37G AFRICAN AMMONIACUM. 



1873. and M'Sharrali Rurnmellah. The gum exudes from the stem in 

 consequence of the puncture of [a beetle, and falling to the 

 ground becomes contaminated with earth, for which reason it 

 does not suit the London market ; but it is used in all parts of 

 the country for cataplasms and fumigations. 



Lindley, from the examination of specimens sent to England 

 from Tangier in 1839, determined the plant affording African 

 ammoniacum to be the Ferula tingitana of Linnaeus. 1 



Notwithstanding the statement of Jackson, that a kind of 

 ammoniacum is a production of Morocco, it was difficult to 

 believe that this Moroccan drug could be the Ammoniacum 

 which the ancients, and especially Dioscorides, described as 

 brought from Libya. Pereira 2 and Guibourt 8 having examined 

 specimens of the gum sent to Lindley from Tangier, concurred 

 in regarding it as a very different substance from Persian 

 ammoniacum. The latter writer even maintained that Dios- 

 corides had slipped into an error, and that his ammoniacum was 

 probably none other than that of our own times. 



Doubts It was also pointed out that the word ammoniacum was some- 



respecting times written armoniacum, which might well be a corruption of 

 armeniacum, and point to Armenia or some country beyond as 

 the source of the drug. 



The works of a Persian writer 4 recently made accessible have 

 also proved that ammoniacum was a production of Persia as 

 early as the tenth century. 



The appearance in London drug sales of a very impure kind 

 of ammoniacum, differing notably from the worst variety of the 

 Persian drug, attracted my attention so long ago as 1857 ; and I 

 was interested in observing a much larger quantity of the same 

 article in the year 1871. On this occasion 37 packages were 

 offered for sale. I was unable to ascertain whence they had 

 been shipped, but the former lot (1857) I found had beeri 

 imported from Mogador. 



1 Pereira, Elem. of Mat. Med. ii., part 2 (1853) 1715. 



* Op. cit. 3 Hisi des Drogue8j iiit ( 1850 ) 226 . 



Abu Mansur Mowafik ben Ali, Liber Fundameniorum Pharmacologico, 

 eJ. Seligraann, 1833. 



