On the black balsam of Peru / by Dr. Theodor Martius (in a letter to Dr. Pereira).

  • Martius, Theodor.
Date:
[1851]
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Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the black balsam of Peru / by Dr. Theodor Martius (in a letter to Dr. Pereira). 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.

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    From the Phabmaceutical JoDKNAL/or Novembbb, 1851.] ;• C ON THE BLACK BALSAM OF PERU. BT DB. THEODOR MABTIUS, Professor in the University of Erlangen. (In a Letter to Dr. Pereira). My VERY ESTEEMED Ebiend-I have read with great pleasure your inte- restino- article on Black Peruvian Balsamf, and although no one is better cir- cumstanced than yourself, both by your extensive connexions, and by your residence in the emporium of the world, to enlarge our knowledge on subjects like these, yet as there are some points in your treatise which it appears to me well deserve further investigation, and as both of us are animated _ with the desirelof elucidating the truth, I do not hesitate to draw your attention to the following circumstances: , , , i „f The method of obtaining black Peruvian balsam has always been a subject ot controversy. When my late friend Stoltze, published in the year 1824, his Treatise on the Black Peruvian Balsam, I could not convince him that the balsam is obtained by a sort of distillatio per discensum, and not by decoction or spontaneous exudation as he stated. I find my opinion corroborated by what you state in your article, but that the balsam should, by boiling the rags in water, rise to the surface, and thus be removed, is impossible, for it has a specifac gravity of from 1.150 to 1.160, and cannot, therefore, float on water by boiling. If a solution of common salt, that is to say, a liquid of a greater spec. grav. were employed, the balsam would then certainly float, but at the same time its a^^reeable odour would probably disapppear, in consequence of the high tem- perature required for boiling the saline solution. As moreover, the cmnamic acid contained in the black balsam is soluble in water, the greater portion of this acid would be given out to the liquid employed for the exhaustion of the rao-s. I must confess, that now and then, single drops of water, and sometimes even entire layers of water, as thick as the back of a knife, were supernatant in the tin boxes, in which formerly the Hack Peruvian balsam was exported; but this triflino- portion of water I have always considered to be the product distillatio per descensum, and have never found in it by evaporation, anything but cinnamic acid (formerly regarded as benzoic acid). Moreover, whence arises in many of the tin boxes the sediment of several fingers'height found in them after remain- ing at rest ? Furthermore, what is the reason that the tinctura balsami Peruviani is sometimes of a lighter, and sometimes of a darker wine-yellow colour, according as it is prepared from a lighter or darker coloured balsam ? I think this originates from the higher or lower degree of heat employed in the distillatio per descensuvi. I must also observe, that several years ago, a sort of black Peruvian balsam was in the market, which, on running down the glass, appeared of a reddish-brown colour, was more fluid, and yielded, even after continued standing, a proportionately very insignificant sediment. All this tends to show, that besides the various kinds of Myrospermum used for yielding the balsam, the higher or lower degree of heat employed in its preparation, must contribute to vary the quality of the balsam obtained. Stoltze says in his article (Berlinisches Jalirbuch, 25 Jahrgang, Abtheil. 2, p. 25), that he has never observed in his operations the products of a descending distillation, but there is a great difference between such a process and a gentle distillatio per descensum. Moreover, it must not be forgotten, that the plants which i: See the Pharm. Journ. vol. x., pp. 230 and 280.—Ed. Pharm. Joum. A