Karl Pearson and Adelaide G. Davin 
U3 
There appears to be some probability that Sesavioides magnum was Ricinus com- 
munis*, the castor-oil plant, although CandoUe identifies Ricinus with Sescwioides 
parvutn or album. Sprengel states that Sesamoides was a kind ol' Reseda,. The seeds of 
Reseda, which we have examined, are hardly comparable with sesamoid bones, but 
those of the castor-oil plant might well pass muster. This would suggest that the 
bones were called from a sesamoid plant and not from the sesame itself, did not 
Galen so clearly distinguish between sesamum and sesamoides and associate the 
bones with the former. 
Both plants were largely grown in Egypt for the sake of their oils (Dioscorides, 
Sprengel, Lib. I, Cap. xxviii and Lib. il. Cap. cxxi), but we are informed that the 
root is Arabic and not Egyptian. Tlie familiar words " Open Sesame " of the Arabian 
Nights might certainly suggest that the root SM SM was connected with a purga- 
tive. Cameron's Arabic-English Vocabulary gives simsirn as sesame, millet. We 
have already seen that Galen associates its method of use with panicum. Owing to 
the courtesy of the Director of the Royal Gardens, Kew, we have been able to 
examine seeds of four kinds of milletf, of which three might pass for reasonable 
comparatives, but the fourth, great millet or guinea corn, is less plausible. We 
cannot discover, however, that sivisim was used in early Arabian for millet. On the 
contrary, Socrates Spiro (An Arabic-English Vocabulary, London, 1895) renders it 
as coriander seed, probably following Freytag's Lexicon Arabico-Latinum, Halle, 
1830, who gives sirnsim. = semen coriander. 
Thus far these references might only signify a modern use of sesamum for 
coriander, but on consulting Lane's great Arabic Lemcon (p. 1420) we find that 
the sense of coriander is very ancient indeed. It occurs in Fairuzabadi, 1329-1414, 
and in Ibn Sida's Al-Qdmus of 1066. The passage from Lane cited below does not 
throw very much light on the matter, but indicates that either the Arabian writers 
copied the Greeks or the Greeks the Arabians, which alternative considering the 
origin of the word is, perhaps, the more likely. 
["Sesame; sesamum orientale"of Linn.; applied in the present day to the plant and its 
C) J O J fi ^ J 0 3 
grain ;] "a well-known grain" ; (Msb ;) it is called in Pers. j^jj^ ; (MA, KL ;) i.q. 
(M, K,) said by AHn to be "abundant in the Sarah (Slj..-JI), and El- Yemen," and to be "white": 
(M ;) [l)y this is evidently here meant "sesame," or the "grain thereof," or "both"; though 
it also signifies the "fruit of the coriander"; for otherwise, the most commonly -known meaning 
of ^11, „■ would be immentioned in the M ;] the "grain of the ; [i.e. the "grain from which 
the oil called ^J.^. is expressed " ;] (S, K ; [liy the author of the latter of which, this was evidently 
understood to be different fi'om the jJ..».> which is mentioned by him after the 
description of properties here following ;]) " it is glutinous, corruptive to the stomach and the 
mouth ; V)ut is rendered good by honey; and when.it is digested, it fattens ; and the washing 
of the hair with the water in which it has been cooked lengthens and improves it : the wild sort 
thereof is known by the name of .sJUyJl».," (K, TA,) thus, with fet-h to tlie ^ and and 
* Sesamum silvestre, of Pliny, which at any rate would seem to indicate that sesamum could be used 
for sesamoides. 
t Letaria italica (Italian Millet), Panicum miliaceum (Indian Millet), Pennisetum typhoideum 
(African Millet), and Sorghum vulgare (Great Millet). 
