Spec. Plant. Willd. ii. 630, Cl. 10. Ord. 1. Decandria Monogynia. Nat. ord. Leguminosae. G. 880. Calyx none. Petals four. Legume ovate. Seed one, with an ovate arillus. Species 1. C. Langsdorffii. Copaiva tree. Med. Pot. 3d edit. 609.

t. 216. De Candolle. Officinal. Copaiba, Lond. Copaiferae officinalis Resina,

Edin. Resina liquida, Dub. Copaiba Balsam.

Syn, Beaume de Copahu (F.), Kopaiva Balsam (G.), Hwit Indiansk Balsum (Swed.), Balsam Copayve (Dutch), Balsamo del Copaiba (I.), Copayva (S.).

The copaiba tree is a native of South America and the Spanish West India islands. It grows in great plenty in the woods of Tolu, near Carthagena, and in those of Quito and Brazil. It is a lofty handsome tree, branching at the top, with a brownish ash-coloured bark. The leaves are large and pinnate, consisting of four pair of ovate, pointed, alternate, ferruginous leaflets, with a terminal one, two or three inches long, entire, shining, veined, narrower on one side than on the other, and placed on short petioles. The flowers are in terminal racemes, which are stiff, spreading, the length of the pinnae, and loosely divided into eight alternate common peduncles, with the flowers, which are white, sitting closely on them. The petals are oblong, acute, concave, spreading; the filaments slender, incurved, bearing oblong incumbent anthers; and the germen roundish, compressed, and on a short pedicel. The fruit is an oval two-valved pod, containing a single egg-shaped seed, enveloped with a berried arillus.

Almost all the species of Copaifera1 yield Copaiba: but the greatest quantity is furnished by C. Multijuga, a tree growing in the province of Para. The Copaiba of the shops is procured by wounding or boring these trees to the pith, near the base of the trunk, when it flows abundantly2, in the form of a clear colourless liquid, which is thickened, and acquires a yellowish colour, by age. The operation is performed two or three times in the same year; and, from the older trees, the best Copaiba is obtained. It is brought to this country from the Brazils, in small casks, each of which contains from one cwt. to one cwt. and a half of the balsam.1 But another kind comes from the West Indies, and is supposed to be the product of C. Iacquinii.2

1 Those known and described are C.Guaianensis, C. Langsdorffii, C.Beyrichii, C.Martii, C.Multijuga, C. bijuga, C. nitida, C. laxca, C. cordifulia, C. Sellowii, C. oblongifolia, C.Iacquinii.

2 "Tanta quantitate distillat, ut spatio trium horarum ad lb. xij. effundat," Piso. Nat. Hist. 56.

Qualities.-Genuine good Copaiba has a peculiar but not disagreeable odour, and a bitterish, hot, nauseous taste. It is clear and transparent; its consistence is that of oil8, the colour a pale yellow, and its specific gravity 0.950 to 0.966; but when it is exposed with an extended surface to the action of the air, it gradually thickens, until at length it becomes solid, dry, and brittle like resin. It is insoluble in water, but is completely soluble in alcohol and ether. Sulphuric acid converts it into a brown bituminous-like mixture, which gives out a strong odour of sulphur. Nitric acid, in the ordinary heat of the air, partially dissolves it, and renders it brown; but, at an increased temperature, the action is violent, the acid is decomposed, and nitrous fumes are copiously emitted. The muriatic and acetic acids scarcely affect it. The pure alkalies form with it white saponaceous compounds, which are soluble in water, forming opaque milky mixtures. It is soluble, also, in the expressed oils.

Distilled with a gentle heat, 38 per cent. of a green, pleasantly odorous, sapid, volatile oil, of sp. gr. 876, passes over, while 7.59 remain in the distilled water, and 53.66 of a brown resinous extract remain in the retort, which gradually harden and become brittle, 52 parts of which are inodorous, insipid, and soluble in ether and alcohol, and 1.66 remains clammy: the remaining 0.75 are extractive. Gerber says, that recent Copaiba yields 41 per cent, of volatile oil, and old Copaiba only 31.07 per cent. In destructive distillation it yields some empyreumatic brownish red oil, an acidulous water, carbonic acid gas, and olefiant gas, but does not yield benzoic acid. Hence it approaches in its nature to the turpentines. It is sometimes adulterated with mastich and oil, and occasionally with rape oil and with castor oil. Bucholz remarks, that if copaiba does not dissolve completely in a mixture of four parts of alcohol and one of rectified sulphuric ether, its adulteration may be inferred. The adulteration with castor oil is discovered by mixing three parts of the suspected balsam with one part of sulphuric acid; if it be pure, a plastic reddish mass will be formed : if it contain castor oil, the consistence is that of turpentine, and it is scarcely coloured.

An easier mode is to agitate, in a bottle, one part of liquor ammoniae with two and a half of copaiba; if the mixture remain cloudy, after standing at rest for some time, it contains castor oil. If copaiba balsam be pure, it rapidly solidifies when mixed with calcined magnesia: if this be not effected, the balsam is impure, and contains a fixed oil.

1 The first notice of this balsam was given by Maregrav and Pisoin 1648.

2 Supplement to the Edin. New Dispens., p. 46.

3 The adulterated balsam, which Lewis mentions as being thick, white, and. opaque, with a quantity of turbid watery liquor at the bottom, is not now to be found.

Medical properties and uses.-Copaiba is stimulant, diuretic, and gently purgative. It has been recommended in pulmonary complaints; but where the excitement is morbidly increased, or there is any degree of the inflammatory diathesis present, the heating and irritating quality of copaiba renders it injurious. From its power of stimulating the urethra, it is more successfully used in gleets. It is equally efficacious in fluor albus, and in that state of the uterus sometimes occurring on the final cessation of the menses, which is accompanied with a sanious discharge, great bearing down, and many of the symptoms of incipient cancer. It certainly affords considerable relief in haemorrhoidal affections; perhaps from its exciting the steady peristaltic motions of the intestines, at the same time time that the determination of the blood to the haemorrhoidal vessels is lessened by the stimulant effect of the remedy on the kidneys. In too large doses, it excites inflammation of the kidneys, and its use should always be avoided when ulceration of these organs is suspected.

The resin remaining after distillation by a gentle heat has been recommended by M. Thorn, as acting as efficaciously in gonorrhoea and gleets as the simple copaiba, without its nauseating properties.1 But, if this residue possess any influence, it must be imputed to some of the volatile oil remaining in it, as the pure resin is inert.

The dose of copaiba is from x. to f 3 j., twice or thrice a day, either triturated with sugar into an oleo-saccharum, or mixed with soft or distilled water, by means of mucilage or the yolk of an egg. The dose of the volatile oil is

xx.