Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Elemi

ELEMI. The resin thus termed in modern pharmacy is obtained by incising the trunk of a species of. Uunarium found in the Philippine Islands. It is a soft, more or less translucent, adhesive substance, of granular consistency and fennel-like smell, and colourless when pure, but sometimes grey or blackish from the presence of carbonaceous and other impurities. When exposed to the air it becomes yellowish in tint, and harder. It consists mainly of essen— tial oil, and of an amorphous and a crystalline resin, the former easily soluble in cold, and the latter only in hot alcohol. Elemi is used chiefly in the manufacture of spirit and turpentine varnishes, which it enables to dry without cracking. As a constituent of a stimulating ointment, it has found a place in British pharmacopoeias. In the Philippines it is employed for caulking ships, and is kneaded with rice-husks for torches (see Jagor, It’cism in den Philippinen, p. 79, Berlin, 1873). The word elemi, like the older term animi, appears to have been derived from enhwmon (Greek, é’vaquov), the name of a styptic medicine said by Pliny to contain tears exuded by the olive—tree of Arabia. This tree, according to F liiekiger and Hanbury, is probably to be identified with the Boswell ia Frereana of Birdwood, which flourishes in the neighbour- hood of Bunder Marayah, west of Cape Gardafui (see S. B. Miles, Journ. 11’. Geog. Soc.,xlii. p. 64). Mexican or Vera Cruz elemi, formerly imported into England, is afforded by the species Amy/H's elemifera, Royle ; Mauritius elemi by another tree, Coloplionia Jllauriliana, DC; and Brazilian elemi by several species of Icica. For a paper “ On the Chemistry of Elemi,” see Fliickiger, Year—Book of Pharmacy, 1874, p. 496.