ON BURGUNDY PITCH. 
163 
White Resin, White Pitch, Yellow Resin, Yellow Pitch [ Weisses Harz, weisses 
JPech, ge/bes Harz , gelbes Peek ], Resina s. Pix flava s. citrina. 
It is obtained by melting common resin with the frequent addition of water and 
subsequently straining. According as the melting has lasted a longer or shorter 
time, the resin remains paler in colour and constitutes White Resin or becomes 
darker and is called Yellow Resin , and is thereby richer or poorer in oil of turpen¬ 
tine. The first, owing to the water which it contains, is almost entirely opaque, 
white, brittle, and becomes gradually yellow. The second, through the formation 
of a little colopholic acid by reason of the longer melting, is of a yellow, dark yel¬ 
low or brownish colour, very brittle, here and there clear, and has a conchoidal, 
glassy fracture. An inferior kind called White Pitch , is obtained from the resin 
that is first produced in the manufacture of tar, and has a brownish-yellow colour. 
The true Burgundy Resin or Pitch , Resina s. Pix Burgundica is the similarly pre¬ 
pared resin of Picea excelsa and Pinus Pinaster , which is brought into commerce 
in the form of dull, dirty-yellow brittle masses of a glassy fracture, softening in the 
hand. Ordinary Burgundy Pitch is White Resin which has been gently melted for 
a short time without the addition of water, so that it is in fact freed from a part of 
its water, but has not yet acquired the brown colour of colophony. 
In France as in England the term Burgundy Pitch ( Poix de Bourgogne) is by 
the more accurate writers restricted to the melted and strained resin of the 
Spruce Fir, of which substance the following description is given in the last edi¬ 
tion of the Codex : 
[Translation ] Burgundy Pitch is of a brownish yellow, solid and brittle in the 
cold, flowing when warm, very tenacious, having a peculiar odour, and an aromatic 
taste without bitterness; not completely soluble in alcohol in the cold. There is 
frequently substituted for it another product called white pitch [ poix blanche ], pre¬ 
pared with galipot* or a mixture of yellow resin and Bordeaux turpentine, melted 
and mixed with water; this artificial pitch has a strong smell of Bordeaux tur¬ 
pentine and a very marked bitter taste. It is entirely soluble in alcohol. 
Where then is true Burgundy Pitch manufactured ? Is it actually met 
with in commerce? By what characters may we judge of its purity ? 
The authors of the British Pharmacopoeia mention it as a production of 
Switzerland, where the Spruce Fir is certainly found in great abundance. But 
I have it upon excellent authority, that of my friend Dr. Fliickiger of Bern, 
that at the present time noterebinthinous resins are collected in Switzerland for 
commercial purposes. Neither is true Burgundy Pitch produced in France, as 
its name would seem to indicate, Pinus maritima Lamb, being in fact the only 
tree, the resin of which is collected in that country as an industrial product.f 
Knowing these facts and having failed to gather any precise information 
from pharmacological writers as to the districts where the resin of the Spruce 
Fir is an object of industry, it was with some interest that I examined the va¬ 
rious collections of forest-products in the French Exhibition. Nor was I dis¬ 
appointed, for among the contributions from Finland, I discovered a suite of 
specimens illustrating this very subject. Baron Linder of Svarta near Helsing¬ 
fors is the exhibitor of the resin of the Spruce Fir in two forms, namely : 
* ( Note by translator ) Galipot, dry resin collected in France from the trunks of Pinus 
maritima Lamb. 
f The name Burgundy Pitch seems in fact to be a complete misnomer, no such substance 
having been ever produced in Burgundy. Pomet writing in 1694 thus speaks of “ Poix yrasse 
on Poix blanche ou, Poix de Bourgogne '’’:— 
“On fait fondre le Galipot avec taut soit peu d’huile de Tcrebenthine, et de la Terebenthine 
“ commune, et ensuite e’est ce que nous appelons Poix grasse, ou Poix blanche de Bourgogne, 
“ a cause que l’on pretend que la meilleure et la premiere s’est faite a saint Nicolas en Lor¬ 
raine : ce qui est tout le contraire d’aujourd’hui; car la meilleure Poix grasse vient de Hol- 
“ lande et de Strasbourg, d’ou nous la faisons venir.” 
M 2 
