326 UMBELLIFER^. 



for it are the desert plains about Yezdikhast, between Ispahan and 

 Shiraz. 



Description — Ammoniacum occurs in dry grains or tears of roundish 

 form, from the size of a small pea to that of a cherry, or in nodular 

 lumps. They are externally of a pale creamy yellow, opaque and 

 milky-white within. By long keeping, the outer colour darkens to a 

 cinnamon-brown. Ammoniacum is brittle, showing when broken a dull 

 waxy lustre, but it easily softens with warmth. It has a bitter acrid 

 taste, and a peculiar, characteristic, non -alliaceous odour. It readily 

 forms a white emulsion when triturated with water. It is coloured 

 yellow by caustic potash. Hypochlorites, as common bleaching powder, 

 give it a bright orange hue, while they do not affect the Morocco drug. 



Ammoniacum is obtained from the mature plant, the ripe mericarps 

 of which, f of an inch in length, are often found sticking to the tears. 

 By pressure the tears agglutinate into a compact mass, which is the 

 Lump Ammoniacum of the druggists. It is generally less pure than the 

 detached grains, and fetches a lower price. 



Chemical Composition — Ammoniacum is a mixture of volatile 

 oil with resin and gum. We obtained only ^ per cent, of oil which we 

 find to be dextrogyrate ; we failed in obtaining terpin (see Galbanum, p. 

 322) from it. The oil has the precise odour of the drug, contains, accord- 

 ing to our experiments, no sulphur ; a similar observation was made by 

 Przeciszewski.^ Vigier^ asserts that it blackens silver, and that after 

 oxidation with nitric acid, he detected in it sulphuric acid. He states 

 that, with hydrochloric acid, the oil acquires a fine violet tint passing 

 by all shades to black ; we failed in obtaining this coloration. By 

 diluting the oil with bisulphide of carbon, and then adding mineral acids, 

 we observed only yellow colorations. The oil diluted with alcohol 

 acquires a reddish hue by ferric chloride. 



The resin ammoniacum usually amounts to about 70 per cent. 

 Przeciszewski asserts that the indiflferent resin when heated yields sul- 

 phuretted hydrogen. Our own experiments failed to show the presence 

 of sulphur in the crude drug ; and the same negative result has been 

 more recently obtained in some careful experiments by Moss.^ Water 

 when boiled with the resin acquires a yellow hue and slightly acid reaction; 

 the liquid assumes an intense red coloration on addition of ferric 

 chloride. 



Unlike the gum resin of allied plants, ammoniacum yields no um- 

 belliferone. When melted with caustic potash it affords a little 

 resorcin. 



The mucilaginous matter of the drug consists of a gum readily 

 soluble in water and a smaller quantity of about -|- of an insoluble part, 

 no doubt identical with that occurring in asafoetida and galbanum. 

 The aqueous solution of the gum of ammoniacum is very slightly 

 levogyre. 



Commerce — Ammoniacum is shipped to Europe from the Persian 

 Gulf by way of Bombay, The exports from the latter place in the year 

 1871-72 were 453 cwt., all shipped to the United Kingdom. The 



^ Pharmakologiache Untersuchungen iiher ^ Gommcs-r^sines des OmheUifires (These), 



Ammoniacum, Sagapenum und Opopanax, Paris, 1869. 93. 

 Dorpat, 1861. ^ Pharm. Joimi. March 29, 1873. 761. 



