152 BURSERACE^. 



The relations of the substances hitherto isolated from elemi may 

 perhaps be given thus : — 



Essential oil, . 

 Amyrin, . 

 Amorphous resin (?) 

 Bryoidin, . 

 Elemic acid, 



(C5H8)5 + OH2 

 (C«H8)2 + OH2 

 (C5H8)4 + 30H2 



Uses — Elemi is scarcely used in British medicine except in the 

 form of an ointment, sometimes prescribed as a stimulating application 

 to old wounds. 



Other sorts of Elemi — 1. Mexican Elemi, Vera Cruz Elemi — 

 This drug, which used to be imported into London about thirty years ago, 

 but which has now disappeared from commerce, is the produce of a tree 

 named by Royle Aniyris eleniifera growing at Oaxaca in Mexico.^ It 

 is a light yellow, or whitish, brittle resin occurring in semi-cylindrical 

 scraped pieces, or in irregular fragments which are sometimes translucent 

 but more often dull and opaque. It easily softens in the mouth so that 

 it may be masticated, and has an agreeable terebinthinous odour. 

 Treated with cold spirit of wine ('828), it breaks down into a white 

 magma of acicular crystals {Am,yrin ?). 



2. Brazilian Elemi — Was described as long ago as 1658 by the 

 traveller Piso, as a substance completely resembling the elemi of the 

 Old World and applicable to the same purposes. It is the produce of 

 several trees described as species of Idea, as /. Icicariba DC.,^ /. 

 heterophylla DC, /. heptaphyllcL Aublet, /. guianensis Aubl., /. altissiTna 

 Aubl. — In New Granada a similar exudation^ is furnished by /. 

 Caranna H.B.K. 



A specimen in our possession from Pernambuco * is a translucent, 

 greenish-yellow, fragrant, terebinthinous resin, which by cold spirit of 

 wine may be separated into two portions, the one soluble, the other a 

 mass of colourless acicular crystals. The resin spontaneously exuded 

 and collected from the trunks, is often opaque and white, grey, or 

 yellowish, looking not unlike fragments of old mortar. The microscope 

 shows it to be made up of minute acicular crystals.^ 



3. Mauritius Elemi — Fine specimens of this substance and of 

 Colophonia Mauritiana DC. the tree affording it, were sent to one of us 

 (H.) in 1855 by Mr. Emile Fleurot of Mauritius. The resin accords 

 in its general characters with Manila elemi, like which it leaves after 

 treatment with cold spirit of wine, an abundance of crystals resembling 

 amyrin. 



4. Lrnban Meyeti*^ or Luhan Mati. — This substance, which we claim 

 to be the Oriental or African. Elemi of the older writers, and also one of 



1 Royle's very imperfect specimens of this lected at Santarem, Pard, by Mr. H. W. 

 plant are in the British Museum. Bates in 1853. — D. H. 



2 Now Protium Icicariba Marchand, in ^ For some experiments on the resin of 

 Flora Brasilierms, fascicul. 65 (1874) tab. Idea, see Gmelin, Chemisti-y, xvi. (1866) 

 liii. 421. — Also Stenhouse and Groves, in 



^ Or. Vlaxiclion, Bulletin de la 8oc. Bot. de Liebig's Annalen der Chemie, 180 (1876) 



France, xv. (1868) 16. 253, on resin and oil of Icica hepiaphylla. 



■• Given me by Mr. Manley, late of Per- The former would appear to agree with 



nambuco. I have also an authentic speci- the formula (C*H^)9 OH'^. 



men of the resin of /. heterophylla col- ^ Luhdn is the general Arabic name for 



