COPAIFERA OFFICINALIS. ORD. XX XVII. Dumose. 611 
Genuine * Balsam of Copaiba has a moderately agreeable smell, 
and a bitterish biting taste, of considerable duration in the mouth: 
it dissolves entirely in rectified spirit, especially if the menstruum 
be previously alkalized ; when the solution has a very fragrant smell. 
Distilled with water it yields nearly half its weight of a limpid 
essential oil; and in a strong heat, without addition, a blue oil. 
This, like most other balsams, is nearly allied to the turpentines. 
It was formerly thought to be an efficacious remedy in various 
disorders, as pulmonary consumptions, coughs, scorbutic diseases, 
dropsies, dysenteries, nephritic complaints, internal ulcers, fluor 
albus, gleets, &c. but though some proofs of its good effects in 
certain states of many of these diseases may be adduced,* yet as it 
irritates and heats the system to a considerable degree, few cases 
occur in which this medicine can safely be given, especially in 
large doses. It determines powerfully to the kidneys, and im- 
pregnates the urine with its qualities, and has therefore been 
supposed peculiarly suited to diseases of the urinary passages, but 
by stimulating these organs it is apt to produce very mischievous 
consequences, its use is therefore now principally confined to 
gleets and fluor albus. 
If this medicine can be advantageously Siiciteeced 3 in pulmo- 
nary affections, it must be in the absence of fever, and where the 
* © We sometimes find in shops, under the name of Copaiba, a thick, whitish, 
almost opake Balsam, with a quantity of turbid watery liquor at the bottom. 
This sort, probably, is either adulterated by the mixture of other substances, or 
has been extracted, ao boiling in water, from the bark or branches of the trec.” 
Lewis, M. M. p. 1 
* See Fuller, Pharm. extemp. p. 275. F. Hoflman, Obs. Phys. chym. p. 24. 
Lentin, Beobacht. einig. Krankh. 1774. p. 58. Mutis relates, that a woman in 
Santa Fé, who had been many years affected with a dropsy, in forty days was 
cured by taking balsam of copaiba, the dose of which she increased to a spoonful 
night and morning. Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres et des ie ee a * 
33. p. 374. 
* Hoppe has fully set forth its ‘joes effects. See D. Fred Wilh. Hoppe, 
apud Valentini Indiam Jiteratam. p. 624, | 
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