PINUS BALSAMEA. ORD. I. Coniferex. 3 
odour, and a hot, pungent, bitterish taste. Itis perfectly limpid and colour- 
less, light, volatile, inflammable, and burns with a very vivid, crackling 
flame. It is soluble in six parts of sulphuric ether, very sparingly soluble 
in cold alcohol, one hundred parts unite with twenty of alcohol; if the 
alcohol be heated, the oil readily combines with it, but will be separated 
again as soon as the spirit cools. A stream of oxymuriatic gas passed through 
it, converts it into a yellow resin. Distilled with four times its volume 
of water, it becomes lighter and brighter. 
Medical Properties and Uses. Canadianbalsam possesses similar medicinal 
properties to the other turpentines, which have been fully described under 
the article Pinus sylvestris, Pinus abies, Pinus picea, and Pinus larix, in 
Vol. L. of this work. We have, therefore, only a few observations*to make 
on the use of the oil of turpentine as a remedial agent, more especially for 
the expulsion of tenia. It was first recemmended by Dr. Fenwick as an 
anthelmintic * of very considerable powers. The Doctor prescribed it in 
doses of two ounces, and repeated it in ounce doses till it had the desired 
effect; purging is in general produced, and the worm is usually evacuated 
lifeless.t+ Turpentine, when given in large doses, by acting as a cathartic, 
seems to prevent its absorption; hence its action on-the urinary organs be- 
comes obviated, and stranguary, which so frequently accompanies the inter- 
nal use of small doses of turpentine, is not to be apprehended ; not only for 
the expulsion of tenia, but for other worms, (especially the dwmbrici) it has 
been administered with equal success. Dr. Copeland { strongly recommends 
the oil in the hemorrhagie, particularly in atonic epistaxis, also in epilepsy, 
in the last stages of puerperal fever, and in the convulsions of infants, when 
arising from a disordered state of the alimentary canal. It is also a power- 
ful emmenagogue, thence useful in chlorosis. We are told by Dr. Copeland, 
that in some cases of ovarian dropsy, its effects were such as to recommend 
its employment in the incipient stages of that disease, and also in other 
dropsies. Externally, the oil of turpentine is used with much advantage as 
a primary application to scalds and burns. Dr. Kentish was the first who 
* Vide Med. Chir. Trans. vol. ii. +Vide Med. & Phys. Jour. v. xlvi-p. 185 & seq. 
{ The action of oil of turpentine appears to differ from every other medicine that has 
been administered for the expulsion of tenia, by killing the worm; for we are told, that 
every worm that has been ejected by the oil of turpentine, generally had a livid hue, and 
was lifeless 
B2 
