CLXXXVII.
SAFFRON. Khoongoomapoo (Tam.) Zafran (Arab. and Duk.) Keysur (Hindooie). Khoonkoomapoohoo (Tel.) Abeer (Pers.) Safaron (Mal.) Khohoon (Cyng.) Acafrao (Port.) Safran (Fr.) Zafferano (It.) Safran (Ger.) Kāsmīrajanmā (Sans.) also Kunkuma (Sans.) Κροκος (Gr.) CROCUS SATIVUS (Lin.)
Cl. and Ord. Triandria Monogynia. Nat. Ord. Ensatæ.
The saffron of the shops is prepared from the stigmas, with a proportion of the style, of the flowers of the crocus sativus, a plant which thrives well in England, and is a native of the Southern parts of Europe and of Asia. When of good quality, it has a sweetish, penetrating, diffusive odour, its taste is a little bitter, united with a certain degree of warmth and pungency, its colour a deep red.
The Hindoo doctors prescribe saffron in nervous affections, unattended with vertigo, and where there is no disposition to apoplexy; they also believe it to have considerable virtue in melancholia, hysteric depressions, and kistnah doshum (typhus fever). To women soon after the pains of childbirth, an infusion of saffron is frequently administered by the Tamool midwives, to prevent fever, to support the spirits, and gently to assist in carrying off the lochia. This medicine is besides used by the Indian practitioners, as an external application in ophthalmia, when mixed with a small portion of pounded kadukāi (Chebulic myrobolan), and lime-juice, and applied round the eye and close to it.
The saffron procured from Asiatic countries is of an inferior quality to what we see in Europe; being often dry and deficient in odour. It is brought to India from the sea-ports of the Red Sea*, from Persia†, and in considerable quantity from Cashmere: hence its Sanscrit name. The Arabians‡ place saffron amongst their Mosebetát (Hypnotica), Mokewyat-dil (Cardiaca), and Mufettehat (Deobstruentia). The reader will find its virtues fully discussed in a Persian work, entitled Krabidinie Massumy, a Treatise on Medicine, by Massum Ben Ibrahim Shirazy, A.D. 1649.
* A great quantity of saffron grows in Egypt; the best in the vicinity of Cairo: about 1,800,000 pounds used formerly to be annually prepared in that country. See Niebhur’s Travels in Arabia, vol. i. p. 96.
† Captain M’Kinneir, in his valuable Geographical Memoir of Persia, informs us, that saffron is a staple export from Herat, a town in the province of Khorasan. See his work, p. 182.
‡ Avicenna says of saffron, “roborat cor et exhilarat; sed cephalalgiam inducit, capitique officit; venerem stimulat, urinam movet.” Vide Canon. Med. lib. ii. tract ii. p. 128.
The names printed in Tamil, Arabic and Devanagari script beside their romanized forms are not transcribed. The article continues from "Few things are more subject to adulteration" on p. 355 to p. 357; that part, and its footnote (§), are not in this section.