“ Mustard oil— 
(i) 
( 2 ) 
<3) 
(4) 
(5) 
Is used by natives to anoint the body before bathing’. It prevents ex' 
cessive prespiration and prickly heat, also protects the skin from the 
direct rays of the sun. 
Is used to anoint infants; after oiling they are exposed to the sun. This 
process "is said to render the skin tolerant of the excessive heat. 
As a substitute for lard or ghee, it is extensively used in cooking. 
Internally, a few drops taken after meals promote digestion and act as a 
mild cholagogue diuretic. 
The oil is very efficacious as a stimulating liniment in cough, catarrh, 
&c." (Surgeon L. Dutt, Pubna.) 
4 
MUSTARD. 
The majority of the plants to which Europeans in India give the name of mustard 
should be transferred bodily to rape and its associates, to which they are certainly 
much more nearly allied. The true mustard is very scarce in India, and seems to have 
been introduced. Aixslie fixes its introduction within the present century, and the 
first time Roxburgh saw the plant was when raised from seed sent him from the 
Wynaad in South India. It is nowhere extensively cultivated, but is met with chiefly 
on the hills, and it is more than probable that it existed on the Himalaya from remote 
times, although unknown to the fathers of Indian botanical science. It is quite likely, 
however, that the ancient Sanskrit writers had not seen the true black and white mus¬ 
tard, and that the word rajika may have originally denoted a form of Brassica jlincea, 
and the word siddkdrtha a form of B. campestriS. Nowadays these names are chiefly 
applied to the true black and white mustard B. nigra and B. alba, respectively. 
Brassica j lincea is the principal source of Indian mustard. 
The seeds of the black and white mustard are ground into what is known as mus¬ 
tard flour. The French mustard flour is much darker in colour than the English, be¬ 
cause the seeds are not first husked. It is much more acrid and pungent, for the husk 
contains the principal store of pungency. Mustard flour is never prepared in India, 
or, at all events, never used as a condiment, except in making pickles from green man¬ 
goes and other sub-acid fruits. The seeds are ground and used as a poultice, and the 
expressed oil is also used medicinally. In Japan and China, mustard.is regarded as a 
medicine of great importance. The ancient Hindus do not appear to have known the 
essential oil of mustard. This oil, as already stated, does not exist in the seeds, but is 
chemically produced by the action of water, as, for example, when a seed or a little of 
the flour is put into the tpouth. Chemically, mustard seed consists of a bland fixed oil 
(obtained by pressure) and a peculiar inodorous substance called myroncic acid, to¬ 
gether with a third substance which has been called myrosyne. By the action of water 
upon these substances the essential oil is produced, which is known chemically as 
pyrosyne. _ . 
White mustard is much inferior commercially, but is generally mixed with black 
mustard. It is said to be cultivated at Ferozpur, but is scarcely known in India. The 
white oil cake is a valued food for sheep. 
In the preparation of mustard flour the relative quantities of black and white 
mustard used are commonly two parts of black to three of white, but the proportions 
vary In Russia, B. junCGa is ground into mustard flour, and so may most of the 
other Indian species; but they yield an inferior article to the true mustard flour of 
commerce, and, as already indicated, their true position is with the rape and colza of 
Europe It is much to be regretted that the true mustard B. nigra, and B. alba, the- 
rape B napus (or in India B. glauca). the colza B. CampestriS proper (or in India F. 
dicbotoma), and B. juncea, if not also Eruca sativa, have become hopelessly confused 
in our trade reports under the common name of rape and mustard. A considerable 
injury has thereby been done, and a check given to the development of foreign trade 
jn these seeds. It will require time and careful observation to remove this fully, and 
to identify and distinguish the commercial products. 
The quantity of pure mustard produced in India cannot at present be very great. 
From the confusion referred to above, it is impossible to arrive at any very definite 
information since we cannot determine how far the term Mustard may be confined 
to the products of Brassica alba and nigra. The true mustard is cultivated chiefly 
on the hills, and is used in medicine or for culinary purposes. In the official Catalogue 
of the Paris Exhibition of 1867, it is stated that 3,000 tons of flour, equal to 2,000,000 
francs worth, were annually produced in France. 
Trade Returns. 
The Annual Statement of the Trade and Navigation of British India with Foreign 
Countries gives the following figures as the exports from India for the past five years 
under the head of “ Mustard :— 
Exportation of Mustard. 
Years. 
Quantity in 
Cwt. 
Value in 
Rupees. 
1879-80 
2,369 
15,181 
1880-81 ... 
■ * * 
* « • 
I 7 . 44 S 
103,240 
1881-82 ... 
• • » 
* • # 
24,346 
144,508 
1882-83 ... 
* • • 
# • r 
23 . *45 
137,750 
1883-84 ... 
• *« 
• • • 
10,111 
64 , 5 J 3 
84^ 
Mustard flour. 
849 
850 
