Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
2. In medicine
Knowledge of the manifold healing
powers of salt, already praised by Dioscu-
rides, was taken over by the Arabs and
enlarged by their own observations.
Together with common salt, rock-salt
(
ἃλες ὀρυκτόν
), to which probably corre-
sponded Ar.
mil andarānī
, was considered
to be the most valuable. Distinction was
also made between salt smelling of naptha
(
al-nafī
) and of boiled eggs (
al-bayī
), the
black Indian salt, uric salt (
mil al-bawl
),
potassium salt (
al-ily
), and others. All salts
have astringent power, while many are
effective as emetics and laxatives, dissolve
viscous phlegm and purge the bowels. Salt
stimulates the appetite and aids the diges-
tion, but excessive use heats the blood,
weakens the power of vision, diminishes
potency and causes itching and scabies.
Bitter salt (
al-mil al-murr
) purges black
bile, Indian salt the gastric juices. Wool
saturated in a salt solution, if put on a fresh
wound, stops the bleeding. According to
the
K. al-Taribatayn alā adwiyat Ibn Wāfid
of Avempace (Ibn Bāa), the manu-
script of which has been lost but which
is quoted at length by Ibn al-Bayār, salt
also plays an important rôle in dentistry:
dissolved in vinegar and used as mouth-
wash, it stops the bleeding of the gums
and of open wounds after an extraction;
the same solution, if heated, soothes teeth
and, used as gargle, removes phlegm from
the mouth.
of the cinnamon species, of the family of
the Lauraceae, perhaps the oldest spice
altogether. The rind of the branch of
the cinnamon-tree was used in China as
medicine, aromatic substance and spice
already in the 3rd millennium B.C., and
reached the Near East and the Mediter-
ranean countries in the 2nd millennium.
It cannot be established with certainty
with what original plant
dārīnī
is to be
associated, since in the pharmacognos-
tic texts
Cinn. cassia
is also rendered by
salīa
, which allegedly is not identical
with
dārīnī
. The Greeks (Dioscorides)
called the class
κιν
(
ν
)
άμωμον
, and the rind
of the Chinese
κασσία
; the Arabs speak
accordingly of
innāmūmun
(and variants)
and
āsiyā
(
assiyā
); in Spanish-Arabic
texts it even appears in the Romance
form
innamū
(
cinamomo
). Since Ceylonese
cinnamon was exported rather late from
the island, hardly before the 14th century
A.D.,
dārīnī
, according to its name, can
only indicate Chinese cinnamon during
the whole previous period.
The older Arab botanists did not
know what to do with the term
īnī
and
associated it with an unidentified drug
īnīn
mentioned by al-Aā. Isā b.
Sulaymān al-Isrāīlī (d.
ca.
320/932) was
perhaps the first to perceive that cinna-
mon came indeed from China. Like the
numerous other Asiatic spices, cinnamon
was imported mainly by the sea route, the
most important transit-port being Adan.
The Arabs knew a whole range of
kinds of
dārīnī
which cannot be deter-
mined more closely: the “real Chinese
cinnamon” (
dārīnī al-īn
), an inferior
kind (
dār ū
), the “real cinnamon rind”
(
al-irfa alā 'l-aīa
), the “clove-rind”
(
irfat al-urunful
), the “pungent cinna-
mon” (
al-ādd al-maā
), etc. As spice for
food, there served not only the tubular
rind of the cinnamon-tree, but also its
leaves, blossoms and unripe berries. The
(A. Dietrich)
Cinnamon
The Arabic
dār īnī
, or
dārīnī
(Persian
dār čīnī
“Chinese wood”), is the Chinese
cinnamon (
Cinnamomum cassia
), next to
the Ceylonese cinnamon (
Cinn. zeylani-
cum
) the most valuable spice from plants
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