CAMPHORA, or CAMPHERE, a solid concrete
substance extracted from the wood of the laurus cam-
phora. See CHEMISTRY, and MATERIA MEDICA
Index.
Pure camphire is very white, pellucid, somewhat
unctuous to the touch; of a bitterish aromatic taste,
yet accompanied with a sense of coolness; of a very
fragrant smell, somewhat like that of rosemary, but
much stronger. It has been very long esteemed one of
the most efficacious diaphoretics; and has been cele-
brated in fevers, malignant and epidemical distempers.
In deliria, also, where opiates could not procure sleep,
but rather aggravated the symptoms, this medicine has
often been observed to procure it. All these effects,
however, Dr Cullen attributes to its sedative property,
and denies that camphire has any other medicinal vir-
tues than those of an antispasmodic and sedative. He
allows it to be very powerful, and capable of doing
much good or much harm. From experiments made
on different brute creatures, camphire appears to be
poisonous to every one of them. In some it produced
sleep followed by death, without any other symptom.
In others, before death, they were awakened into con-
vulsions and rage. It seems, too, to act chiefly on
the stomach; for an entire piece swallowed, produced
the above-mentioned effects with very little diminu-
tion of weight.