Journal Number 100
August 2006

NOTES etc

John Palmer sent a copy from Essay VII ("On the Preparation, Culture, and Use of the Orchis Root") of a work by Dr. Alexander Hunter (1729-1809): Georgical essays: by A. Hunter, M.D., F.R.S., London 1777.

It's a wonderful example of the way scientific discovery and thought developed as the Age of
Elegance became the Age of Enlightenment - and the prudish use of Latin for the sexy bits at
the end is delightfully coy.

SALEP is a preparation of the root of Orchis, or Dogstones, of which many species are enumerated by botanical writers. The Orchis mascula Linn, sp.sl. is the most valued, although the roots of some of the palmated sorts, particularly of the Orchis Latifolia, are found to answer almost equally well. This plant flourishes in various parts of Europe and Asia, and grows in our country spontaneously, and in great abundance. It is assiduously cultivated in the East; and the root of it forms a considerable part of the diet of the inhabitants of Turkey, Persia, and Syria.

A dry, and not very fertile soil is best adapted to its growth. An ingenious friend of mine, in order to collect the seed , transplanted a number of the Orchises into a meadow, where he had prepared a bed well manured for their reception . The next spring few of them appeared, and not one came to maturity, their roots being black and half rotten. The same gentleman informed me that he had never been able to raise any plants from the seed of wild Orchis; but he ascribes his want of success to the wetness of the Situation in which he resides.

I have now before me a seed pod of the Orchis; the contents of which, to the naked eye, seem to be seed corrupted and turned to dust, but, when viewed through a microscope, appear evidently to be organised, and would, I doubt not, with proper culture germinate, and produce a thriving crop of plants.

The properest time for gathering the roots is when the seed is formed, and the stalk is ready to fall, because the new bulb, of which the salep is made, is then arrived to its full maturity, and may be distinguished from the old one by a white bud rising from the top of it, which is the germ of the Orchis of the succeeding year.

Several methods of preparing salep have been proposed and practised.

Geoffrey has delivered a very judicious process, for this purpose, in the Histoire de l'Academie Royale des Sciences, 1740, and Retzius, in the Swedish Transactions, 1764, has improved Geoffrey's method. But Mr. Moult, of Rochdale, has lately favoured the public with a new manner of curing the Orchis root, and as I have seen many specimens of his salep, at least equal, if not superior, to any brought from the Levant, I can recommend the following, which is his process, from my own knowledge of its success.

The new root is to be washed in water and the fine brown skin which covers it is to be separated by means of a small brush, or by dipping the root in hot water, and rubbing it with a coarse linen cloth. When a sufficient number of roots have been thus cleaned, they are to be spread on a tin plate, and placed in an oven heated to the usual degree, where they are to remain six or ten minutes, in which time they will have lost their milky whiteness, and acquired a transparency like horn, without any diminution of bulk. Being arrived at this state they are to be removed, in order to dry and harden in the air, which will require several days to effect , or, by using a very gentle heat, they may be finished in a few hours*.

Salep, thus prepared, may be afforded in this part of England, where labour bears a high value, at about 8d. or 10d. per lb. And it might be sold still cheaper if the Orchis were to be cured without separating from it the brown skin which covers it: A troublesome part of the process, and which does not contribute to render the root either more palatable or salutary. Whereas the foreign salep is now sold at 5 or 6s. per lb.

The culture of the Orchis, therefore, is an object highly deserving of encouragement from all lovers of agriculture. And as the root, if introduced into common use, would furnish a cheap, wholesome, and most nutritious article of diet, the growth of it would be sufficiently profitable to the farmer.

Salep is said to contain the greatest quantity of vegetable nourishment in the smallest bulk. Hence a very judicious writer, to prevent the dreadful calamity of famine at sea, has lately proposed that the powder of it should constitute part of the provisions of every ship's company.

This powder and portable soup, dissolved in boiling water, form a rich thick jelly, capable of supporting life for a considerable length of time. An ounce of each of these articles, with two quarts of boiling water, will be sufficient subsistence for a man a day*, and, as being a mixture of animal and vegetable food, must prove more nourishing than double the quantity of rice cake, made by boiling rice in water; this last, however, sailors are often obliged solely to subsist upon for several months, especially in voyages to Guinea, when the bread and flour are exhausted, and the beef and pork, having been salted in hot countries, are become unfit for use.† But as a wholesome nourishment, rice is much inferior to salep.

I digested several alimentary mixtures prepared of mutton and water, heat up with bread, sea biscuit, salep, rice flour, sago powder, potatoe, old cheese, &c. in a heat equal to that of the human body. In forty-eight hours they had all acquired a vinous smell, and were in brisk fermentation, except the mixture with rice, which did not emit many air bubbles, and was but little changed. The third day several of the mixtures were sweet, and continued to ferment; others had lost their intestine motion, and were sour; the one which contained rice was become putrid.

From this experiment it appears that rice, as an aliment, is slow of fermentation, and a very weak corrector of putrefaction. It is therefore an improper diet for hospital patients, but more particularly for sailors, in long voyages, because it is incapable of preventing, and will not contribute much to check the progress of that fatal disease, the sea scurvy .

Under certain circumstances, rice seems disposed of itself, without mixture, to become putrid, for, by long keeping, it sometimes acquires an offensive foetor, nor can it be considered as a very nutritive kind of food, on account of its difficult solubility in the stomach.

