part 23

(1877).

=History=—Sesamé is a plant which we find on the authority of the most ancient documents of Egyptian, Hebrew,[1730] Sanskrit, Greek, and Roman literature, has been used by mankind for the sake of its oily seeds from the earliest times. The Egyptian name _Semsemt_ already occurring in the Papyrus Ebers, is still existing in the Coptic _Semsem_, the Arabic _Simsim_, and the modern _Sesamum_. The Indian languages have their own terms for it, the Hindustani _Til_, from the Sanskrit _Tila_, being one of the best known.[1731] _Tila_ already occurs in the Vedic literature. In the days of Pliny the oil was an export from Sind to Europe by way of the Red Sea, precisely as the seeds are at the present day.

During the middle ages the plant, then known as _Suseman_ or _Sempsen_, was cultivated in Cyprus, Egypt and Sicily; the oil was an article of import from Alexandria to Venice. Joachim Camerarius gave a good figure of the plant in his “Hortus medicus et philosophicus” 1588 (tab. 44). In modern times sesame oil gave way to that of olives, yet at present it is an article which, if not so renowned, is at least of far greater consumption.

=Production=—The plant comes to perfection within 3 or 4 months; its capsule contains numerous flat seeds, which are about ²/₁₀10 of an inch long by ¹/₂₀ thick, and weigh on an average ¹/₁₆ of a grain. To collect them, the plant when mature is cut down, and stacked in heaps for a few days, after which it is exposed to the sun during the day, but collected again into heaps at night. By this process the capsules gradually ripen and burst, and the seeds fall out.[1732]

The plant is found in several varieties affording respectively white, yellowish, reddish, brown or black seeds. The dark seeds may be deprived of a part of their colouring matter by washing, which is sometimes done with a view to obtain a paler oil.[1733]

We obtained from yellowish seeds 56 per cent. of oil; on a large scale, the yield varies with the variety of seed employed and the process of pressing, from 45 to 50 per cent.

=Description=—The best kinds of sesamé oil have a mild agreeable taste, a light yellowish colour, and scarcely any odour; but in these respects the oil is liable to vary with the circumstances already mentioned. The white seeds produced in Sind are reputed to yield the finest oil.

We prepared some oil by means of ether, and found it to have a sp. gr. of 0·919 at 23° C.; it solidified at 5° C., becoming rather turbid at some degrees above this temperature. Yet sesame oil is more fluid at ordinary temperatures than ground-nut oil, and is less prone to change by the influence of the air. It is in fact, when of fine quality, one of the less alterable oils.

[1730] Isaiah xxviii. 27.

[1731] The word _Gingeli_ (or _Gergelim_), which Roxburgh remarks was (as it is now) in common use among Europeans, derives from the Arabic _chulchulân_, denoting sesame seed in its husks before being reaped (Dr. Rice). The word _Benné_ is, we believe, of West African origin, and has no connection with _Ben_, the name of _Moringa_.

[1732] For further particulars see Buchanan, _Journey from Madras through Mysore, etc._ i. (1807) 95. and ii. 224.

[1733] This curious process is described in the _Reports of Juries_, _Madras Exhibition_, 1856, p. 31.—That the colouring matter of the seeds is actually soluble in water is confirmed by Lépine of Pondicherry as we have learnt from his manuscript notes presented to the Musée des Produits des Colonies de France at Paris. The seeds may even be used as a dye.

=Chemical Composition=—The oil is a mixture of olein, stearin and other compounds of glycerin with acids of the fatty series. We prepared with it in the usual way a lead plaster, and treated the latter with ether in order to remove the oleate of lead. The solution was then decomposed by sulphuretted hydrogen, evaporated and exposed to hyponitric vapours. By this process we obtained 72·6 per cent. of _Elaïdic Acid_. The specimen of sesamé oil prepared by ourselves consequently contained 76·0 per cent. of olein, inasmuch as it must be supposed to be present in the form of triolein. In commercial oils the amount of olein is certainly not constant.

As to the solid part of the oil, we succeeded in removing fatty acids, freely melting, after repeated crystallizations, at 67° C., which may consist of stearic acid mixed with one or more of the allied homologous acids, as palmitic and myristic. By precipitating with acetate of magnesium, as proposed by Heintz, we finally isolated acids melting at 52·5 to 53°, 62 to 63°, and 69·2° C., which correspond to myristic, palmitic and stearic acids.

