_Gummi-resina Galbanum_; _Galbanum_; F. _Galbanum_; G. _Mutterharz_.
=Botanical Origin=—The uncertainty that exist as to the plants which
furnish asafœtida, hangs over those which produce the nearly allied
drug _Galbanum_. Judging from the characters of the latter, it can
scarcely be doubted that it is yielded by umbelliferous plants of at
least two species, which are probably the following:[1214]—
[1208] _Flora Orientalis_, ii. (1872) 995.
[1209] A large specimen of it was kindly presented to one of us (H.)
by Mr. D. S. Kemp of Bombay. We have also examined the same drug in
the Indian Museum, and further received good specimens by the kindness
of Professor Dymock. See his notes _Pharm. Journ._ v. (1875) 103, and
viii. (1877) 103.
[1210] _Hist. des Drogues_, iii. (1850) 223.
[1211] _Hist. Plantarum_, 1. vi. c. 3.
[1212] _Gommes-résines des Ombellifères_ (thèse), Paris, 1869. 32.
[1213] Borszczow, _op. cit._ 13-14.
[1214] The following in addition have at various times been supposed
to afford galbanum:—_Ferulago galbanifera_ Koch, a native of the
Mediterranean region and Southern Russia; _Opoidia galbanifera_ Lindl.,
a Persian plant of doubtful genus; _Bubon Galbanum_ L., a shrubby
umbellifer of South Africa.
1. _Ferula galbaniflua_ Boiss. et Buhse,[1215]—a plant with a tall,
solid stem, 4 to 5 feet high, greyish, tomentose leaves, and thin flat
fruits, 5 to 6 lines long, 2 to 3 broad, discovered in 1848 at the
foot of Demawend in Northern Persia, and on the slopes of the same
mountain at 4,000 to 8,000 feet, also on the mountains near Kushkäk
and Churchurä (Jajarúd?). Bunge collected the same plant at Subzawar.
Buhse says that the inhabitants of the district of Demawend collect
the gum-resin of this plant which is _Galbanum_; the tears which exude
spontaneously from the stem, especially on its lower part and about
the bases of the leaves, are at first milk-white, but become yellow
by exposure to light and air. It is not the practice, so far as he
observed, to wound the plant for the purpose of causing the juice to
exude more freely, nor is the gathering of the gum in this district
any special object of industry.[1216] The plant is called in Persian
_Khassuih_, and the Mazanderan dialect _Boridsheh_.
2. _F. rubricaulis_ Boiss.[1217] (_F. erubescens_ Boiss. ex parte,
Aucher _exsicc._ n. 4614, Kotschy n. 666).—This plant was collected
by Kotschy in gorges of the Kuh Dinar range in Southern Persia, and
probably by Aucher-Eloy on the mountain of Dalmkuh in Northern Persia.
Borszczow,[1218] who regards it as the same as the preceding (though
Boissier[1219] places it in a different section of the genus), says,
on the authority of Buhse, that it occurs locally throughout the whole
of Northern Persia, is found in plenty on the slopes of Elwund near
Hamadan, here and there on the edge of the great central salt-desert
of Persia, on the mountains near Subzawar, between Ghurian and Kháf,
west of Herat, and on the desert plateau west of Kháf. He states,
though not from personal observation, that its gum-resin, which
constitutes _Persian Galbanum_, is collected for commercial purposes
around Hamadan. _F. rubricaulis_ Boiss. has been beautifully figured by
Berg[1220] under the name of _F. erubescens_.
=History=—Galbanum, in Hebrew _Chelbenah_, was an ingredient of the
incense used in the worship of the ancient Israelites,[1221] and
is mentioned by the earliest writers on medicine as Hippocrates
and Theophrastus.[1222] Dioscorides states it to be the juice of a
_Narthex_ growing in Syria, and describes its characters, and the
method of purifying it by hot water exactly as followed in modern
times. We find it mentioned in the 2nd century among the drugs on which
duty was levied at the Roman custom-house at Alexandria.[1223] Under
the name of _Kinnah_ it was well known to the Arabians, and through
them to the physicians of the school of Salerno.
[1215] _Aufzählung der in einer Reise durch Transkaukasien und Persien
gesammelten Pflanzen._—_Nouv. Mém. de la Soc. imp. des Nat. de Moscou_,
xii. (1860) 99.—Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, _Med. Plants_, part 16.
[1216] Buhse, _l.c._; also _Bulletin de la Soc. imp. des Nat. de
Moscou_, xxiii. (1850) 548.
