OPOPANAX.—BDELLIUM.— MYRRH. 269 
pleasant. The purest, palest, and most odorous pieces are sold as 
picked myrrh. Sometimes the same chest contains myrrh of all 
qualities ; it is then termed myrrh in sorts. 
Myrrh cannot be reduced to fine powder until a part of the 
essential oil and water which it contains has been dried out of it. 
On being heated it does not liquefy like resin. Water disinte- 
grates it, forming a lhght brown emulsion which, under the 
microscope, is found to be composed of colourless drops mingled 
with granules of yellow resin. Alcohol dissolves the resin of 
myrrh and leaves the non-crystalline gummy matter and frag- 
ments of bark. On treating myrrh with water, about 40 or 50 
per cent. of gum is dissolved out, sometimes as much as 67 per 
cent.; part of this can be precipitated by neutral acetate of lead, 
thus differing from gum arabic; but a part of it, about a quarter, 
resembles that gum as regards the action of acetate of lead upon 
it*. African bdellium, which is frequently found in imported 
parcels of “ unpicked myrrh,” contains a much smaller proportion 
of gum soluble in water; according to the analyses of Parker 
(Pharm. Journ. [3] xi. p. 41) the composition of African bdellium 
is as follows :— 
Soluble in alcohol ............ 15-4 
Gum soluble in water......... 332 
Gum insoluble in water...... 37°83 
Momspure: 2 he ate. 13°6 
Details of this investigation and comparative results obtained from 
other varieties of bdellium are given in the paper referred to. 
Flickiger and Hanbury found that myrrh yields on distillation 
3°4 per cent. of a thick, yellow, neutral oil, sp. gr. 0°988 at 13°. 
In a tube of 50 millim. it deviated the ray 30:1 to the left. This 
oil commenced to boil at 266°, and distilled between 270° and 
290° C. 
The Stacte (ctaxtn) often mentioned by the ancients is, ac- 
cording to Pliny, a liquid which exudes spontaneously from the 
myrrh tree +. Theophrastus { mentions two sorts of myrrh, one 
liquid and one solid, but no modern drug has been identified with 
Stacte or the liquid myrrh of the ancients; whatever it was, it was 
* Fliickiger & Hanbury, Hist. des Drogues, i. p. 272. 
+ Vincent, ‘Commerce of the Ancients,’ ii. p. 316. 
tf Tab. ix.c. 4: 
