Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-03-09
CAMPHOR'S MANY USES.
Drug Has Many Virtues Valuable as
Sedative or Stimulant.

From the London Health.
Camphor is used in medicine, both out
wardly and inwardly, sometimes as a tenn
porary stimulant and sometimes
sedative. Everybody has heard of the use
of camphor drops for persons liable to
fainting fits. 1t is frequently employed in
govt and rheumatism. In small doses 1t
acts as an anodyne and antispasmodic, but
in large doses it is irritant poison. The
alcoholic solution and the linimentS in
which it is the chief ingredient are much
used for external applications, for sprains
and bruises, chilblains, and even for in
cipient paralysis. The employment of cam
phor as medicine in England is not very
DID, it was used in Germany before 1t be-
came known in England, and in medical
books of the last century 1t was called
Campfire All kinds of healing proper
ties were ascribed both by English and for
eign doctors to the drug, of the importation
of which from Japan the Dutch had the
| monopoly. Camphor was said to be pow
erful antiseptic, to be cure for hypo-
chondriaSis, and to be useful in cases of
epilepsy.
1t was administered mixed with vinegar,
or rubbed up with mucilage of gum ara
bic, or combined with a certain quantity of
sweet almonds. There cannot be any doubt
that camphor has many medicinal uses,
and could be i'll spared from the pharma-
copoeia, but there is some consolation to
be found in the fact that it is possible to
prepare artificial camphor by the mutual
action of hydrochloride acid gas and oil of
turpentine, which produces a White SUP
stance possessing camphorlike odor and
which is soluble in alcohol. Camphor, con-
diments and the cordial which he himself
invented, and to which he gave his own
name, were the three chief specifics recon-
mended for the cure of almost every all
ment to which human flesh is heir by the
skillful chemist and fervid republican, Ras-
pail. Year after year, IN his once popular
Almanack, the virtues of camphor were ex-
tolled. and, could the French savant revisit
the glimpses of the moon, his spirit would
be sorely troubled by the intelligence that,
in all probability, there is likely to be a
scarcity of camphor. Since the war the i'm
ports of the odorouS drug have fallen of TO
a prodigious extent. 1t is not only, how
ever, on Japan that we depend for cam
phOr
Almost all the camphor of commerce is
the product of the camphor laurel cam
phor tree, which is native not only OF
Japan, but of China, Cochin China. and
Formosa, and it's cultivation has been in
troduced into Java and the West indies,
two regions which have certainly not been
affected by the war in the far east. The
Chinese camphor tree is found In kwang
81 and Sukien, and affords both timber and
gum for expectation and domestic use.
The gum is procured from the branches,
leaves and chips by first soaking them in
water until the liquid becomes saturated
with it, when it is turned out into an
earthen basin to coagulate, and undergoes
other treatment. 1t comes to market IN
crude state, and is usually again refined after
reaching Europe There IS also an on ea-
tracted from camphor, which rarely comes
to Europe, and the article made in Borneo
and Sumatra is so much esteemed in the
east that even in markets of Japan 200
pounds of camphor Of the latter country
used to be given in exchange for one pound
of the product of the former. The Bornean
camphor is white. like chalk. but has the
same smell and taste as that of China and
Janan The natives ascribe extraordinary
medicinal virtues to it, and frequently hang
II. powdered, in bags around their necks or
around their waists, wrists and ankles ana,
curiousIy enough, this use of powdered
camphor was strongly advocated by Ras-
pail.