June 17,1871.] 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. 
1007 
a powerful aperient, and causes great emaciation for 
the time; but, according to the Arabs, the patient, 
having thus been relieved from all the bad humours 
in Ills body, afterwards acquires robust health and 
his sight becomes singularly good. 
The grease of the emu, or Australian ostrich 
(Dromaius Novce-Hollandice ) is held in great esteem 
by both colonists and natives as a cure of bruises 
and rheumatism. The skin of the bird produces six 
or seven quarts of a clear, beautiful, bright yellow 
inodorous oil. The method of obtaining the oil is 
to pluck the feathers, cut the skin into pieces and 
boil it. 
At one of the Madras Industrial Exhibitions, oil 
from peacocks’ fat in Timievelly was shown, but 
it was not stated to what use it was applied. 
In South America, in the immense cavern of Gau- 
charo, in the government of Cumana, Humboldt de¬ 
scribes an extensive pursuit carried on of a bird for 
its fat by the Indians. Tins cave is peopled by millions 
of nocturnal birds (Steatornis oaripensis), a new spe¬ 
cies of the Gaprimulgis of Linnaeus. About midsum¬ 
mer the young birds are slaughtered by thousands. 
The peritonaeum is found loaded with fat, and a layer 
of the same substance reaches from the abdomen to 
the vent, forming a kind of cushion between the hind 
legs. Humboldt remarks that this quantity of fat 
in frugivorous animals not exposed to the light, and 
exerting but little muscular motion, brings to mind 
what has been long observed in the fattening of geese 
and oxen. It is well known, he adds, how favour¬ 
able darkness and repose are to tins process. The 
fat of the young birds is melted in clay pots over a 
brushwood fire. It is half liquid, transparent, in¬ 
odorous, and so pure that it will keep above a year 
without tinning rancid.* 
The passenger pigeons (Columbci migratoria ) of 
North America are another source of oil. They mi¬ 
grate at certain seasons in millions, and the Indians, 
watching their roosting-places in the forests, knock 
them on the head in the night and bring them away 
by thousands. The Indians preserve the oil or fat, 
which they use instead of butter. There was formerly 
scarcely any little Indian village in the interior 
where a hundred gallons of this oil might not at any 
time be purchased. The squabs, or young pigeons, 
when taken in quantity, are also melted down by 
the settlers as a substitute for butter or lard. 
A J WAIN OR OMUM. 
(Ptychotis ajoican.) 
BY M. C. COOKE, M.A. 
One of the drugs included in the new Indian 
Pharmacopoeia, which is unknown in European 
practice but has doubtless intrinsic merit to recom¬ 
mend it, is the one which heads this notice. The 
seeds, or more accurately the fruits, of several um¬ 
belliferous plants are well known and appreciated, 
but the Ominn has, somehow, escaped regard. It 
may be that it has no virtues which are not possessed 
in an equal degree by others, yet a notice and a few 
observations on its uses will not be altogether out of 
place. 
The vernacular names collected and verified by 
Mr. Moodeen Sheriff are— Kamiine-miduJci , Arabiq; 
Narilthdh and Zing an, Persian; Ajvayan, Hindu¬ 
stani; Ajvan, Duklmi; Ornarn, Tamul; Omamu or 
Vamamv, Telegu; Ayamodakam and Homam, Ma- 
kiyalim; Voma, Canarese; Ajvain or Ajvan , Ben¬ 
gali; Vova-sada and Vova , Maliratta; Ajwan , 
Gujerati; Assamodagun or Omani, Cinglialese; and 
JSamhum, Burmese. 
The fruits are smaller than caraways or any 
umbelliferous fruits employed in Europe, and there 
Fruits of Ajwan (Ptychotis ajoican). 
is no record of their ever having been offered for 
sale in our markets. The plant itself is thus de¬ 
scribed :— 
“ Stem erect, dichotomous; leaves few, cut into 
numerous linear or filiform segments, the uppermost 
simply pinnate; umbel with 7-9 rays; involucre 
few-leaved; leaflets linear, entire; fruit strongly 
ribbed, covered with small blunt tubercles.” Figured 
in the second volume of Wight’s ‘ leones,’ plate 566. 
Roxburgh says, “ Tins is one of the most useful and 
at the same time grateful of the umbelliferous tribe. 
It is much cultivated in Bengal dining the cold 
season. I never saw it wild. The seeds, like those 
of caraway, have an aromatic smell and warm pun- 
f ent taste ; they are much used by both natives and 
luropeans for culinary and medicinal uses; they 
are amongst the smallest of the umbelliferous order, 
and are to be met with in every market in India.”* 
Mr. Wood says, in his remarks on this drug,f “ I 
have good reason, indeed, to remember the effects of 
the omum, for on one occasion, when a boy, I was 
attacked at midnight with a severe fit of colic (the 
only severe one I recollect to have ever suffered 
from), brought on by indulging in fruit. No medical 
aid was at hand, and the only remedy given me was 
the omum seed, which I was directed to chew and 
wash down with water, which was not only followed 
by : speedy but complete relief.” And in another 
part of the same communication he adds, “ While at 
Vizagapatam some few years ago, I remember to 
have seen, during a pretty sharp outbreak of cholera, 
the richer classes of the people purchasing the omum 
water and distributing it wherever required.” 
By the natives of India, the omum or ajowan is 
constantly used in all sudden derangements of the 
primes vies, such as vomiting, diarrhoea, colic, flatu¬ 
lence, etc.; in the premonitory diarrhoea of cholera, 
and often in the unmistakable cholera itself; and 
testimony is not wanting to show that it is some¬ 
times at least as useful a medicine in the earlier 
* Roxburgh: ‘ Flora Indica,’ vol. ii. p. 91. , f 
■f The 1 Madras Quarterly Journal of Medical Science, Oct. 
18C2, p. 294. 
* Bonnycastle’s f South America.’ 
tJ 
