially near Weissenfels in the Prussian province of Saxony; the fruits are ²/₁₀ to ¼ of an inch long, ovoid-oblong, a little compressed laterally, slightly curved, terminating in a short conical stylopodium; they are glabrous, of a deep brown, each mericarp marked with 5 conspicuous pale ridges, of which the lateral are the largest. Seen in bulk, the fruits have a greenish brown hue; they have an aromatic saccharine taste, with the peculiar smell of fennel.

3. Wild or Bitter Fennel (Fenouil amer), collected in the south of France, where the plant grows without cultivation. They are smaller and broader than those of the German Fennel, being from ⅕ to ⅙ of an inch long by about ¹/₁₅ of an inch wide. They have less prominent ridges and at maturity are a little scurfy in the furrows and on the commissure. Their taste is bitterish, spicy, and strongly fennel-like. The essential oil (Essence de Fenouil amer) is distilled from the entire herb.

4. Indian Fennel.—A sample in our possession from Bombay resembles Sweet Fennel, but the fruits are not so long, and are usually straight. The mother plant of this drug is F. Panmorium DC., now regarded as a simple variety of F. vulgare Gärtn.

=Microscopic Structure=—The most marked peculiarity of fennel is exhibited by the vittæ, which are surrounded by a brown tissue. The latter is made up of cells resembling the usual form of cork-cells. In Sweet Fennel the vittæ are smaller than in the German fruit; in the transverse section of the latter, the largest diameter of these ducts is about 200 mkm.

=Chemical Composition=—The most important constituent of fennel fruits is the volatile oil, which is afforded both by the Sweet and the German fennel to the extent of about 3½ per cent.

Oil of fennel, from whatever variety of the drug obtained, consists of Anethol (or Anise-camphor)

{OCH₃ C₆H₄ { , {CH·CH·CH₃

and variable but less considerable proportions of an oil, isomeric with oil of turpentine. Anethol is obtainable from fennel in two forms, the solid and the liquid; crystals of the former are deposited when the oil is subjected to a somewhat low temperature; the liquid anethol may be got by collecting the portion of the crude oil passing over at 225° C. The crystals of anethol fuse between 16 and 20°; the liquid form of anethol remains fluid even at -10° C. By long keeping, the crystals slowly become liquid and lose their power of reassuming a crystalline form.

Three varieties of oil of fennel are found in commerce, namely the oils of Sweet Fennel and Bitter Fennel offered by the drug-houses of the south of France; their money value is as 3 to 1, the oil of sweet fennel, which has a decidedly sweet taste, being by far the most esteemed. The third variety is obtained from Saxon fennel, especially by the manufacturers of Dresden and Leipzig.[1180] We have been supplied with type-specimens of the first two oils by the distillers, Messrs. J. Sagnier, fils, & Cie., Nîmes; a specimen of the third has been distilled in the laboratory of one of ourselves.

Oil of fennel differs from that of anise by displaying a considerable rotatory power. We found the above-mentioned specimens, examined in a column 50 mm. long, to deviate the ray of polarized light to the right thus:—

Oil of Sweet Fennel 29°·8 ” Bitter ” 4°·8 ” German ” 9°·1

The rotatory power is due to the hydrocarbon contained in the oil; we ascertain that anethol from oil of anise is devoid of it.

Fennel fruits contain sugar, yet their sweetness or bitterness depends on the essential oil rather than on the presence of that body. The albumen of the seed contains fixed oil, which amounts to about 12 per cent. of the fruit.

=Uses=—Fennel fruits are used in medicine in the form of distilled water and volatile oil, but to no considerable extent. The chief consumption is in cattle medicines, and of the oil in the manufacture of cordials.

FRUCTUS ANISI.

Anise, Aniseed; F. Fruits d’Anis vert; G. Anis.

=Botanical Origin=—Pimpinella Anisum L., an annual plant, is indigenous to Asia Minor, the Greek Islands and Egypt, but nowhere to be met with undoubtedly growing wild. It is now also cultivated in many parts of Europe where the summer is hot enough for ripening its fruits, as well as in India and South America. It is not grown in Britain.

=History=—Anise, which the ancients obtained chiefly from Crete and Egypt, is among the oldest of medicines and spices.[1181] It is mentioned by Theophrastus, by the later writers Dioscorides and Pliny, as well as by Edrisi,[1182] who enumerates anise “sorte de graine douce” among the products of Tunisia. In Europe we find that Charlemagne (A.D. 812) commanded that anise should be cultivated on the imperial farms in Germany. The Anglo-Saxon writings contain frequent allusions to the use of dill and cumin, but we have failed to find in them any reference to anise, nor in the Meddygon Myddfai.

The Patent of Pontage granted by Edward I. in 1305 to raise funds for repairing the Bridge of London,[1183] enumerates Anise (anisium) among the commodities liable to toll. There are entries for it under the name of Annis vert in the account of the expenses of John, king of France, during his abode in England, 1359-60;[1184] and it is one of the spices of which the Grocers’ Company of London had the weighing and oversight from 1453.[1185] By the Wardrobe Accounts of Edward IV., A.D. 1480,[1186] it appears that the royal linen was perfumed by means of “lytill bagges of fustian stuffed with ireos and anneys.”

[1180] The Leipzig Chamber of Commerce reports the quantity made by four establishments in 1872, as 4350 kilo. (9594 lb.).

[1181] On the Anise of the Bible, see note in our article Fructus Anethi.

[1182] Page 150 of the “Description,” etc., quoted in the article Fructus Carui, p. 305, note 5.

[1183] (Thomson, R.), Chronicles of London Bridge, 1827. 156.

[1184] Doüet d’Arcq, Comptes de l’Argenterie des Rois de France, 1851. 206. 220.

[1185] Herbert, Hist. of the twelve Great Livery Companies of London, 1834, 310.

[1186] Edited by N. H. Nicolas, Lond. 1830. 131.

Anise seems to have been grown in England as a potherb prior to 1542, for Boorde in his Dyetary of Helth, printed in that year,[1187] says of it and fennel,—“these herbes be seldom vsed, but theyr seedes be greatly occupyde.”

In common with all other foreign commodities, anise was enormously taxed during the reign of Charles I., the duties levied upon it amounting to 75_s._ per 112 lb.[1188]

=Description=—Anise fruits, which have the usual characters of the order, are about ²/₁₀ of an inch in length, mostly undivided and attached to a slender pedicel. They are of ovoid form, tapering towards the summit, which is crowned by a pair of short styles rising from a thick stylopode; they are nearly cylindrical, but a little constricted towards the commissure. Each fruit is marked by 10 light-coloured ridges which give it a prismatic form; these as well as the rest of the surface of the fruit, are clothed with short rough hairs. The drug has a greyish brown hue, a spicy saccharine taste, and an agreeable aromatic smell.

=Microscopic Structure=—The most striking peculiarity of anise fruit is the large number of oil-ducts or vittæ it contains; each half of the fruit exhibits in transverse section nearly 30 oil-ducts, of which the 4 to 6 in the commissure are by far the largest. The hairs display a simple structure, inasmuch as they are the elongated cells of the epidermis a little rounded at the end.

=Chemical Composition=—The only important constituent of anise is the essential oil (Oleum Anisi), which the fruits afford to the extent of 3 per cent. from the best Moravian sort; Russian anise yields from 2·5 to 2·7 per cent., the German 2·3 per cent.[1189] This oil is a colourless liquid, having an agreeable odour of anise and a sweetish aromatic taste; its sp. gr. varies from 0·977 to 0·983. At 10° to 15° C., it solidifies to a hard crystalline mass, which does not resume its fluidity till the temperature rises to about 17° C.

Oil of anise resembles the oils of fennel, star-anise, and tarragon, in that it consists almost wholly of Anethol or Anise-camphor described in the previous article (p. 309). This fact explains the rotatory power of oil of anise being inferior to that of fennel. Oil of German anise, distilled by one of us, examined under the conditions stated, page 310, deviated only 1°·7, but to the left. Franck (1868) found oil of Saxon anise deviating 1°·1 to the right.

=Production and Commerce=—Anise is produced in Malta, about Alicante in Spain, in Touraine and Guienne in France, in Puglia (Southern Italy), in several parts of Northern and Central Germany, Bohemia and Moravia. The Russian provinces of Orel, Tula and Woronesh, south of Moscow, also produce excellent anise, and in Southern Russia, Charkow is likewise known for the production of this drug. In Greece, anise is largely cultivated under the name of γλυάισον, and it is much grown in Northern India. Considerable quantities are also now imported from Chili. The drug is, on the whole, always of a remarkably uniform appearance.

[1187] Reprinted for the Early English Text Society, 1870. 281.

[1188] Rates of Marchandizes, 1635.

[1189] Laboratory notes obligingly furnished by Messrs. Schimmel & Co., Leipzig. (1878).

=Uses=—Anise is an aromatic stimulant and carminative, usually administered in the form of essential oil as an adjunct to other medicines. It is also used as a cattle medicine. The essential oil is largely consumed in the manufacture of cordials, chiefly in France, Spain, Italy, and South America.

=Adulteration=—The fruits of anise are sometimes mixed with those of hemlock, but whether by design or by carelessness we know not. Careful inspection with a lens will reveal this dangerous adulteration. We have known powdered anise also to contain hemlock, and have detected it by trituration in a mortar with a few drops of solution of potash, a sample of pure anise for comparison being tried at the same time.

The essential oil of aniseed may readily be confounded with that of Star-anise, which is distilled from the fruits of the widely different Illicium anisatum. As stated at p. 22, these oils agree so closely in their chemical and optical properties, that no scientific means are known for distinguishing them.

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RADIX SUMBUL

Sumbul Root; F. Racine de Sumbul, Sambola ou Sambula; G. Moschuswurzel.

=Botanical Origin=—Ferula Sumbul Hooker fil. (Euryangium Sumbul Kauffmann[1190]), a tall perennial plant discovered in 1869 by a Russian traveller, Fedschenko, in the mountains of Maghian near Pianjakent, in the northern part of the Khanat of Bukhara, nearly 40° N. lat., and 68° to 69° E. long. From Wittmann’s statements (1876) it would appear that the Sumbul plant abounds far east from that country, in the coast province of the Amoor. A living plant transmitted from the former district to the Botanical Garden of Moscow flowered there in 1871, another in 1875 at Kew, where the plant died after flowering.

[1190] Nouv. Mém. de la Soc. imp. des Nat. de Moscou, xii. (1871) 253. tabb. 24. 25.—Also figured in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 20 (1877).

=History=—The word sumbul, which is Arabic and signifies an ear or spike, is used as the designation of various substances, but especially of Indian Nard, the rhizome of Nardostachys Jatamansi DC. Under what circumstances, or at what period, it came to be applied to the drug under notice, we know not. Nor are we better informed as to the history of sumbul root, which we have been unable to trace by means of any of the works at our disposal. All we can say is, that the drug was first introduced into Russia about the year 1835 as a substitute for musk, that it was then recommended as a remedy for cholera, and that it began to be known in Germany in 1840, and ten years afterwards in England. It was admitted into the British Pharmacopœia in 1867.

