Lond. Wax. (Concretum ah ape paratum.)

Syn. Cire(F.), Wachs (G.), Wasch (Dutch), Vox (Dan.), Wax (Swed.), Wosk (Pol), Cera (I.), Cera (St.), Shuma (Arab.), Mora (H. Pers.), Medhuch-hista (Sans.), Mellughoo (Tarn.), Miellie (Cyny.).

The Bee (Apis mellifica, a hymenopterous insect,) produces, as the experiments of Huber have proved2, the wax of which the delicate partitions of the cells of its combs are constructed, from honey, sugar, and the sweet secreted juice found in the nectaries of plants; but the bee does not collect it ready-formed from the anthers of flowers, as has been generally supposed. The organ by which it is secreted has not yet been discovered; but it is deposited in what have been termed wax pockets, situated under the four intermediate ventral segments. These wax pockets are trapeziform, whitish, and of a membranaceous texture; and on them the laminae of wax are found. Wax is, nevertheless, also produced as a secretion by-many plants, forming the silvery powder or bloom which often covers their leaves and fruit, and is found in great abundance combined with resin, covering the trunk of the wax-palm (Ceroxylon Andicola) of South America1; it is also found very pure, encrusting the seeds of the Myrica cerifera, or wax-tree of Louisiana and other parts of North America2; and the whole of the Benincasa cerifera, a species of gourd which grows in China. Wax, in the extended meaning of the term, therefore, may be regarded both as an animal and a vegetable product.

But it is the former species only of it, or bees' wax, which is officinal, and demands our present consideration. It is admitted into the list of materia medica under two forms : 1st, As it is procured originally from the combs, combined with colouring matter, or unbleached: and, 2d, Deprived of colour, and purified or bleached.

1 The following is the mode of preparing the syrup : -Take oz. vj. of Ipecacuanha in fine powder, and pour over it lbs. vj. of cold water, and after twenty-four hours decant it off; then add lbs. vj. more of water; and again lbs. vj. more, a third time, proceeding always as at first. Mix the decanted liquors, and filter; and then with a moderate heat dissolve in them lbs. xij. of refined sugar. One ounce is equivalent to twelve grains of the powder. - Annates de Chimie, xlvi. 33.

2 Nicholson's Journal, ii. 182.

1. Unbleached Wax.

Officinal. Cera, Lond. Cera flava, Edin. Dub. Yellow Wax.

Syn. Cire jaune (F.), Wachs (G.), Gult Wax (Swed.), Zotty Wosk (Pol), Cera gialla (I.), Cera qualda (S.), Munjie Mellughoo (Tam.).

Yellow wax is prepared immediately from the honeycomb.3 The honey is obtained by dripping and pressing the comb, which is then soaked for some days in clear water to extract all the remaining honey, and afterwards melted in a clean vessel with boiling water, and pressed through cloth bags. It is then remelted and cast into round cakes, in which form it is brought to market.4

Qualities.-Good and recent yellow wax has a slight odour of honey, is insipid, and of a bright yellow hue. It is brittle, yet soft, somewhat unctuous to the touch, but without adhering to the fingers, or to the teeth when it is chewed; acquires tenacity when heated; melts at 142°, and burns entirely away. Its specific gravity varies from 0.9600 to 0.9650. (For the other properties of wax, see Cera alba.)

Wax in this form is often adulterated with earth, pease-meal, or resin and tallow. Earth, or pease-meal, may be

1 This palm is found in the Quindin mountains only, rising 180 feet in height, and having leaves twenty feet long. The waxy secretion covers the trunk to the thickness of about two inches, and consists of two thirds of resin and one of wax. -Humboldt, Plantce Aequinoctiales, etc. fasc. i.

2 The pela, or natural white wax of the Chinese, is an animal wax produced by a species of coccus; and the white lac of India appears also to be a variety of wax.

3 There are bees in India which prepare a black wax.-Jacquin, Elem. Chim. p. 34.

4 Large quantities of wax are imported from the Baltic, the Levant, and the Barbary coast. suspected when the cake is very brittle, and the colour inclines more to gray than bright yellow: these impurities may be separated by remelting and straining the wax. The presence of resin may be suspected when the fracture appears smooth and shining, instead of being granulated; and it may be detected by putting small pieces of the wax in cold alcohol, which will readily dissolve the resinous part, without acting on the real wax. Tallow is discovered by the greater softness and unctuosity of the cake, and its disagreeable suffocating smell when melted.

