Science papers : chiefly pharmacological and botanical / by Daniel Hanbury ; edited, with memoir, by Joseph Ince.

Daniel Hanbury

Date:: 1876

Credit: Science papers : chiefly pharmacological and botanical / by Daniel Hanbury ; edited, with memoir, by Joseph Ince. Source: Wellcome Collection.

175/578 page 155

$1858. NOTE ON A DEUG CALLED BO YAZ SALEP. {Kdnigs-Salep) Among some specimens of Materia Medica from Bombay, for whicli I am indebted to the kindness of the late Dr. J. E. Stocks, is one which was received uDder the designation of Bad- shah Saleb or King Salep. The specimen being a solitary one, and no information respecting it, beyond that conveyed by its name, having reached me, it remained almost unnoticed until within the last few months, when an original package, contain- ing about 100 lbs. of an unknown and unnamed drug from Bombay, was offered for sale in the London market. Upon seeing samples of this drug, I recognised it as Badshah Saleh; and having obtained from this source a more abundant supply I have been able to some extent to investigate it, and the results of that investigation I will now detail. In the first place the name Badshah Saleb ^ is Name. -r,777i- T~» *- [Badshal] partly Persian and partly Arabic,—Badshah being the rersian Saleb.] for King, and Saleb the Arabic original of our word Sale;p. The term may therefore be rendered King Salep or Boyal Salep; and it has doubtless been applied on account of the drug being re- garded as Salep of pre-eminently large size. That it is in reality very distinct from true Salep—in fact, that it is not a tuber, but a bulb—was pointed out to me by my friend Dr. Lindley, who has further suggested its botanical origin. I will, however, first describe the drug as met with in commerce. Eoyal Salep consists of dried bulbs (Fig. 1, 2), whose dimen- sions from base to apex vary from 1\ to 2 inches. The largest specimen weighs 730 grains : the average weight, taking twenty bulbs, was found to be 337 grains. Allowing for considerable irregularity occasioned by drying, the form of the dried bulbs may be described as usually nearly spherical, sometimes ovoid or nearly oblong, always pointed at the upper extremity, and having at the lower either a depressed cicatrix, or frequently a large, white, elevated, scar-like mark. Their surface is striated$