Chapter 31 of 110 · 1773 words · ~9 min read

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(1877) under the name of _Toluifera Balsamum_. Though the change of names may be justified by the strict rules of priority, we are of opinion that at present it would be fraught with more of inconvenience than advantage.—_Myroxylon punctatum_ Klotzsch, a tree stated to grow nearly all over the northern part of South America, is referred to the same species by Bentley and Trimen.

[787] _Historia de las cosas que se traen de nuestras Indias occidentales_, cap. del Balsamo de Tolu.

[788] _Nova Plantarum, animal. et mineral. mexicanorum. Historia_, Reccho’s edition, Romæ, 1651. fol. 53.

[789] _Exoticor._ etc. 1605. lib. x. fol. 305.

[790] _Pharm. Journ._ vi. (1876) 102.

[791] Pharmaceutical tariff (“Taxa”) of the city of Wittenberg 1632 (in the Hamburg library).

[792] Flückiger, _Documente zur Geschichte der Pharmacie_, Halle, 1876. 49. 50. 53.—Balsamum _Peruvianum_ first occurs in the tariff of the city of Worms of 1609.—_Documente_, p. 39; _Pharm. Journ. l. c._

[793] Contained in the _Medicine Tariffs_, in the library of the British Museum, bound together in one volume ({777. c.}/5). They include Schweinfurt 1614, Bremen 1644, Basle 1647, Rostock 1659, Quedlinburg 1665, Frankfort on Main 1669 (quoted above).

As to the tree, of which Monardes figured a broken pod, leaflets of it, marked 1758, exist in Sloane’s herbarium. Humboldt and Bonpland saw it in several places in New Granada during their travels (1799-1804), but succeeded only in gathering a few leaves. Among recent collectors, Warszewicz, Triana, Sutton Hayes, and Seemann were successful only in obtaining leaves. Weir in 1863 was more happy, for by causing a large tree of nearly 2 feet diameter to be felled, he procured good herbarium specimens including pods, but no flowers. Owing to this tree having been much wounded for balsam, its foliage and fruits were singularly small and stunted, and its branches overgrown with lichens.

That which botanists had failed to do, has been accomplished by an ornithologist, Mr. Anton Goering, who, travelling in Venezuela to collect birds and insects, made it a special object, at the urgent request of one of us (H.), to procure complete specimens of the Balsam of Tolu tree. By dint of much perseverance and by watching for the proper season, Mr. Goering obtained in December 1868 excellent flowering specimens and young fruits, and subsequently mature seeds from which plants have been raised in England, Ceylon and Java.

=Extraction=—The most authentic information we possess on this subject is derived from Mr. John Weir, plant collector to the Royal Horticultural Society of London, who when about to undertake a journey to New Granada in 1863, received instructions to visit the locality producing Balsam of Tolu. After encountering considerable difficulties, Mr. Weir succeeded in observing the manner of collecting the balsam in the forest near Plato, on the right bank of the Magdalena. Mr. Weir’s information[794] may be thus summarized:—

The balsam tree has an average height of 70 feet with a straight trunk, generally rising to a height of 40 feet before it branches. The balsam is collected by cutting in the bark two deep sloping notches, meeting at their lower ends in a sharp angle. Below this =V=-shaped cut, the bark and wood is a little hollowed out, and a calabash of the size and shape of a deep tea-cup is fixed. This arrangement is repeated, so that as many as twenty calabashes may be seen on various parts of the same trunk. When the lower part has been too much wounded to give space for any fresh incisions, a rude scaffold is sometimes erected, and a new series of notches made higher up. The balsam-gatherer goes from time to time round the trees with a pair of bags of hide, slung over the back of a donkey, and empties into them the contents of the calabashes. In these bags the balsam is sent down to the ports where it is transferred to the cylindrical tins in which it reaches Europe. The bleeding of the trees goes on for at least eight months of the year, causing them ultimately to become much exhausted, and thin in foliage.

In some districts, as we learn from another traveller, it is customary to let the balsam flow down the trunk into a receptacle at its base, formed of the large leaf of a species of _Calathea_.

[794] _Journ. of the R. Hort. Soc._, May 1864; _Pharm. Journ._ vi. (1865) 60.

From the observations of Mr. Weir, it appears that the balsam tree is plentifully scattered throughout the Montaña around Plato and other small ports on the right bank of the Magdalena. He states that he saw at least 1,500 lb. of the drug on its way for exportation. From another source, we know that it is largely collected in the valley of the Sinu, and in the forests lying between that river and Cauca. None is collected in Venezuela.

=Description=—Balsam of Tolu freshly imported is a light brown, slow-flowing resin, soft enough to be impressible with the finger, but viscid on the surface.[795] By keeping, it gradually hardens so as to be brittle in cold weather, but it is easily softened by the warmth of the hand. Thin layers show it to be quite transparent and of a yellowish brown hue. It has a very agreeable and delicate odour, suggestive of benzoin or vanilla, especially perceptible when the resin is warmed, or when its solution in spirit is allowed to evaporate on paper. Its taste is slightly aromatic with a barely perceptible acidity, though its alcoholic solution decidedly reddens litmus.

