72 
CROCUS SATIVUS. 
Sensible and Chemical Properties. Dried saffron has a 
warm, pungent, and rather hitter taste ; when chewed it is tough, 
but grows soft, and tinges the saUva of a deep yellow ; its smell is 
diffusive and not unpleasant, somewhat aromatic and narcotic. 
Saffron gives out the whole of its properties and colour to rectified 
spirit, wine, vinegar, proof-spirit, and water : about three parts in 
four are taken up by each of these menstrua. By distillation with 
water, saffron furnishes a small portion of a very fragrant and 
pungent oil, of a golden yellow, heavier than water, with the charac- 
teristic smell of saffron in a very considerable degree.* The watery 
infusion turns purple by the addition of sulphuric ^cid, which mix- 
ture, on heing diluted with water, deposits a black precipitate ; 
oxymuriatic acid produces a yellow precipitate, tiie liquid remaining 
a pale lemon colour.f The soluble matter of saffron is nearly pure 
extractive, and to it the name of Polychroite has been given hy 
the French chemists. | Polychroite has heen obtained in the form 
of scales of a reddish yellow colour, deliquescent, of a sweet smell, 
taste bitter and pungent, like that of saffron, soluble in both water 
and alcohol, which solutions lose their colour by exposure to light ; 
sulphuric acid changes the solution first to blue, then to lilac ; and 
nitric acid to grass green. 
Medical Properties and Uses, Saffron appears to have 
been well known to the ancients, and held in great estimation as a 
very powerful medicine.§ Modern physicians, however, do not place 
much confidence in its medicinal properties, and, in the present day, 
it is but little used, except as an adjunct to more powerful medi- 
cines.|| It is generally considered aromatic and cordial, and its 
effects exhilarating ; when given in large doses it is said to 
produce symptoms of intoxication, mania, and even fatal effects.** 
It has been much recommended for removing obstructions of the 
uterine secretions, but its powers as an emmenagogue we believe to 
be much over-rated, as well as its diaphoretic pi'operties, and also 
* One scruple frcm four ouuces. Gray's Elements. 
\ Giaj's Elements. 
\ Le Grange, Vogel, Bouillon, &c. 
§ the Hebrews it was called Carcom ; by the Greeks, Kjoxoc; bj the Arabians, 
Zahafaran or Zafl'aran ; by the Latins, Crocus. 
II Saffron forms one of the ingredients in the Aromatic Confection, Compound 
Decoction of Aloes, Pills of Aloes and Mjrrh, Compound Tincture of Aloes, Compound 
Tincture of Bark, and the Simple and Compound Tinctures of Rhubarb of the London 
Pbarmacopa:ia. 
** Borellus, Hist, et Obs. cent. 4 ; Obs. 35, p. 303 ; Zucat. Lusit. b. c. 
