AMMONIACUM. 325 



Of the three or four other species of Iforema, D. Av/chei'i Boiss/ 

 affords very good ammoniacum, as we know by an ample specimen of the 

 gum deposited together with the plant in the British Museum by Mr. 

 VV. K. Loftus, who in 1751 collected both at Kiriind in Western Persia, 

 where the plant is called in Kurdish Ziih. Boissier- includes as D. 

 Aucheri another plant, called by Loftus D. rohustum, the gum of which 

 is certainly different from ammoniacum. Of the plant itself there are 

 only fruits in the British Museum. 



History — The first wi'iter to mention ammoniacum is Dioscorides, 

 who states it to be the juice of a Narthex growing about Gyrene in 

 Libya, and that it is produced in the neighbourhood of the temple of 

 Ammon. He says it is of two sorts, the one like frankincense in pure, 

 solid tears, the other massive, and contaminated with earthy impurities. 

 Pliny gives essentially the same account. 



The succeeding Greek and Latin authors on medicine throw but little 

 light on the drug, which however is mentioned by most of them as used 

 in fumigation. Hence we find such terms as ATmmoniacurn thymiama^ 

 Ammo7iiacu7)i suffi^men. Thus Libycuni. 



The African origin assigned to the drug by Dioscorides, has long 

 perplexed pharmacologists; but it is now well ascertained that in Morocco 

 a large species of Ferala yields a gum-resin having some resemblance to 

 ammoniacum, and still an object of traffic with Egypt and Arabia, where 

 it is employed, like the ancient drug, in fumigations. There can be 

 but little doubt we think, that the ammoniacum of Morocco is identical 

 with the ammoniacum of the ancients ; it may well have been imported 

 by way of Gyrene from regions lying further westward.* 



Persian ammoniacum or the ammoniacum of European commerce 

 may also have been known in very remote times, though we ai-e unable 

 to trace it back earlier than the 10th century, at which period it is men- 

 tioned by Isaac Judseus® and by the Persian physician Alhervi.® Both 

 these writers designate it Ushah, a name which it bears in Persia to the 

 present day. 



Collection — The stem of the plant abounds in a milky juice which 

 flows out on the slightest puncture. The agent which occasions the exu- 

 dation is a beetle, multitudes of which pierce the stem. The gum, the 

 drops of which speedily harden, partly remains adherent to the stem and 

 partly falls to the ground ; it is gathered about the end of July by 

 the peasants, who sell it to dealers for conveyance to Ispahan or the 

 coast.^ 



Young roots 3 to 4 years old are, according to Borszczow, extremely 

 rich in milky juice which sometimes exudes into the surrounding soil in 

 large drops ; there is also an exudation from the fibrous crown of the 

 root of a dark inferior sort of ammoniacum. The gum-resin appears to 

 be collected in quantity only in Persia. One of the chief localities 



^ Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, part 4. ^Seligmann, Liher FundamentorumPhar- 



2 Flora Orieh talis, u. (1872) 1009. macologice, Vindob. 1830. 35. 



' Alexander Trallianus in Puschmann's "^ Johnson, Journey from India to England 



edition (see appendix) 581. 588. through Persia, etc., 1818. 93. 94; Hart, 



•* Hanbury, Pharm. Joum. March 22, quoted by Don, Linn. Tram. xvi. (1833) 



1873. 741 ; or Science Papers, 375. 605. 



' Opera Omnia, Lugd. 1515, lib. ii. Prac- 

 tices c. 44. 



