_Gummi-resina Ammoniacum_; _Ammoniacum or Gum Ammoniacum_; F.
_Gomme-résine Ammoniaque_; G. _Ammoniak-gummiharz_.
=Botanical Origin=—Dorema Ammoniacum, Don, a perennial plant,[1229]
with a stout, erect, leafless flower-stem, 6 to 8 feet high, dividing
towards its upper part into numerous ascending branches, along
which are disposed on thick short stalks, ball-like simple umbels,
scarcely half an inch across, of very small flowers. The aspect of
the full-grown plant is therefore very unlike that of _Ferula_. The
_Dorema_ has large compound leaves with broad lobes. The whole plant
in its young state is covered with a tomentum of soft, stellate hairs,
which give it a greyish look, but which disappear as it ripens its
fruits. The withered stems long remain erect, and occurring in immense
abundance and overtopping the other vegetation of the arid desert,
having a striking appearance.[1230] The root is described in the
article on Sumbul, p. 313.
The plant occurs over a wide area of the barren regions of which Persia
is the centre. According to Bunge and Bienert, its north-western limit
appears to be Shahrud (S.E. of Asterabad), whence it extends eastwards
to the deserts south of the Sea of Aral and the Sir-Daria. The most
southern point at which the plant has been observed is Basiran, a
village of Southern Khorassan in N. lat. 32°, E. long. 59°.
[1229] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, _Medic. Plants_, part 33 (1878).
[1230] Fraser, _Journey into Khorasān_, 1825. 118; Polak, _Persien, das
Land und seine Leute_, ii. (1865) 282.
Of the three or four other species of _Dorema_, _D. Aucheri_
Boiss.[1231] affords very good ammoniacum, as we know by an ample
specimen of the gum deposited together with the plant in the British
Museum by Mr. W. K. Loftus, who in 1751 collected both at Kirrind
in Western Persia, where the plant is called in Kurdish _Zuh_.
Boissier[1232] includes as _D. Aucheri_ another plant, called by Loftus
_D. robustum_, the gum of which is certainly different from ammoniacum.
Of the plant itself there are only _fruits_ in the British Museum.
=History=—The first writer to mention ammoniacum is Dioscorides, who
states it to be the juice of a _Narthex_ growing about Cyrene in Libya,
and that it is produced in the neighbourhood of the temple of Ammon.
He says it is of two sorts, the one like frankincense in pure, solid
tears, the other massive, and contaminated with earthy impurities.
Pliny gives essentially the same account.
The succeeding Greek and Latin authors on medicine throw but little
light on the drug, which however is mentioned by most of them as used
in fumigation. Hence we find such terms as _Ammoniacum thymiama_,[1233]
_Ammoniacum suffimen_, _Thus Libycum_.
The African origin assigned to the drug by Dioscorides, has long
perplexed pharmacologists; but it is now well ascertained that in
Morocco a large species of _Ferula_ yields a gum-resin having some
resemblance to ammoniacum, and still an object of traffic with
Egypt and Arabia, where it is employed, like the ancient drug, _in
fumigations_. There can be but little doubt we think, that the
ammoniacum of Morocco is identical with the ammoniacum of the ancients;
it may well have been imported by way of Cyrene from regions lying
further westward.[1234]
Persian ammoniacum or the ammoniacum of European commerce may also have
been known in very remote times, though we are unable to trace it back
earlier than the 10th century, at which period it is mentioned by Isaac
Judæus[1235] and by the Persian physician Alhervi.[1236] Both these
writers designate it _Ushak_, a name which it bears in Persia to the
present day.
=Collection=—The stem of the plant abounds in a milky juice which flows
out on the slightest puncture. The agent which occasions the exudation
is a beetle, multitudes of which pierce the stem. The gum, the drops
of which speedily harden, partly remains adherent to the stem and
partly falls to the ground; it is gathered about the end of July by
the peasants, who sell it to dealers for conveyance to Ispahan or the
coast.[1237]
[1231] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen, part 4.
[1232] _Flora Orientalis_, ii. (1872) 1009.
[1233] Alexander Trallianus in _Puschmann’s_ edition (see appendix)
581. 588.
[1234] Hanbury, _Pharm. Journ._ March 22, 1873. 741; or _Science
Papers_, 375.
[1235] _Opera Omnia_, Lugd. 1515, lib. ii. Practices c. 44.
[1236] Seligmann, _Liber Fundamentorum Pharmacologiæ_, Vindob. 1830. 35.
[1237] Johnson, _Journey from India to England through Persia_, etc.,
1818. 93. 94; Hart, quoted by Don, _Linn. Trans._ xvi. (1833) 605.
Young roots 3 to 4 years old are, according to Borszczow, extremely
rich in milky juice which sometimes exudes into the surrounding soil in
large drops; there is also an exudation from the fibrous crown of the
root of a dark inferior sort of ammoniacum. The gum-resin appears to be
collected in quantity only in Persia. One of the chief localities for
it are the desert plains about Yezdikhast, between Ispahan and Shiraz.
