part 16

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[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.

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_,