In very old specimens, such as those which during the last century reached Europe in little calabashes[796] of the size and shape of an orange, the balsam is brittle and pulverulent, and exhibits when broken a sparkling, crystalline surface. This old balsam is of a fine deep amber tint and superior fragrance.

When Balsam of Tolu is pressed between two warmed plates of glass so as to obtain it in a thin even layer, and then examined with a lens, it exhibits an abundance of crystals of cinnamic acid. Balsam of Tolu dissolves easily and completely in glacial acetic acid, acetone, alcohol, chloroform or solution of caustic potash; it is less soluble in ether, scarcely at all in volatile oils, and not in benzol or bisulphide of carbon. The solution in acetone is devoid of rotatory power in polarized light.

=Chemical Composition=—The balsam consists partly of an _amorphous resin_, not soluble in bisulphide of carbon, which is supposed to be the same as the dark resin precipitated by the bisulphide from balsam of Peru. Scharling (1856) assigned the formula C₁₈H₂₀O₅ to that part of the balsam which is soluble in potash.

If Tolu balsam is boiled with water, it yields to it cinnamic and benzoic acid, which we have (1877) perfectly succeeded in separating by repeated recrystallization from water; we have before us good specimens of either, showing not only different melting points (133° C. and 121° C.), but as to our crystals of benzoïc acid, isolated from the balsam as stated above, we find that they also do _not_ evolve bitter almond oil when mixed with sulphuric acid and chromate of potassium. The acids may also be removed by boiling bisulphide of carbon.

Busse[797] showed that _benzylic_ ethers of both benzoic and cinnamic acid are also constituents of the balsam, the cinnamate of benzyl being present in larger quantity.

Upon distilling the balsam with water, it affords 1 per cent. of _Tolene_, C₁₀H₁₆, boiling at about 170° C. This liquid rapidly absorbs oxygen from the air. By destructive distillation, the balsam affords the same substances as those obtainable from balsam of Peru, among which _Phenol_ and _Styrol_ have been observed.

[795] I have seen it imported very fluid into London by way of New York.—Sept. 1878.—F. A. F.

[796] The gourds, “Kürbsen,” of the list of Basle of 1647.

[797] _Berichte der Deutschen Chemischen Gesellschaft_, 1876. 833.

=Commerce=—The balsam is exported from New Granada, packed in cylindrical tins holding about 10 lb. each. The quantity shipped from Santa Marta in 1870 was 2,002 lb.; in 1871, 2,183 lb.; in 1872, 1,206 lb. In 1876 from the port of Savanilla 27,180 kilogrammes are stated to have been exported.

=Uses=—Balsam of Tolu has no important medicinal properties. It is chiefly used as an ingredient in a pleasant-tasting syrup and in lozenges.

=Adulteration=—We have twice met with spurious Balsam of Tolu, but in neither instance did the fraudulent drug bear any great resemblance to the genuine.

Colophony, which might be mixed with the balsam, can be detected by warm bisulphide of carbon which dissolves it, but removes from the pure drug almost exclusively cinnamic and benzoic acid.

BALSAMUM PERUVIANUM.

_Balsam umindicum nigrum_; _Balsam of Peru_; F. _Baume de Pérou, Baume de San Salvador_; G. _Perubalsam_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Myroxylon Pereiræ_ Klotzsch (_Myrospermum Pereiræ_ Royle), a tree attaining a height of about 50 feet, and throwing out spreading, ascending branches at 6 to 10 feet from the ground.[798]

It is found in a small district of the State of Salvador in Central America (formerly part of Guatemala), lying between 13°·35 and 14°·10 N. lat., and 89° and 89°·40 W. long., and known as the _Costa del Balsamo_ or Balsam Coast. The trees grow naturally in the dense forests; those from which the balsam is obtained are, if in groups, sometimes enclosed, in other cases only marked, but all have their distinct owners. They are occasionally rented for a term of years, or a contract is made for the produce of a certain number.

The principal towns and villages around which balsam is produced, are the following:—Juisnagua, Tepecoyo or Coyo, Tamanique, Chiltiuapan, Talnique, Jicalapa, Teotepeque, Comasagua and Jayaque. All the lands on the Balsam Coast are _Indian Reservation Lands_.

The Balsam of Peru tree was introduced in 1861 into Ceylon, where it flourishes with extraordinary vigour.

[798] We are not yet prepared to accept the opinion of Baillon, that _M. Pereiræ_ is specifically identical with _M. Toluifera_, though we admit they are very closely related. According to our observations, the two trees exhibit the following differences:—

See also Bentley and Trimen, _Medicinal Plants_,