Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury.

  • Flückiger, Friedrich A. (Friedrich August), 1828-1894.
Date:
1874
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pharmacographia : a history of the principal drugs of vegetable origin, met with in Great Britain and British India / by Friedrich A. Flückiger and Daniel Hanbury. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by King’s College London. The original may be consulted at King’s College London.

    92/736 (page 66)
    1 he above statements show, that the chemical properties of sinalbin and its derivatives correspond closely with those of sinigrin (p. 62) and the substances which make their appearance in an emulsion of black mustard. The other constituents of. white mustard seed are nearly the same as those of black. The fat oil appears to yield in addition to the acids mentioned at p. 03, Benic Acicl, C22H4402. White mustard is said to be richer than black in myrosin, so that, as explained in the previous article, the pungency of the latter may be often increased by an addition of white mustard. By burning white mustard dried at 100° C., with soda-lime, we obtained from 4’20 to 4'30 per cent, of nitrogen, answer- ing to about 28 per cent, of protein substances.1 The fixed oil of the seed amounts to 22 per cent. The mucilage as yielded by the epidermis is precipitable by alcohol, neutral lead acetate, or ferric chloride, and is soluble in water after drying. Erucin and Sinapic Acid mentioned by Simon (1838)2 as peculiar constituents of white mustard are altogether doubtful, yet may deserve further investigation. The sinapic acid of Yon Babo and Hirschbrunn3 (1852) is a product of the decomposition of sinapine. Uses—White Mustard seeds reduced to powder and made into a paste with cold water act as a powerful stimulant when applied to the skin, notwithstanding that such paste is entirely wanting in essential oil. But for sinapisms they are actually used only in the form of the Flour of Mustard which is prepared for the table and which contains also Brown Mustard seed. RADIX ARMORACIiE. Horse-radish; F. Raifort (i.e. racine forte), Gran de Bretagne; G. Meerrettig. Botanical Origin—Cochlearia Armoracia L., a common perennial with a stout tapering root, large coarse oblong leaves with long stalks, and erect flowering racemes 2 to 3 feet high. It is indigenous to the eastern parts of Europe, from the Caspian through Russia and Poland to Finland. In Britain and in other parts of Europe to the polar circle, it occurs cultivated or semi-wild. History—The vernacular name Armon is stated by Pliny4 to be used in the Pontic regions to designate the Armoracia of the Romans, the Wild Radish (patfravU aypla) of the Greeks, a plant which cannot be positively identified with that under notice. Horse-radish is called in the Russian language Chren, in Lithuanian Krenai, in Illyrian Krcn, a name which has passed into several German dialects, and as Gran or Cranson into French. From these and similar facts, De Candolle6 has drawn the con- clusion that the propagation of the plant has travelled from Eastern to Western Europe. Both the root and leaves of horse-radish were eaten with food in Germany during the middle ages.fi But the use of the former was not 1 Experiments performed by Mr. Weppen in my laboratory, 1869.—F. A. F. 8 Gmelin, Chemistry, xiv. (1860) 521 and 529. 3 Ibid. 521. 4 Lib. xix. c. 26. (Littre’s translation.) 5 Geographic Botanique, ii. (1855) 655. u Meyer, Gcschichte dcr Botanik, iii. (1S56)