=Description=—The root as found in commerce consists of transverse slices, 1 to 2 inches, rarely as much as 5 inches in diameter, and an inch or more in thickness; the bristly crown, and tapering lower portions, often no thicker than a quill, are also met with. The outside is covered by a dark papery bark; the inner surface of the slices is of a dirty brown, marbled with white, showing when viewed with a lens an abundant resinous exudation, especially towards the circumference. The interior is a spongy, fibrous, farinaceous-looking substance, having a pleasant musky odour and a bitter aromatic taste.

=Microscopic Structure=—The interior tissue of sumbul root is very irregularly constructed of woody and medullary rays, while the cortical part exhibits a loose spongy parenchyme. The structural peculiarity of the root becomes obvious, if thin slices are moistened with solution of iodine, when the medullary rays assume by reason of the starch they contain an intense blue. The structure of the root differs from the usual arrangement by the formation of independent secondary cambial zones with fibro-vascular bundles within the original cambium. Similar peculiarities are also displayed by the roots of Myrrhis odorata, Convolvulus Scammonia, Ipomœa Turpethum and others.[1191] Large balsam-ducts are also observable in Sumbul as well as in the roots of many other Umbelliferæ.[1192]

=Chemical Composition=—Sumbul root yields about 9 per cent. of a soft balsamic resin soluble in ether, and ⅓ per cent. of a dingy bluish essential oil. The resin has a musky smell, not fully developed until after contact with water. According to Reinsch (1848), it dissolves in strong sulphuric acid with a fine blue colour, but in our experience with a crimson brown. The same chemist states that when subjected to dry distillation, it yields a blue oil.

Solution of potash is stated to convert the resin of sumbul into a crystalline potassium salt of Sumbulamic Acid, which latter was obtained in a crystalline state by Reinsch in 1843, but has not been further examined. Sumbulamic acid, which smells strongly of musk, appears to be a different substance from Sumbulic or Sumbulolic Acid, the potassium salt of which may be extracted by water from the above-mentioned alkaline solution. Ricker and Reinsch (1848), assert that the last-mentioned acid, of which the root contains about ¾ per cent., is none other than Angelic Acid, accompanied, as in angelica root, by a little valerianic acid. All these substances require further investigation, as well as the body called Sumbulin, which was prepared by Murawjeff (1853), and is said to form with acids, crystalline salts.

Sommer has shown (1859) that by dry distillation, sumbul resin yields Umbelliferone, which substance we shall further notice when describing the constituents of galbanum.

=Uses=—Prescribed in the form of tincture as a stimulating tonic.

[1191] See A. de Bary, Anatomie, 1877. 623.

[1192] The structure and growth of Sumbul root have been elaborately studied by Tchistiakoff, of whose observations, first published in Russian in 1870, an Italian translation with two plates has appeared in the Nuovo Giornale Botanico for Oct. 1873. 298.

=Adulteration=—Bombay Sumbul, or “Boi,” is the root of Dorema Ammoniacum (see article Ammoniacum, p. 324), which is largely imported into Bombay, being used there in the Parsee fire temples as an incense.[1193] The largest roots, for which we are indebted to Professor Dymock, are three inches in diameter at the crown, by 8 inches in length. They are easily distinguished from the Sumbul by their decidedly yellowish hue as well as by the absence of any musky odour. We extracted by alcohol, from the root dried at 100° C., 26 per cent. of a resin identical with that afforded by commercial Ammoniacum.

Bombay Sumbul agrees with the Indian Sumbul as described by Pereira.[1194]

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ASAFŒTIDA

Gummi-resina Asafœtida vel Assafœtida; Asafœtida; F. Asafœtida; G. Asant, Stinkasant.

=Botanical Origin=—Two perennial umbelliferous plants are now generally cited as the source of this drug; but though they are both capable of affording a gum-resin of strong alliaceous odour, it has not been proved that either of them furnishes the asafœtida of commerce. The plants in question are:—

1. Ferula Narthex Boiss. (Narthex Asafœtida Falconer), a gigantic herbaceous plant, having a large root several inches in thickness, the crown of which is clothed with coarse bristly fibres; it has an erect stem attaining 10 feet in height, throwing out from near its base upwards a regular series of branches bearing compound umbels, each branch proceeding from the axil of a large sheathing inflated petiole, the upper of which are destitute of lamina. The radical leaves, 1½ feet long, are bipinnate with broadly ligulate obtuse lobes. It has a large flat fruit with winged margin. When wounded, the plant exudes a milky juice having a powerful smell of asafœtida. It commences to grow in early spring, rapidly throwing up its foliage, which dies away at the beginning of summer. It does not flower till the root has acquired a considerable size and is several years old.

F. Narthex, which now exists in several botanic gardens and has flowered twice in that of Edinburgh, was discovered by Falconer in 1838, in the valley of Astor or Hasora (35° N. lat., 74°·30 E. long. north of Kashmir).[1195]

2. Ferula Scorodosma Bentham et Hooker (Scorodosma fœtidum Bunge; Ferula Assa fœtida L. in Boissier, Flora orientalis ii. 994)—In form of leaf, in the bristly summit of the root, and in general aspect, this plant resembles the preceding; but it has the stem (5 to 7 feet high) nearly naked, with the umbels, which are very numerous, collected at the summit; and the few stem-leaves have not the voluminous sheathing petioles that are so striking a feature in Narthex. In Narthex, the vittæ of the fruit are conspicuous,—in Scorodosma almost obsolete; but the development of these organs in feruloid plants varies considerably, and has been rejected by Bentham and Hooker as affording no important distinctive character. Scorodosma is apparently more pubescent than Narthex.

[1193] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1875) 321.

[1194] Elements of Mat. Med. ii. p. 2 (1857) 208; also Bentley, Pharm. Journ. ix. (1878) 479.

[1195] We refrain from citing localities in Tibet, Beluchistan and Persia, where plants supposed to agree with that of Falconer have been found by other collectors.

F. Scorodosma was discovered by Lehmann in 1841, in the sandy deserts eastwards of the Sea of Aral, and also on the hills of the Karatagh range south of the river Zarafshan,—that is to say, south-east of Samarkand. In 1858-59, it was observed by Bunge about Herat. At nearly the same period, it was afresh collected between the Caspian and Sea of Aral, and in the country lying eastward of the latter, by Borszczow, a Russian botanist, who has made it the subject of an elaborate and valuable memoir.[1196]

The most detailed account of the asafœtida plant we possess is that of the German traveller Engelbert Kämpfer, who in 1687 observed it in the Persian province of Laristan, between the river Shúr and the town of Kongún, also in the neighbourhood of the town of Dusgan or Disgun, in which latter locality[1197] alone he saw the gum-resin collected. He states that he found the plant also growing near Herat. Kämpfer has given figures of his plant which he calls Asa fœtida Disgunensis, and his specimens consisting of remnants of leaves, a couple of mericarps (in a bad state) and a piece of the stem a few inches long, are still preserved in the British Museum.

These materials have been the subject of much study, in order to determine which of the asafœtida plants of modern botanists should be identified with that of Kämpfer. Falconer and Borszczow have arrived in turns at the conclusion that his own plant accords with Kämpfer’s. But Kämpfer’s figures agree well neither with Narthex nor with Scorodosma. The plant they represent does not form, it would seem, the branching pyramid of the Narthex (as it flowered at Edinburgh), nor has it the multitude of umbels seen in Borszczow’s figure of Scorodosma.[1198]

Whether Kämpfer’s plant is really identical with either of those we have noticed, and whether the discrepancies observable are due to careless drawing, or to actual difference, are points that cannot be settled without the examination of more ample specimens.

Great allowance must be made for the period of growth at which these plants have been observed. Kämpfer saw his plant when quite mature, and not when its stem was young and flowering. Narthex is scarcely known except from specimens grown at Edinburgh, those obtained by Falconer in Tibet having been gathered when dry and withered. Even Borszczow’s plant appears never to have been seen by any botanist while its flower-stem was in a growing state.

History—Whether the substance which the ancients called Laser was the same as the modern Asafœtida is a question that has been often discussed during the last three hundred years, and it is one upon which we shall attempt to offer no further evidence. Suffice it to say that Laser is mentioned along with products of India and Persia, among the articles on which duty was levied at the Roman custom-house of Alexandria in the 2nd century.

“Hingu,” doubtless meaning Asafœtida, occurs in many Sanskrit works, especially in epic poetry, but also in Susruta.

[1196] Die Pharmaceutisch-wichtigen Ferulaceen der Aralo-Caspischen Wüste, St. Petersb. 1860, pp. 40, eight plates.—In the Medicinal plants of Bentley and Trimen, Narthex is figured in part 29 and Scorodosma in part 24.

[1197] Which we cannot find on any map.

[1198] Kämpfer figures his plant with about 6 umbels on a stalk, while Scorodosma, as represented by Borszczow, has at least 25.

Asafœtida was certainly known to the Arabian and Persian geographers and travellers of the middle ages. One of these, Ali Istakhri, a native of Istakir, the ancient Persepolis, who lived in the 10th century, states[1199] that it produced abundantly in the desert between Sistan and Makran, and is much used by the people as a condiment. The region in question comprises a portion of Beluchistan.

The geographer Edrisi,[1200] who wrote about the middle of the 12th century, asserts that asafœtida, called in Arabic Hiltit, is collected largely in a district of Afghanistan near Kaleh Bust, at the junction of the Helmand with the Arghundab, a locality still producing the drug. Other Arabian writers as quoted by Ibn Baytar,[1201] describe asafœtida in terms which show it to have been well known and much valued.

Matthæus Platearius, who flourished in the second half of the 12th century, mentions asafœtida in his work on simple medicines, known as Circa instans, which was held in great esteem during the middle ages. It is also named a little later by Otho of Cremona,[1202] who remarks that the more fœtid the drug, the better its quality. Like other productions of the East, asafœtida found its way in European commerce during the middle ages through the trading cities of Italy. It is worthy of remark that it is much less frequently mentioned by the older writers than galbanum, sagapenum and opopanax. In the 13th century, the “Physicians of Myddfai” in Wales,[1203] considered asafœtida as one of the substances which every physician “ought to know and use.”

=Collection=—The collecting of asafœtida on the mountains about Dusgun in Laristan in Persia, as described by Kämpfer,[1204] is performed thus:—

The peasants repair to the localities where the plants abound, about the middle of April, at which time the latter have ceased growing, and their leaves begin to show signs of withering. The soil surrounding the plant is removed to the depth of a span, so as to bare a portion of the root. The leaves are then pulled off, the soil is replaced, and over it are laid the leaves and other herbage, with a stone to keep them in place, the whole being arranged in this way to prevent injury to the root by the heat of the sun.

[1199] Buch der Länder, translated by Mordtmann, Hamburg, 1845. 111.

