TEREBINTHINA ARGENTORATENSIS. 615 



States/ During a recent scarcity (1872-73) a sort of balsam from 

 Oregon has been substituted in the American market for true Canada 

 balsam.2 



Uses — The medicinal propei-ties of Canada balsam resemble those of 

 copaiba and other terebinthinous oleo-resins, yet it is now rarely em- 

 ployed as a remedy. The balsam is much valued for mounting objects 

 for the microscope, as it remains constantly transparent and uncrystal- 

 line. It is also used for makino: varnish. 



TEREBINTHINA ARGENTORATENSIS. 



Strassburg Turpentine; F. Tdrehenthine cV Alsace ou de Strasbourg, 

 Terebenthine du sapin ; G. Strassburger Terpenthin. 



Botanical Origin— Pinus Picea L. {Abies pectinata DC), the 

 Silver Fir,^ a large handsome tree, growing in the mountainous parts 

 of Middle and Southern Europe from the Pyrenees to the Caucasus, 

 and extending under a slightly difierent form (var. ^. cephalonica) 

 into continental Greece and the islands of Euboea and Cephalonia. 



History — Belon in his treatise Be Arboribus coniferis (1553) 

 desciibed this turpentine, which is also briefly yet accurately noticed 

 by Samuel Dale,* a learned apothecary of London and the friend of 

 Sloane and Ray. It had a place in the London Pharmacopoeia until 

 1788, when it was omitted from the materia medica. 



Extraction — The oleo-resin of P. Picea, like that of P. balsamea, 

 is contained in little swellings of the bark^ of young stems, and is 

 extracted by the tedious process of puncturing them and receiving in a 

 suitable vessel the one or two drops which exude from each. It is still 

 collected near Mutzig and Barr, in the Vosges (1878), though only to a 

 very small extent. 



Description — An authentic sample collected for one of us by the 

 Surveyor of Forests in the Bernese Jura, Switzerland, resembles very 

 closely Canada balsam, but is devoid of any distinct fluorescence. It 

 has a light yellow colour, a very fragrant odour,^ more agreeable than 

 that of Canada balsam, and is devoid of the acrid bitterish taste of the 

 latter. 



We found our specimen to have sp. gr. of distilled water. It 

 deviates a ray of polarized light 3° to the left, if examined either pure 

 or diluted with a fourth of its weight of benzol, in the manner described 

 at p. 610. Our drug is soluble in the same liquids as the Canadian, yet 

 is miscible with glacial acetic acid, absolute alcohol and acetone, without 

 leaving any considerable flocculent residue. It is even soluble in spirit 

 of wine, the solution being but very little turbid. The solutions have 

 an acid reaction, 



^ From information obligingly communi- ^ Sapin in French ; Weissfanne or Edel- 



cated by Mr. N. Mercer of Montreal and tanne in German. 



Mr. H. Sugden Evans of London. — See * Pharmacologia, Lond. 1693. S95. 



also Proc. Am. Pharm. Assoc, 1877, page ^See Morel, Ph. Jour. viii. (1877) 21. 



337, abstracted in Ph. Jour. viii. (1878) 813. ^ Hence it is sometimes called in French 



^ Proceedings of the American Pharma- Terebenthine au citron, 

 cetitical Association, Philadelphia, 1873. 119 

 —also 1874. 433. 



