Anise is one of the spice plants known to, and used during, antiquity. It is mentioned in the Vedas and in the Bible.7) The cultivation of anise in Egypt and in the Island of Crete is recorded in the writings of Dioscorides, Columella and Pliny;8) its medicinal use in those of Scribonius Largus, Marcellus Empiricus, and Alexander Trallianus. In the 4. century Palladius9) gave directions for its cultivation. In 970 Asia Minor and the mediterranean countries10) supplied anise, during the 12. century Spain also.11) Trough his Capitulare of 812 Charlemagne stimulated the cultivation of anise north of the Alps.1) In 1305 anise is enumerated among the dutiable spices in London,2) and toward the beginning of the 16. century anise and fennel were cultivated in England.3)

1) Warnkonig, Histoire de la Flandre. 1836. Vol. 2, p. 512 and vol. 4, p. 449.

2) Hirsch, Danzigs Handels- und Gewerbsgeschichte. Leipzig 1858. p. 243.

3) Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacographia. London 1879. p. 303.

4) Anguillara, Semplici Vinegia. 1561. p. 130.

5) S. Dale, Pharmacologia seu manuductio ad Mater/am medicam. London 1693. p. 211.

6) Essays, Medical and Experimental II. (1773), p. 226.

7) Matth., 23:23. In the English version the original is translated as anise, whereas Luther translates it with dill. Comp. p. 180, footnote 2.

8) Dioscoridis De materia medica libri quinque. Editio Kuhn-Sprengel. 1829. Vol. 1, p. 405. - Columellae De re rustica in Nisard's Les agronomes latins. Paris 1877. - Plinii Naturalis historian libri. Lib. XX, 72 - 73.

9) Palladii De re rustica libri XIV. Lib. Ill, 14 and lib. IV, 9 In Misard's Les agronomes latins. Paris 1877. pp. 569 and 583.

10) Codex Vindobonensis, sive Abn Mansur Mowafic (Alherri) Heratensis liber fundamentarum Pharmacologic Editio F. R. Seligmann. Wien 1859. p. 21.

11) Ibn-al-Awam, Livre d'agriculture, translated by Clement-Mullet. 1864. Vol. 2, p. 249.

On account of its property to solidify, distilled oil of anise has, no doubt, been noticed as long as anise has been used for the preparation of anise water. The distillation of the oil was, however, first described in the works of Hieronymus Brunschwig,4) Ad. Lonicer,5) Walter Ryff,6) Conrad Gesner,7) Hieronymus Rubeus8) and Porta.9) Valerius Cordus10) in 1540 called attention to the ready solidification of the oil. Nearly a century later Robert Boyle again described the "butter-like" solidification of anise oil.11)

In medical books and ordinances anise oil is first mentioned in the Pharmacopoea Augustana of 1580, the Dispensatorium Nor/cum of 1589, and the Berlin ordinance of Matthasous Flacco of 1574.

The first accurate investigations of anise oil were undertaken by Th. de Saussure12) in 1820, by Dumas13) in 1833, by Blanchet and Sell14) in 1833, by A. Cahours15) in 1841, by

1) A. Thaer, Qbersetzung und Erlauterung des "Capitulare". In Fuhling's Landwirtschaftliche Zeitung. Berlin. April number 1878, pp. 241 - 260.

2) R. Thomson, Chronicles of London Bridge. 1827. p. 156.

3) Boorde, Dyetary of helth. 1542. - Reprinted for the Early English Text Society. London 1870. p. 284.

4) Hieronymus Brunschwig, Liber de arte destillandi. De simplicibus. Anno 1500. fol. 45.

5) See p. 49.

6) Gualtherus Ryff, New gross Destillirbuch. Frankfurt-on-the-Main 1567. fol. 186.

7) Euonymi Philiatri Ein kostl. theurer Schatz. Zurich 1555 pp.227 and 301.

8) Hieronymi Rubei Liber de destillatione, in quo stillatitiorum //'quorum, qui ad medicinam faciuntur, methodus ac vires explicantur. Basiliae 1581. Cap. 5, pp. 113 and 143.

9) Giov. Bapt. Portae Magias natural is libri viginti. Romae 1563. p. 379. 10) Valerii Cordi De artificiosis extractionibus liber. Editio Gesner.

Argentorati 1561. fol. 226.

11) R. Boyle, Historia fluiditatis. London 1661. p. 15.

12) Annal. de Chim. et Phys. II. 13 (1820), 280; Schweigger's Journ. f. Chem. u. Phys. 29 (1820), 165.

13) Liebig's Annalen 6 (1833), 245. 14) Ibidem 6 (1833), 287.

15) Ibidem 41 (1842), 56; and 56 (1845), 177.

A. Laurent1) and Gerhardt'2) in 1842. Gerhardt called the stearoptene of anise oil anethol and Cahours again pointed out the identity of the stearoptenes of anise and fennel oils, previously recognized by Blanchet.3)