20 PHARMACOPEIAS DRUGS 



duced between Sistan and Makran, of Beluchistan, 

 and was used by the people as a condiment. It has 

 ever been employed in Arabic therapy, Matthseus 

 Platearius (513), nearly a thousand years ago, mention- 

 ing it in his work on simple medicines, De Simplici 

 Medicina. Otho of Cremona, near that period, states 

 that the more fetid the drug, the better its qualities. 

 The "Physicians of Myddvai," (507), (see footnote to 

 Aconite), valued it highly. Briefly, this drug drifted 

 into European conspicuity from the Orient, where it 

 had been used empirically from the remotest antiquity. 

 For centuries, every work on domestic or professional 

 medicine has given asafetida a setting. On this subject, 

 see also an article in the Pharmaceutical Review, March, 

 1896. As might be expected, Dymock, Pharmaco- 

 graphia Indica, Vol. II, goes deeply into the history of 

 asafetida, his description and history covering several 

 pages. From this great work we extract, as follows: 

 HISTORY. "The old Greek and Latin writers on Ma- 

 teria Medica mention two kinds of Silphium one good 

 or sweet, and the other fetid. Theophrastus in his 

 History of Plants, (vi, 3) speaks of two varieties, of 

 the stem and of the root. Dioscorides mentions two 

 kinds, one coming from Cyrene and the other from 

 Asia. Some consider the silphium of Cyrene to have 

 been entirely different from our Asafetida, but from a 

 passage in Strabo this does not appear to have been the 

 case. Pliny's account is very confused, but he has 

 collected some information which we now know to be 

 correct. N. Myrepsicus appears to be the first writer 

 who mentions the name asafitida, which he says is an 

 Italian name for the skordolasaron of the Greeks of his 

 day. In the Rudens of Plautus, (B. C. 220), the scene 