[1200] Géographie d’Edrisi, traduite par Jaubert, i. (1836) 450.

[1201] Sontheimer’s transl. i. (1840) 84.

[1202] Choulant, Macer Floridus, Lips. 1832. 159.

[1203] Meddygon Myddfai. 282. 457 (see bibliographical notices at the end).

[1204] Amœnitates Exoticæ, Lemgoviæ, 1712. 535-552.

About forty days later, that is towards the end of May, the people return, the men being armed with knives for cutting the root, and broad iron spatulas for collecting the exuded juice. Having first removed the leaves and earth, a thinnish slice is taken from the fibrous crown of the root, and two days later the juice is scraped from the flat cut surface. The root is again sheltered, care being taken that nothing rests on it. This operation is repeated twice in the course of the next few days, a very thin slice being removed from the root after each scraping. The product got during the first cutting is called shīr, i.e. milk, and is thinner and more milky and less esteemed than that obtained afterwards. It is not sold in its natural state, but is mixed with soft earth (terra limosa) which is added to the extent of an equal, or even double, weight of the gum-resin, according to the softness of the latter.

After the last cutting, the roots are allowed to rest 8 or 10 days, when a thicker exudation called pispaz, more esteemed than the first, is obtained by a similar process carried on at intervals during June and July, or even later, until the root is quite exhausted.

The only recent account of the production of asafœtida that we have met with, is that of Staff-surgeon H. W. Bellew, who witnessed the collection of the drug in 1857 in the neighbourhood of Kandahar.[1205] The frail withered stem of the previous year with the cluster of newly-sprouted leaves, is cut away from the top of the root, around which a trench of 6 inches wide and as many deep, is dug in the earth. Several deep incisions are now made in the upper part of the root, and this operation is repeated every 3 or 4 days as the sap continues to exude, which goes on for a week or two according to the strength of the plant. The juice collects in tears about the top of the root, or when very abundant flows into the hollow around it. In all cases as soon as incisions are made, the root is covered with a bundle of loose twigs or herbs, or even with a heap of stones, to protect it from the drying effects of the sun. The quantity of gum-resin obtained is variable; some roots yield scarcely half an ounce, others as much as two pounds. Some of the roots are no larger than a carrot, others attain the thickness of a man’s leg. The drug is said to be mostly adulterated before it leaves the country, by admixture of powdered gypsum or flour. The finest sort, which is generally sold pure, is obtained solely “from the node or leaf-bud in the centre of the root-head.” At Kandahar, the price of this superior drug is equivalent to from 2_s._ 8_d._ to 4_s._ 8_d._ per lb, while the ordinary sort is worth but from 1_s._ to 2_s._

During a journey from North-western India to Teheran in Persia, through Beluchistan and Afghanistan, performed in the spring of 1872, the same traveller observed the asafœtida plant in great abundance on many of the elevated undulating pasture-covered plains and hills of Afghanistan, and of the Persian province of Khorassan. He states that the plant is of two kinds, the one called Kamá-i-gawí which is grazed by cattle and used as a potherb, and the other known as Kamá-i-angúza which affords the gum-resin of commerce. The collecting of this last is almost exclusively in the hands of the western people of the Kákarr tribe, one of the most numerous and powerful of the Afghan clans, who, when thus occupied, spread their camps over the plains of Kandahar to the confines of Herat.[1206]

Wood, in his journey to the source of the Oxus, found asafœtida to be largely produced in a district to the north of this, namely the mountains around Saigan or Sykan (lat. 35° 10, long. 67° 40), where, says he, the land affording the plant is as regularly apportioned out and as carefully guarded as the cornfields on the plain.[1207]

[1205] Journal of a Mission to Afghanistan, Lond. 1862. 270.

[1206] Bellew, From the Indus to the Tigris, London. 1874. 101. 102. 286. 321. &c.

[1207] Wood, Journey to the Source of the River Oxus, new ed. 1872, 131.

=Description=—The best asafœtida is that consisting chiefly of slightly or not agglutinated tears. This is the Kandahari-Hing of the Bombay market, which is not always to be met with in Bombay, and even there is only used by wealthy people as a condiment. It is not exported to Europe. The best sort shipped to Europe is the Anguzeh-i-Lari, coming from Laristan by way of Afghanistan and the Bolan Pass to Bombay. It shows agglutinated tears, or when freshly imported, it forms a clammy yet hard yellowish-grey mass, in which opaque, white or yellowish milky tears, sometimes an inch or two long, are more or less abundant.

Sometimes asafœtida is imported as a fluid honey-like mass, apparently pure. We presume that such is that of the first gathering, which Kämpfer says is called milk. The drug is often adulterated with earthy matter which renders it very ponderous; it must be granted that an addition of such matters may often be necessary in order to enable the drug to be transported. This earthy or stony asafœtida constitutes at Bombay a distinct article of commerce under the name of Hingra.

By exposure to air, asafœtida acquires a bright pink and then a brown hue. The perfectly pure tears display when fractured a conchoidal surface, which changes from milky white to purplish pink in the course of some hours. If a tear is touched with nitric acid sp. gr. 1·2, it assumes for a short time a fine green colour.

When asafœtida is rubbed in a mortar with oil of vitriol, then diluted with water and neutralized, the slightly coloured solution exhibits a bluish fluorescence. The same will be observed, to some extent, if tears of the drug are immersed in water and a little ammonia is added. The tears of asafœtida when warmed become adhesive, but by cold are rendered so brittle that they may be powdered. With water they easily form a white emulsion.

The drug has a powerful and persistent alliaceous odour and a bitter acrid alliaceous taste.

=Chemical Composition=—Asafœtida consists of resin, gum and essential oil, in varying proportions, but the resin generally amounting to more than one-half.

As to the oil, we have repeatedly obtained from 6 to 9 per cent. by distilling it from common copper stills. It is light yellow, has a repulsive, very pungent odour of asafœtida, tastes at first mild, then irritating, but does not stimulate like oil of mustard when applied to the skin. It is neutral, but after exposure to the air acquires an acid reaction and different odour; it evolves sulphuretted hydrogen. In the fresh state, the oil is free from oxygen; it begins to boil at 135° to 140° C., but with continued evolution of hydrogen sulphide, so that we did not succeed in preparing it of constant composition, the amount of sulphur varying from 20 to 25 per cent. We found it to have a sp. gr. of 0·951 at 25°, and a strong dextrogyrate power. If one drop of it is allowed to float on water it assumes a fine violet hue by vapours of bromine.

The essential oil of asafœtida submitted to fractional distillation yielded us, at 300°, a considerable proportion of a most beautifully blue coloured oil. By very cautiously oxidizing the crude oil, we obtained a small amount of extremely deliquescent crystals of a sulphonic acid. Sodium or potassium decomposes the oil with evolution of gas, forming potassium sulphide; the residual oil is found to have the odour of cinnamon.

The resin of asafœtida is not wholly soluble in ether or in chloroform, but dissolves with decomposition in warm concentrated nitric acid. It contains a little Ferulaic Acid,

C₆H₃(OCH₃)CH·CH·COOH, (OH )

discovered by Hlasiwetz and Barth in 1866, crystallizing in iridescent needles soluble in boiling water; it is homologous with Eugetic Acid,

C₆H₂(OCH₃)COOH, (OH )CH·CH·CH₃,

which is to be obtained by adding CO₂ to the molecule of eugenol (page 284).

Ferulaic acid may be obtained from vanillin,

{OCH₃ C₆H₃ {OH (see article Vanilla). {CHO

Fused with potash, ferulaic acid yields oxalic and carbonic acids, several acids of the fatty series, and protocatechuic acid. The resin itself treated in like manner after it has been previously freed from gum, yields resorcin; and by dry distillation, oils of a green, blue, violet or red tint, besides about ¼ per cent. of Umbelliferone, C₉H₆O₃.

The mucilaginous matter of asafœtida consists of a smaller part soluble in water and an insoluble portion. The former yields a neutral solution which is not precipitated by neutral acetate of lead. The insoluble part is readily dissolved by caustic lye and again separates on addition of acids.

=Commerce=—The drug is at the present day produced exclusively in Afghanistan. Much of it is shipped in the Persian Gulf for Bombay, whence it is conveyed to Europe; it is also brought into India by way of Peshawur, and by the Bolan pass in Beluchistan.

In the year 1872-73, there were imported into Bombay by sea, chiefly from the Persian Gulf, 3367 cwt. of asafœtida, and 4780 cwt. of the impure form of the drug called Hingra. The value of the latter is scarcely a fifth that of the genuine kind. The export of asafœtida from Bombay to Europe is very small in comparison with the shipments to other ports of India.

=Uses=—Asafœtida is reputed stimulant and antispasmodic. It is in great demand on the Continent, but is little employed in Great Britain. Among the Mahommedan as well as Hindu population of India, it is generally used as a condiment, and is eaten especially with the various pulses known as dāl. In regions where the plant grows, the fresh leaves are cooked as an article of diet.

=Adulteration=—The systematic adulteration, chiefly with earthy matter already pointed out, may be estimated by exhausting the drug with alcohol and incinerating the residue.

Allied Substances.

Hing from Abushahir, also in Bombay simply called Hing.

Among the natives of Bombay, a peculiar form of asafœtida is in use that commands a much higher price than those just described; it is also the only kind admitted there in the government sanitary establishmente. This is the Abushaheree Hing, imported from Abushir (Bender Bushehr) and Bender Abassi on the Persian Gulf. It is the product of Ferula alliacea Boiss.[1208] (F. Asafœtida Boiss. et Buhse, non Linn.) discovered in 1850 by Buhse, and observed in 1858-59 by Bunge in many places in Persia. This Hing is collected near Yezd in Khorassan, and also in the province of Kerman, the plant being known as angúza, the same name that is applied to Scorodosma.

Abushaheree Hing is never brought into European trade.[1209] It forms an almost blackish brown, originally translucent, brittle mass, of extremely fœtid alliaceous odour, containing many pieces of the stem with no admixture of earth. Guibourt, by whom it was first noticed,[1210] was convinced that it had not been obtained from the root, but had been cut from the stem. He remarks that Theophrastus alludes to asafœtida (as he terms the Silphium[1211] of this author) as being of two kinds,—the one of the stem, the other of the root; and thinks the former may be the sort under notice. Vigier,[1212] who calls it Asafœtida nauséeux, found it to contain in 100 parts, of resin and essential oil 37·5, and gum 23·7.

We find the odour of the Hing much more repulsive than that of common Asafœtida. The former yields an abundance of essential oil, which differs by its reddish hue from that of asafœtida. The oil of Hing, as distilled by one of us (1877) has also a higher specific gravity, namely, 1·02 at 25° C. We find also its rotatory power stronger; it deviated 38°·8 to the right, when examined in a column of 100 millimetres in length. The oil of common asafœtida deviated 13°·5 under the same conditions.

