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Bdellium also called bdellion (Commiphora Africana or Commiphora wightii) is a gum resin from trees growing in India, Babylon, Ethiopia, Eritrea and sub-saharan Africa. It is sometimes used in perfume, medicine and incense in place of more costly resins such as frankincense, myrrh and stacte.
Theophrastus reported
that Alexander expedition in the region called Aria discovered a thorn tree
which produces a tear of resin that liquefies in the sun and resembles myrrh in
appearance and odor. Plautus referred to
it in a play, and Pliny the Elder described it in his Natural History. According
to Pliny the best Commiphora wightii came from Bactria. The bdellium tree is black in color and about
the size of an olive tree. Its leaves
resemble oak leaves and its fruit looks like a wild fig. The Bactrian variety is known among Arabs as
mokul. Another form of bdellium coming
from Nubia was identified as Commiphora Africana.
The form of bdellium
called Jewish bdellium described by Dioscorides in De Materia Medica, 1:80 was probably Hyphaene thebaica, a species
of palm that grew in Petra.
Bdellium is
the common English translation for the Hebrew word bedolach mentioned in the Bible. Genesis 2:12
speaks of bdellium and other precious stones that could be found in the land of
Havilah near Eden. “The gold of that
land is good; the bdellium and the onyx stone are there.” In Numbers
11:7 when the Israelites and Moses begin to complain about their situation in
the desert, the manna they have been given to eat is described as being “like
coriander seed, and its appearance like that of bdellium.”
In China both bdellium
and an East Indian benzoin from Sumatra were known called Parthian incense. Isidore
of Seville reports in his Etymologiae
that bdellium comes from trees in India and Arabia, the Arabian variety being
better as it is smooth, whitish and smells good; the Indian variety is a dirty
black.
Commiphora Africana
has been used to treat a wide range of ailments. The fruit is used for typhoid fever and
stomach problems. The bark is used to
treat malaria, and the resin for convulsions, for disinfecting wounds, as an
insecticide and as an aphrodisiac. Commiphora
wightii has been a key component in the Ayurvedic system of medicine and is an
ingredient in the prescriptions of ancient physicians in India and Arabia for
nearly 3,000 years. Resin from
Commiphora wightii, called guggal in
India contains a powerful steroid that prevents plaque build-up on the arterial
walls thereby preventing atherosclerosis.
Other compounds
in guggal activate thyroid hormones that increase the metabolic rate of the
body and aid in weight loss. It contains
anti-inflammatory alkaloids, tannins and steroids that make it a perfect natural
aid to fight infections and eliminate harmful toxins and free radicals from the
body. It is used to
treat degenerative joint diseases like osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, joint
pain, skin inflammations, acne, wrinkles and other skin related problems.
Heart disease
is mainly caused due to high blood cholesterol levels, and a steroid found in bdellium
was believed to aid in cholesterol synthesis because it acts as an antagonist
to the farnesoid X receptor. However, studies
have proven there is no overall reduction in total cholesterol in people
treated with bdellium extract and levels of so-called bad cholesterol actually
increased.
Because of its
overuse in Indian medicine, bdellium has become extremely scarce in its two main
habitats, and the World Conservation Union has listed it as an endangered
species. India's National Medicinal
Plants Board launched a project to cultivate more bdellium and a grass-roots conservation
movement led by an associate of the World Conservation Union begun educating bdellium
growers in sustainable harvesting methods.
