Aloe-wood, in the materia medica, is the product of a tree growing in China and some of the Indian islands. See Exocarria.

This drug is distinguished into three sorts; the calambac or tambac, the common lignum aloes, and calambour.

The calambac, or finest aloe-wood, called by authors lignum aloes praeflaminatum, and by the Chinese subbian, is the most resinous of all the woods we are acquainted with: it is of a light spongy texture, very porous, and its pores are filled up with a soft and fragrant resin, that the whole may be pressed and dented by the fingers like wax, or moulded about by chewing in the mouth, in the manner of mastic. This kind, laid on the fire, melts in great parts like resin, and burns away in a few moments with a bright flame and perfumed smell. Its scent, while in the mass, is very fragrant and agreeable; and its taste acid and bitterish, but very aromatic and agreeable. It is so variable in its colour, that some have divided it into three kinds; the one variegated with black and purple; the second, with the same black, but with yellowish instead of purple; and the third, yellow alone like the yolk of an egg: this last is the least scented of the three. The variation, however, is owing to the trunk of the tree being itself of three different colours; and the heart of it is the valuable part first described. The two following are supposed to be the other parts of the trunk; though this seems doubtful, especially in regard to the last sort, from the circumstance mentioned of its being found in large logs entire, and sometimes only the heart, which, as above noticed, constitutes the calambac.

The lignum aloes vulgare is the second in value. This is of a more dense and compact texture, and consequently less resinous than the other; there is none of it, however, that is spongy, and has the holes filled up with the right resinous matter; and all of it, when good, has veins of the same resin in it. We meet with it in small fragments, which have been cut and split from larger; these are of a tolerably dense texture in the more solid pieces, and of a dusky brown colour, variegated with resinous black veins. It is in this state very heavy, and less fragrant than in those pieces which show a multitude of little holes, filled up with the same blackish matter that forms the veins in others. The woody part of these last pieces is somewhat darker than the other, and is not unfrequently purplish, or even blackish. The smell of the common aloe-wood is very agreeable, but not so strongly perfumed as the former. Its taste is somewhat bitter and acid, but very aromatic.

The calambour, called also agalochum fylvstre, and lignum aloes mexicanum, is light and friable, of a dusky and often mottled colour, between a dusky green black and a deep brown. Its smell is fragrant and agreeable, but much less sweet than that of either of the others; and its taste bitterish, but not so much acid or aromatic as either of the two former. This is said to be met with very frequently, and in large logs; and these sometimes entire, sometimes only the heart of the tree. This is the aloe-wood used by the cabinet-makers and inlayers.

This drug is esteemed a cordial taken inwardly; and is sometimes given in disorders of the stomach and bowels, and to destroy the worms. A very fragrant oil may be procured from it by distillation; which is recommended in paralytic cases from five to fifteen drops. It is at present, however, Y or y, the 23rd letter of our alphabet; its sound is formed by expressing the breath with a sudden expansion of the lips from that configuration by which we express the vowel u. It is one of the ambigual letters, being a consonant in the beginning of words, and placed before all vowels, as in yard, yield, young, &c. but before no consonant. At the end of words it is a vowel, and is substituted for the sound of i, as in try, defry, &c. In the middle of words it is not used so frequently as i is, unless in words derived from the Greek, as in clyde, empyreal, &c. though it is admitted into the middle of some pure English words, as in dying, flying, &c. The Romans had no capital of this letter, but used the small one in the middle and last syllables of words, as in coryambus, onyx, martyr. Y is also a numeral, signifying 150, or, according to Baronius 159; and with a dash above, as Y, it signified 150,000.