Vol. V, No. 3.] The ee Astukhudus. 69 
[W.8.] : 
aS catabet or (pyslhwl (Astikus or Astadus). The name which 
the Greeks wrote ‘‘ Stichas’’ had, it is seen, become but little 
distorted when Ibn Sina wrote ‘‘ Astikus,’’ but it must have 
been much in people’s mouths to have since become so muc 
further distorted as to be altered in India to ‘‘ Astukhudus.’’ 
The Makhzan-el-Adwiya, written about 1709, by the Kho- 
rasan physician Mir Mohammed Hosein, who lived first in 
Shiraz and then in Murshidabad, Bengal, contains mention of 
it aS gpyoeob.! Astukhudus. He praises the drug greatly, 
gives it as useful for all sorts of ills: especially is it the 
cleanser of the brain ; but he does not state its origin. 
All the modern Urdu books on medicine mention it. j 
its favour, among the people whose ancestors either entered 
India or became most changed in ways during the Mohamme- 
dan conquest, suggests that its use came in with the invaders. 
It has not reached Burma yet. 
e dried flowers of a lavender under the name of ‘‘ Flores 
Stoechados ’’ or ‘‘ Stcechas Arabica ’’ were sold in the French 
and English drug shops all through the Middle Ages, and as 
Fliickiger and Hanbury tell us (Pharmacographia, ed. 2, 1879, 
p- 730) had a place in the London Pharmacopeeia until 1746. 
France seemed to share with the Levant the trade in the com- 
modity. Bodzeus & Stapel (loc. cit.) says very positively that 
the chief supply came from Alexandria, together with other 
d 
islands of Hyéres. He and all the more knowledgeable writers 
of his time knew well that stechas grew for one place in southern 
Clusius earlier had recorded it as most abundant in parts of 
Spain. Lavandula dentata Clusius had found on the top of 
Gibraltar about 1570: he described it as something new, called 
by the Portuguese ‘‘ Alichrin frances ’’ or ‘* French rosemary, 
and suggested that it probably possesses the same properties as 
L. stechas ; but these he had not ascertained. 
Ray, enumerating all the species of stachas known to him, 
cites :— 
L. stechas as ‘‘ Steechas arabica vulgo dicta... .Cassi- 
dony or French Lavender, by some Sticadore = 
an 
L. dentata as ‘‘ Steechas folio serrato....Crispo folio.... 
Cassidony or Sticadore with indented leaves.”’ 
I mention this as showing that a careful student saw the 
great resemblance between the two, the confusion of which we 
re now disentangling. 