By gently warming the Abushaheree Hing with concentrated hydrochloric acid, about 1·12 sp. gr., it displays simply a dingy brown hue. By shaking it with water and a little ammonia no fluorescence is produced. In all these respects there is consequently a well-marked difference between the drug under examination and common asafœtida.

F. teterrima Kar. et Kir., a plant of Soungaria, is likewise remarkable for its intense alliaceous smell; but the plant is not known as the source of any commercial product.[1213]

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GALBANUM

Gummi-resina Galbanum; Galbanum; F. Galbanum; G. Mutterharz.

=Botanical Origin=—The uncertainty that exist as to the plants which furnish asafœtida, hangs over those which produce the nearly allied drug Galbanum. Judging from the characters of the latter, it can scarcely be doubted that it is yielded by umbelliferous plants of at least two species, which are probably the following:[1214]—

[1208] Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 995.

[1209] A large specimen of it was kindly presented to one of us (H.) by Mr. D. S. Kemp of Bombay. We have also examined the same drug in the Indian Museum, and further received good specimens by the kindness of Professor Dymock. See his notes Pharm. Journ. v. (1875) 103, and viii. (1877) 103.

[1210] Hist. des Drogues, iii. (1850) 223.

[1211] Hist. Plantarum, 1. vi. c. 3.

[1212] Gommes-résines des Ombellifères (thèse), Paris, 1869. 32.

[1213] Borszczow, op. cit. 13-14.

[1214] The following in addition have at various times been supposed to afford galbanum:—Ferulago galbanifera Koch, a native of the Mediterranean region and Southern Russia; Opoidia galbanifera Lindl., a Persian plant of doubtful genus; Bubon Galbanum L., a shrubby umbellifer of South Africa.

1. Ferula galbaniflua Boiss. et Buhse,[1215]—a plant with a tall, solid stem, 4 to 5 feet high, greyish, tomentose leaves, and thin flat fruits, 5 to 6 lines long, 2 to 3 broad, discovered in 1848 at the foot of Demawend in Northern Persia, and on the slopes of the same mountain at 4,000 to 8,000 feet, also on the mountains near Kushkäk and Churchurä (Jajarúd?). Bunge collected the same plant at Subzawar. Buhse says that the inhabitants of the district of Demawend collect the gum-resin of this plant which is Galbanum; the tears which exude spontaneously from the stem, especially on its lower part and about the bases of the leaves, are at first milk-white, but become yellow by exposure to light and air. It is not the practice, so far as he observed, to wound the plant for the purpose of causing the juice to exude more freely, nor is the gathering of the gum in this district any special object of industry.[1216] The plant is called in Persian Khassuih, and the Mazanderan dialect Boridsheh.

2. F. rubricaulis Boiss.[1217] (F. erubescens Boiss. ex parte, Aucher exsicc. n. 4614, Kotschy n. 666).—This plant was collected by Kotschy in gorges of the Kuh Dinar range in Southern Persia, and probably by Aucher-Eloy on the mountain of Dalmkuh in Northern Persia. Borszczow,[1218] who regards it as the same as the preceding (though Boissier[1219] places it in a different section of the genus), says, on the authority of Buhse, that it occurs locally throughout the whole of Northern Persia, is found in plenty on the slopes of Elwund near Hamadan, here and there on the edge of the great central salt-desert of Persia, on the mountains near Subzawar, between Ghurian and Kháf, west of Herat, and on the desert plateau west of Kháf. He states, though not from personal observation, that its gum-resin, which constitutes Persian Galbanum, is collected for commercial purposes around Hamadan. F. rubricaulis Boiss. has been beautifully figured by Berg[1220] under the name of F. erubescens.

=History=—Galbanum, in Hebrew Chelbenah, was an ingredient of the incense used in the worship of the ancient Israelites,[1221] and is mentioned by the earliest writers on medicine as Hippocrates and Theophrastus.[1222] Dioscorides states it to be the juice of a Narthex growing in Syria, and describes its characters, and the method of purifying it by hot water exactly as followed in modern times. We find it mentioned in the 2nd century among the drugs on which duty was levied at the Roman custom-house at Alexandria.[1223] Under the name of Kinnah it was well known to the Arabians, and through them to the physicians of the school of Salerno.

[1215] Aufzählung der in einer Reise durch Transkaukasien und Persien gesammelten Pflanzen.—Nouv. Mém. de la Soc. imp. des Nat. de Moscou, xii. (1860) 99.—Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 16.

[1216] Buhse, l.c.; also Bulletin de la Soc. imp. des Nat. de Moscou, xxiii. (1850) 548.

[1217] Diagnoses Plantarum novarum præsertim orientalium, ser. ii. fasc. 2 (1856) 92.

[1218] Op. cit. 36 (see p. 315, note 1).

[1219] Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 995.

[1220] Berg u. Schmidt, Offizinelle Gewächse, iv. (1863) tab. 31 b.

[1221] Exodus xxx. 34.—Jes. Sirach xxiv. 18.—In imitation of the ancient Jewish custom, Galbanum is a component of the incense used in the Irvingite chapels in London.

[1222] Χαλβάνη—Theophr. Hist. Plant. ix. c. 1.

[1223] Vincent, Commerce of the Ancients, ii. (1807) 692.

In the journal of expenses of John, king of France, during his captivity in England, A.D. 1359-60, there is an entry for the purchase of 1 lb. of Galbanum which cost 16_s._, 1 lb. of Sagapenum (Serapin) at the same time costing only 2_s._[1224] In common with other products of the East, these drugs used to reach England by way of Venice, and are mentioned among the exports of that city to London in 1503.[1225]

An edict of Henry III. of France promulgated in 1581, gives the prices per lb. of the gum-resins of the Umbelliferæ as follows:—Opopanax, 32 sols, Sagapenum 22 sols, Asafœtida 15 sols, Galbanum 10 sols, Ammoniacum 6 sols 6 deniers.[1226]

=Description=—Galbanum is met with in drops or tears, adhering inter se into a mass, usually compact and hard, but sometimes found so soft as to be fluid. The tears are of the size of a lentil to that of a hazel-nut, translucent, and of various shades of light brown, yellowish or faintly greenish. The drug has a peculiar, not unpleasant, aromatic odour, and a disagreeable, bitter, alliaceous taste.

In one variety, the tears are dull and waxy, of a light yellowish tint when fresh, but becoming of an orange-brown by keeping; they are but little disposed to run together, and are sometimes quite dry and loose, with an odour that somewhat reminds one of savine. In recent importations of this form of galbanum, we have noticed a considerable admixture of thin transverse slices of the root of the plant, an inch or more in diameter.

=Chemical Composition=—Galbanum contains volatile oil, resin and mucilage. The first, of which 7 per cent. may be obtained by distillation with water, is a colourless or slightly yellowish liquid, partly consisting of a hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at from 170° to 180°. This oil affords easily crystals of terpin, C₁₀H₁₆ + 3OH₂, if it is treated as mentioned in the article Oleum Cajuputi; it also affords the crystallized compound C₁₀H₁₆ + HCl. But the prevailing part of oil of galbanum consists of hydrocarbons of a much higher boiling point. The crude oil has a mild aromatic taste, and deviates the ray of polarized light to the right.

The resin, which we find to constitute about 60 per cent. of the drug, is very soft, and dissolves in ether or in alkaline liquids, even in milk of lime, but only partially in bisulphide of carbon. When heated for some time at 100° C. with hydrochloric acid, it yields Umbelliferone, C₉H₆O₃, which may be dissolved from the acid liquid by means of ether or chloroform; it is obtained on evaporation in colourless acicular crystals. Umbelliferone is soluble in hot water; its solution exhibits, especially on addition of an alkali, a brilliant blue fluorescence which is destroyed by an acid. If a small fragment of galbanum is immersed in water, the fluorescence is immediately produced by a drop of ammonia.[1227] The same phenomenon takes place with asafœtida, not at all with ammoniacum; it is probably due to traces of Umbelliferone pre-existing in the former drugs. By boiling the umbelliferone with concentrated caustic lye, it splits up into resorcin, carbonic acid and formic acid.

[1224] Doliet d’Arcq, Comptes de l’Argenterie des Rois de France (1851) 236.—The prices must be multiplied by 3 to give a notion of present value.

[1225] Pasi, Tariffa de Pesi e Misure, Venet. 1521. 204 (1st edition, 1503).

[1226] Fontanon, Edicts et Ordonnances des Rois de France, ii. (1585) 388.

[1227] This property of Umbelliferone may be beautifully shown by dipping some bibulous paper into water which has stood for an hour or two on lumps of galbanum, and drying it. A strip of this paper placed in a test tube of water with a drop of ammonia, will give a superb blue solution, instantly losing its colour on the addition of a drop of hydrochloric acid.

Umbelliferone is also produced from many other aromatic umbelliferous plants, as Angelica, Levisticum and Meum, when their respective resins are submitted to dry distillation. According to Zwenger (1860) it may be likewise obtained from the resin of Daphne Mezereum L. The yield is always small; it is highest in galbanum, but even in this does not much exceed 0·8 per cent. reckoned on the crude drug.

By submitting galbanum-resin to dry distillation, there will be obtained a thick oil of an intense and brilliant blue,[1228] which was noticed as early as about the year 1730 by Caspar Neumann of Berlin. It is a liquid having an aromatic odour and a bitter acrid taste; in cold it deposits crystals of umbelliferone, which can be extracted by repeatedly shaking the oil with boiling water. A small amount of fatty acids is also removed at the same time. Submitted to rectification the crude oil at first yields a greenish portion and then the superb blue oil. Kachler (1871) found that it could be resolved by fractional distillation into a colourless oil having the formula C₁₀H₁₆, and a blue oil to which he assigned the composition C₁₀H₁₆O, boiling at 289° C. As to the hydrocarbon, it boils at 240° C., and therefore differs from the essential oil obtained when galbanum is distilled with water. The blue oil, after due purification, agrees, according to Kachler, with the blue oil of the flowers of Matricaria Chamomilla L. Each may be transformed by means of potassium into a colourless hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆; or by anhydride of phosphoric acid into another product, C₁₀H₁₄, likewise colourless. The latter, as well as the former hydrocarbon, if diluted with ether, and bromine be added, assumes for a moment a fine blue tint; the colourless oil as afforded by the drug on distillation with water assumes also the same coloration with bromine.

[1228] We have found it best to mix the galbanum-resin with coarsely powdered pumice-stone; the oil is then easily and abundantly obtainable.

By fusing galbanum-resin with potash, Hlasiwetz and Barth (1864) obtained crystals (about 6 per cent.) of Resorcin or Meta-Dioxybenzol, together with acetic and volatile fatty acids. The name of this remarkable substance alludes to Orcin, which had been extracted in 1829 by Robiquet from lichens. The formula of Resorcin, C₆H₄(OH)₂, shows at once its relations to Orcin, C₆H₃CH₃(OH)₂. Resorcin has been ascertained to be frequently produced by melting other resins with potash; it has also been prepared on a large scale for the manufacture of the brilliant colouring matter called Eosin. Galbanum-resin treated with nitric acid yields Trinitroresorcin C₆H(NO₂)₃(OH)₂, the so-called Styphnic Acid.