[1217] _Diagnoses Plantarum novarum præsertim orientalium_, ser. ii.
fasc. 2 (1856) 92.
[1218] _Op. cit._ 36 (see p. 315, note 1).
[1219] _Flora Orientalis_, ii. (1872) 995.
[1220] Berg u. Schmidt, _Offizinelle Gewächse_, iv. (1863) tab. 31 _b_.
[1221] Exodus xxx. 34.—_Jes. Sirach_ xxiv. 18.—In imitation of the
ancient Jewish custom, Galbanum is a component of the incense used in
the Irvingite chapels in London.
[1222] Χαλβάνη—Theophr. _Hist. Plant._ ix. c. 1.
[1223] Vincent, _Commerce of the Ancients_, ii. (1807) 692.
In the journal of expenses of John, king of France, during his
captivity in England, A.D. 1359-60, there is an entry for the purchase
of 1 lb. of Galbanum which cost 16_s._, 1 lb. of Sagapenum (_Serapin_)
at the same time costing only 2_s._[1224] In common with other products
of the East, these drugs used to reach England by way of Venice, and
are mentioned among the exports of that city to London in 1503.[1225]
An edict of Henry III. of France promulgated in 1581, gives the prices
per lb. of the gum-resins of the _Umbelliferæ_ as follows:—Opopanax,
32 sols, Sagapenum 22 sols, Asafœtida 15 sols, Galbanum 10 sols,
Ammoniacum 6 sols 6 deniers.[1226]
=Description=—Galbanum is met with in drops or tears, adhering _inter
se_ into a mass, usually compact and hard, but sometimes found so soft
as to be fluid. The tears are of the size of a lentil to that of a
hazel-nut, translucent, and of various shades of light brown, yellowish
or faintly greenish. The drug has a peculiar, not unpleasant, aromatic
odour, and a disagreeable, bitter, alliaceous taste.
In one variety, the tears are dull and waxy, of a light yellowish
tint when fresh, but becoming of an orange-brown by keeping; they are
but little disposed to run together, and are sometimes quite dry and
loose, with an odour that somewhat reminds one of savine. In recent
importations of this form of galbanum, we have noticed a considerable
admixture of thin transverse slices of the root of the plant, an inch
or more in diameter.
=Chemical Composition=—Galbanum contains volatile oil, resin and
mucilage. The first, of which 7 per cent. may be obtained by
distillation with water, is a colourless or slightly yellowish liquid,
partly consisting of a hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at from 170° to
180°. This oil affords easily crystals of terpin, C₁₀H₁₆ + 3OH₂, if it
is treated as mentioned in the article Oleum Cajuputi; it also affords
the crystallized compound C₁₀H₁₆ + HCl. But the prevailing part of oil
of galbanum consists of hydrocarbons of a much higher boiling point.
The crude oil has a mild aromatic taste, and deviates the ray of
polarized light to the right.
The resin, which we find to constitute about 60 per cent. of the drug,
is very soft, and dissolves in ether or in alkaline liquids, even
in milk of lime, but only partially in bisulphide of carbon. When
heated for some time at 100° C. with hydrochloric acid, it yields
_Umbelliferone_, C₉H₆O₃, which may be dissolved from the acid liquid
by means of ether or chloroform; it is obtained on evaporation in
colourless acicular crystals. Umbelliferone is soluble in hot water;
its solution exhibits, especially on addition of an alkali, a brilliant
blue fluorescence which is destroyed by an acid. If a small fragment
of galbanum is immersed in water, the fluorescence is immediately
produced by a drop of ammonia.[1227] The same phenomenon takes place
with asafœtida, not at all with ammoniacum; it is probably due to
traces of Umbelliferone pre-existing in the former drugs. By boiling
the umbelliferone with concentrated caustic lye, it splits up into
resorcin, carbonic acid and formic acid.
[1224] Doliet d’Arcq, _Comptes de l’Argenterie des Rois de France_
(1851) 236.—The prices must be multiplied by 3 to give a notion of
present value.
[1225] Pasi, _Tariffa de Pesi e Misure_, Venet. 1521. 204 (1st edition,
1503).
[1226] Fontanon, _Edicts et Ordonnances des Rois de France_, ii. (1585)
388.
[1227] This property of Umbelliferone may be beautifully shown by
dipping some bibulous paper into water which has stood for an hour or
two on lumps of galbanum, and drying it. A strip of this paper placed
in a test tube of water with a drop of ammonia, will give a superb blue
solution, instantly losing its colour on the addition of a drop of
hydrochloric acid.
