Balm

The balsam is a vegetable secretion composed of resin, aromatic oils, alcohols and esters, such as incense. Balms are often used as deodorizers and purifiers. Sometimes Egyptian mummies were covered with balms; the mummification process also received the name of embalming.

The balms are solid, viscous or more or less fluid depending on the predominance of one or another of its elements. Its color, usually quite dark, varies from yellow-brown to blackish-brown. They owe their odor in part to the volatile oil they contain and sometimes to that of benzoic acid. When exposed to the open air for a long time, they harden and take on a resinous appearance, losing their odor as a result of the dispersion of their volatile oil in the atmosphere. They are generally mixed in all proportions with alcohol, ether, fatty and volatile oils and are insoluble in water. By simple distillation only a small part of the volatile oil they contain can be separated. To obtain the totality, it is necessary to distill them with water, an operation that is practiced on a large scale with turpentine to extract the essential oil of turpentine. All balsams are born, either naturally or by incisions made for this purpose, from certain trees.

Examples of balm

Other examples of balm are:

• Balm of El Salvador.
• Balsaminaobtained from the
• Canadian balm, obtained from the abies balsamea.
• American Allerce Balm, obtained from the populus.
• Tolu balm, obtained from the resin of the Toluifera Myroxylon tree.
• Peru Balm, obtained from the resin Myroxylon pereirae and Myroxylon balsamum.
• Balm of copaiba
• Trementina
• Balm of Judea or Mecca balm
• Chinese Charol
• This is