OPOPANAX, in the materia medica, is a gum-resin of a tolerably firm texture, usually brought to us in loose granules or drops, and sometimes in large masses, formed of a number of these connected by a quantity of matter of the same kind; but these are usually loaded with extraneous matter, and are greatly inferior to the pure loose kind. The drops or granules of the fine opopanax are on the outside of a brownish red colour, and of a dusky yellowish or whitish colour within: they are of a somewhat unctuous appearance, smooth on the surface; and are to be chosen in clear pieces, of a strong smell and acrid taste.
This gummy substance is obtained from the roots of an umbelliferous plant, which grows spontaneously in the warmer countries, and bears the colds of this. The juice is brought from Turkey and the East Indies; and its virtues are those of an attenuating and aperient medicine. Boerhaave frequently employed it, along with ammoniacum and galbanum, in hypochondriacal disorders, obstructions of the abdominal viscera, and suppressions of the menstrual evacuations from a sluggishness of mucous humours, and a want of due elasticity of the follicles: with these intentions it is an useful ingredient in the pilule gummose and compound powder of myrrh of the London pharmacopoeia, but it is not employed in any composition of the Edinburgh. It may be given by itself in the dose of a scruple, or half a dram: a whole dram proves in many constitutions gently purgative: also dispels flatulencies, is good in asthmas, in inveterate coughs, and in disorders of the head and nerves.
Doctor Woodville, in his Medical Botany, gives the following account of this vegetable. "It is of the dignis order, and pentandria class of plants: the root is perennial,
Plate CCCLI.
Fig. 1.
Fig. 4.
Fig. 3.
Fig. 6.
Fig. 5.
Fig. 2.
A. Hill. Mch. H. L. sculptor. fecit.
Opopanax, perennial, thick, fleshy, tapering like the garden parsnep: the stalk is strong, branched, rough towards the bottom, and rises seven or eight feet in height; the leaves are pinnated, consisting of several pairs of pinnae, which are oblong, serrated, veined, and towards the base appear unformed on the upper side: the flowers are small, of a yellowish colour, and terminate the stem and branches in flat umbels; the general and partial umbels are composed of many radii; the general and partial involucres are commonly both wanting; all the florets are fertile, and have an uniform appearance; the petals are five, lance-shaped, and curled inwards; the five filaments are spreading, curved, longer than the petals, and furnished with roundish anthers; the germin is placed below the corolla, supporting two reflexed styles, which are supplied with blunt stigmata; the fruit is elliptical, compressed, divided into two parts, containing two flat seeds, encompassed with a narrow border. See Plate CCCLII. It is a native of the south of Europe, and flowers in June and July.
"This species of parsnep was cultivated in 1731 by Mr P. Miller, who observes, that its 'roots are large, sweet, and accounted very nourishing,' therefore recommended for cultivation in kitchen-gardens. It bears the cold of our climate very well, and commonly matures its seeds, and its juice here manifests some of those qualities which are discovered in the officinal opopanax; but it is only in the warm regions of the east, and where this plant is a native, that its juice concretes into this gummy resinous drug. Opopanax is obtained by means of incisions made at the bottom of the stalk of the plant, from whence the juice gradually exudes; and by undergoing spontaneous concretion, assumes the appearance under which we have it imported from Turkey and the East Indies. It readily mingles with water, by triture, into a milky liquor, which on standing deposits a portion of resinous matter, and becomes yellowish: to rectified spirit it yields a gold-coloured tincture, which tastes and smells strongly of opopanax. Water distilled from it is impregnated with its smell, but no essential oil is obtained on committing moderate quantities to the operation." See PASTANACA, of which opopanax is a species.