Medical properties and uses.-Yellow wax is scarcely ever ordered for internal use, although its colouring matter does not affect its medical properties. It is chiefly employed in the composition of external applications.

Officinal preparations.-Cera flava purificata, D. Emplastrum Cerae, L. E. Unguenta, et Cerata, L. E. D.

2. Bleached Wax. Officinal. Cera alba, Lond Edin. Dub. White Wax.

Syn. Cire blanche (F.) Hwitt Wax (Swed.), Biaty Wosk (Pol.), Cerabiancha (I.), Cera bianca (S.), Vulay Mellughoo (Tam.), Suffiad mooru (Duk.).

When yellow wax is exposed, with an extended surface, to the action of light and air, and sprinkled with water, the yellow colour and peculiar odour are lost, and it becomes white. This process is thus performed : The yellow wax is melted with a very little water in a copper vessel, and then run off, through a plug-hole in the bottom, into another vessel, which is covered with a cloth to retain the heat until the water and the impurities settle. The clarified melted wax is next suffered to flow into a vessel, the bottom of which is full of small holes, through which it runs in small streams upon a cylinder kept constantly revolving over, and partly dipping in cold water, into which the wax falls, drawn out into thin shreds or ribands, and is instantly cooled. These are spread upon cloths stretched on frames exposed to the light and air, and occasionally watered and turned; so that after some days the colour nearly disappears. After being thus half-bleached, the wax remains heaped up in a solid mass for a month, when the whole process is again repeated.

It is, lastly, generally melted and cast into thin discs about five incites in diameter, in which form it is found in the shops.

White wax is sometimes adulterated with white oxide of lead, in order to increase its weight; with white tallow; and with potato-starch. The first is detected by melting the wax in water, when the oxide falls to the bottom of the vessel: white wax is known to contain tallow, when it is of a dull opaque white, and wants the transparency which distinguishes pure wax; and starch is detected by adding to the suspected wax two per cent, of strong sulphuric acid, and then washing the mixture carefully: the acid carbonizes the starch without acting on the wax.

Qualities.-Pure white wax is perfectly insipid, inodorous, and somewhat translucent. It is harder, less unctuous to the touch, heavier, and less fusible than yellow wax; its specific gravity being from 0.8203 to 0.9662, and its melting point 155°. It is cut easily with a knife, and the surface has a peculiar lustre, which is characteristic, and termed waxy. It melts into a colourless transparent fluid, which concretes again as it cools, resuming its former appearance. Wax is perfectly insoluble in water, and nearly so in cold alcohol, although this fluid takes up about one twentieth of its weight at a boiling temperature; which, however, is again deposited as the fluids cool. Ether acts upon it in the same manner as alcohol. Wax dissolves in the fixed oils, forming the base of cerates and ointments; and unites in some degree, when boiled, with alkalies, forming soaps. The acids at an ordinary temperature scarcely affect it. The products of its decomposition by heat, in close vessels, show that, like the fixed oils, it is a triple compound of carbon, 81.607; hydrogen, 13859; and oxygen, 4534, in 100 parts.1 Dr. John affirms, that 100 parts of wax digested in boiling alcohol is divided into two distinct substances : eighty parts consisting of a body soluble in hot alcohol and oils, and deposited by cooling, and thirteen of a substance completely insoluble in alcohol; the first of which he has named cerin, the second myricin2

Medical properties and uses.-Wax is regarded as a demulcent, and is sometimes exhibited in obstinate cases of diarrhoea and dysentery, with the view of sheathing the bowels; but its place may be better supplied by simple mucilages and gelatinous solutions. It is generally exhibited diffused in mucilaginous fluids by means of soap, in the proportion of one third part of the wax, with which it is first melted, and then rubbed in a mortar with the fluid, which is gradually added; but Poerner's method, which is, first to melt the wax with olive oil, and then to mix the oily compound while hot with the mucilaginous fluid, by triturating with the yolk of an egg, is a preferable one. The dose is a cupful of the emulsion, containing about Эj. of wax, given every four or five hours.

Officinal preparations.-Linimentum simplex, E. Unguenta et Cerata varia, L. E. D.

1 Thenard. Recherches Phys. Chim. ii. 316. 2 Tableau Chim. du Begne Animal, p. 209.