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.

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.

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]

ASAFŒTIDA.

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.

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.

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.

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 2s. 8d. to 4s. 8d. per lb, while the ordinary sort is worth but from 1s. to 2s.

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]

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,

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

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

Ferulaic acid may be obtained from vanillin,

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]

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]—

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.

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 16s., 1 lb. of Sagapenum (Serapin) at the same time costing only 2s.[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.

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.

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.

AMMONIACUM.

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°.

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]

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.

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]

FRUCTUS ANETHI.