514 LAURACE^. 



Purification — Camphor as it is exported from Japan and Formosa 

 requires to be purified by sublimation. The crude drug consists of 

 small crystalline grains, which cohere into irregular friable masses, of a 

 greyish white or pinkish hue. Dissolved in spirit of wine, it leaves 

 from 2 to 10 per cent, of impurities consisting of gypsum, common salt, 

 sulphur, or vegetable fragments. 



In Europe, crude camphor is sublimed from a little charcoal or sand, 

 iron filings or quick-lime, and sent into the market as Refined Camphor 

 in the form of large bowls or concave cakes, about 10 inches in diameter, 

 3 inches in thickness, and weighing from 9 to 12 Ib.^ Each bowl has a 

 large round hole at the bottom, corresponding to the aperture of the 

 vessel in which the sublimation has been conducted. This operation is 

 performed in peculiar glass flasks termed bomboloes, in the upper half of 

 which the pure camphor conci-etes. These flasks having been charged 

 and placed in a sand-bath, are rapidly heated to about 120°-190° C. in 

 order to remove the water. Afterwards the temperature is slowly in- 

 creased to about 204° C, and maintained during 24 hours. The flasks 

 are finally broken. 



As camphor is a neutral substance, the addition of lime probably 

 serves merely to retain traces of resin or empyreumatic oil. Iron 

 would keep back sulphur were any present. 



In the United States the refiners use iron vessels ; their product is 

 in flat disks, about 16 inches in diameter by one inch in thickness. 



The refining of camphor is carried on to a large extent in England, 

 Holland, Hamburg, Paris, Bohemia (Aussig), in New York and 

 Philadelphia. It is a process requiring great care on account of the 

 inflammability of the product. The temperature must also be nicely 

 regulated, so that the sublimate may be deposited not merely in loose 

 crystals, but in compact cakes. In India where the consumption of 

 camphor is very large, the natives eflfect the sublimation in a copper 

 vessel, the charge of which is 1|- maunds (42 lb.) : fire is applied to the 

 lower part, the upper being kept cool.^ 



Description — Purified Camphor forms a colourless crystalline, 

 translucent mass, traversed by numerous fissures, so that notwithstand- 

 ing a certain toughness, a mass can readily be broken by repeated blows. 

 By spontaneous and extremely slow evaporation at ordinary tempera- 

 tures, camphor sublimes in lustrous hexagonal plates or prisms, having 

 but little hardness. If triturated in a mortar, camphor adheres to the 

 pestle, so that it cannot be powdered per se. But if moistened M^th 

 spirit of wine, ether, chloroform, methylic alcohol, glycerin, or an 

 essential or fatty oil, pulverization is eflected without difliculty. By 

 keeping a short time, the powder acquires a crystalline form. With an 

 equal weight of sugar, camphor may also be easily powdered. 



Camphor melts at 175° C, boils at 204°, and volatilizes somewhat 

 rapidly even at ordinary temperatures. To this latter property, com- 

 bined with slight solubility, must be attributed the curious rotatory 

 motion which small lumps of camphor (as well as barium butyrate, 

 stannic bromide, chloral hydrate, and a few other substances) exhibit 

 when thrown on to water. 



' These are the dimensions of the cakes that they may vary with different makers, 

 manufactured in the laboratory of Messrs. - Mattheson, England to Delhi, Lond. 



Howards of Stratford, but it is obvious 1870, 474. 



