BALSAM TOLU. . 261 
turbid honey, of a yellowish-white colour and of an odour of 
melilot or coumarin. It is but slightly soluble in cold alcohol, but 
more so in ether, which leaves on evaporation a matter which is 
more of the nature of a wax than of a resin. By treating this 
balsam with hot alcohol, Stenhouse * extracted a neutral, resinous, 
colourless substance, easily crystallizable, to which he gave the 
name of Myroxocarpine C,,H3,03. 
These fruit-pods of the Balsam Peru tree also yield by distillation 
with water an almost colourless essential oil, with a sweet odour 
that recalls the fragrance of a field of beans in blossomt+. By 
exposure to the air the odour becomes slightly altered, probably by 
oxidation of the oil, and approaches that of cedar wood. This oil 
is not entirely soluble in rectified spirit, a white precipitate 
settling down after a few days and leaving the supernatant liquid 
quite clear. The odour is quite different from that of either Peru 
or Tolu balsam, and is not exactly like any known perfume. 
Other balsamic exudations from trees belonging to the genus 
Myrozylon are noticed by pharmacological writers; but they are 
not dealt in commercially in Europe, are rarely imported, and very 
imperfectly understood, although well deserving thorough investi- 
gation. Amongst such odorous resins may be mentioned that 
obtained from the Myroxylon peruiferum, Mutis & Linn. fil., 
identical with Myrospermum peruiferum, D.C., and Myrospermum 
pedicellatum, Lam. Dict. ‘This tree is figured in Guibourt’s 
Histoire des Drogues, 7° ed. ii. 472. It grows in Peru as a large 
tree of 65 centimetres diameter in the trunk, and is locally known 
as Quino-quino. This balsam exudes from incisions made in the 
trunk during the rainy season. It is preserved in bottles and re- 
mains fluid for some years ; in this condition it passes under the 
name of “white liquid balsam,’ but when it is put up in cala- 
bashes, which is a common practice at Carthagena, it soon dries 
up into a solid resin and is then known as “ Dry white balsam ” 
or “ Balsam Tolu” by the local druggists. This balsam is quite 
distinct from the White Balsam of Son Sonate above-described. 
Batusam Touv. 
A balsam obtained by exudation after incision in the bark of 
Myroxylon Toluifera, syn. Toluifera Balsamum, Miller, Myrosper- 
* Pharm. Journ. [1] x. p. 290. + Ibid. (3) xv. p. 483. 
