596 HAMAMELIDEH., 
a favourite application to swellings, and in India is much used 
in orchitis, the inflamed part being smeared with it and then 
bound up tight in tobacco leaves. The Burmese Storax noticed 
in the Pharmacopeia of India is not known in India, Much 
interesting information regarding the history and sources of 
Storax may be found in the Pharmacographia. 
Description.— We have examined the liquid storax of the 
Bombay market, and find that it agrees with the description 
of the drug given by Fliickiger and Hanbury, which is as 
follows :—“ It is a soft viscid resin, usually of the consistence of 
honey, heavier than water, opaque and greyish brown. It always 
contains water, which by long standing rises to the surface. 
*In one sample that had been kept more than 20 years, the 
_ resin at the bottom of the bottle formed a transparent layer of 
> a pale golden brown. When liquid storax is heated, it becomes, 
by the loss of water, dark brown and transparent, the solid 
impurities settling to the bottom. Spread out in a very thin 
layer it partially dries, but does not wholly lose its stickiness. — 
- When free from water (which reddens litmus) it dissolves in 
_ alcohol, spirit of wine, chloroform, ether, glacial acetic acid, 
_ bisulphide of carbon, and most of the essential oils, but not in 
the most volatile part of petroleum (petroleum ether).” It 
has ¢ a pleasant balsamic smell, especially after it has been long. 
- kept; when recent, it is contaminated with .an odour of 
bitumen or naphthalin, that is far from agreeable. Its taste is 
sharply pungent, burning and aromatic. 
When coud opaque resin is subjected to microscopic exami- 
_ ton brownish granules are observed in a viscid, colour- 
teas: franspalebe liquid, besides which large drops of a mobile 
watery liquid may be distinguished. In polarized light, nume- | 
rous minute crystalline fragments with a few - ‘larger tubular 
crystals are obvious. But when thin layers of the resin are 
left on the object-glass in a warm place, feathery or spicular 
: et shoot out on the edge of the clear liquid, 
a ee, irr drops above mentioned, 
bles and short — ‘Prisms: — — ihake 
