5S8 
ON SILPHIUM, OK ASSAF(ETIDA. 
In 1864 some specimens were sent to England, and, became rancid before ar¬ 
riving, though even in that condition they were valued at the rate of £40 per 
ton ; but I am not aware that it has ever yet been tried in European medical 
practice. I have no doubt that if efforts were made to procure a sufficient 
quantity to give it a proper trial at the hands of physicians, whose opinions 
would carry weight with them, the Oleum Osmeri would prove a useful addition 
to our animal Materia Medica, as auxiliary to, or substitute for, the better 
known and justly esteemed Oleum Jecoris Aselli of the Pharmacopoeia. 
ON SILPHIUM, OP ASSAFCETIDA.* 
BY F. H. LESCHER. 
There is a growing tendency at the present day among scientific men towards 
the development and study of specialties. 
Increased wealth of facts on any one subject, or one branch of a science, gives 
sufficient field for a man’s entire attention, and gives him, moreover, increased 
facilities for the prosecution of his special study. 
Hence we owe the many scientific monographs that appear at the present day, . 
and pharmaceutical knowledge has the last few years been enriched with several 
such works. 
A monograph has recently been published in Paris 1 On Silphium, or Assafce- 
ticla,’ which may be considered a very comprehensive work on this drug. 
The author, M. F. Deniau, treats the subject exhaustively ; his book is a 
complete work on the gum-resins of the Umbelliferce ; their history and uses are 
traced from the earliest dates, and w 7 e have also a full account of the present 
chemical knowdedge on these substances. 
To give an idea of the labour that may be devoted to one single subject of 
the Pharmacopoeia, it seems that 600 authors have been consulted, from 
Celsus and Pliny to Scaliger and Albertus Magnus, from De Candolle and 
Berzelius to Pereira and Guibourt. All have said something about this impor¬ 
tant Natural Order, which contains about 140 plants possessing properties of 
use to man, and which is certainly, in many ways, one of the most interesting 
in the vegetable world. 
The first part is devoted to a minute account of the individual plants of the 
Order. Towards its conclusion, however, a theory is set forth to which we 
must take exception. The author combats the opinion of most botanists, who 
consider that the group of Umbelliferce is homogeneous, both in a medical and 
a botanical point of view 7 ; that these plants having a similar structure and 
similar vessels, the contents of these vessels would not be found to be dissimilar. 
Against this view, he states— 
“ That one ought not to judge of the properties of plants from their external form and 
natural classification. We know the danger of the resemblance between the genera 
Cicuta (hemlock) and Petroselinum (parsley), and that between the several species, some 
edible, some poisonous, of the genus (Enanthe. The Arracha esculenla , so much used as 
food in America, is placed near Conium maculatum , and some botanists even make them 
two species of the same genus. In presence of such facts, and w'hen we see plants like 
Pastinaca sativa and the Heracleum Spliondylium having, according to circumstances, 
such an opposite effect on the human system, ought we not to put ourselves on our 
guard against the theory which judges of the properties of plants from their external 
form and natural classification ?” 
* ‘The Gum-Resins of the UmbeUifevac.’ By Felix Deniau. 
