This section is from the book "The London Medical Dictionary", by Bartholomew Parr. Also available from Amazon: London Medical Dictionary.
(From Kedron, a valley where it grew in great abundance,) cedrus conifera foliis laricis, cedrus Libani, cedrus magna, larix orientalis. The pinus cedrus Lin. Sp. Pi. 1420. The great cedar of Libanus. Nat. order coniferae. It is referred by Tournefort to the genus meleza, and by Jussieu to the juniperus.
Modern botanists cannot find cedar trees that agree with the scriptural description of their loftiness; but this tree, according to the similitude of the Psalmist, spreads its branches very extensively. Maundrel, in his travels, says he measured the trunks of some old cedar trees, and found one to be twelve yards in circumference, and thirty-seven yards in the spread of its boughs. Its native spot seems to be Mount Libanus, where it grows in a dry, stony soil; but even here its numbers were diminishing. Rawolf, in 1574, found only-twenty six, with no young ones; Maundrel, 100 years afterwards, could discover but 16: there were, however, many young ones. Pocock also found a great number of young thriving cedars on the mountain.
The cedar of Lebanon is an evergreen coniferous tree, with very narrow, stiff, sharp pointed leaves, standing several together in tufts. Its fruit is called cedris. It is a native of the bleak snowy mountains of Syria, and is not as yet become common in England. As a medicine, it differs very little from the virtues of the fir tree. Its smell is considerably more agreeable, and the resinous juice extracted from the trunk of the cedar tree, by incisions, is more disposed to concrete into a solid brittle mass than that from the fir tree; nor does the matter which distils from the cedar tree lose much of its finer parts in drying: even boiling water docs not easily carry off the flavour of cedar wood.
By distilling the wood with water, a small quantity of essential oil is obtained, which congeals in a moderate degree of cold. The decoction, in the still, affords an extract by evaporation, which smells considerably of the wood, and is in taste bitterish and saline. In the saline nature of this extract, this wood differs from all the resinous ones that have been examined. Margraff says, that the saline part which crystallized in the extract was common salt.
The wood of the cedar is very incorruptible, though it is not probable that cedar wood formed the roof of the temple of Apollo at Utica, supposed to have remained with little change for 2000 years. The fragrance of the wood drives away moths; and, internally, the productions of the cedar and the junipers differ little from the turpentines. See Juniperus.
Cedrus cupressi, juniperus Lycia Lin. Sp. Pi. 1471.
It is a shrub with yellow flowers, and fleshy leaves, placed four together, like those of cypress. The flowers are followed by a round fruit like a mulberry in taste and smell, and of a purple colour when ripe. In this fruit are three or four seeds, which smell like resin. Until this tree is three or four years old, its only distinction from the juniper bush is, that its leaves are softer and shorter. It grows in many of the southern parts of Europe. Its medicinal qualities are like those of juniper. Dale informs us of another species which he found in Carolina, and which affords a gum so like the true olibanum, that, when mixed, they cannot be separated. Hence he concludes, that this is the tree that affords the olibanum. It is probably the juniperus thurifera Lin. Sp. Pi. 1471.
Cedrus Americanus. See Thuya.
Cedrus baccifera, sabina. Juniperus sabina Lin. Sp. Pi. 1472. See Sabina.
Cedrus cees. See Crinones.
Cedrus phoenicia, called also thuya Massiliensium, juniperus e Goa, cedrus e Goa,sabina Goensis, and juniperus Coroliniana. A variety probably of pinus cedrus. Its virtues are similar to those of juniper.
 
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