Bdellium

Le' Bdellium' (of the Greek bdellion /in Hebrew bedolach ) is a Gomme-résine which one made come from the the Eastern Indies, of Africa and Arabia by trade route of the Raising.

The Botaniste S discussed a long time on the nature of the tree which produces it. The latter were appropriate (in particular Jean-Baptiste de Lamarck) that it is a Balsamier of the family of the Térébinthacée S. Several distinct gum resin species were marketed under the name of bdellium.

  • the first came from India and was drawn from the Commiphora wightii (where Bdellium is called besides " Indienne" myrrh;). Very rare, it was most required and was presented in the form of irregular fragments, of particles rounded red dark. The break was vitreous and it softened by heat. While burning it released a pleasant odor comparable with that of the Myrrhe. It is also said that its odor is close to that of the wood of the Cèdre.

  • the second species came from Somalia and was drawn from the Commiphora africanus (or Balsamodendron) and Boswellia dalzielli . It was mixed with gum. With vitreous and fatty break, its color was yellow or reddish. It did not have so to speak odor, stuck under the tooth and its savor was insipid and bitter.
The women of Somalia used it to wash their hair and the men to bleach to them shield. It was also used to expel body the Ver of Guinea.

  • the third species, the Bdellium Playfairii , let often run at the time of its break, a transparent liquid. Its odor, a little alliacée, which let imagine that it was mixed with other gum resins coming from the Ombellifères.

Bdellium: old medical matter

He was very appreciated by the Old ones which used it like exciting resolvent inside and outside, in the care of the chronic Catarrhes of the chest, the Intestin and the Vessie.

On this subject, it is quoted by Dioscoride and Pline. Celse employed it in a hemostatic cataplasm (L.V, chap. XVIII, § 22).

The medieval surgeons also used it like Résolutif but also for mollifier the hard Apostème S: " Bdellium is a gum that some call Proceron and Malochia in Arabic Mukl-a-Iahud " (Henri de Mondeville, Synonymous with resolvent, 126).

" Bdellium is a hot gum in the end of the first and in addition to with softness and moisture if it is recent with the first, is largely mollificatif apostèmes with the sixth of Simples" (Guy de Chauliac).

Its use was limited thereafter to enter the composition of the Diachylon gummed as well as few other preparations

Historical traces

This product is evoked in the Bible (Genesis 2:12) " The name of first is Pischon; it is that which surrounds all the country of Havilah, where gold is. The gold of this country is pure; one finds there also bdellium and the stone of Onyx ". Voltaire evokes Bdellium in its Philosophique dictionary: ' " One extremely tormented oneself to know what it is that this bdellium which one found at the edge of the Phison, river of the terrestrial paradise, “which turns in the country of Hévilath where it comes from gold”

Calmet, while compiling, reports that according to several compilers, the bdellium is the Escarboucle, but that it could be well also crystal: then he informs us that they are capers. Many others ensure that they are pearls. There are only the etymologies of Bochart which can clear up this question.

See too

  • Commiphora mukkul also called Balsamodendron mukul

External bond

  • Bdellium

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