Ladanum, a resin of the softer kind, though of too firm a consistence to be ranked among the fluid ones.

There are two kinds of it kept in the shops; one usually imported in bladders, to preserve it in its genuine soft consistence, and to prevent the evaporation of its finer parts; another in rolls, much inferior to the former in purity and virtue.

Labdanum should be chosen soft and moist, of a strong smell, pure, very inflammable, and diffusing a fragrant smell while burning. It is a resinous juice which exudes from a tree of the cistus-kind.

In medicine it is used externally, to attenuate and disperse tumours; internally, it is more rarely used, but it is greatly extolled by some against catarrhs, and in dysenteries.