Sandal wood. Santalum album. White sandal wood.
Related entry: Oil of Sandalwood
Sandal Wood. Santalum Album, White Sandal Wood.—"The heart wood of Santalum album, Linné (Fam. Santalaceae)." N. F. IV.
White sandal wood was introduced into the N. F. IV to serve as an ingredient in tincture of saw palmetto and santal of the National Formulary. It is described as follows:
"In billets, pieces or chips of varying shapes and sizes, heavy, hard but splitting easily, color light yellow; transverse sections yellow to light reddish-brown, with alternating light and dark concentric zones nearly equal in diameter, with numerous pores and traversed by many very narrow medullary rays.
"When examined under the microscope, sections show the medullary rays from two to four rows wide, the cells thick-walled and radially marked; the wood wedges consisting largely of wood fibers with pointed ends, large parenchyma and thick-walled secretion vessels and cells containing single crystals of calcium oxalate; the oil in globules adhering to the walls of the ducts and parenchyma cells and especially rich in the medullary cells. Odor characteristic, aromatic, persistent; taste peculiar, strongly aromatic.
"Sandal Wood yields not more than 8 per cent. of ash." N. F. IV. For further information on sandalwood see Oleum Santali. It owes its therapeutic virtue entirely to the volatile oil it contains.
