SANTALUM, in botany: A genus of the monogynia order, belonging to the oclandia class of plants; and in the natural method ranking with those of which the order is doubtful. The calyx is superior; the corolla monopetalous; the stamina placed in the tube; the stigma is simple; the fruit a berry.
The santalum, or sanders, grows to the size of a walnut-tree. Its leaves are entire, oval, and placed opposite to each other. Its flower is of one single piece, charged with eight stamina, and supported upon the pistil, which becomes an insipid berry, resembling in form that of the laurel. Its wood is white in the circumference, and yellow in the centre when the tree is old. This difference of colour constitutes two kinds of sanders, both employed for the same purposes, and having equally a bitter taste, and an aromatic smell. With the powder of this wood a paste is prepared, with which the Chinese, Indians, Persians, Arabians, and Turks, anoint their bodies. It is likewise burnt in their houses, and yields a fragrant and wholesome smell. The greatest quantity of this wood, to which a sharp and attenuating virtue is ascribed, remains in India. The red sanders, though in less estimation, and less generally used, is sent by preference into Europe. This is the produce of a different tree, which is common on the coast of Coromandel. Some travellers confound it with the wood of Caliatour, which is used in dyeing.
The santalum album, or white sanders, is brought from the East Indies in billets about the thickness of a man's leg, of a pale whitish colour. It is that part of the yellow sanders wood which lies next the bark. Great part of it, as met with in the shops, has no smell or taste, nor any sensible quality that can recommend it to the notice of the physician.
The santalum album, or yellow sanders, is the interior part of the wood of the same tree which furnishes the former, is of a pale yellowish colour, of a pleasant smell, and a bitterish aromatic taste, accompanied with an agreeable kind of pungency. This elegant wood might undoubtedly be applied to valuable medical pur-
poses, though at present very rarely used. Distilled with water, it yields a fragrant essential oil, which thickens in the cold into the consistence of a balsam. Digested in pure spirit, it imparts a rich yellow tincture; which being committed to distillation, the spirit arises without bringing over any thing considerable of the flavour of the sanders. The residuum contains the virtues of six times its weight of the wood. Hoffman looks upon this extract as a medicine of similar virtues to ambergris; and recommends it as an excellent restorative in great debilities.