If galbanum, or still better its resin, is very moderately warmed with concentrated hydrochloric acid, a red hue is developed, which turns violet or bluish if spirit of wine is slowly added. Asafœtida treated in the same way assumes a dingy greenish colour, and ammoniacum is not altered at all. This test probably depends upon the formation of resorcin, which in itself is not coloured by hydrochloric acid, but assumes a red or blue colour if sugar or mucilage or certain other substances are present. It is remarkable that ammoniacum, though likewise yielding resorcin when fused with potash, assumes no red colour when warmed with hydrochloric acid. The mucilage of galbanum has not been minutely examined.

=Commerce=—Galbanum is, we believe, brought into commerce chiefly from Eastern Europe. It is stated that considerable quantities reach Russia by way of Astrachan and Orenburg.

=Uses=—Galbanum is administered internally as a stimulating expectorant, and is occasionally applied in the form of plaster to indolent swellings.

Allied Substances.

Sagapenum—This is a gum-resin which, when pure, forms a tough softish mass of closely agglutinated tears. It differs from asafœtida in forming brownish (not milk-white) tears, which when broken do not acquire a pink tint; also in not having an alliaceous odour. A good specimen presented to us by Professor Dymock of Bombay (1878) reminds in that and other respects rather of galbanum. We find this sagapenum to be devoid of sulphur but containing umbelliferone; it is extremely remarkable for the intense and permanent purely blue colour it acquires in cold when the smallest fragment of the drug is immersed in hydrochloric acid 1·13 sp. gr.

Sagapenum, which in mediæval pharmacy was often called Serapinum, is so frequently mentioned by the older writers that it must have been a plentiful substance. At the present day it can scarcely be procured genuine even at Bombay, whither it is sometimes brought from Persia. The botanical origin of the drug is unknown.

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AMMONIACUM

Gummi-resina Ammoniacum; Ammoniacum or Gum Ammoniacum; F. Gomme-résine Ammoniaque; G. Ammoniak-gummiharz.

=Botanical Origin=—Dorema Ammoniacum, Don, a perennial plant,[1229] with a stout, erect, leafless flower-stem, 6 to 8 feet high, dividing towards its upper part into numerous ascending branches, along which are disposed on thick short stalks, ball-like simple umbels, scarcely half an inch across, of very small flowers. The aspect of the full-grown plant is therefore very unlike that of Ferula. The Dorema has large compound leaves with broad lobes. The whole plant in its young state is covered with a tomentum of soft, stellate hairs, which give it a greyish look, but which disappear as it ripens its fruits. The withered stems long remain erect, and occurring in immense abundance and overtopping the other vegetation of the arid desert, having a striking appearance.[1230] The root is described in the article on Sumbul, p. 313.

The plant occurs over a wide area of the barren regions of which Persia is the centre. According to Bunge and Bienert, its north-western limit appears to be Shahrud (S.E. of Asterabad), whence it extends eastwards to the deserts south of the Sea of Aral and the Sir-Daria. The most southern point at which the plant has been observed is Basiran, a village of Southern Khorassan in N. lat. 32°, E. long. 59°.

[1229] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Medic. Plants, part 33 (1878).

[1230] Fraser, Journey into Khorasān, 1825. 118; Polak, Persien, das Land und seine Leute, ii. (1865) 282.

Of the three or four other species of Dorema, D. Aucheri Boiss.[1231] affords very good ammoniacum, as we know by an ample specimen of the gum deposited together with the plant in the British Museum by Mr. W. K. Loftus, who in 1751 collected both at Kirrind in Western Persia, where the plant is called in Kurdish Zuh. Boissier[1232] includes as D. Aucheri another plant, called by Loftus D. robustum, the gum of which is certainly different from ammoniacum. Of the plant itself there are only fruits in the British Museum.

=History=—The first writer to mention ammoniacum is Dioscorides, who states it to be the juice of a Narthex growing about Cyrene in Libya, and that it is produced in the neighbourhood of the temple of Ammon. He says it is of two sorts, the one like frankincense in pure, solid tears, the other massive, and contaminated with earthy impurities. Pliny gives essentially the same account.

The succeeding Greek and Latin authors on medicine throw but little light on the drug, which however is mentioned by most of them as used in fumigation. Hence we find such terms as Ammoniacum thymiama,[1233] Ammoniacum suffimen, Thus Libycum.

The African origin assigned to the drug by Dioscorides, has long perplexed pharmacologists; but it is now well ascertained that in Morocco a large species of Ferula yields a gum-resin having some resemblance to ammoniacum, and still an object of traffic with Egypt and Arabia, where it is employed, like the ancient drug, in fumigations. There can be but little doubt we think, that the ammoniacum of Morocco is identical with the ammoniacum of the ancients; it may well have been imported by way of Cyrene from regions lying further westward.[1234]

Persian ammoniacum or the ammoniacum of European commerce may also have been known in very remote times, though we are unable to trace it back earlier than the 10th century, at which period it is mentioned by Isaac Judæus[1235] and by the Persian physician Alhervi.[1236] Both these writers designate it Ushak, a name which it bears in Persia to the present day.

=Collection=—The stem of the plant abounds in a milky juice which flows out on the slightest puncture. The agent which occasions the exudation is a beetle, multitudes of which pierce the stem. The gum, the drops of which speedily harden, partly remains adherent to the stem and partly falls to the ground; it is gathered about the end of July by the peasants, who sell it to dealers for conveyance to Ispahan or the coast.[1237]

[1231] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, part 4.

[1232] Flora Orientalis, ii. (1872) 1009.

[1233] Alexander Trallianus in Puschmann’s edition (see appendix) 581. 588.

[1234] Hanbury, Pharm. Journ. March 22, 1873. 741; or Science Papers, 375.

[1235] Opera Omnia, Lugd. 1515, lib. ii. Practices c. 44.

[1236] Seligmann, Liber Fundamentorum Pharmacologiæ, Vindob. 1830. 35.

[1237] Johnson, Journey from India to England through Persia, etc., 1818. 93. 94; Hart, quoted by Don, Linn. Trans. xvi. (1833) 605.

Young roots 3 to 4 years old are, according to Borszczow, extremely rich in milky juice which sometimes exudes into the surrounding soil in large drops; there is also an exudation from the fibrous crown of the root of a dark inferior sort of ammoniacum. The gum-resin appears to be collected in quantity only in Persia. One of the chief localities for it are the desert plains about Yezdikhast, between Ispahan and Shiraz.

=Description=—Ammoniacum occurs in dry grains or tears of roundish form, from the size of a small pea to that of a cherry, or in nodular lumps. They are externally of a pale creamy yellow, opaque and milky-white within. By long keeping, the outer colour darkens to a cinnamon-brown. Ammoniacum is brittle, showing when broken a dull waxy lustre, but it easily softens with warmth. It has a bitter acrid taste, and a peculiar, characteristic, non-alliaceous odour. It readily forms a white emulsion when triturated with water. It is coloured yellow by caustic potash. Hypochlorites, as common bleaching powder, give it a bright orange hue, while they do not affect the Morocco drug.

Ammoniacum is obtained from the mature plant, the ripe mericarps of which, ⅜ of an inch in length, are often found sticking to the tears. By pressure the tears agglutinate into a compact mass, which is the Lump Ammoniacum of the druggists. It is generally less pure than the detached grains, and fetches a lower price.

=Chemical Composition=—Ammoniacum is a mixture of volatile oil with resin and gum. We obtained only ⅓ per cent. of oil which we find to be dextrogyrate; we failed in obtaining terpin (see Galbanum, p. 322) from it. The oil has the precise odour of the drug, contains, according to our experiments, no sulphur; a similar observation was made by Przeciszewski[1238]. Vigier[1239] asserts that it blackens silver, and that after oxidation with nitric acid, he detected in it sulphuric acid. He states that, with hydrochloric acid, the oil acquires a fine violet tint passing by all shades to black; we failed in obtaining this coloration. By diluting the oil with bisulphide of carbon, and then adding mineral acids, we observed only yellow colorations. The oil diluted with alcohol acquires a reddish hue by ferric chloride.

The resin ammoniacum usually amounts to about 70 per cent. Przeciszewski asserts that the indifferent resin when heated yields sulphuretted hydrogen. Our own experiments failed to show the presence of sulphur in the crude drug; and the same negative result has been more recently obtained in some careful experiments by Moss[1240]. Water when boiled with the resin acquires a yellow hue and slightly acid reaction; the liquid assumes an intense red coloration on addition of ferric chloride.

Unlike the gum-resin of allied plants, ammoniacum yields no umbelliferone. When melted with caustic potash it affords a little resorcin.

The mucilaginous matter of the drug consists of a gum readily soluble in water and a smaller quantity of about ¼ of an insoluble part, no doubt identical with that occurring in asafœtida and galbanum. The aqueous solution of the gum of ammoniacum is very slightly levogyre.

[1238] Pharmakologische Untersuchungen über Ammoniacum, Sagapenum und Opopanax, Dorpat, 1861.

[1239] Gommes-résines des Ombellifères (Thèse), Paris, 1869. 93.

[1240] Pharm. Journ. March 29, 1873. 761.

=Commerce=—Ammoniacum is shipped to Europe from the Persian Gulf by way of Bombay. The exports from the latter place in the year 1871-72 were 453 cwt., all shipped to the United Kingdom. The quantity imported into Bombay in 1872-73 was 1671 cwt., all from the Persian Gulf.[1241]

=Uses=—The drug is administered as an expectorant and is also used in certain plasters.

Allied Gum-resins.

African Ammoniacum.—This is according to Lindley[1242] the product of Ferula tingitana L., a species growing over all northern Africa as far as Syria, Rhodus and Chios. It is called Kelth in Morocco, its product, Fasay, being shipped occasionally at Mazagan (el Bridja) or also at Mogador. This gum-resin is in large, compact, dark masses, formed of agglutinated tears having a whitish or pale greenish, or a fawn colour. But there are also seen very impure masses. The weak odour of the Moroccan drug is not suggestive of true ammoniacum. Moss (1873) found in a specimen of the former 9 per cent. of gum and 67 per cent. of resin. It yielded umbelliferone to Hirschsohn (1875), and by melting it with potash Goldschmiedt (1878) obtained Resorcin and a peculiar acid, C₁₀H₁₀O₆, which he failed to obtain from true ammoniacum.

Opopanax—A gum-resin occurring in hard, nodular, brittle, earthy-looking lumps of a bright orange-brown hue, and penetrating offensive odour, reminding one of crushed ivy-leaves. It is commonly attributed to Opopanax Chironium Koch, a native of Mediterranean Europe. We have never seen a specimen known to have been obtained from this plant; but can say that the gum-resin of the nearly allied Opopanax persicum Boiss., as collected by Loftus at Kirrind in Western Persia in 1851, has neither the appearance nor the characteristic odour of officinal opopanax. Powell,[1243] who endeavoured to trace the origin of the drug, regards it as a product of Persia.

