Chapter from Healing Plants of the Bible
Black Cumin
Nigella sativa
Ranunculaceae
Isaiah 28:25-27: “When he hath made plain the face thereof, doth he not cast abroad the fitches and scatter the cumin? For the fitches are not threshed with a threshing instruments , neither is a cart wheel turned about upon cumin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff and the cumin with a rod.”
In case you thought the plant mentioned here in Isaiah was really a fitch, you are mistaken. Our mistranslator friend has visited these lines. The Hebrew word in these lines, ketzach, which is translated here to fitch, is not a fitch at all. Instead it is Nigella sativa, or black cumin. You may not know of this plant or the spice it produces. In America, it is grown as a flower plant, and is sold under the name fennel flower.
The spice it produces is not commonly used in the west and though it exists in the flower border, most would not know it could used to make a condiment. If you have ever eaten a middle Eastern bread sprinkled with spicy black seeds that looked like sesame seeds but did not taste like sesame seeds, you may have eaten them unknowingly. Throughout the Middle East Nigella sativa seeds are used as a topping on baked goods the way sesame seeds coat American bagels.
Since most people are not familiar with this plant we will start with the basics. Black cumin is an annual plant related to the buttercup, clematis, anemone, and the florist flower ranunculus. It is native from Syria to Israel. Because the plant produces a tasty, spicy, seed it spread as far east as India and as far west as North Africa at a very early date. Black cumin grows to a foot or higher and has finely cut fennel like leaves. The plant produces white or blue buttercup like flowers and a five capsuled seed pod loaded with pungent black seeds. It now grows wild all over the Mediterranean region. Its called kaha in Arabic and is used on baked goods and as well in stews. The use of the plant has not changed all that much since the time the Bible was written.
The plant provides humanity with pods filled with spicy seeds. The problem is getting them out of the pods and into the spice jar. The seeds are delicate and crush easily. Once crushed they loose their flavour. The lines in Isaiah state that you cannot thrash black cumin the way you can other crops and this is due to the delicate nature of the seeds.
Flavour is usually carried by aromatic essential oils. Aromatic oils are volatile substances and have a tendency to evaporate when exposed to air. Black cumin seeds are loaded with aromatic oils. The seed seals these delicate oils in their own private ziplock bag, otherwise known as the seed coat. If the seed coat is damaged, the oil has access to air, and the flavour and scent disappear rapidly. Thrashing used to mean beating a pile of seed pods as hard as you could with a club and in some cases driving a wagon over them. Black cumin needs to be gently thrashed with a broom. Even today the spice is separated from the pod with a gentle touch. Isaiah points out that these seed pods cannot be thrashed in the manner used for other grains.
The Israelites sprinkled their bread with these seeds and used them in medicine. From a medical standpoint, these spicy seeds were seen as general body stimulants. Black cumin is a hard biblical plant to talk about because it was used for so many different purposes. The main actions can be summarized as being digestive stimulant, decongestant, emmenagogue, galactogogue, and parasite killer. This is still a pretty long list of uses and it might be helpful to see the plant as being a stimulant. It stimulates menstruation, milk production, healthy digestion, and the expectoration of mucous.
The current obsession with anorexic looks was not something that one found in the Holy Land during the biblical period. Indeed, throughout the Middle East to this day, women on the corpulent side are considered to be ultimately beautiful. Along these lines, people living in the Holy Land felt that eating black cumin seeds would lead to a large, corpulent, and fleshy body. Pliny suggests this was the belief in ancient Greece as well. The plant was thought to be so stimulating it would stimulate girth.
In the Talmud, we find listings of this plant being used to treat heart conditions. They recommend its use, in very small doses. Some Talmudic commentators state that using too much of it can be injurious to the heart. A famous Jewish physician by the name of Asaph ha-Rophe tells us that it used to treat nasal infections. Asaph was a Mesopotamian who lived in the 7th century AD and his suggestion would have come directly from his Israelite forbearers.
Around the ancient Mediterranean black cumin was a frequently used medicine. They were used to treat tooth ache, migraine, paralysis and muscular spasms. In treating the digestive tract they were called upon to treat intestinal parasites, haemorrhoids, and flatulence. In the respiratory system, they found use in influenza, sinusitis, asthma, respiratory afflictions, and respiratory oppression. In a category that could be called mixed uses, they were used to treat leprosy, poisonous bites, late periods, water retention, and poor milk production. The seed was pressed and the oil produced was used to treat cough and bronchial asthma.
In the Middle East, physicians have always used the seed to treat respiratory problems, menstrual irregularities, and parasite infestation. This knowledge is thought to have passed from the Egyptian physicians to the Greeks and Romans via the Israelites and down from there. It was called gith by Columella and Pliny in the first century AD. Palladius called it the same in the third century AD as did Charlemagne in the ninth century AD.
