PASTINACA OPOPONAX. 
13 
Pastinaca ; all the florets are fertile, and have an uniform appear- 
ance; the petals are five, lance-shaped, and curled inwards; the 
five filaments are spreading, curved, longer than the petals, and 
furnished with roundish anthers ; the germen is placed below the 
corolla, supporting two reflexed styles, which are supplied with 
blunt stigmata ; the fruit is elliptical, compressed, divided into two 
parts, containing two flat seeds, encompassed with a narrow border: 
it is as we have said, a native of the South of Europe, and flowers in 
June and July. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties. The gum resin as 
it comes to us is sometimes in round drops or tears, buf more 
commonly in irregular lumps, of a reddish yellow colour on the 
outside, with specks of white; inwardly of a paler colour, and 
frequently variegated with large white pieces. According to the 
analysis of Pelletier,* it appears to be composed of gum 33.40, 
resin 42., starch 4.20, extractive l.GO, essential oil 5.90, woody 
filire 9.80, malic acid 2.80, wax 30, caoutchouc a trace, in one 
hundred parts: by distillation it yields a brown oil, acetic acid, and 
a bituminous oil; it has a peculiar strong odour, which it commu- 
nicates by distillation both to alcohol and water ; its taste is nauseous^ 
bitter and acrid. 
Medical Properties and Uses. Opoponax was formerly 
much employed by physicians, and esteemed for its attenuating, 
deobstrueut, and aperient virtues ; it was also supposed to be 
emmenagogue, but as it was commonly prescribed in combination 
with other medicines, these properties are by no means ascertained, 
nor do its sensible qualities indicate it to be a medicine of much 
power. Dr. Cullen classes it with the antiseptics : it has commonly 
been given in hypochondriacal aff'ections, visceral obstructions, 
menstrual suppressions, and asthma, especially when connected 
with a phlegmatic habit of body. It is now but rarely used. 
Ofl". The Gum-Resin. 
* Ann. de Cbim, Ixix. p. 90. 