Opopanax was very common in old pharmacy, but has fallen out of use, and is now both rare and expensive.[1244]

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FRUCTUS ANETHI

Semen Anethi; Dill Fruits, Dill Seeds; F. Fruits d’Aneth; G. Dillfrüchte.

=Botanical Origin=—Anethum graveolens L., (Peucedanum[1245] graveolens Hiern) an erect, glaucous annual plant, with finely striated stems, usually to 1 to 1½ feet high, pinnate leaves with setaceous linear segments, and yellow flowers.

[1241] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay, 1871-72, and 1872-73.

[1242] As stated by Pereira, Mat. Medica, ii. part 2 (1857) p. 186. See also Hanbury, Science Papers, 1876. 376.

[1243] Economic Products of the Punjab, i. (1868) 402.

[1244] Further particulars regarding Opopanax and Sagapenum, may be found in the theses of Przeciszewski (1861) and Vigier (1869), noticed in our article on Ammoniacum, and Dragendorff’s Jahresbericht, 1875. 119. 120.

[1245] Bentham and Hooker (Gen. Plant. 919) suppress the genus Anethum, uniting its one solitary species with Peucedanum.

It is indigenous to the Mediterranean region, Southern Russia and the Caucasian provinces, but is found as a cornfield weed in many other countries, and is frequently cultivated in gardens. It succeeds in Norway as far north as Throndhjem.

Dill, under the Hindustani name of Suvā or Sōyah, is largely grown in various ports of India, where the plant though of but a few months’ duration, grows to a height of 2 to 3 feet. On account of a slight peculiarity in the fruit, the Indian plant was regarded by Roxburgh and De Candolle as a distinct species, and called Anethum Sowa, but it possesses no botanical characters to warrant its separation from A. graveolens.

=History=—Dill is commonly regarded to be the Ἄνηθον of Dioscorides, the Anethum of Palladius and other ancient writers, as well as of the New Testament.[1246] In Greece the name Ἄνηθον is at present applied[1247] to a plant of very similar appearance, Carum Ridolfia Benth. et Hook (Anethum segetum L.). By the later Greeks, the term Ἄνηθον was also used for dill.[1248]

Dill, as well as coriander, fennel, cumin, and ammi, was in frequent requisition in Britain in Anglo-Saxon times.[1249] The name is derived according to Prior[1250] from the old Norse word dilla, to lull, in allusion to the reputed carminative properties of the drug. However this may be, we find the word occurring in the 10th century in the Vocabulary of Alfric, archbishop of Canterbury.[1251] The words dill and till, undoubtedly meaning this drug, were also used in Germany and Switzerland as early as A.D. 1000.

=Description=—The fruit, which has the characters usual to Umbelliferæ, is of ovoid form, much compressed dorsally, surrounded with a broad flattened margin. The mericarps about ⅒ of an inch wide, are mostly separate; they are provided with 5 equidistant, filiform ridges, of which the two lateral lose themselves in the paler, broad, thin margin. The three others are sharply keeled; the darkest space between them is occupied by a vitta and two occur on the commissure. In the Indian drug, the mericarps are narrower and more convex, the ridges more distinct and pale, and the border less winged. In other respects it accords with that of Europe. The odour and taste of dill are agreeably aromatic.

=Microscopic Characters=—The pericarp is formed of a small number of flattened cells, which in the inner layer are of a brown colour; the ridges consist as usual of a strong fibro-vascular bundle. The vittæ in a transverse section present an elliptic outline ¹/₁₄₀ of an inch or less in diameter. The margin of the mericarp is built up of porous, parenchymatous tissue. The albumen as in the seeds of all umbellifers, consists of thick-walled, angular cells, loaded with fatty oil, and globular grains of albuminous matters which present a dark cross when examined by polarized light.

[1246] Matt. xxiii. 23,—where it has been rendered anise by the English translators from Wicklif (1380) downwards. But in other versions, the word is correctly translated.

[1247] Heldreich, Nutzpflanzen Griechenlands (1862) 40.

[1248] Langkavel, Botanik d. späteren Griechen, Berlin, 1866. 39.

[1249] Leechdoms, &c., edited by Cockayne, 1864-66,—see especially Herbarium Apuleii, dating about A.D. 1050, in vol. i. pp. 219. 235. 237. 281. 293.

[1250] Popular Names of British Plants, 1870.

[1251] Volume of Vocabularies, edited by Wright, 1857. 30.

=Chemical Composition=—Dill fruit yields from 3 to 4 per cent. of an essential oil, the largest proportion of which was found by Gladstone (1864-1872) to be a hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, to which he gave the name Anethene. This substance has a lemon-like odour, sp. gr. ·846, and boils at 172° C. It deviates a ray of polarized light strongly to the right. Nietzki (1874) ascertained that there is, moreover, present another hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, in a very small proportion, which boils at 155-160°. A third constituent of oil of dill is in all probability identical with carvol (see page 307); we prepared from the former immediately the crystals (C₁₀H₁₄O)₂SH₂.

=Uses=—The distilled water of dill is stomachic and carminative, and frequently prescribed as a vehicle for more active medicines. The seeds are much used for culinary and medicinal purposes by the people of India, but are little employed in Continental Europe.

FRUCTUS CORIANDRI.

Semen Coriandri; Coriander Fruits, Coriander Seeds, Corianders; F. Fruits de Coriandre; G. Koriander.

=Botanical Origin=—Coriandrum sativum L., a small glabrous, annual plant, apparently indigenous to the Mediterranean and Caucasian regions, not known growing wild, but now found as a cornfield weed throughout the temperate parts of the Old World. It is cultivated in many countries, and has thus found its way even to Paraguay. In England the cultivation of coriander has long been carried on, but only to a very limited extent.

=History=—Coriander appears to occur in the famous Egyptian papyrus Ebers; it is also mentioned, under the name of Kustumburu, in early Sanskrit authors, and is also met with in the Scriptures.[1252]

The plant owes its names Κόριον, Κορίαννον, and Κοριάνδρον, or also in the middle ages, Κλάνδρον, to the offensive odour it exhales when handled, and which reminds one of bugs,—in Greek Κόρις. This character caused it to be regarded in the middle ages as having poisonous properties.[1253] The ripe fruits which are entirely free from the fœtid smell of the growing plant, were used as a spice by the Jews and the Romans, and in medicine from a very early period. Cato, who wrote on agriculture in the 3rd century B.C., notices the cultivation of coriander. Pliny states that the best is that of Egypt. It is of frequent occurrence in the book “De opsoniis et condimentis” of Apicius Cœlius, about the 3rd century of our era. Coriander is also included in the list of Charlemagne, alluded to pages 92, 98, etc.

Coriander was well known in Britain prior to the Norman Conquest, and often employed in ancient Welsh and English medicine and cookery.

[1252] Exod. xvi. 31; Num. xi. 7.

[1253] Petrus de Abbano, Tract. de Venenis, Venetiis, 1473. capp. 25. 46.

=Cultivation=—Coriander, called by the farmers Col, is cultivated in the eastern counties of England, especially in Essex. It is sometimes sown with caraway, and being an annual is gathered and harvested the first year, the caraway remaining in the ground. The seedling plants are hoed so as to leave those that are to remain in rows 10 to 12 inches apart. The plant is cut with sickles, and when dry the seed is thrashed out on a cloth in the centre of the field. On the best land, 15 cwt. per acre is reckoned an average crop.[1254]

[1254] R. Baker, in Morton’s Cyclopædia of Agriculture, i. (1855) 545.

=Description=—The fruit of coriander consists of a pair of hemispherical mericarps, firmly joined so as to form an almost regular globe, measuring on an average about ⅕ of an inch in diameter, crowned by the stylopodium and calycinal teeth, and sometimes by the slender diverging styles. The pericarp bears on each half, 4 perfectly straight sharpish ridges, regarded as secondary (juga secundaria); two other ridges, often of darker colour, belonging to the mericarps in common, the separation of which takes place in a rather sinuous line. The shallow depression between each pair of these straight ridges is occupied by a zigzag raised line (jugum primarium), of which there are therefore 5 in each mericarp. It will thus be seen that each mericarp has 5 (zigzag) so-called primary ridges, and 4 (keeled and more prominent) secondary, besides the lateral ridges which mark the suture or line of separation. There are no vittæ on the outer surface of the pericarp. Of the 5 teeth of the calyx, 2 often grow into long, pointed, persistent lobes; they proceed from the outer flowers of the umbel.

Though the two mericarps are closely united, they adhere only by the thin pericarp, enclosing when ripe a lenticular cavity. On each side of this cavity, the skin of the fruit separates from that of the seed, displaying the two brown vittæ of each mericarp. In transverse section, the albumen appears crescent-shaped, the concave side being towards the cavity. The carpophore stands in the middle of the latter as a column, connected with the pericarp only at top and bottom.

Corianders are smooth and rather hard, in colour buff or light brown. They have a very mild aromatic taste, and, when crushed, a peculiar fragrant smell. When unripe, their odour, like that of the fresh plant, is offensive. The nature of the chemical change that occasions this alteration in odour has not been made out.

The Indian corianders shipped from Bombay are of large size and of elongated form.

=Microscopic Structure=—The structural peculiarities of coriander fruit chiefly refer to the pericarp. Its middle layer is made up of thick walled ligneous prosenchyme, traversed by a few fibro-vascular bundles which in the zigzag ridges vary exceedingly in position.

=Chemical Composition=—The essential oil of coriander has a composition indicated by the formula C₁₀H₁₈O, and is therefore isomeric with borneol. If the elements of water are abstracted by phosphoric anhydride, it is converted, according to Kawalier (1852), into an oil of offensive odour, C₁₀H₁₆.

The fruits yield of volatile oil from 0·7 to 1·1 per cent.; as the vittæ are well protected by the woody pericarp, corianders should be bruised before being submitted to distillation. Trommsdorff (1835) found the fruits to afford 13 per cent. of fixed oil.

The fresh herb distilled in July when the fruits were far from ripe, yielded to one of us (F.) from 0·57 to 1·1 per mille of an essential oil possessing in a high degree the disagreeable odour already alluded to. This oil was found to deviate the ray of polarized light 1·1° to the right when examined in a column 50 mm. long. The oil distilled by us from ripe commercial fruit deviated 5·1° to the right.

=Production and Commerce=—Coriander is cultivated in various parts of Continental Europe, and, as already stated, to a small extent in England. It is also produced in Northern Africa and in India. In 1872-73, the export of coriander from the province of Sind[1255] was 948 cwt.; from Bombay[1256] in the same year 619 cwt. From Calcutta[1257] there were shipped in 1870-71, 16,347 cwt.

=Uses=—Coriander fruits are reputed stimulant and carminative, yet are but little employed in medicine. They are however used in veterinary practice, and by the distillers of gin, also in some countries in cookery.

FRUCTUS CUMINI.

