LXI.
DILL SEED. Saddacooppéi (Tam.) Sattacooppa (Cyng.) Soie (Duk.) Sowa (Hind.) Mĭsrēyā Sītăsĭvă Sālēyă (Sans.) Suddapa (Tel.) Suva (Guz.) Moongsi (Jav.) Buzralshibbet* (Arab.) ANETHUM GRAVEOLENS (Lin.)
Cl. and Ord. Pentandria, Digynia. Nat. Ord. Umbellatæ. (Lin.)
This seed, which is sometimes sold in India under the name of caraway; and which Dr. Pearson considers as a superfluous addition to the materia medica list; is reckoned a very valuable medicine by the Tamool practitioners. It is given in infusion, as a stomachic, and also as a grateful cordial drink to women immediately after lying in. The leaves applied warm, and moistened with a little oil, hasten suppuration; the seeds have an aromatic, sweetish odour, by no means unpleasant, with a moderately warm and pungent taste; and have been employed with success by European practitioners, in the flatulent colic of infants, in doses of fifteen or twenty grains of the powder, also to stop hickup or vomiting.
To this plant, as it appears in India, Dr. Roxburgh has given the name of anethum sowa, considering it as a new species. Dr. Rottler, however, has seen no necessity for changing the name, and I have gone by his decision. Anethum graveolens, is a native of Spain and Portugal, but is now cultivated in Hindoostan; where the seeds, called sometimes by the Brahmins of Lower India, Mishi (Sans.), are frequently sold in the bazars for caraway-seeds, but they are considerably broader and flatter, and not quite so long. The anethum panmorium (Rox.), has a strong resemblance to the an. fæniculum, and is common in Bengal; it is a warm aromatic, and is called in Hindoostanie mayuri, and in Sanscrit mad'hurica.
* This is more properly speaking the Arabic name for fennel-seed — anethum fæniculum.
The names printed in Tamil, Devanagari and Arabic script beside their romanized forms are not transcribed.