592 
ON SILPHIUM, OR ASSAIXET1DA. 
was incorporated with the Republic, the province paid its annual tribute in silphiura. 
Thirty pounds of this article, brought to Rome a little before this time were regarded as 
a wonder, and were sold publicly by auction in the Forum.” 
The derivative etymology of our word assafoetida seems to be as follows : — 
Silphium, silphe, serpe, laserpitium, laser aza assa. 
With reference to the properties of the silphium, or assafoetida, the ancients 
seem to have had a very high opinion of it, both as a condiment and as a medi¬ 
cine. Speakiug of it in the latter sense, Theophrastus quaintly observes—“It 
lias remarkable qualities; it invariably acts as a purge if its use is persevered in 
for the space of forty days.” 
Pliny gives it as his opinion, speaking of it as a seasoning—“ After truffles 
and mushrooms the laserpitium holds the first rank.’’ Apicius, a Roman writer 
on cookery, mentions laserats , or sauces, prepared with laser (assa) liouey, 
anetlium, parsley, mint, milk, etc. All kinds of meats and fish were then often 
dressed with this silphium. Pliny recommends its use as an emmenagogue ; 
Dioscorides, as a plaster for universal use. 
The former, in one of his medical works gives a curious reason against its use, 
according to the advice of some, as an application to carious teeth. He relates 
how a certain man, having introduced some, mixed with wax, into a tooth, was 
so transported with the pain that he threw himself from a high place and was 
killed on the spot. 
Constantinus Africanus, an Arab physician of the fourth century, is the first 
to mention the name of asa, but under this name he clearly describes the sil¬ 
phium, or laserpitium, of the ancients. Approaching more modern times:— 
“ We now come to the Arabs. I will not pass in review this school, which shed on 
the ninth and tenth centuries so bright a lustre, as not even to have passed out of 
memory in our own days. Not that I despise their opinions, but he who has read 
the works of one of them on the history of these plants, has read them all. John 
Serapion tells us, that the serpium of the Greeks, the laser of the Romans, is what they 
(the Arabs) call anjuden , altith, or haltith, adding that some call it asa, a corruption of 
laser 
Avicenna mentions asa maleolens (assafoetida), and asa odorata (benzoin) ; 
this statement is copied, years afterwards, by Albertus Magnus. 
Scaliger and Mathiolus, in the sixteenth century, agree with the Arab school, 
and confidently disprove the opinion that had been raised, whether the silphium 
of the Greeks was not the gum benzoin ; this is further disproved by the adul¬ 
teration mentioned by Dioscorides and Pliny, of silphium by means of saga- 
penurn. This could easily happen with assafoetida,—in no way, however, with 
benzoin. In an extract from the travels of Garcias ab Horto in the East 
Indies, we find on this subject the following anecdote :— 
“ A Spaniard, resident in the country of Bisnagar, had received as a present from the 
King, a horse of great price, which was soon afterwards nearly dying of severe griping 
pains, he, however, cured the animal by giving him assafoetida mixed with flour. 
When the King heard of this, he bought the horse back again, asking at the same time 
how he had treated him. When he had heard all, ‘ I am no longer astonished,’ said 
he, ‘ that the horse is cured, since you have given him the food of the gods.’ The 
Spaniard could scarcely believe his ears; ‘ I should call it,’ he exclaimed, in amaze¬ 
ment, ‘the food of the devil.’ ” 
In later times, in 1694, Pierre Pomet, wholesale druggist and grocer, of 
Paris, writes of this drug:— 
“ The greater part of what is found in Paris comes from London, where it arrives in 
large earthen jars, sometimes in great abundance ; the English, however, never send it 
to France in these jars, but always in iron-hooped barrels of various sizes ; what is in- 
ported through Marseilles is in baskets formed of palm-leaves.” 
