214 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



and as they collect the juice from a number of roots at tie same 

 time, and expose it in one common place to harden, the sun soon 

 gives it that consistence and appearance in which u is imported into 

 Europe, 



A-Witcetida has a bitter, acrid, pungent taste, and is well known 

 by its peculiar nauseous fetid smell, the strength of which is the 

 surest test of its goodness; this odour is extreme!) volatile, and of 

 course the drug loses much of its e fficacv bj keeping. According 

 to Kae pfer's account, the juice is infinitely more odorate when 

 receiu, than when in the state brought to us: Arhrnr.ire au^im, 

 imam draebmam receos rffu^am, majorem spargere faetorem, q iam 

 centum libras vetuslioris quern sicewa venundant aroinatarii nos- 

 trates. ** We have this drug in large irregular masses of a hetero- 

 geneous appearance, composed of various shining little lumps or 

 grains, which are partly whitish, partly of a brownish or reddish, 

 and part 1 > of a violet hue. Those masses are accounted the best 

 which are clear, of a pale reddish colour, and variegated with a 

 great number of fine white tears. Assafcetida is composed of a 

 gummv iMid a resinous substance, the first in largest quantity. Its 

 smell and taste reside in the resin, which is readily dissolved and 

 extracted by pure spirit, and, in a great part, along with the 

 gummy matter, by water *." 



Assafcetida is a medicine in very general use, and is certainly a 

 more efficacious remedy than any of the other fetid gums : it is 

 most commonly employed in hysteria, hypochondriasis, some symp- 

 toms of dyspepsia, flatulent colics, and in most of those diseases 

 termed nervous : but its chief use is derived from its antispasmodic 

 effects ; and it is thought to be the most powerful remedy we possess 

 for those peculiar convulsive and spasmodic affections which often 

 recur m the first of these diseases, both taken into the stomach and 

 in the way of enema. It is also recommended as an emmenagogue, 

 anthelminthic, expectorant -f, antiasthmatic, and anodyne. Where 

 we wish it to act immediately as an antispasmodic, it should be 

 used in a fluid form, as that of a tincture. 



Dr. Hope has the credit of having first cultivated the assafcetida 



* See Lewis's Mat. Med. 

 + Dr. Cullen prefers it to the Gum Arnmon as an expectorant. Assafcetida 

 should therefore have a double advantage in spasmodic, asthmas. 