Fructus vel Semen Cymini; _Cumin or Cummin[1258] Fruits_, Cummin Seeds; F. Graines de Cumin; G. Mutterkümmel, Kreuzkümmel, _Langer oder Römischer Kümmel_, Mohrenkümmel.

=Botanical Origin.=—Cuminum Cyminum L., a small annual plant, indigenous to the upper regions of the Nile, but carried at an early period by cultivation to Arabia, India and China, as well as to the countries bordering the Mediterranean. The fruits of the plant ripen as far north as Southern Norway; but in Europe, Sicily and Malta alone produce them in quantity.

=History=—Cumin was well known to the ancients; it is alluded to by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah,[1259] and is mentioned in the gospel of Matthew[1260] as one of the minor titheable productions of the Holy Land. Under the name Κύμινον, it is commended for its agreeable taste by Dioscorides, in whose day it was produced on the coasts of Asia Minor and Southern Italy. It is named as Cuminum by Horace and Persius; Scribonius Largus, in the first century of our era, mentions Cuminum æthiopicum, silvaticum and thebaicum.

During the middle ages, cumin was one of the spices in most common use. Thus in A.D. 716, an annual provision of 150 lb. of cumin for the monastery of Corbie in Normandy, was not thought too large a supply.[1261] Edrisi mentioned cumin as a product of Morocco (see article Fructus Carui, p. 305), Algeria and Tunisia. It was in frequent use in England, its average price between 1264 and 1400 being a little over 2_d._ per lb.[1262] Cumin is enumerated in the Liber albus[1263] of the city of London, compiled in 1419, among the merchandize on which the king levied the impost called scavage. It is mentioned[1264] in 1453 as one of the articles of which the Grocers’ Company had the weighing and oversight, and was classed in 1484 in the same way in the German warehouse in Venice.[1265]

[1255] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of Sind for the year 1872-73, Karachi, 1873. 36.

[1256] Ditto for Bombay, 1872-73. ii. 90.

[1257] Annual Volume of Trade, etc. for the Bengal Presidency, 1870-71. 121.

[1258] Comyne in Wicklif’s Bible (1380), Commen in Tyndale’s (1534), Commyn in Cranmer’s (1539), Cummine in the Authorised Version (1611), Cumin in Gerarde’s Herbal (1636) and Paris’s Pharmacologia (1822), Cummin, Ray (1693) and in modern trade-lists and price-currents.

[1259] Ch. xxviii. 25-27.

[1260] Ch. xxiii. 23.

[1261] Pardessus, Diplomata, etc., Paris, 1849. ii. 309.

[1262] Rogers, Hist. of Agriculture and Prices in England, 1876. i. 631, ii. 543-547.

[1263] Munimenta Gildhallæ Londoniensis, edited by Riley, i. (1859) 224.

[1264] Herbert, Hist. of the Great Livery Companies of London, 1834. 114.

[1265] Thomas, Fontego dei Todeschi in Venezia, 1874. 252.

=Description=—The fruit, the colour of which is brown, has the usual structure of the order; it is of an elongated ovoid form, tapering towards each end, and somewhat laterally compressed. The mericarps, which do not readily separate from the carpophore, are about ¼ of an inch in length and ⅒ of an inch in greatest breadth. Each has 5 primary ridges which are filiform, and scabrous or muriculate, and 4 secondary covered with rough hairs. Between the primary ridges is a single elongated vitta, and 2 vittæ occur on the commissural surface. A transverse section of the seed shows a reniform outline. There is a form of C. Cyminum in cultivation, the fruit of which is perfectly glabrous.

Cumin has a strong aromatic taste and smell, far less agreeable than that of caraway.

=Microscopic Structure=—The hairs are rather brittle, sometimes ½ mm. in length, formed of cells springing from the epidermis. The larger consists of groups of cells, vertically or laterally combined, and enclosed by a common envelope; the smaller of but a single cell ending in a rounded point. The whole pericarp is rich in tannic matter, striking with salts of iron a dark greenish colour.

The tissue of the seed is loaded with colourless drops of a fatty oil; the vittæ with a yellowish-brown essential oil. But the most striking contents of the parenchyme of the albumen consist of transparent, colourless, spherical grains, 7 to 5 mkm. in diameter, several of which are enclosed in each cell. Under a high magnifying power, they show a central cavity with a series of concentric layers around it, frequently traversed by radial clefts. Examined in polarized light, these grains display exactly the same cross as is seen in granules of starch, although their behaviour with chemical tests at once proves that they are by no means that substance; in fact iodine does not render them blue, but intensely brown. Grains of the same character, assuming sometimes a crystalloid form, occur in most umbelliferous fruits, and in many seeds of other orders. All these bodies are composed of albuminous and fatty matters; the more crystalloid form as met with in the seeds of Ricinus and in the fruit of parsley, is the body called by Hartig Aleuron.

=Chemical Composition=—Cumin fruits yielded to Bley (1829) 7 per cent. of fat oil, 13 per cent. of resin (?), 8 of mucilage and gum, 15 of albuminous matter, and a large amount of malates. Their peculiar, strong, aromatic smell and taste, depend on the essential oil of which they afford as much as 4 per cent. It contains about 56 per cent. of

Cuminol (or Cuminaldehyde), C₆H₄ {CHO, {C₃H₇

a liquid of sp. gr. 0·972, boiling point 237° C. It has also been met with, in 1858, by Trapp in the oil of Cicuta virosa. By boiling cuminol with potash in alcoholic solution,

cuminalcohol, C₆H₄ {CH₂OH, {C₃H₇

as well as the potassium salt of cuminic acid,

{COOH C₆H₄ { , are formed. {C₃H₇

The oil of cumin, secondly, contains a mixture of hydrocarbons. That which constitutes about one-half of the crude oil has been first obtained in 1841 by Gerhardt and Cahours, just from the oil under notice, and therefore called Cymene (or also Cymol). It is a liquid of 0·873 sp. gr. at 0° (32° F.), boiling at 175°; neither cymene nor cuminol have the same odour and taste as the crude oil. Many other plants have been noticed as containing cymene among the constituents of their essential oils. Thus for instance Cicuta virosa L., Carum Ajowan (page 304), Thymus vulgaris (see art. Folia Thymi), Eucalyptus globulus Labill.

Cymene, C₆H₄ {CH₃ (Propylmethyl-benzol), {C₃H₇

may also be artificially obtained from a large number of essential oils having the composition C₁₀H₁₆, or C₁₀H₁₄O, or C₁₀H₁₆O, or C₁₀H₁₈O. It differs very remarkably from the oils of the formula C₁₀H₁₆, inasmuch as cymene yields the crystallizable cymen-sulphonic acids when it is warmed with concentrated sulphuric acid.

Lastly, there is present in the oil of cumin a small amount of a terpene, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at 155·8° C., as stated in 1865 by C. M. Warren, and in 1873 by Beilstein and Kupffer.

The dextrogyrate power of cuminol is a little less strong than that of cymene; artificial cymene is optically inert.

=Commerce=—Cumin is shipped to England from Mogador, Malta and Sicily. In Malta there were in 1863, 140 acres under cultivation with this crop; in 1865, 730 acres, producing 2766 cwt.[1266]

The export of cumin from Morocco[1267] in 1872 was 1657 cwt.; that from Bombay in the year 1872-73 was 6766 cwt.;[1268] and 20,040 cwt. from Calcutta[1269] in the year 1870-71.

=Uses=—Cumin is sold by druggists as an ingredient of curry powders, but to a much larger extent for use in veterinary medicine.

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CAPRIFOLIACEÆ

FLORES SAMBUCI.

Elder Flowers; F. Fleurs de Sureau; G. Holunderblüthe, Fliederblumen.

=Botanical Origin=—Sambucus nigra L.—a large deciduous shrub or small tree, indigenous to Southern and Central Europe (not in Russia), Western Asia, the Crimea, the regions of the Caucasus and Southern Siberia. It is believed to be a native of England and Ireland, but not to be truly wild in Scotland. In other northern parts of Europe, as Norway and Sweden, the elder appears only as a plant introduced there during the middle ages by the monks.[1270]

[1266] Statistical Tables relating to the Colonial and other possessions of the United Kingdom, xi. 618. 619.

[1267] Consular Reports, Aug. 1873, 917; in 1876 only 380 cwt.

[1268] Statement of the Trade and Navigation of the Presidency of Bombay for 1872-73. pt. ii. 90.

[1269] Annual Volume of Trade, etc. for the Bengal Presidency for 1870-71. 121.

[1270] Schübeler, Pflanzenwelt Norwegens (1873-75) 253.

=History=—The Romans, as we learn from Pliny, made use in medicine of the plant under notice as well as of the Dwarf Elder (S. Ebulus L.) Both kinds were employed in Britain by the ancient English[1271] and Welsh[1272] leeches, and in Italy in the medicine of the school of Salernum.

=Description=—The elder produces in the early summer, conspicuous, many-flowered cymes, 4 to 5 inches in diameter, of which the long peduncle divides into 5 branches, which subdivide once or several times by threes or fives, ultimately separating by repeated forking into slender, furrowed pedicels about ¼ of an inch long, each bearing a single flower. In the second or third furcations, the middle flower remains short-stalked or sessile, and opens sooner than the rest. In like manner, on the outermost small forks only one of the florets is usually long-stalked. The whole of this inflorescence forms a flattish umbelliform cyme, perfectly glabrous and destitute of bracts.

The calyx is combined with the ovary and bordered with 4 or 5 small teeth. The corolla, which is of a creamy white, is monopetalous with a very short tube and 5 spreading ovate lobes. The stamens which are about as long as the divisions of the corolla and alternate with them, are inserted in the tube of the latter. The yellow pollen which thickly powders the flowers, appears under the microscope 3-pored. The projecting ovary is crowned by a 2-or 3-lobed sessile stigma.

For use in pharmacy, the part of the flower most desirable is the corolla, to obtain a good proportion of which the gathered cymes are left for a few hours in a large heap; the mass slightly heats, the corollas detach themselves, and are separated from the green stalks by shaking, rubbing, and sifting; they require to be then rapidly dried. This done, they become much shrivelled and assume a dull yellow tint. When fresh, they have a sweet faint smell, which becomes stronger and somewhat different by drying, and is quite unlike the repulsive odour of the fresh leaves and bark. Dried elder flowers have a bitterish, slightly gummy flavour. On the Continent they are sold with the stalks, i.e. in entire cymes.

=Chemical Composition=—Elder flowers yield a very small percentage of a butter-like essential oil, lighter than water, and smelling strongly of the flowers; it is easily altered by exposure to the air.[1273] The oil is accompanied by traces of volatile acids.

=Uses=—Elder flowers are only employed in British medicine for making an aromatic distilled water, and for communicating a pleasant odour to lard (Unguentum Sambuci). The flowers of Sambucus canadensis L.[1274] indigenous in the United States, which are extremely similar to those of our species, appear to be more fragrant. The leaves of the latter are sometimes used for giving a fine green tint to oil or fat, as in the Oleum viride and Unguentum Sambuci foliorum of the shops. The bark, once much employed, is now obsolete.

