FRUCTUS CUMINL 331 



when examined in a column 50 mm. long. The oil distilled by us from 

 ripe commercial fruit deviated 5"1° to the right. 



Production and Commerce — Coriander is cultivated in various 

 parts of Continental Europe, and, as already stated, to a small extent 

 in England. It is also produced in Northern Africa and in India. In 

 1872-73, the export of coriander from the province of Sind^ was 948 

 cwt.; from Bombay" in the same year 619 cwt. From Calcutta' there 

 were shipped in 1870-71, 16,347 cwt. 



Uses — Coriander fruits are reputed stimulant and carminative, yet 

 are but little employed in medicine. They are however used in veteri- 

 nary practice, and by the distillere of gin, also in some countries in 

 cookery. 



FRUCTUS CUMINI. 



Fructus vel Semen CyTtiini ; Cumin or Canimin* Fruits, Cumryiin 

 Seeds; F. Graines de Cumin; G. Mutterkilmmel, KreuzJciimmel, 

 Langer oder RoTnischer KiiTnmel, Mohrenkummel. 



Botanical Origin. — Cumimcm Cyminum L., a small annual plant, 

 indigenous to the upper regions of the Nile, but carried at an early 

 period by cultivation to Arabia, India and China, as well as to the 

 countries bordering the Mediterranean. The fruits of the plant ripen 

 as far north as Southern Norway; but in Europe, Sicily and Malta 

 alone produce them in quantity. 



History — Cumin was well known to the ancients ; it is alluded to 

 by the Hebrew prophet Isaiah," and is mentioned in the gospel of Mat- 

 thew^ as one of the minor titheable productions of the Holy Land. 

 Under the name Kv/mcvov, it is commended for its agi*eeable taste by 

 Dioscorides, in whose day it was produced on the coasts of Asia Minor 

 and Southern Italy. It is named as Cujninuni by Horace and Persius; 

 Scribonius Largus, in the first century of our era, mentions Cuminum 

 sethiopicum, silvaticum and thebaicum. 



During the middle ages, cumin was one of the spices in most common 

 use. Thus in A.D. 716, an annual provision of 150 lb. of cumin for the 

 monastery of Corbie in Normandy, was not thought too large a supply.^ 

 Edrisi mentioned cumin as a product of Morocco (see article Fructus 

 Carui, p. 305), Algeria and Tunisia. It was in frequent use in England, 

 its average price between 1264 and 1400 being a little over 2c?. per Ib.^ 

 Cumin is enumerated in the Liber alhus^ of the city of London, 

 compiled in 1419, among the merchandize on which the king levied the 

 impost called scavage. It is mentioned^" in 1453 as one of the articles 



' Statemait of the Trade and Navigation Cummin, Kay (1693) and in modem trade- 



of Sind for the year 1872-73, Karachi, lists and price-currents. 



1873. 36. 5 ch. xxviiL 25-27. 



- Ditto for Bombay, 1872-73. ii. 90. ^ Ch. xxiii. 23. 



^Annual Volume of Trade, etc. for the ''Pardessus, DiplomcUa, etc., Paris, 1849. 



Bengal Presidency, 1870-71. 121. ii. 309. 



* Comyne in Wicklif' s Bible (1380), Com- ^ Rogers, Hist, of Agriculture and Prices 



m£n in Tyndale's (1534), Commyn in Cran- in England, 1876. i. 631, ii. 543-547. 



mer's (1539), Cummine in the Authorised ^ Munimenta Gildhallce Londonienais, 



Version (1611), Cumin in Gerarde's Herbal edited by Eiley, i. (1859) 224. 



(1636) and Paris's Pkarmacologia (1822), i» Herbert, Hist, of the Great Livery 



Companies of London, 1834. 114. 



