ELEMI.
Resina Elemi; Elemi; F. Résine Elemi; G. Elemiharz.
Botanical Origin—The resin known in pharmacy as Elemi is derived from a tree growing in the Philippines, which Blanco,[586] a botanist of Manila, described in 1845 under the name of Icica Abilo, but which is completely unknown to the botanists of Europe. Blanco’s description is such that, if correct, the plant cannot be placed in either of the old genera Icica or Elaphrium, comprehended by Bentham and Hooker in that of Bursera, nor yet in the allied genus Canarium; in fact even the order to which it belongs is somewhat doubtful.[587]
The tree grows in the province of Batangas in the island of Luzon (south of Manila), where its name in the Tagala language is ábilo; the Spaniards call it Arbol a brea, i.e. pitch-tree, from the circumstance that its resin is used for the caulking of boats.
History—The explicit statements of Theophrastus in the 3rd century b.c. relative to olibanum have already been mentioned. The same writer narrates[588] that a little above Coptus on the Red Sea, no tree is found except the acacia (ἀκάνθη) of the desert ... but that on the sea there grow laurel (δάϕνη) and olive (ἐλαία), from the latter of which exudes a substance much valued to make a medicine for the staunching of blood.
This story appears again in Pliny[589] who says that in Arabia the olive tree exudes tears which are an ingredient of the medicine called by the Greeks Enhæmon, from its efficacy in healing wounds.
Dioscorides[590] briefly notices the Gum of the Ethiopian olive, which he likens to scammony; and the same substance is named by Scribonius Largus[591] who practised medicine at Rome during the 1st century.
The writers who have commented on Dioscorides have generally adopted the opinion that the exudation of the so-called olive tree of Arabia and Ethiopia was none other than the substance known to them as Elemi, though, as remarked by Mattioli,[592] the oriental drug thus called by no means well accords with the description left by that author.
As to that name, the earliest mention of it appears in the middle of the 15th century. Thus in a list of drugs sold at Frankfort about 1450, we find Gommi Elempnij.[593] Saladinus,[594] who lived about this period, enumerates Gumi Elemi among the drugs kept by the Italian apothecaries, but we have not met with the name in any other writer of the school of Salerno. The Arbolayre,[595] a herbal supposed to have been printed about 1485, gives some account of Gomme Elempni, stating that it is the gum of the lemon tree and not of fennel as some think,—that it resembles Male Incense,—and makes an excellent ointment for wounds.
The name Enhæmon[596] of Pliny, also written Enhæmi, is probably the original form of the word Animi, another designation for the same drug, though also applied as at the present day to a sort of copal. It is even possible that the word Elemi has the same origin.[597]