The small proportion of solid matter which separates from the oil on congelation cannot be removed by pressure, for even at many degrees below the freezing point it remains as a soft magma. In this respect sesamé oil differs from that of olive.

Sesamé oil contains an extremely small quantity of a substance, perhaps resinoid, which has not yet been isolated. It may be obtained in solution by repeatedly shaking 5 volumes of the oil with one of glacial acetic acid. If a cold mixture of equal weights of sulphuric and nitric acids is added in like volume, the acetic solution acquires a greenish yellow hue. The same experiment being made with spirit of wine substituted for acetic acid, the mixture assumes a blue colour, quickly changing to greenish yellow. The oil itself being gently shaken with sulphuric and nitric acids, takes a fine green hue, as shown in 1852 by Behrens, who at the same time pointed out that no other oil exhibits this reaction. It takes place even with the bleached and perfectly colourless oil. Sesamé oil added to other oils, if to a larger extent than 10 per cent., may be recognised by this test. The reaction ought to be observed with small quantities, say 1 gramme of the oil and 1 gramme of the acid mixture, previously cooled.

=Commerce=—The commercial importance of Sesamé may be at once illustrated by the fact that France imported in 1870, 83 millions; in 1871, 57½ millions; and 1872, 50 millions of kilogrammes (984,693 cwt.) of the seed.[1734]

The quantity shipped from British India in the year 1871-72 was 565,854 cwt., of which France took no less than 495,414 cwt.[1735] The imports of the seed into the United Kingdom in 1870 were to the value of only about £13,000.

Sesamé is extensively produced in Corea and in the Chinese island of Formosa, which in 1869 exported the exceptionally large quantity of 46,000 peculs[1736] (1 pecul = 133 lb.). Zanzibar and Mozambique also furnish considerable quantities of sesamé, whilst on the West Coast of Africa the staple oil-seed is Ground-nut (_Arachis hypogæa_ L. p. 186). The chief place for the manufacture of sesamé oil is Marseilles.

[1734] _Documents Statistiques réunis par l’Administration des Douanes sur le commerce de la France_, année 1872.

[1735] _Statement of the Trade and Navigation of British India with Foreign Countries_, Calcutta, 1872. 62.

[1736] _Reports on Trade at the Treaty Ports in China for 1870_, Shanghai, 1871. 81.

=Uses=—Good sesamé oil might be employed without disadvantage for all the purposes for which olive oil is used.[1737] As its congealing point is some degrees below that of olive oil, it is even more fitted for cool climates. Sesamé seeds are largely consumed as food both in India and Tropical Africa. The foliage of the plant abounds in mucilage, and in the United States is sometimes used in the form of poultice.

LABIATÆ.

FLORES LAVANDULÆ.

_Lavender Flowers_; F. _Fleurs de Lavande_; G. _Lavendelblumen_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Lavandula vera_ DC., a shrubby plant growing in the wild state from 1 to 2 feet high, but attaining 3 feet or more under cultivation. It is indigenous to the mountainous regions of the countries bordering the western half of the Mediterranean basin. Thus it occurs in Eastern Spain, Southern France (extending northward to Lyons and Dauphiny), in Upper Italy, Corsica, Calabria and Northern Africa,—on the outside of the olive region.[1738] In cultivation it grows very well in the open air throughout the greater part of Germany and as far north as Norway and Livonia; the northern plant would even appear to be more fragrant, according to Schübeler.[1739]

=History=—There has been much learned investigation in order to identify lavender in the writings of the classical authors, but the result has not been satisfactory, and no allusion has been found which unquestionably refers either to _L. vera_ or to _L. Spica_,[1740] whereas _L. Stœchas_ was perfectly familiar to the ancients.

The earliest mention of lavender that we have observed, occurs in the writings of the abbess Hildegard,[1741] who lived near Bingen on the Rhine during the 12th century, and who in a chapter _De Lavendula_ alludes to the strong odour and many virtues of the plant. In a poem of the school of Salerno entitled _Flos Medicinæ_[1742] occur the following lines:—

“Salvia, castoreum, _lavendula_, primula veris, Nasturtium, athanas hæc sanant paralytica membra.”

