Balsam is a term used for various pleasantly scented plant products. These are oily or gummy oleoresins, usually containing benzoic acid or cinnamic acid, obtained from the exudates of various trees and shrubs and used as a base for some botanical medicines. They may be obtained from:
Balsam may also refer to:
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BALSAM (from Gr. (31tXva,uov, through Lat. balsamum, contracted by popular use to O. Fr. basme, mod. Fr. bame; Eng. balm), a term properly limited to such resins or oleo-resins as contain benzoic acid or cinnamic acid or both. Those balsams. which conform to this definition make up a distinct class, allied to each other by their composition, properties and uses. Those found in commerce are the balsam of Peru, balsam of Tolu, liquid storax and liquidambar. Balsam of Peru is the produce of a lofty leguminous tree, Myroxylon Pereirae, growing within a limited area in San Salvador, Central America and introduced. into Ceylon. It is a thick, viscid oleo-resin of a deep brown or black colour and a fragrant balsamic odour. It is used in perfumery. Though contained in the pharmacopeias it has no special medicinal virtues. Balsam of Tolu is produced from Myroxylon toluiferum. It is of a brown colour, thicker than. Peru balsam, and attains a considerable degree of solidity on keeping. It also is a product of equatorial America, but is found. over a much wider area than is the balsam of Peru. It is used. in perfumery and as a constituent in cough syrups and lozenges. Liquid storax or styrax preparatus, is a balsam yielded by Liquidambar orientalis, a native of Asia Minor. It is a soft resinous substance, with a pleasing balsamic odour, especially after it has been kept for some time. It is used in medicine as an external application in some parasitic skin diseases, and internally as an expectorant. An analogous substance is derived from Liquidambar Altingia in Java. Liquidambar balsam is derived from Liquidambar styraciflua, a tree found in the United States and Mexico. It contains cinnamic acid, but not benzoic acid.
Of so-called balsams, entirely destitute of cinnamic and benzoic constituents, the following are found in commerce : - Mecca balsam or Balm of Gilead, from Commiphora opobalsamum, a tree growing in Arabia and Abyssinia, is supposed to be the balm of Scripture and the OaX6aµov of Theophrastus. When fresh it is a viscid fluid, with a penetrating odour, but it solidifies with age. It was regarded with the utmost esteem among the nations of antiquity and to the present day it is peculiarly prized among the people of the East. For balsam of copaiba see Copaiba. Under the name of wood oil, or Gurjun balsam, an oleo-resin is procured in India and the Eastern Archipelago from several species of Dipterocarpus, chiefly D. turbinatus, which has the odour of properties of copaiba and has been used for the same purposes. Wood oil is also used as a varnish in India and forms an effective protection against the attacks of white ants. Canada balsam or Canada turpentine is the oleo-resin yielded by Abies balsamea, a tree that grows in Canada and the northern parts of the United States. It is a very transparent substance, somewhat fluid when first run, but thickening conciderably with age, possessed of a delicate yellow colour and a mild terebinthous odour. It contains 24% of essential oil, 60% of resin soluble in alcohol, and 16% of resin soluble only in ether. Its chief uses are for mounting preparations for the microscope and as a cement for glass in optical work.
The garden balsam is an annual plant, Impatiens balsamina, and the balsam apple is the fruit of Momordica balsamina, nat. order Cucurbitaceae.
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Categories: BAL-BAP | Body care and body modification
Word used as the translation (R. V., margin) of the Hebrew
(missing hebrew text) (Song 5:1) and of
(missing hebrew text) (missing hebrew text)
(ib. v. 13, vi. 2), for which the A. V. has "spice." An
aromatic gum or spice, probably the product of a Balsam tree or
plant. The Balsam tree of Jericho is noted among ancient
writers—Theophrastus, Strabo, Pliny—for its medicinal and highly
agreeable aromatic qualities. The so-called Mecca Balsam is generally conceded to be the
product of the Balsamodendron opobalsamum. It is reported
that the Balsam has disappeared from Jericho. The product of the Balsam is known in
Arabic as balasân from a balasân tree, from which
balsamon (Greek),
balsamum, balsam, and balm are probably derived. The so-called "balm of Gilead"—made by the monks of Jericho and sold to travelers to-day—is a
product of the Balanites Ægyptiaca. See Balm.
Balm or Balsam (Aramean, (missing hebrew text) , (missing hebrew text) , and for opobalsamum (missing hebrew text) and (missing hebrew text) ), called by Pliny ("Naturalis Historia," xii. 53) "a plant which nature has bestowed only upon the land of Judea," was cultivated especially in what Pliny (l.c.) and Strabo (p. 763) call the royal gardens near Jericho ( (missing hebrew text) , Tosef., 'Ar. ii. 8), the juice obtained by incision being used for medicinal purposes, and the wood for its fragrant odor. According to Diodorus Siculus (ii. 48, xix. 98), a certain hollow in the neighborhood of the Dead Sea was the chief home of the Balsam, which was "found nowhere else in the world." Both statements are confirmed by Josephus, who relates that, according to popular belief, Queen Sheba brought the root from Arabia to King Solomon as a gift, and that the Balsam trees of Jericho yielded the most precious products of the land, the "only balsam in the world," thus making that part most valuable as a royal revenue; wherefore Antony took it away from the Jews and gave it to Cleopatra ("Ant." viii. 6, § 6; xv. 4, § 2; "B. J." i. 6, § 6; 18, § 5; iv. 8, § 3). In "Ant." ix. 1, § 2, he speaks of the opobalsamum that grows at Engedi.
The words in Jer 52:16, "Nebuzar-adan, the captain of the guard, left the poor of the land to be vine-dressers and husbandmen," are referred, in Shab. 26a, to the gatherers of the opobalsamum in the neighborhood of Engedi and Ramata. Jerome also, in his commentary to Song 1:14, refers the "vineyards" there mentioned to the Balsam plantations of Engedi (compare Eusebius, "Onomasticon," s.v. "Engedi"). With what feeling the Romans looked upon the Balsam of Judea may be learned from the fact that Vespasian and Titus exhibited the Balsam shrub of Judea as one of the trophies at their triumphal procession (Pliny, l.c.); but no less characteristic are the rabbinical ordinances: "Blessed be the Lord who has created fragrant trees," recited only over either the opobalsam belonging to the house of Rabbi Judah of Tiberius or the one belonging to the imperial house of Rome; and the benediction recited over the oil of the opobalsam: "Blessed be the Lord who created the (fragrant) oil of our land," or, according to one authority, simply "fragrant oil" (Ber. 43a; see Rashi, l.c., and Musafia to 'Aruk, s.v. (missing hebrew text) , where the name "Jericho," as the home of the Balsam, is combined with the noun "reaḥ"=fragrant odor). Many passages in the Talmud and Midrash mention opobalsam ( (missing hebrew text) ) as used for the anointment of kings (Yer. Soṭah viii. 22c), or as an alluring ointment employed by the frivolous women of Jerusalem (Lam. R. to iv. 15), or as a merchandise (Yoma 39a), or by thieves as a means of scenting the strong boxes of rich people (Sanh. 109a), or as carried about in a flask (Gen. R. xxx., xxxix., and elsewhere); and there is also special mention of streams of opobalsam oil which flow for the enjoyment of the righteous in the world to come (Yer. 'Ab. Zarah iii. 42c; Ta'anit 25a; compare Apoc. Paul xxiii., xxviii.).
Bibliography: Cheyne and Black, Encyc. Bibl. s. v. Balm; Winer, B. R. s. v.
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