Abstract
THE camphor of commerce, it is well known, is the produce of Camphora officinarum Nees., a tree of China and Japan. To obtain it the wood is cut up into pieces and boiled in water, when the camphor is deposited. It is afterwards purified by sublimation, and further refined after its arrival in this country. Immense quantities of this article are imported from Singapore, and though so valuable in European commerce, in Sumatra and Borneo a much higher value is put upon that known as Sumatra camphor, which is obtained from Dryobalanops aromatica Gaert. (D. camphora Coll.), which does not come to this country as an article of trade. Besides these there is a third kind of camphor, known in China as Ngai camphor; this, in point of value, stands between the ordinary commercial article and the Malayan or Sumatra camphor. Its botanical source has for a long time been doubtful, but it has generally been attributed to an unknown species of Artemisia. Mr. D. Hanbury, however, who has done so much in clearing up doubts on the botany of many of our important articles of trade, more especially in relation to drugs, has recently, in a paper read before the Pharmaceutical Society, identified the plant with Blumea balsamifera D.C. It is a tall, herbaceous plant, and has long been known for the powerful smell of camphor emitted from the leaves when bruised. It is common in Assam and Burma, and indeed throughout the Indian islands.
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JACKSON, J. Camphor . Nature 10, 8 (1874). https://doi.org/10.1038/010008a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/010008a0