Am.  Jour.  Pharm.\ 
August,  1902.  J 
Adulterated  Asafetida. 
395 
ADULTERATED  ASAFETIDA.1 
By  Charles  H.  LaWau,. 
Asafetida  is  a  drug  which  is  used  as  an  antispasmodic  medicinally 
in  this  country,  and  as  condiment  in  the  far  East.  The  source  of 
supply  comes  from  Persia,  Afghanistan  and  Turkestan,  and  by  far 
the  largest  consumption  of  it  occurs  in  India,  where  the  Moham- 
medan population  and  the  vegetarian  Hindoo  classes  use  it  lavishly 
in  sauces  to  give  their  food  a  relish. 
In  India  the  two  grades,  which  occur  on  the  market,  are  known 
respectively  as  "  Hing,"  which  is  the  better  grade,  and  "  Hingra," 
which  is  the  poorer  grade.  From  the  state  of  the  American  market 
at  the  present  time  it  certainly  appears  as  if  all  the  i<  Hingra  "  came 
to  this  country,  there  being  little  or  no  material  that  might  be  said 
to  be  of  "  prime  "  quality. 
The  requirements  of  the  U.  S.  Pharmacopoeia  call  for  60  per  cent, 
of  alcohol-soluble  material.  That  these  requirements  are  excessively 
high  has  been  shown  by  the  protest  which  has  been  registered  in 
recent  years  against  the  requirement,  which  is  so  high  as  to  be 
impracticable  to  comply  with. 
John  Uri  Lloyd,  in  the  Pharmaceutical  Review,  for  March,  1896, 
called  attention  to  this,  and  reported  having  examined  six  samples, 
only  one  of  which  came  up  to  the  U.S. P.  requirement. 
Mr.  Umney,  in  the  Chemist  and  Druggist,  for  December  16,  1899, 
complained  similarly  regarding  the  requirements  of  the  British 
Pharmacopoeia,  which  are  even  higher  than  the  U.S. P.,  the  former 
requiring  65  per  cent,  soluble  matter. 
In  the  Journal  for  the  Society  of  Chemical  Industry,  for  1900,  page 
981,  Pvussell  W.  Moore  reports  that  the  quality  of  the  asafetida  on. 
the  market  has  improved  wonderfully  during  the  last  decade,  and 
quotes  figures  in  support  of  this  claim.  He  shows  that  out  of  164, 
samples  examined  in  1890,  only  6  showed  a  percentage  of  alcohol- 
soluble  material  over  50  per  cent.;  while  out  of  150  samples 
examined  in  1900,  71  of  the  samples  contained  50  per  cent,  or  over 
of  alcohol-soluble  material.  The  standard  of  50  per  cent,  was  taken 
by  him  because  the  U.  S.  Treasury  regulations,  which  are  usually 
based  on  the  Pharmacopoeia  as  a  standard,  allow  a  deviation  of  10 
1  Read  at  the  annual  meeting  of  the  Pennsylvania  Pharmaceutical  Associa- 
tion, June,  1902. 
