Volume 3

Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London.

  • Woodville, William, 1752-1805.
Date:
1790-1793
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Medical botany : containing systematic and general descriptions, with plates, of all the medicinal plants, indigenous and exotic, comprehended in the catalogues of the Materia Medica, as published by the Royal Colleges of Physicians of London and Edinburgh: accompanied with circumstantial detail of their medicinal effects, and of the diseases in which they have been most successfully employed / by William Woodville, M.D. of the Royal College of Physicians, London. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Glasgow Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Glasgow Library.

    18/228 (page 374)
    obtained from this tree by making incifions near the bafe of its trunk:, extending not only through the bark but into the fubftance of the v70od, when the balfa!in immediately iiTues, and at the proper feafon flows in Inch abundance, that fometimes in three hours twelve pounds have been procured. The older trees afford the heft balfam, and yield it two or three times in the fame year. The Balfam fupplied by the young and vigorous trees, which abound with the moft juice, is crude and watery, and is therefore accounted lefs valuable. While flowing from the tree this balfam is a colourlefs fluid; in time how- ever it accjuires a yellowifh tinge, and the confiftence of oil; but though by age it has been found thick like honey, yet it never became folid like other refmous fluids. * Genuine^ Balfam of Copaiba has a moderately agreeable fmell, and a bitterifh biting tafte, of confiderable duration in the mouth: ft diffolves entirely in rediified fpirit, efpecially if the menftruum be previoufiy alkalized ; when the folution has a very fragrant fmell. Diftilled with water it yields nearly half its weight of a limpid effen- tial oil j and in a ftrong heat, without addition, a blue oil. This, like moft other balfams, is nearly allied to the turpen- tines. It was formerly thought to be an efficacious remedy in various diforders, as pulmonary confumptions, coughs, fcorbutic difeafes, dropfies, dyfenteries, nephritic complaints, internal ulcers, fluor albus, gleets, 6cc. but though fome proofs of its good effedts in certain flates of many of thefe difeafes may be adduced,® yet as it irritates and heats the fyftem to a confiderable degree, few cafes occur in which this medicine can fafely be given, efpecially in large dofes.*^ It determines povverfully to the kidneys, and impregnates the urine •* « We fometimes find in (hops, under the name of Copaiba, a. thick, whitifli, almoft opake Balfam, with a quantity of turbid watery liquor at the bottom. This fort, probably, is either adulterated by the mixture of other fqbftances, or has been extracted, by boiling in water, from the bark or branches of the tree.” Lewls^ M, M. p. 132. * See Fuller, Pharm. extemp, p. 2']YObf. Phyf. cbym,p, Lentin, Beobacht. elnU. Krankh. 1774. p. 58. Mutis relates, that a woman in Santa Fe, who had been many years affedfed with a dropfy, in forty days was cured by taking balfam of copaiba, the dofe of which (he increafed to a fpoGnful night iand morning. Nouvelles de la Republique des lettres et des artSy 1786. n. 33. p. 374. •* Hoppe has fully fet forth its dangerous eft'edls. See D. Fred Wilh. Hoppe, apud Valentini Indiam literatam. p. 624. • with