In 1387 cushions of satin were made for King Charles VI. of France, to be stuffed with “_lavende_.”[1743] Its use was also popular at an early period in the British isles, for we find “_Llafant_” or “_Llafanllys_” mentioned among the remedies of the “Physicians of Myddvai.”[1744] And in Walton’s “Description of an inn,” about the year 1680 to 1690, we find the walls stuck round with ballads, where the sheets smelt of _lavender_....[1745]

[1737] For pharmaceutical uses, the larger proportion of olein and consequent lesser tendency to solidify, should be remembered.

[1738] On Mont Ventoux near Avignon, the region of _Lavandula vera_ is comprised, according to Martins, between 1500 and 4500 feet above the sea-level.—_Ann. des Sc. Nat._, Bot. x. (1838) 145. 149.

[1739] _Pflanzenwelt Norwegens_, Christiania (1873-1875) 26O.

[1740] F. de Gingins-Lassaraz, _Hist. des Lavandes_, Genève et Paris, 1826.

[1741] _Opera Omnia_, accurante J. P. Migne, Paris, 1855. 1143.

[1742] S. de Renzi, _Collectio Salernitana_, Napoli, i. 417-516.

[1743] Douët d’Arcq, _Comptes de l’Argenterie des rois de France_, ii. (1874) 148.

[1744] _Meddygon Myddfai_ (see Appendix) 287.

[1745] Macaulay, _Hist. of England_, i. ch. 3, Inns.

Lavender was well known to the botanist of the 16th century.

=Description=—The flowers of Common Lavender are produced in a lax terminal spike, supported on a long naked stalk. They are arranged in 6 to 10 whorls (verticillasters), the lowest being generally far remote from those above it. A whorl consists of two cymes, each having, when fully developed, about three flowers, below which is a rhomboidal acuminate bract, as well as several narrow smaller bracts belonging to the particular flowers. The calyx is tubular, contracted towards the mouth, marked with 13 nerves and 5-toothed, the posterior tooth much larger than the others. The corolla of a violet colour is tubular, two-lipped, the upper lip with two, the lower with three lobes. Both corolla and calyx, as well as the leaves and stalks, are clothed with a dense tomentum of stellate hairs, amongst which minute shining oil-glands can be seen by the aid of a lens.

The flowers emit when rubbed a delightful fragrance, and have a pleasant aromatic taste. The leaves of the plant are oblong linear, or lanceolate, revolute at the margin and very hoary when young.

For pharmaceutical use or as a perfume, lavender flowers are stripped from the stalks and dried by a gentle heat. They are but seldom kept in the shops, being grown almost entirely for the sake of their essential oil.

=Production of Essential Oil=—Lavender is cultivated in the parishes of Mitcham, Carshalton and Beddington and a few adjoining localities, all in Surrey, to the extent of about 300 acres. It is also grown at Market Deeping in Lincolnshire; also at Hitchin in Hertfordshire, where lavender was apparently cultivated as early as the year 1568.[1746]

At the latter place there were in 1871 about 50 acres so cropped.

The plants which are of a small size, and grown in rows in dry open fields, flower in July and August. The flowers are usually cut with the stalks of full length, tied up in mats, and carried to the distillery there to await distillation. This is performed in the same large stills that are used for peppermint. The flowers are commonly distilled with the stalks as gathered, and either fresh, or in a more or less dry state. A few cultivators distill only the flowering heads, thereby obtaining a superior product. Still more rarely, the flowers are stripped from the stalks, and the latter rejected _in toto_.[1747] According to the careful experiments of Bell,[1748] the oil made in this last method is of exceedingly fine quality. The produce he obtained in 1846 was 26½ ounces per 100 lb. of flowers, entirely freed from stalks; in 1847, 25½ ounces; and in 1848, 20 ounces: the quantities of flowers used in the respective years were 417, 633, and 923 lb. Oil distilled from the stalks alone was found to have a peculiar rank odour. In the distillation of lavender, it is said that the oil which comes over in the earlier part of the operation is of superior flavour.

[1746] Perhs, _Proc. American Pharm. Association_, 1876. 819.

[1747] For more particulars see the interesting account of Holmes, _Pharm. Journ._ viii. (1877) 301. The author describes also the disease which is affecting the lavender since about the year 1860.

[1748] _Pharm. Journ._ viii. (1849) 276.

We have no accurate data as to the produce of oil obtained in the ordinary way, but it is universally stated to vary extremely with the season. Warren[1749] gives it as 10 to 12 lb., and in an exceptional case as much as 24 lb. from the acre of ground under cultivation. At Hitchin,[1750] the yield would appear to approximate to the last named quantity. The experiments performed in Bell’s laboratory as detailed above, show that the flowers deprived of stalks afforded on an average exactly 1½ per cent. of essential oil.