Experience confirms the truth of this conclusion; for it is observed by the planters in the West - Indies, that the negroes grow thin, and are less able to work whilst they subsist on rice.

Salep has the singular property of concealing the taste of salt water†: a circumstance of the highest importance at sea, when there is a scarcity of fresh water. I dissolved a drachm and a half of common salt in a pint of mucilage of salep, so liquid as to be potable, and the same quantity in a pint of spring water. The salep was by no means disagreeable to the taste, but the water was rendered extreamly unpalatable.

This experiment suggested to me the trial of the orchis root as a corrector of acidity; a property which would render it a very useful diet for children. But the solution of it, when mixed with vinegar, seemed only to dilute, like an equal proportion of water, and not to cover its sharpness.

Salep, however, appears, by my experiments, to retard the acetous fermentation of milk, and consequently would be a good lithing for milk pottage, especially in large towns, where the cattle being fed on sour chaff, must yield sufficient milk.

Salep, in a certain proportion, which I have not yet been able to ascertain, would be a very useful and profitable addition to bread. I directed one ounce of the powder to be dissolved in a quart of water, and the mucilage to be mixed with sufficient quantity of flour, salt and yeast. The flour amounted to two pounds, the yeast two ounces, and the salt to eighty grains. The loaf when baked was remarkably well fermented, and weighed three pounds two ounces. Another loaf, made with the same quantity of flour, etc. weighed two pounds twelve ounces; from which it appears the salep, though used in so small a proportion, increased the gravity of the loaf six ounces, by absorbing and retaining more water than the flour alone was capable of. Half a pound of flour and an ounce of salep were mixed together, and water added according to the usual method of preparing bread. The loaf when baked weighed thirteen ounces and a half; and would probably have been heavier, if the salep had been previously dissolved in about a pint of water. But it should be remarked, that the quantity of flour used in this trial was not sufficient to conceal the peculiar taste of salep.

The restorative, mucilaginous, and demulcent qualities of the Orchis root render it of considerable use in various diseases.

In the sea scurvy it powerfully obtunds the acrimony of the fluids, and at the same time is easily assimulated into a mild and nutritious chyle. In diarrhoeas and the disentry it is highly serviceable by sheathing the internal coats of the intestines, by abating irritation, and gently correcting putrefaction.

In the symptomatic fever which arises from the absorption of pus, from ulcers in the lungs, from wounds, or from amputation, salep used plentifully is an admirable demulcent, as well as adapted to resist that dissolution of the crasis of the blood, which is so evident in these cases.

And by the same mucilaginous quality, it is equally efficacious in the strangury and dysury; especially in the latter when arising from a venereal cause, because the discharge of urine is then attended with the most exquisite pain, from the ulcerations about the neck of the bladder, and through the course of the urethra. I have found it also an useful aliment for patients who labour under the stone or gravel*.

From these observations, short and imperfect as they are, I hope it will sufficiently appear that the culture of Orchis root is an object of considerable importance to the public, and highly worthy of encouragement from all patrons of agriculture. That taste for experiment, which characterises the present age, and which has so amazingly enlarged the boundaries of science, now animates the rational farmer, who fears not to deviate from the beaten tract whenever improvements are suggested, or useful projects are pointed out to him, Much has been already done for the advancement of agriculture; but the earth still teems with treasures which remain to be explored, The bounties of nature are inexhaustible, and will for ever employ the art, and reward the industry of man.

* Vid. A letter from John Moult to the author, containing a new method of preparing Salep. - Phil. Transact. vol. 59.

* Potable soup is sold at 2s. 6d . per lb. salep, if cultivated in our own country, might be afforded at 10d. per lb, the day's subsistence would therefore amount only to 2.5d.

† Vid. Dr. Lind's Appendix to his Essay on the diseases of Hot Climates.

* Cheese is now become a considerable article of ship provisions. When mellowed by age, it ferments readily with yeast and water, but separates a rancid oil, which seems incapable of any further change, and must, as a septic, be pernicious in the scurvy; for rancidity appears to be a species of putrefaction. The same objection may be urged, with still greater propriety, against the use of cheese in hospitals; because convalescents are so liable to relapses, that the slightest error of diet may occasion them. Vid. Percival's letter to Mr. Aikin. Thoughts on Hospitals, p. 95.

† Vid. Dr. Lind's appendix.

* Ancient chemists seem to have entertained a very high opinion of the virtues of the Orchis root, of which the following quotation from the Secreta secretorum of Raymaund Lully, affords diverting proof. The work (see # below) is dated 1565 (sic.) (Translation by John Palmer-Ed): The sixth herb; Satirion is a herb known to many; collect 4 lb of this root on January 20th; pound strongly and place the pounded mass in a brass pot with 20 small openings like atoms in the lid, & place inside with the previously mentioned gathered items 3 lb of hot cows' milk as it is milked from the cow & 1 lb of honey, 2 lb of aromatic wine & place again for 20 days in the sun & preserve & use. Of this dose to the weight of 3. 4. and at the tenth hour of the day show to a post menstrual woman she will conceive the same night if a man has relations with her.

# Probably: Llull, Ramon, 1232?-1316 Secreta secretorum Raymundi Lullii et Hermetis philosophorum : in libros tres divisa. Cum opusculo D. Thomae Aquinatis, De esse & essentia mineraralium [sic], & Cornelii Aluetani Ansrodij De conficiendo diuino elixire libellus Coloniae: Apud Gosuinum Cholinum., anno M.D.L.