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Galbanum
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Galbanum
Where To Found It: Persia; also Cape of Good
Hope.
There are two kinds of Galbanum in commerce, viz. Levant
Galbanurn and the Persian Galbanum. The latter is softer than the
Levant, has a more terebinthic odour, has the smell and consistency
of Venice turpentine, and contains fruit and fragments of stalks
in place of bits of sliced roots. Several species of Ferula
are used as a source for commercial Galbanum, but the official plant
is Ferula galbaniflua, a perennial, with smooth stem, and
shining leaflets, ovate, wedge-shaped, acute and finely serrated
on the edges. The umbels of flowers are few, the seeds shiny.
The whole plant abounds with a milky juice, which oozes from the
joints of old plants, and exudes and hardens from the base of the
stem after it has been cut down, then is finally obtained by incisions
made in the root. The juice from the root soon hardens and forms
the tears of the Galbanum of Commerce. The best tears are palish
externally and about the size of a hazel nut and when broken open
are composed of clear white tears. The taste is unpleasant, bitterish,
acrid, with a strong, peculiar, somewhat aromatic smell. The common
kind is an agglutinated mass, showing reddish and white tears, this
is of the consistency of firm wax, and can easily be torn to pieces
and softened by heat; when cold it is brittle, and mixed with seeds
and leaves, when imported in lumps it is often considered preferable
to the tears as it contains more volatile oil. Distilled with water
it yields a quantity of essential oil, about 6 drachms, to 1 lb.
of gum. It was well known to the ancients and Pliny called it 'bubonion.'
Galbanum under dry distillation yields a thick oil of a bluish colour,
which after purification becomes the blue colour of the oil obtained
from the flowers of Matricaria Chamomilla.
Gum resin, mineral constituents, volatile oil, umbelliferine,
galbaresino-tannol.
Modern Uses: Stimulant, expectorant in
chronic bronchitis. Antispasmodic and considered an intermediate
between ammoniac and asafoetida for relieving the air passages,
in pill form it is specially good, in some forms of hysteria, and
used externally as a plaster for inflammatory swellings.
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