[1271] Leechdoms, etc. of Early England edited by Cockayne, iii. (1866) 324. 347. According to the Rev. Edward Gillett (p. xxxii.), S. Ebulus is believed to have been brought to England by the Danes and planted on the battlefield and graves of their countrymen. In Norfolk it still bears the name of Danewort and blood hilder (blood elder).

[1272] The Physicians of Myddfai (see Appendix) used sage, rue, mallow, and elder flowers as ingredients of a gargle. Meddygon Myddvai, 219. 403.

[1273] For further information, see Gmelin, Chemistry, xiv. (1860) 368.

[1274] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 21 (1877).

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RUBIACEÆ

GAMBIER.

Catechu pallidum, Extractum Uncariæ; Gambier, Pale Catechu, Gambier Catechu, Terra Japonica; F. Gambir, Cachou jaune; G. Gambir.

=Botanical Origin=—1. Uncaria Gambier Roxb. (Nauclea Gambir Hunter) a stout climbing shrub, supporting itself by means of its flower-stalks which are developed into strong recurved hooks.[1275] It is a native of the countries bordering the Straits of Malacca, and especially of the numerous islands at their eastern end; but according to Crawfurd[1276] it does not seem indigenous to any of the islands of the volcanic band. It also grows in Ceylon, where however no use is made of it.

2. U. acida Roxb.,[1277] probably a mere variety of the preceding, and growing in the Malayan islands, appears to be used in exactly the same manner.

=History=—Gambier is one of the substances to which the name of Catechu or Terra Japonica is often applied; the other is Cutch, which has been already described (p. 243). By druggists and pharmaceutists the two articles are frequently confounded, but in the great world of commerce they are reckoned as quite distinct. In many price-currents and trade-lists, Catechu is not found under that name, but only appears under the terms Cutch and Gambier.

Crawfurd asserts that gambier has been exported from time immemorial to Java from the Malacca Straits. This statement appears highly questionable. Rumphius, who resided in Amboyna during the second half of the 17th century, was a merchant, consul and naturalist; and in these capacities became thoroughly conversant with the products of the Malay Archipelago and adjacent regions, as the six folio volumes of his Herbarium Amboinense, illustrated by 587 plates, amply prove.

Among other plants, he figures[1278] Uncaria Gambier, which he terms Funis uncatus, and states to exist under two varieties, the one with broad, and the other with narrow leaves. The first form, he says, is called in Malay Daun Gatta Gambir, on account of the bitter taste of its leaves, which is perceptible in the lozenges (trochisci) called Gatta Gambir, so much so that one might suppose they were made from these leaves, which however is not the case. He further asserts that the leaves have a detergent, drying quality by reason of their bitterness, which is nevertheless not intense but quite bearable in the mouth: that they are masticated instead of Pinang [Betel-nut] with Siri [leaf of Piper Betle] and lime: that the people of Java and Bali plant the first variety near their houses for the sake of its fragrant flowers; but though they chew its leaves instead of Pinang, it must not be supposed that it is this plant from which the lozenges Gatta are compounded, for that indeed is quite different.

[1275] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, Med. Plants, part 7 (1876).

[1276] Dictionary of the Indian Islands, 1865. 142.

[1277] Beautifully figured in Berg und Schmidt, Offizinelle Gewächse, xxx. c. 1863.

[1278] Herb. Amb. v. 63. tab. 34.

Thus, if we may credit Rumphius, it would seem that the important manufacture of gambier had no existence at the commencement of the last century. As to “Gatta Gambir,” his statements are scarcely in accord with those of more recent writers. We may however remark that that name is very like the Tamil Katta Kāmbu, signifying Catechu, which drug is sometimes made into little round cakes, and was certainly a large export from India to Malacca and China as early as the 16th century (p. 241).

That gambier was unknown to Europeans long after the time of Rumphius, is evident from other facts. Stevens, a merchant of Bombay, in his Compleat Guide to the East India Trade, published in 1766, quotes the prices of goods at Malacca, but makes no allusion to gambier. Nor is there any reference to it in Savary’s Dictionnaire de Commerce (ed. of 1750), in which Malacca is mentioned as the great entrepôt of the trade of India with that of China and Japan.

The first account of gambier known to us, was communicated to the Batavian Society of Arts and Sciences in 1780, by a Dutch trader named Couperus. This person narrates[1279] how the plant was introduced into Malacca from Pontjan in 1758, and how gambier is made from its leaves; and names several sorts of the drug and their prices.

In 1807, a description of “the drug called Gutta Gambeer,” and of the tree from which it is made, was presented to the Linnean Society of London.[1280] The writer, William Hunter, well known for scientific observations in connection with India, states that the substance is made chiefly at Malacca, Siak and Rhio, that it is in the form of small squares, or little round cakes almost perfectly white, and that the finer sorts are used for chewing with betel leaf in the same manner as catechu, while the coarser are shipped to Batavia and China for use in tanning and dyeing.

=Manufacture=—The gambier plant is cultivated in plantations. These were commenced in 1819 in Singapore, where there were at one time 800 plantations; but owing to scarcity of fuel, without an abundant supply of which the manufacture is impossible, and dearness of labour, gambier-planting was in 1866 fast disappearing from the island.[1281] The official Blue Book, printed at Singapore in 1872, reports it as “much increased.” It is largely pursued on the mainland (Johore), and in the islands of the Rhio-Lingga Archipelago, lying south-east of Singapore. On the island of Bintang, the most northerly of the group, there were about 1,250 gambier-plantations in 1854.

The plantations are often formed in clearings of the jungle, where they last for a few years and are then abandoned,[1282] owing to the impoverishment of the soil and the irrepressible growth of the lalang grass (Imperata Königii P. de B.), which is more difficult to eradicate than even primæval jungle. It has been found profitable to combine with the cultivation of gambier that of pepper, for which the boiled leaves of the gambier form an excellent manure.

[1279] Verhandelingen van het Bataviaasch Genootschap, ii. (derde druk) 217-234.

[1280] Linn. Trans. ix. (1808) 218-224.

[1281] Collingwood, Journ. of Linn. Soc., Bot., x. (1869) 52.

[1282] This abuse of land has been repressed in Singapore.

The gambier plants are allowed to grow 8 to 10 feet high, and as their foliage is always in season, each plant is stripped 3 or 4 times in the year. The apparatus and all that belongs to the manufacture of the extract are of the most primitive description.[1283] A shallow cast-iron pan about 3 feet across is built into an earthen fireplace. Water is poured into the pan, a fire is kindled, and the leaves and young shoots, freshly plucked, are scattered in, and boiled for about an hour. At the end of this time they are thrown on to a capacious sloping trough, the lower end of which projects into the pan, and squeezed with the hand so that the absorbed liquor may run back into the boiler. The decoction is then evaporated to the consistence of a thin syrup, and baled out into buckets. When sufficiently cool it is subjected to a curious treatment:—instead of simply stirring it round, the workman pushes a stick of soft wood in a sloping direction into each bucket; and placing two such buckets before him, he works a stick up and down in each. The liquid thickens round the stick, and the thickened portion being constantly rubbed off, while at the same the whole is in motion, it gradually sets into a mass, a result which the workman affirms would never be produced by simple stirring round. Though we are not prepared to concur in the workman’s opinion, it is reasonable to suppose that his manner of treating the liquor favours the crystallization of the catechin in a more concrete form than it might otherwise assume. The thickened mass, which is said by another writer to resemble soft yellowish clay, is now placed in shallow square boxes, and when somewhat hardened is cut into cubes and dried in the shade. The leaves are boiled a second time, and finally washed in water, which water is saved for another operation.

From informations obtained in 1878 it would appear that now the prevailing part of gambier is made by means of pressure into blocks.

A plantation with five labourers contains on an average 70,000 to 80,000 shrubs, and yields 40 to 50 catties (1 catty = 1⅓ lb. = 604·8 grammes) of gambier daily.

=Description=—Gambier is an earthy-looking substance of light brown hue, consisting of cubes about an inch each side, more or less agglutinated, or it is in the form of entirely compact masses. The cubes are externally of a reddish-brown and compact, internally of a pale cinnamon hue, dry, porous, friable, devoid of odour, but with a bitterish astringent taste, becoming subsequently sweetish. Under the microscope, the cubes of gambier are seen to consist of very small acicular crystals.

=Chemical Composition=—In a chemical point of view, gambier agrees with cutch, especially with the pale variety made in Northern India (p. 242). Both substances consist mainly of Catechin,[1284] which may be obtained in the hydrated state as slender colourless needles, by exhausting gambier with cold water, and crystallizing the residue from 3 or 4 parts of hot water, which on cooling deposits nearly all the catechin. Ferric chloride strikes with the solution of catechin, even when much diluted, a green tint. If it is shaken with ferrous sulphate and an extremely small quantity of bicarbonate of sodium, a violet colour makes its appearance. The same reactions are produced by various substances of the tannic class.

[1283] We borrow the following account, which is the best we have met with, from Jagor’s Singapore, Malacca, und Java, Berlin, 1866. 64.

[1284] Gautier (1877) suggests that it is not identical with catechin from Acacia Catechin (p. 244).

The yellowish colouring matter of gambier was determined by Hlasiwetz (1867) and Löwe (1873) to be Quercetin, which is also a constituent of cutch. Quercetin is but very sparingly soluble in water, yet it is nevertheless found, in small quantity, in the aqueous extract of cutch, from which it may be removed by means of ether. As many species of Nauclea contain, according to De Vry,[1285] Quinovic Acid, it is probable that that substance may be detected in gambier.

Some fine gambier in regular cubes which we incinerated left 2·6 per cent. of ash, consisting mainly of carbonates of calcium and magnesium.

=Commerce=—Singapore, which is the great emporium for gambier, exported in 1871 no less than 34,248 tons, of which quantity 19,550 tons had been imported into the colony chiefly from Rhio and the Malayan Peninsula.[1286] In 1876 the export had increased to more than 50,000 tons of pressed block gambier and 2,700 tons of cubes. In 1877 it diminished to 39,117 tons, owing to difficulties which had arisen between the Chinese dealers, who supplied the drug in a rather wet state, and the European exporters. Of the above quantity 21,607 tons were shipped for London, 7,572 for Liverpool, 2,345 for Marseilles. Gambier usually fetches a lower price[1287] in the London market than cutch.

The quantity imported into the United Kingdom in 1872 was 21,155 tons, value £451,737, almost the whole being from the Straits Settlements.

=Uses=—Gambier, under the name of Catechu, is used medicinally as an astringent, but the quantity thus consumed is as nothing in comparison with that employed for tanning and dyeing.

[1285] Pharm. Journ. vi. (1865) 18.

[1286] Blue Book of the Colony of the Straits Settlements for 1871.

[1287] 17_s._ per cwt., March 1879; see Catechu, page 242, note 3.

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