The geographer Edrisi,[1200] who wrote about the middle of the 12th century, asserts that asafœtida, called in Arabic Hiltit, is collected largely in a district of Afghanistan near Kaleh Bust, at the junction of the Helmand with the Arghundab, a locality still producing the drug. Other Arabian writers as quoted by Ibn Baytar,[1201] describe asafœtida in terms which show it to have been well known and much valued.
Matthæus Platearius, who flourished in the second half of the 12th century, mentions asafœtida in his work on simple medicines, known as Circa instans, which was held in great esteem during the middle ages. It is also named a little later by Otho of Cremona,[1202] who remarks that the more fœtid the drug, the better its quality. Like other productions of the East, asafœtida found its way in European commerce during the middle ages through the trading cities of Italy. It is worthy of remark that it is much less frequently mentioned by the older writers than galbanum, sagapenum and opopanax. In the 13th century, the “Physicians of Myddfai” in Wales,[1203] considered asafœtida as one of the substances which every physician “ought to know and use.”
Collection—The collecting of asafœtida on the mountains about Dusgun in Laristan in Persia, as described by Kämpfer,[1204] is performed thus:—
The peasants repair to the localities where the plants abound, about the middle of April, at which time the latter have ceased growing, and their leaves begin to show signs of withering. The soil surrounding the plant is removed to the depth of a span, so as to bare a portion of the root. The leaves are then pulled off, the soil is replaced, and over it are laid the leaves and other herbage, with a stone to keep them in place, the whole being arranged in this way to prevent injury to the root by the heat of the sun.
About forty days later, that is towards the end of May, the people return, the men being armed with knives for cutting the root, and broad iron spatulas for collecting the exuded juice. Having first removed the leaves and earth, a thinnish slice is taken from the fibrous crown of the root, and two days later the juice is scraped from the flat cut surface. The root is again sheltered, care being taken that nothing rests on it. This operation is repeated twice in the course of the next few days, a very thin slice being removed from the root after each scraping. The product got during the first cutting is called shīr, i.e. milk, and is thinner and more milky and less esteemed than that obtained afterwards. It is not sold in its natural state, but is mixed with soft earth (terra limosa) which is added to the extent of an equal, or even double, weight of the gum-resin, according to the softness of the latter.
After the last cutting, the roots are allowed to rest 8 or 10 days, when a thicker exudation called pispaz, more esteemed than the first, is obtained by a similar process carried on at intervals during June and July, or even later, until the root is quite exhausted.
The only recent account of the production of asafœtida that we have met with, is that of Staff-surgeon H. W. Bellew, who witnessed the collection of the drug in 1857 in the neighbourhood of Kandahar.[1205] The frail withered stem of the previous year with the cluster of newly-sprouted leaves, is cut away from the top of the root, around which a trench of 6 inches wide and as many deep, is dug in the earth. Several deep incisions are now made in the upper part of the root, and this operation is repeated every 3 or 4 days as the sap continues to exude, which goes on for a week or two according to the strength of the plant. The juice collects in tears about the top of the root, or when very abundant flows into the hollow around it. In all cases as soon as incisions are made, the root is covered with a bundle of loose twigs or herbs, or even with a heap of stones, to protect it from the drying effects of the sun. The quantity of gum-resin obtained is variable; some roots yield scarcely half an ounce, others as much as two pounds. Some of the roots are no larger than a carrot, others attain the thickness of a man’s leg. The drug is said to be mostly adulterated before it leaves the country, by admixture of powdered gypsum or flour. The finest sort, which is generally sold pure, is obtained solely “from the node or leaf-bud in the centre of the root-head.” At Kandahar, the price of this superior drug is equivalent to from 2s. 8d. to 4s. 8d. per lb, while the ordinary sort is worth but from 1s. to 2s.
During a journey from North-western India to Teheran in Persia, through Beluchistan and Afghanistan, performed in the spring of 1872, the same traveller observed the asafœtida plant in great abundance on many of the elevated undulating pasture-covered plains and hills of Afghanistan, and of the Persian province of Khorassan. He states that the plant is of two kinds, the one called Kamá-i-gawí which is grazed by cattle and used as a potherb, and the other known as Kamá-i-angúza which affords the gum-resin of commerce. The collecting of this last is almost exclusively in the hands of the western people of the Kákarr tribe, one of the most numerous and powerful of the Afghan clans, who, when thus occupied, spread their camps over the plains of Kandahar to the confines of Herat.[1206]
Wood, in his journey to the source of the Oxus, found asafœtida to be largely produced in a district to the north of this, namely the mountains around Saigan or Sykan (lat. 35° 10, long. 67° 40), where, says he, the land affording the plant is as regularly apportioned out and as carefully guarded as the cornfields on the plain.[1207]
Description—The best asafœtida is that consisting chiefly of slightly or not agglutinated tears. This is the Kandahari-Hing of the Bombay market, which is not always to be met with in Bombay, and even there is only used by wealthy people as a condiment. It is not exported to Europe. The best sort shipped to Europe is the Anguzeh-i-Lari, coming from Laristan by way of Afghanistan and the Bolan Pass to Bombay. It shows agglutinated tears, or when freshly imported, it forms a clammy yet hard yellowish-grey mass, in which opaque, white or yellowish milky tears, sometimes an inch or two long, are more or less abundant.