ASAFOETIDA (Asaf.)

Botanical name : Ferula asafoetida Linn. Family: Umbelliferae (Apiaceae)

Synonyms : F. narthex Base, F. persica Willd, F. foetida St., Narthex asafoetida Fale, Scordorma foetidum Bunge.

Common names : Hindi: Heeng; English: Assafetida; French: Asefetide; German: Asant Stinkasant.

Description : Asafoetida is an oleo-gum-resin. The gum resin is an amorphous mass. Asafoetida occurs in three forms, viz. paste, tear and mass (block or lump). Paste and tear pure forms, but bulk of the drug is mass. The tears, some of which are separate, some more or less agglutinated together, are rounded or flattened and vary from 0.5 to 4 cm in diameter. These are of a dull yellow or sometimes dingy grey colour; some darkens on keeping, finally becoming reddish-brown, but other retains their original colour for years. The red variety is derived from F. foetida and the white from F. rubricaulis (Small, 1913). When fresh they are usually tough at ordinary temperatures, becoming harder when cooled and softer when warmed. Internally they may be yellowish or milky- white, translucent or opaque; the fleshly exposed surface may gradually pass through very characteristic change of colour, becoming first pink then red and finally reddish-brown (F. foetida) or may remain nearly white (F. rubricaulis). Mass asafoetida consists of the tears agglutinated into a more or less uniform mass and mixed with varying quantities of extraneous substances such as stones, slices of the root, earthly matter, calcium carbonate and calcium sulphate etc; it is generally much inferior to the tears, the drug itself has an intense penetrating, persistent, alliaceous, odour and bitter acrid, alliaceous tests.

Habitat : India (Kashmir, mountains in the South East of Samar Kand), Iran and Afghanistan.

History and authority : Allen’s Encyclop. Mat. Med. Vol. I, 560.

Part used : Gum resin.

Preparation : (a) Mother tincture ϕ Drug strength 1/10 Asafoetida in coarse powder 100 g Strong Alcohol in sufficient quantity to make one thousand millilitres of the Mother Tincture.

(b) Potencies: 2x and higher with Dispensing Alcohol.

Old method : Class IV.