or ALOE WOOD, in the Materia Medica, is the product of a tree growing in China and some of the Indian islands. See EXCÆCARIA.

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

The calambac, or finest aloes wood, called by authors lignum aloes praestantissimum, and by the Chinese fuk-hiang, is the most resinous of all the woods we are acquainted with: it is of a light spongy texture, very porous, and its pores so 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 mastich. This kind, laid on the fire, melts in great part like resin, and burns away in a few moments with a bright flame and perfumed smell. Its scent, while in the mas, 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 sort first described. The two following are supposed to be the outer 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 vulgaris is the second in value. This is of a more dense and compact texture, and consequently less resinous than the other; there is some 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 acrid, but very aromatic.

The calambour, called also agallochum sylvestre, 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 stomack 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, but little used; and would scarce be met with anywhere in the shops, but that it is an ingredient in some of the old compositions.