322 UMBELLIFER^. 



of Galbanum which cost 1 Gs., 1 lb. of Sagapenum (Sercqnn) at the same 

 time costing only 2s/ In common with other products of the East, 

 these drugs used to reach England by way of Venice, and are mentioned 

 among the exports of that city to London in 1503.- 



An edict of Henry III. of France promulgated in 1581, gives the 

 prices per lb, of the gum resins of the Umbelliferce as follows : — Opopa- 

 nax, 32 sols, Sagapenum 22 sols, Asafoetida 15 sols, Galbanum 10 sols, 

 Ammoniacum 6 sols 6 deniers.^ 



Description — Galbanum is met with in drops or tears, adhering 

 inter se into a mass, usually compact and hard, but sometimes found so 

 soft as to be fluid The tears are of the size of a lentil to that of a 

 hazel-nut, translucent, and of various shades of light brown, yellowish 

 or faintly greenish. The drug has a peculiar, not unpleasant, aromatic 

 odour, and a disagreeable, bitter, alliaceous taste. 



In one variety, the tears are dull and waxy, of a light yellowish 

 tint when fresh, but becoming of an orange brown by keeping ; they are 

 but little disposed to run together, and are sometimes quite dry and 

 loose, with an odour that somewhat reminds one of savine. In recent 

 importations of this form of galbanum, we have noticed a considerable 

 admixture of thin transverse slices of the root of the plant, an inch or 

 more in diameter. 



Chemical Composition — Galbanum contains volatile oil, resin and 

 mucilage. The first, of which 7 per cent, may be obtained by distillation 

 with water, is a colourless or slightly yellowish liquid, partly consisting 

 of a hydrocarbon, C'"ff ', boiling at from 170° to 180°. This oil affords 

 easily crystals of terpin, C"ff® + 3 0H^ if it is treated as mentioned in 

 the article Oleum Cajuputi; it also affords the crystallized compound 

 Qioj£i6_^jjQI -g^^ ^j^g prevailing part of oil of galbanum consists of 

 hydrocarbons of a much higher boiling point. The crude oil has a 

 mild aromatic taste, and deviates the ray of polarized light to 

 the right. 



The resin, which we find to constitute about 60 per cent, of the 

 drug, is very soft, and dissolves in ether or in alkaline liquids, even 

 in milk of lime, but only partially in bisulphide of carbon. When 

 heated for some time at 100° C with hydrochloric acid, it yields 

 Umhelliferone, C^H^O^ which may be dissolved from the acid liquid by 

 means of ether or chloroform ; it is obtained on evaporation in colour- 

 less acicular crystals. Umbelliferone is soluble in hot water; its 

 solution exhibits, especially on addition of an alkali, a brilliant blue 

 fluorescence which is destroyed by an acid. If a small fragment of 

 galbanum is immersed in water, the fluorescence is immediately pro- 

 duced by a drop of ammonia.'* . The same phenomenon takes place with 

 asafcetida, not at all with ammoniacum ; it is probably due to traces of 

 umbelliferone pre-existing in the former drugs. By boiling the umbel- 



^ Douet cl'Arcq, Comptes de V Argenterie beautifully shown by dipping some bibu- 



des Rois de France (1851) 236. — The prices lous paper into water which has stood for 



must be multiplied by 3 to give a notion of an hour or two on lumps of galbanum, and 



present value. drjring it. A strip of this paper placed in 



2 Pasi, Tariffa de Pent e Misure, Venet. a test tube of water with a drop of am- 

 1521. 204 {1st edition, 1503), monia, will give a superb blue solution, 



3 Fontanon, Edicts el Ordonnances des instantly losing its colour on the addition 

 Roisde France, ii. (1585) 388. of a drop of hydrochloric acid. 



^ This property of umbelliferone may be 