Oil of _Lavandula vera_ is distilled in Piedmont, and in the mountainous parts of the South of France, as in the villages about Mont Ventoux near Avignon, and in those some leagues west of Montpellier (St. Guilhen-le-désert, Montarnaud and St. Jean de Fos)—in all cases from the wild plant. This foreign oil is offered in commerce of several qualities, the highest of which commands scarcely one-sixth the price of the oil produced at Mitcham.[1751] The cheaper sorts at least are obtained by distilling the _entire plant_.

=Chemical Composition=—The only constituent of lavender flowers that has attracted the attention of chemists is the essential oil (_Oleum Lavandulæ_). It is a pale yellow, mobile liquid, varying in sp. gr. from 0·87 to 0·94 (Zeller), having a very agreeable odour of the flowers and a strong aromatic taste. The oil distilled at Mitcham (1871) we find to rotate the plane of polarization 4·2° to the left, in a column of 50 mm.

Oil of lavender seems to be a mixture in variable proportions of oxygenated oils and stearoptene, the latter being identical, according to Dumas, with common camphor. In some samples it is said to exist to the extent of one-half, and to be sometimes deposited from the oil in cold weather; we have not however been able to ascertain this fact. The oil according to Lallemand (1859) appears also to contain compound ethers.

=Commerce=—Dried lavender flowers are the object of some trade in the south of Europe. According to the official _Tableau général du Commerce de la France_, Lavender and Orange Flowers (which are not separated) were exported in 1870 to the extent of 110,958 kilo. (244,741 lb.),—chiefly to the Barbary States, Turkey and America. There are no data to show the amount of oil of lavender imported into England.

=Uses=—Lavender flowers are not prescribed in modern English medicine. The volatile oil has the stimulant properties common to bodies of the same class and is much used as a perfume.

[1749] _Pharm. Journ._ vi. (1865) 257.

[1750] _Ibid._ i. (1860) 278. The statement is that an acre of land yields “_about 6 Winchester quarts_” of oil.—One Winchester quart = 282 litres.

[1751] The Mitcham oil fetches 30_s._ to 60_s._ per lb., according to the season.

Other Species of Lavender.

1. _Lavandula Spica_ DC. is a plant having a very close resemblance to _L. vera_, of which Linnæus considered it a variety, though its distinctness is now admitted. It occurs over much of the area of _L. vera_, but does not extend so far north, nor is it found in such elevated situations, or beyond the limit of the olive. It is in fact a more southern plant and more susceptible to cold, so that it cannot be cultivated in the open soil in Britain except in sheltered positions. In Languedoc and Provence, it is the common species from the sea-level up to about 2000 feet, where it is met by the more hardy _L. vera_.[1752]

_Lavandula Spica_ is distilled in the south of France, the flowering wild plant in its entire state being used. The essential oil, which is termed in French _Essence d’Aspic_, is known to English druggists as _Oleum Lavandulæ spicæ_, _Oleum Spicæ_, or _Oil of Spike_. It resembles true oil of lavender, but compared with that distilled in England it has a much less delicate fragrance. This however may depend upon the frequent adulteration, for we find that flowers of the two plants (_L. vera_ and _L. Spica_) grown side by side in an English garden, are hardly distinguishable in fragrance. Porta already even, in speaking of the oil of lavender flowers, stated:[1753] “e _spica fragrantior_ excipitur, ut illud quod ex Gallia provenit....”—Lallemand (1859) isolated from oil of spike a camphor which he believes to be identical with common camphor.

Oil of Spike is used in porcelain painting and in veterinary medicine.

2. _Lavandula Stœchas_ L.—This plant was well known to the ancients; Dioscorides remarks that it gives a name to the Stœchades, the modern isles of Hières near Toulon, where the plant still abounds. It has a wider range than the two species of _Lavandula_ already described, for it is found in the Canaries and in Portugal, and eastward throughout the Mediterranean region to Constantinople and Asia Minor. It may at once be known from the other lavenders by its flower-spike being on a _short_ stalk, and terminating in 2 or 3 conspicuous purple bracts.

