The Sumbul : a new Asiatic remedy of great power against nervous disorders, spasms of the stomach, cramp, hysterical affections, paralysis of the limbs, and epilepsy : with an account of its physical, chemical, and medicinal characters, and specific property of checking the progress of collapse-cholera, as first ascertained in Russia / by A.B. Granville.

Date:
1850
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The Sumbul : a new Asiatic remedy of great power against nervous disorders, spasms of the stomach, cramp, hysterical affections, paralysis of the limbs, and epilepsy : with an account of its physical, chemical, and medicinal characters, and specific property of checking the progress of collapse-cholera, as first ascertained in Russia / by A.B. Granville. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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    that the substance is much used in that country as a remedy against mephitic or depressing exhalations, especially in mines. We may equally explain the reason for the other opinion, which gives to Constan- tinople, Trebisond, or Nidjii-Novgorod, the merit of producing the drug in question. These are places of export for all Asiatic produce, and there the Sumbul will ever be found on sale. This constant presence of the drug in those localities has induced drug merchants to imagine it to be one of their products, instead of being an importation. Moreover, in Persia and in Constantinople the use of perfumes, such as the Sumbul possesses in an eminent degree, is in great vogue. Its employment, therefore, in those parts, for the purpose of extracting its perfume, may be very considerable, and would lead to the conclusion that the plant which yields the perfnme itself is indigenous.* There is every reason to believe that our root belongs to a plant of the umbelliferous family, pro- bably an aquatic plant, or at least a lover of humid soDs and the banks of rivers. When fresh, the root * From Dr. Royle's Illustrations of the Botany of the Himalayan Mountains, we learn that the name of Swnbul, pronounced Sumbul, designates, in Oriental language, three or four different vegetable products; none of which, however, can possibly be the substance under consideration, as from the description of their roots the difference between the former and the latter is most complete. But this information of Dr. Royle may serve to explain why such a variety of opinions should exist in regard to the natural birtliplace of our Sumbul; for the name seems to be a generic one, and to have been applied to more than one species of sweet-smelling plant, supposed to be the Nard, or Spikenard of the ancients. B 3