Gerard had access to the knowledge of the older European herbalists and had a working knowledge of the peppery seeds. They would have been an imported substance for Gerard who lived in London. He felt they increased bodily secretions, acted as a decongestant, and would rid a person of intestinal parasites. “The seed of nigella drunke with wine, is a remedy against the shortness of breath, dissolveth and putteth forth windiness, provoketh urine, the menses, increaseth milke in the brests of nurses if it be drunke moderately, otherwise it is not hurtfull to them, but to any that take thereof too often, or in too great quantity. The seed killeth and driveth forth wormes, whether it be taken with wine or water, or laid to the navell in manner of a plaister. The oil that is drawne forth thereof have the same property.”
“The seed parched or dried at the fire, brought into pouder, and wrapped in a piece of fine lawne or farcenet, cureth all murs, catarrhes, rheumes, and the nose, drieth the braine, and restoreth the sense of smelling unto those which have lost it, being often smelled unto from day to day, and made warme at the fire when it is used.”
In the bags of the traders black cumin spread from its native domain well into Asia. The doctors in that part of the world also used this spice. The Arabians first travelled to Asia to buy spices and haul them back to the east. In time, they established settlements along the way. Arabian physicians living in India introduced Arabian medicines to the local people. In the Hamdard Pharmacopoeia, a fabulous record of Arabian medicine in India, we find the following said of Black cumin seeds. ” the seeds are considered stimulant, diuretic, carminative, emmenagogue, galactagogue, diaphoretic, and anthelmintic, and are used in the treatment of mild puerperal fevers. Seeds form a very useful remedy for worms. They are externally applied for skin eruptions.”
Once introduced into India the plant became popular with the native doctors as well as with the Arabian doctors. In a book entitled ” Indian Plants and Drugs”, published in 1908 in Madras, we see that black cumin was well appreciated. It was called krishna-jiraka in Sanskrit and kalajira or in Hindi. “The seeds are aromatic, carminative, stomachic, and digestive; they are employed as a corrective of purgatives and other medicines and are believed to possess diuretic, anthelmintic, and emmenagogue properties, useful in indigestion, loss of appetite, fever, diarrhoea, dropsy, puerperal diseases, etc.”
“They have a decided action as a galactagogue, and are therefor given to recently delivered females in combination with a few other medicines. In doses of 10-20 grains, they have a well marked emmenagogue effect, useful in dysmenorrhoea and in large doses cause abortion. The seeds have also antibilious property and are administered internally to arrest vomiting. The seeds fried, bruised, and tied in muslin bag and smelt relieve cold and catarrh of the nose by constant inhalation. For intermittent fever, slightly roasted nigella seeds in two drachm dose with the addition of equal quantities of honey. In loss of appetite mix equal parts nigella seeds, cumin seeds, black pepper, raisin, tamarind pulp, pomegranate juice, mixed with honey.”
Consistently, whatever culture came across this plant and its pungent black seeds, it was seen as a decongestant. This is not surprising at the seeds contain volatile oils which are known to assist the body eject mucous out of the respiratory tract. How they accomplish this is quite interesting. The oils found in the seeds are absorbed by the gut, carried by the blood to the lungs, and deposited in the lung tissue. The oil, once in the lung tissue, cause the lung tissue to secrete water and speed the action of the cilia lining the lungs. The cilia are the little hairs that beat in upward manner and move mucous out of the respiratory tract. The increased water makes the mucous more liquid and the fast beating cilia move mucous out!
The seeds contain another chemical known as melanthin which is similar to a chemical known as helleborein. Both chemicals are saponins which act on the respiratory tract in a similar manner to the volatile oils. They increase the secretion of water in the lungs which looses the mucous and thus assists its easy movement out of the respiratory tract. These chemicals are also toxic to intestinal parasites which explains why black cumin has long been used to dispel intestinal guests.
Sometimes expectoration is made difficult by the air ways being so irritated they have gone into spasm. The seeds of this plant contains a chemical called nigelline. This chemical is a spasmolytic and has been shown to reduce the spasms in muscles, where ever they might be. Herbalists have always said that this plant cured oppression in the chest, or asthma. The respiratory tract is lined with muscle and if the airways were closed due to muscular spasms, the seeds would help to open the airways.
When it comes to using black cumin it is helpful to know that most markets that cater to Arab communities sell it in the spice section. It is even more important to be aware that the Arabian physicians suggest using it in small amounts. You don’t find it in great piles on bread, it is lightly scattered. Black cumin seeds are fine in small doses, but because of the chemicals that kill parasites, they are not to be used in large amounts. A pepper shake is more than enough for any of the purposes you have seen listed. Twenty seeds in a cup of boiling water is a pleasant tasting decongestant and one that would have been used by the Israelite cold sufferer.