The flowers, called _Flores Stœchados_ or _Stœchas arabica_,[1754] were formerly kept in the shops, and had a place in the London Pharmacopœia down to 1746. We are not aware that they are, or ever were distilled for essential oil, though they are stated to be the source of _True Oil of Spike_.[1755]

HERBA MENTHÆ VIRIDIS.

_Spearmint._

=Botanical Origin=—_Mentha viridis_ L. is a fragrant perennial plant, chiefly known in Europe, Asia and North America, as the Common Mint of gardens, and only found apparently wild in countries where it has long been cultivated. It occurs occasionally in Britain under such circumstances.[1756]

[1752] On the high land between Nice and Turbia, I have observed the two species growing together, and that _L. vera_ is in flower two or three weeks earlier than _L. Spica_.—D. H.

[1753] _De distillatione_, Romæ, 1608. 87.

[1754] The incorrectness of the term _Arabica_ is noticed by Pomet. How it came to be applied we know not.

[1755] Pereira, _Elem. of Mat. Med._ ii. (1850) 1368.—Nor do we know if _L. lanata_ Boiss., a very fragrant species closely allied to _L. Spica_ DC., and a native of Spain, is distilled in that country.

[1756] Bentham, _Handbook of the British Flora_, 1858. 413.—Parkinson (1640) remarks of _Speare Mint_ that it is “onely found planted in gardens with us.”

_Mentha viridis_ is regarded by Bentham as not improbably a variety of _M. silvestris_ L., perpetuated through its ready propagation by suckers. J. G. Baker remarks, that while these two plants are sufficiently distinct as found in England, yet continental forms occur which bridge over their differences.[1757]

=History=—Mint is mentioned in all early mediæval lists of plants, and was certainly cultivated in the convent gardens of the 9th century. Turner, who has been called “the father of English botany,” states in his _Herball_[1758] that the garden mint of his time was also called “_Spere Mynte_.” We find spearmint also described by Gerarde who terms it _Mentha Romana_ vel _Sarracenica_, or _Common Garden Mint_, but his statement that the leaves are _white_, _soft_, and _hairy_ does not well apply to the plant as now found in cultivation.

=Description=—Spearmint has a perennial rootstock which throws out long runners. Its stem 2 to 3 feet high is erect, when luxuriant branched below with short erecto-patent branches, firm, quadrangular, naked or slightly hairy beneath the nodes, often brightly tinged with purple. Leaves sessile or the lower slightly stalked, lanceolate or ovate-lanceolate, rounded or even cordate at the base, dark green and glabrous above, paler and prominently veined with green or purple beneath, rather thickly glandular, but either quite naked or hairy only on the midrib and principal veins, the point narrowed out and acute, the teeth sharp but neither very close nor deep, the lowest leaves measuring about 1 inch across by 3 or 4 inches long. Inflorescence a panicled arrangement of spikes, of which the main one is 3 or 4 inches long by ⅜ inch wide, the lowest whorls sometimes ½ an inch from each other and the lowest bracts leafy. Bracteoles linear-subulate, equalling or exceeding the expanded flowers, smooth or slightly ciliated. Pedicels about ¾ line long, purplish glandular, but never hairy. Calyx also often purplish, the tube campanulato-cylindrical, ⅜ line long, the teeth lanceolate-subulate, equalling the tube, the flower part of which is naked, but the teeth and often the upper

## part clothed more or less densely with erecto-patent hairs. Corolla

reddish-purple, about twice as long as the calyx, naked both within and without. Not smooth.

The plant varies slightly in the shape of its leaves, elongation of spike and hairiness of calyx. The entire plant emits a most fragrant odour when rubbed, and has a pungent aromatic taste.

=Production=—Spearmint is grown in kitchen gardens, and more largely in market gardens. A few acres are under cultivation with it at Mitcham, chiefly for the sake of the herb, which is sold mostly in a dried state.

The cultivation of spearmint is carried on in the United States in precisely the same manner as that of peppermint, but on a much smaller scale. Mr. H. G. Hotchkiss of Lyons, Wayne County, State of New York, has informed us that his manufacture of the essential oil amounted in 1870 to 1162 lb. The plant he employs appears from the specimen with which he has favoured us, to be identical with the spearmint of English gardens, and is not the Curled Mint (_Mentha crispa_) of Germany.

[1757] Seemann’s _Journal of Botany_, Aug. 1865. p. 239. We borrow Mr. Baker’s careful description of _Mentha viridis_.

[1758]