in Pharmacy, the name of an exotic purgative fruit, of the size and figure of a nut; whence it is also called the ben nut, sometimes balanus myrephica, or glans unguentaria.

Naturalists distinguish two kinds of bens; viz. the great, ben magnum, which resembles the filbert, and is by some called avellana purgatrix, brought from America; and the small, ben parvum, brought from Ethiopia.

Ben-nuts yield, by expression, much oil, which from its property of not becoming rancid, at least for years, is used as a menstruum for the extraction of the odorous parts of the flowers of jessamin, violets, roses, hyacinths, lilies of the valley, tuberose, jonquils, clove julyflowers, and others which like these yield little or no essential oil by distillation, but impart their fragrance to expressed oils. The method of impregnating oil of ben with the odour of flowers is this: Some fine carded cotton is dipped in the oil, and put in the bottom of a proper vessel. On this is spread a thick layer of fresh flowers, above which more cotton dip in oil is placed; and thus alternately flowers and cotton are disposed, till the vessel (which may be made of tin, with a cover to be screwed on to it, or of porcelain) is full. By digestion during 24 hours in a water-bath, the oil will receive the odour of the flowers.