Balsam
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Balsam (also: turpentine) is the resinous exudate (or sap), which forms on certain kinds of trees and shrubs. Balsam (from Hebrew bosem בֹּשֶׂם, "spice", "perfume") owes its name to the biblical Balm of Gilead.[citation needed]
Contents
Safety
Some balsams, such as Balsam of Peru, may be associated with allergies.[1][2] In particular, Euphorbia latex ("wolf's milk") is strongly irritant and cytotoxic.[citation needed]
Chemistry
Balsam is a solution of plant-specific resins in plant-specific solvents (essential oils). Such resins can include resin acids, esters, or alcohols. The exudate is a mobile to highly viscous liquid and often contains crystallized resin particles. Over time and as a result of other influences the exudate loses its liquidizing components or gets chemically converted into a solid material (i.e. by autoxidation).[3]
Some authors require balsams to contain benzoic or cinnamic acid or their esters.[4] Plant resins are sometimes classified according to other plant constituents in the mixture, for example as:[4]
- pure resins (guaiac, hashish),
- gum-resins (containing gums/polysaccharides),
- oleo-gum-resins (a mixture of gums, resins and essential oils),
- oleo-resins (a mixture of resins and essential oils, e. g. capsicum, ginger and aspidinol),
- balsams (resinous mixtures that contain cinnamic and/or benzoic acid or their esters),
- glycoresins (podophyllin, jalap, kava kava).
List of balsam-like substances
- Gum resins
- Other
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- Ammoniacum
- Asafoetida (Laser)
- Balm of Gilead
- Balsam of Peru
- Balsam of Tolu
- Benzoin resin
- Bukhoor
- Camphor
- Canada balsam
- Chinese lacquer (Japanese lacquer)
- Copaiba balsam
- Copal
- Damar
- Elemi
- Galbanum
- Gurjun balsam
- Labdanum
- Mastic
- Rosin (Colophony)
- Sagapenum
- Sandarac
- Sarcocolla
- Styrax balsam
- Turpentine
- "Venice turpentine" from the (Larix occidentalis)
Balsam of Mecca
The liquid balsam called Balsam of Mecca is extracted from the tree Commiphora gileadensis (synonym: Commiphora opobalsamum)[5] It is designated in the Bible by various names: bosem, besem, ẓori, nataf, and, in rabbinic literature, kataf, balsam, appobalsamon, afarsemon. It was used as a perfume and as a drug.[6]
It was extracted both as the volatile component of the sap of the tree, and by boiling the stems and leaves.[6] It was the only tropical, and the most expensive, spice grown in Israel.[7] It was known to Pliny (Historia Naturalis 12:116; 13.18) as opobalsamum.[8]
See also
- Basamum
- Balsam apple
- Balsam pear (disambiguation)
- Balsamic vinegar (contains no Balsam)
- Tincture of benzoin (Friars' Balsam)
References
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Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Balsam. |
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- ↑ "Balsam of Peru induced contact allergy", DermatitisFacts.com. Accessed: October 11, 2007
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