304 COMPOSIT 2. 
considered to be a propitious day for collecting medicinal herbs, a 
commencing any undertaking, putting on new clothes, paring 
the nails, cutting the hair, &c. 
Bahman-i-sufed .is much used by Mahometan C hysiGial — 
who consider it to be hot and dry in the second degree and a — 
powerful aphrodisiac and resolvent of phlegmatic humours; they 
- also prescribe it in calculous affections and jaundice. Ainslie 
(Mat. Ind. ii., 14) confounds it with Asgandh, the root of | 
Withania somnifera.. The doseis one dirhem. Red Bahman or 
Red Rhapontic, although a foot of anentirely different struc- 
ture, is always associated with white rhapontic in the East ; its - 
source is uncertain. The author of the Makhzan-el-Adwiya 
states that it is the root of a plant called: by some Kaf-i-Adam» 
Description.— White Bahman.—The dry root is of a 
a ra ene Lan aes ae 
ain 5 a Dee a es 52 By Ree ae 
a an 
whitish-brown externally, much shrivelled and twisted; near — 
the crown it is marked by numerous circular lines. It may be © 
either simple and tapering, or more or less branched; some-— 
times a portion of purplish stem remains attached; the average 
length is about 24 inches, diameter ? of an inch; the interior 
is white and spongy ; when soaked in water it swells and becomes ~ 
mucilaginous, The taste is mucilaginous and slightly bitter. 
Microscopic examination shows a mass of regular parenchy ma 
surrounded on the outside by the brown oblong cells of the 
cortex. The centre of each of the parenchymatous cells is 
occupied by a substance giving a transient blue-black colour 
with iodine. ‘There-are numerous bundles of spiral vessels. _ 
Red Bahman is a tuberons root, consisting of a central por- 
tion about 2 inches in diameter, from which spring 5 or 6 
tapering tubers from 14 to 2 inches long, and from $ to 1 inch . 
in diameter at the base. At the top of the central tuber is a 
scaly crown about 1 inch in diameter. The external surface of 
the root is of a reddish-brown colour, scabrous and marked by 
‘numerous circular and longitudinal wrinkles; internally there 
is a dull red woody central portion, surrounded by a. thick, 
aimee horny layer, which near the crown becomes _ 
spongy In the commercial article the root is sliged:and she 
