Camphor is frequently put into wardrobes and clothes-trunks, to keep away insects; it is used to make the white stars and fire of the pyrotechnist; and by the varnish-maker to increase the solubility of copal and other gums. Mixed with six times its weight of clay, and distilled, it suffers decomposition, and yields a yellow, aromatic, volatile oil, smelling strongly of thyme and rosemary, which is much used by the wholesale druggists and perfumers to adulterate some of the more costly essential oils, and by the fancy soap-makers to scent their soaps.
Camphor may be beaten in a mortar for some time, without being reduced to powder, but if it be first broken with the pestle, and then sprinkled with a few drops of rectified spirit of wine, it may be readily pulverised. By adding water to an alcoholic or ethereal solution of camphor, this drug is precipitated under the form of an impalpable powder of exquisite whiteness.
Tests. Pure camphor is entirely soluble in rectified spirit, oils, and strong acetic acid; a fragment placed on a heated spoon or in a warm situation will wholly disappear, and the evolved fumes will be highly fragrant (camphoraceous), and be free from an acid or terebinthinate odour. In an alcoholic solution of natural camphor ammonia gives but a slight precipitate, which is dissolved on shaking the mixture; a similar solution of artificial camphor under the like treatment gives a flocculent precipitate, which remains undissolved. See Camphor, Factitious (below).
Camphor, Facti′′tious. Syn. Hydrochlorate of tur′pentine, Hydrochlorate of camphene, Artificial camphor. Prepared by passing dry hydrochloric acid gas into pure oil of turpentine, cooled by a freezing mixture or pounded ice. After a time a white, crystalline mass is formed, which must be drained, and dried by pressure between folds of bibulous paper. It may be purified by solution in alcohol.
Prop., &c. It has a camphoraceous taste and odour; burns with a greenish, sooty flame, and when blown out evolves a terebinthinate odour; heated a little above the boiling-point of water, slight fumes of hydrochloric acid gas are perceptible.
Camphor, Hydrochlo′′rate of. Syn. Mu′′riate of camphor; Campho′ræ hydrochlo′′ras, L. By passing hydrochloric acid gas over camphor, in small fragments, until it ceases to be absorbed.
Camphor, Liq′uid. Syn. Camphor oil; O′leum campho′ræ, L. A pale yellowish, limpid fluid, which exudes from Dryobalanops aromatica, a tree growing in Sumatra and Borneo, when deep incisions are made in the
trunk. It is supposed that the crystalline Sumatra camphor (see below) is deposited from this fluid. The liquid camphor has somewhat the odour of CAJEPUT OIL, and might, no doubt, be beneficially employed for the same purpose. It is sometimes imported into Europe.
Camphor, Monobromated. C10H15O1Br. Coarsely powdered camphor is introduced into a flask of about ten times the capacity of the amount it is intended to prepare. A fine stream of bromine is then allowed to fall upon the powder with continual agitation; the addition of bromine ceases when the camphor is liquefied. A large long abductor tube is then fitted to the flask, and the other end plunged into an alkaline solution, which will absorb the vapour that would otherwise incommode the operator. The flask is placed in a water bath that is raised to ebullition, when the reaction soon commences. This is at first rather active, there being an abundant evolution of hydrobromic gas, and some vapour of bromine and undecomposed camphor. The liquid, which is at first dark brown in colour, acquires an amber colour and the evolution of gas suddenly slackens. The operation should be carried out at a temperature between 80° and 90° C. The amber-coloured liquid that remains in the flask solidifies upon cooling, and appears then as a slightly citrine-coloured friable mass. It is purified by treating it several times with boiling 90° to 95° alcohol, filtering the liquor, and leaving it to crystallise. The crystals are to be dried in the air upon unsized paper.
Dr Bourneville advises monobromated camphor to be administered either in the form of pills, made up with conserve of roses, or of a mixture rubbed up with mucilage of gum arabic and syrup. He gives it in doses varying from twelve to thirty centigrams daily. Where it cannot be taken by the mouth he injects the following solution subcutaneously:—Monobromated camphor 3 gr., alcohol 35 gr., glycerin 22 gr.