Umbelliferone is also produced from many other aromatic umbelliferous
plants, as _Angelica_, _Levisticum_ and _Meum_, when their respective
resins are submitted to dry distillation. According to Zwenger (1860)
it may be likewise obtained from the resin of _Daphne Mezereum_ L. The
yield is always small; it is highest in galbanum, but even in this does
not much exceed 0·8 per cent. reckoned on the crude drug.
By submitting galbanum-resin to dry distillation, there will be
obtained a thick oil of an intense and brilliant blue,[1228] which was
noticed as early as about the year 1730 by Caspar Neumann of Berlin.
It is a liquid having an aromatic odour and a bitter acrid taste; in
cold it deposits crystals of umbelliferone, which can be extracted by
repeatedly shaking the oil with boiling water. A small amount of fatty
acids is also removed at the same time. Submitted to rectification
the crude oil at first yields a greenish portion and then the superb
blue oil. Kachler (1871) found that it could be resolved by fractional
distillation into a colourless oil having the formula C₁₀H₁₆, and a
blue oil to which he assigned the composition C₁₀H₁₆O, boiling at
289° C. As to the hydrocarbon, it boils at 240° C., and therefore
differs from the essential oil obtained when galbanum is distilled
with water. The blue oil, after due purification, agrees, according to
Kachler, with the blue oil of the flowers of _Matricaria Chamomilla_
L. Each may be transformed by means of potassium into a colourless
hydrocarbon, C₁₀H₁₆; or by anhydride of phosphoric acid into another
product, C₁₀H₁₄, likewise colourless. The latter, as well as the former
hydrocarbon, if diluted with ether, and bromine be added, assumes for a
moment a fine blue tint; the colourless oil as afforded by the drug on
distillation with water assumes also the same coloration with bromine.
[1228] We have found it best to mix the galbanum-resin with coarsely
powdered pumice-stone; the oil is then easily and abundantly obtainable.
By fusing galbanum-resin with potash, Hlasiwetz and Barth
(1864) obtained crystals (about 6 per cent.) of _Resorcin_ or
_Meta-Dioxybenzol_, together with acetic and volatile fatty acids. The
name of this remarkable substance alludes to Orcin, which had been
extracted in 1829 by Robiquet from lichens. The formula of Resorcin,
C₆H₄(OH)₂, shows at once its relations to Orcin, C₆H₃CH₃(OH)₂.
Resorcin has been ascertained to be frequently produced by melting
other resins with potash; it has also been prepared on a large scale
for the manufacture of the brilliant colouring matter called _Eosin_.
Galbanum-resin treated with nitric acid yields Trinitroresorcin
C₆H(NO₂)₃(OH)₂, the so-called _Styphnic Acid_.
If galbanum, or still better its resin, is very moderately warmed with
concentrated hydrochloric acid, a red hue is developed, which turns
violet or bluish if spirit of wine is slowly added. Asafœtida treated
in the same way assumes a dingy greenish colour, and _ammoniacum is
not altered_ at all. This test probably depends upon the formation of
resorcin, which in itself is not coloured by hydrochloric acid, but
assumes a red or blue colour if sugar or mucilage or certain other
substances are present. It is remarkable that ammoniacum, though
likewise yielding resorcin when fused with potash, assumes no red
colour when warmed with hydrochloric acid. The mucilage of galbanum has
not been minutely examined.
=Commerce=—Galbanum is, we believe, brought into commerce chiefly from
Eastern Europe. It is stated that considerable quantities reach Russia
by way of Astrachan and Orenburg.
=Uses=—Galbanum is administered internally as a stimulating
expectorant, and is occasionally applied in the form of plaster to
indolent swellings.
Allied Substances.
_Sagapenum_—This is a gum-resin which, when pure, forms a tough
softish mass of closely agglutinated tears. It differs from asafœtida
in forming brownish (not milk-white) tears, which when broken do not
acquire a pink tint; also in not having an alliaceous odour. A good
specimen presented to us by Professor Dymock of Bombay (1878) reminds
in that and other respects rather of galbanum. We find this sagapenum
to be devoid of sulphur but containing umbelliferone; it is extremely
remarkable for the intense and permanent purely blue colour it
acquires in cold when the smallest fragment of the drug is immersed in
hydrochloric acid 1·13 sp. gr.
Sagapenum, which in mediæval pharmacy was often called _Serapinum_, is
so frequently mentioned by the older writers that it must have been a
plentiful substance. At the present day it can scarcely be procured
genuine even at Bombay, whither it is sometimes brought from Persia.
The botanical origin of the drug is unknown.