=Description=—Ammoniacum occurs in dry grains or tears of roundish
form, from the size of a small pea to that of a cherry, or in nodular
lumps. They are externally of a pale creamy yellow, opaque and
milky-white within. By long keeping, the outer colour darkens to a
cinnamon-brown. Ammoniacum is brittle, showing when broken a dull waxy
lustre, but it easily softens with warmth. It has a bitter acrid taste,
and a peculiar, characteristic, non-alliaceous odour. It readily forms
a white emulsion when triturated with water. It is coloured yellow by
caustic potash. Hypochlorites, as common bleaching powder, give it a
bright orange hue, while they do not affect the Morocco drug.
Ammoniacum is obtained from the mature plant, the ripe mericarps of
which, ⅜ of an inch in length, are often found sticking to the tears.
By pressure the tears agglutinate into a compact mass, which is the
_Lump Ammoniacum_ of the druggists. It is generally less pure than the
detached grains, and fetches a lower price.
=Chemical Composition=—Ammoniacum is a mixture of volatile oil with
resin and gum. We obtained only ⅓ per cent. of oil which we find to
be dextrogyrate; we failed in obtaining terpin (see Galbanum, p. 322)
from it. The oil has the precise odour of the drug, contains, according
to our experiments, no sulphur; a similar observation was made by
Przeciszewski[1238]. Vigier[1239] asserts that it blackens silver, and
that after oxidation with nitric acid, he detected in it sulphuric
acid. He states that, with hydrochloric acid, the oil acquires a fine
violet tint passing by all shades to black; we failed in obtaining this
coloration. By diluting the oil with bisulphide of carbon, and then
adding mineral acids, we observed only yellow colorations. The oil
diluted with alcohol acquires a reddish hue by ferric chloride.
The resin ammoniacum usually amounts to about 70 per cent.
Przeciszewski asserts that the indifferent resin when heated yields
sulphuretted hydrogen. Our own experiments failed to show the presence
of sulphur in the _crude_ drug; and the same negative result has been
more recently obtained in some careful experiments by Moss[1240]. Water
when boiled with the resin acquires a yellow hue and slightly acid
reaction; the liquid assumes an intense red coloration on addition of
ferric chloride.
Unlike the gum-resin of allied plants, ammoniacum yields no
umbelliferone. When melted with caustic potash it affords a little
resorcin.
The mucilaginous matter of the drug consists of a gum readily soluble
in water and a smaller quantity of about ¼ of an insoluble part, no
doubt identical with that occurring in asafœtida and galbanum. The
aqueous solution of the gum of ammoniacum is very slightly levogyre.
[1238] _Pharmakologische Untersuchungen über Ammoniacum, Sagapenum und
Opopanax_, Dorpat, 1861.
[1239] _Gommes-résines des Ombellifères_ (Thèse), Paris, 1869. 93.
[1240] _Pharm. Journ._ March 29, 1873. 761.
=Commerce=—Ammoniacum is shipped to Europe from the Persian Gulf by way
of Bombay. The exports from the latter place in the year 1871-72 were
453 cwt., all shipped to the United Kingdom. The quantity imported into
Bombay in 1872-73 was 1671 cwt., all from the Persian Gulf.[1241]
=Uses=—The drug is administered as an expectorant and is also used in
certain plasters.
Allied Gum-resins.
_African Ammoniacum._—This is according to Lindley[1242] the product of
_Ferula tingitana_ L., a species growing over all northern Africa as
far as Syria, Rhodus and Chios. It is called _Kelth_ in Morocco, its
product, _Fasay_, being shipped occasionally at Mazagan (el Bridja)
or also at Mogador. This gum-resin is in large, compact, dark masses,
formed of agglutinated tears having a whitish or pale greenish, or a
fawn colour. But there are also seen very impure masses. The weak odour
of the Moroccan drug is not suggestive of true ammoniacum. Moss (1873)
found in a specimen of the former 9 per cent. of gum and 67 per cent.
of resin. It yielded umbelliferone to Hirschsohn (1875), and by melting
it with potash Goldschmiedt (1878) obtained Resorcin and a peculiar
acid, C₁₀H₁₀O₆, which he failed to obtain from true ammoniacum.
_Opopanax_—A gum-resin occurring in hard, nodular, brittle,
earthy-looking lumps of a bright orange-brown hue, and penetrating
offensive odour, reminding one of crushed ivy-leaves. It is commonly
attributed to _Opopanax Chironium_ Koch, a native of Mediterranean
Europe. We have never seen a specimen known to have been obtained
from this plant; but can say that the gum-resin of the nearly
allied _Opopanax persicum_ Boiss., as collected by Loftus at
Kirrind in Western Persia in 1851, has neither the appearance nor
the characteristic odour of officinal opopanax. Powell,[1243] who
endeavoured to trace the origin of the drug, regards it as a product of
Persia.
Opopanax was very common in old pharmacy, but has fallen out of use,
and is now both rare and expensive.[1244]