Cajuput Oil

CAJUPUT OIL (Pharmacopoeia), or cajuput oil, Ol. Cajeputi, or Ol. Cajuputi, or Ol. Wittnebianum. Cajuput oil received its name from the Malay name of the producing plant "Kayu Putih," which means "white tree." The botanical name of the plant is Melaleuca leucadendron L., var. M. minor Smith, family Myrtaceae-Leptospermeae; these are either trees up to 27 m in height or shrub forms. Its native range is Further India, the Philippine, Sunda, and Moluccan Islands, Northern and Eastern Australia, and New Caledonia. Cajuput oil is obtained by local inhabitants, predominantly on the islands of Buru and Seram (Moluccas), by distillation with water from the fresh leaves of the aforementioned producing plants. Cajuput oil has a yellowish-green or green to blue-green color, often acquired during distillation from copper stills and helmets or from copper vessels in which the cajuput oil is transported, rarely due to intentional coloring with copper acetate, and even more often due to the content of chlorophyllan in the oil. By distilling ordinary cajuput oil with water vapor, a purified colorless or only slightly yellowish oil is obtained. Cajuput oil consists mainly of cineole C₁₀H₁₈O with an admixture of terpineol C₁₀H₁₈O, its esters, a little levorotatory pinene, and various aldehydes. Cajuput oil exhibits a pleasant camphor-like odor of cineole and a spicy, slightly burning, and then cooling taste. Specific gravity at 15° is 0.915–0.930; [α]_D from -0°10' to -4°; it is easily soluble in 80% alcohol and in 3–5 parts of 70% alcohol; with carbon disulfide, it gives a cloudy solution. In medicine, cajuput oil was used especially often in the mid-19th century empirically: in ear and eye practice, as an analgesic—on cotton wool in a tooth cavity, internally in doses of 1–10 drops for stomach spasms, colic, asthma, and paralysis of the pharynx and bladder. At the present time, cajuput oil is used internally in doses of 1–3 drops on sugar, in an alcoholic solution, in pills, and in powders with sugar for dyspepsia, cardialgia, colic, and as an anthelmintic. Externally, it is used in tooth drops, in ointments, or with fats for rubbing in cases of rheumatism and neuralgic pains. Cajuput oil stimulates the respiratory and vasomotor centers, due to which respiration is strengthened, blood pressure rises, and reflex excitability increases. In large doses, it first excites and then causes narcosis and paralysis of the nervous system. The most severe symptoms of poisoning with cajuput oil include fatty degeneration of organs, especially the liver. Cajuput oil can penetrate the body through the skin and lungs, causing even acute poisoning.