184 MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



colourless fluid ; in time however it acquires a yellowish tinge, and 

 the consistence of oil ; but though by age it has been found thick 

 like honey, yet it never became solid like other resinous fluids. 



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 essen- 

 tial 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 al- 

 bus, gleets, &c. but though some proofs of its good effects in cer- 

 tain 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 J. It determines powerfully to the kidneys, and impregnates their 

 secretion with its qualities, and has therefor** 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 cau be advantageously administered in pulmonary 

 affections, it must be in the absence of fever, and where the excre- 

 tion from the lungs is unattended with inflammatory congestion . 



* " We sometimes find in shops, under the name of Copaiba, a thick, whit- 

 ish, 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, by boiling in water, from the bark or branches of the tree." 

 Lewis, M. M.p. 132. 



t See Fuller, Pharm. extemp. p. 275. F. Hoffman, Obs.Phys. chym. p. 24. 

 Lentin, Beobacht. einig. Krankh. 1774. p. 58. Mutis relates, that a woman 

 in Santa Fe, 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 

 arts. 1786. n.33. p. 374. 



$ Hoppe has fully set forth its dangerous effects. See D. Fred. Wilh. Hoppe, 

 apud Valentini Indiam literatam. p. 624. 



Vide Simmons "On the Treatment of Consumptions," p. 36. sq. Dr. 

 Cullen says, " Whether a certain effect of balsam of copaiba is to be imputed 



