Bdellium

Bdellium, a gum-resin resembling Myrrh (q.v.) in appearance and qualities, but weaker, and at the same time more acrid. High medicinal virtues were ascribed to it by the ancients, but it is now little used internally, although occasionally employed as an ingredient of plasters. It is supposed to be the produce of Amyris Commiphora in India, and of Balsamodendron Africanum in Senegal—trees or shrubs belonging to the natural order Amyridaceæ (q.v.), so remarkable for the number of similar substances which it produces.—Egyptian bdellium, however, is obtained from the Doom palm, Hyphaene thebaica. A similar substance is yielded also by Ceradia fureata, of the natural order Compositæ; whilst the Sicilian bdellium, formerly used in medicine, is produced by Daucus gummifer, a species of the same genus to which the carrot belongs.—The bdellium mentioned in Gen. ii. 12 and Num. xi. 7 may be this or a similar gum-resin; some have, with more probability, understood it to be a precious stone—a carbuncle, crystal, beryl, or pearl.