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Botanical Name: Haematoxylon Campeachianum (LINN.)
Family: N.O. Leguminosae

Synonyms: Haematoxylon Lignum. Lignum Campechianum. Lignum Coeruleum. Peachwood. Bois de Campechey de Sang or d’Inde. Bloodwood.
Part Used: The heart-wood, or duramen, unfermented.
Habitat: Indigenous to Central America, but naturalised in the West Indian Islands. Tropical America, especially the shores of the Gulf of Campeachy. Naturalized in West Indies and elsewhere.

Description:Haematoxylon campechianum is a tree of middle size, usually not more than twenty-four feet high, though, under favorable circumstances, it sometimes rises forty or fifty feet. The trunk is often very crooked, and is covered with a dark rough bark. The branches are beset with sharp spines. The sap-wood is yellowish, but the interior layers are of a deep-red color.  Its leaves are heart shaped and fine, alternate, abruptly pinnate, and composed of three or four pairs of sessile, nearly obcordate, obliquely nerved leaflets.Its flowers are yellow and sweet. The flowers, which are in axillary spikes or racemes near the ends of the branches, have a brownish-purple calyx and lemon-yellow petals. They exhale an agreeable odor, said to resemble that of the jonquil.
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The name of the genus comes from the Greek and refers to the blood-red colour of the heart-wood. Haematoxylon Campeachianum is a crookedly-branched, small tree, the branches spiny and the bark rough and dark. The leaves have four pairs of small, smooth leaflets, each in the shape of a heart with the points towards the short stem. The flowers, small and yellow, with five petals, grow in axillary racemes. The tree was introduced into Jamaica and other countries in 1715 and has been grown in England since 1730.

The average yearly import of logwood into the United Kingdom is about 50,000 tons, the four kinds recognized in the market, in order of value, being Campeachy, Honduras, St. Domingo and Jamaica. The trees are felled in their eleventh year, the red heartwood, in 3-foot logs, being exported.

The principal value of logwood is in dyeing violet, blue, grey and black. For dyeing, the wood is chipped and fermented, thus rendering it unsuitable for medicinal use.

The many disputes and difficulties that arose over the rights of growing and cutting logwood are a matter of history. It is used also as a microscopical stain. The odour is faint and pleasant, the taste astringent and sweetish. It gives a reddish-violet tinge to water made alkaline with a solution of sodium hydroxide.

The wood is exported in logs from which both the bark and sap wood have been removed. The logs are usually cut into chips, which are often moistened and exposed in large heaps, in which fermentation is allowed to take place. For medicinal use, however, the unfermented chips should be used. The wood is hard, compact, and heavy, externally of a dull orange to purplish-red colour, internally reddish-brown. The chips or coarse particles have a slight, agreeable odour, and a sweet astringent taste, and colour dilute caustic alkalies pink. Fermented logwood chips are distinguished by their darker colour and the green lustre on portions of the surface.

Constituents:
A volatile oil, an oily or resinous matter, two brown substances, quercitin, tannin, a nitrogenous substance, free acetic acid, salts, and the colouring principle Haematoxylin or Haematin (not the haematin of the blood). The crystals are colourless, requiring oxygen from the air and an alkaline base to produce red, blue, and purple.

Haematein, produced by extraction of two equivalents of hydrogen, is found in dark violet crystalline scales, showing the rich, green colour often to be seen outside chips of logwood for dyeing purposes.

Uses.—Logwood is a mild astringent, devoid of irritating properties, and well adapted to the treatment of that relaxed condition of bowels which is apt to succeed cholera infantum. It is also occasionally used with advantage in ordinary chronic diarrhea and chronic dysentery. Hematoxylin was found by Combemale (B. M. N., xxxiii, 1894) to be very feebly antiseptic, but capable in large doses of producing fatal gastro-enteritis in the lower animals. It is used not only as a dye-stuff but also as a microscopical stain.

Medicinal Action and Uses: A mild astringent, especially useful in the weakness ofthe bowels following cholera infantum. It may be used in chronic diarrhoea and dysentery, in haemorrhages from uterus, lungs, or bowels, is agreeable to take, and suitable whether or not there is fever. It imparts a blood-red colour to urine and stools. It is incompatible with chalk or limewater. The patient should be warned of these two characteristics.

In large doses haematoxylin can produce fatal gastro-enteritis in lower animals.

The infusion, internally, combined with a spray or lotion, is said to have cured obstinate cases of foetid polypus in the nose.

Preparations and Dosages: Decoction, 2 to 4 fluid ounces. Decoction, B.P. 1895, 1/2 to 2 OZ. Solid extract, B.P. 1885, 10 to 30 grains. Solid extract, U.S.P., 2 to 5 grains.

Decoctum Haematoxyli, B.P.—DECOCTION OF LOGWOOD.
Logwood, in chips, 5; cinnamon bark, bruised, 0.8; distilled water, sufficient to produce 100. Add the logwood to 120 of the water in a glass flask or earthen-ware vessel, boil for ten minutes, and add the cinnamon when the decoction is nearly ready; strain, and make up the required volume, if necessary, by passing distilled water through the strainer. Decoction of logwood is used in diarrhoea and for other purposes when a mild astringent is desirable. Dose.—15 to 60 mils (1/2 to 2 fluid ounces).

Extractum Haematoxyli, B.P., 1885.—EXTRACT OF LOGWOOD, B.P., 1885.
Logwood, in fine chips, 100; distilled water, boiling, 1000. Add the logwood to the water and infuse for twenty-four hours; then evaporate to one-half by boiling; strain, and evaporate to dryness on a water-bath, stirring with a wooden spatula. Iron vessels should not be employed in the preparation of the extract. Extract of logwood is sometimes prescribed in pills for its astringency. A little inert vegetable powder should be added to the extract, and the pills massed with syrup of glucose. They should not be made too hard or they will resist intestinal solution. Dose.—1/2 to 2 grammes (10 to 30 grains).

Disclaimer:The information presented herein is intended for educational purposes only. Individual results may vary, and before using any supplements, it is always advisable to consult with your own health care provider

Other Species:
‘BASTARD LOGWOOD’ from Acacia Berteriana and other species, contains no haematoxylin. It does not form a violet colour with alkalies, but yields a pure, yellowish-grey dye. BRAZIL WOOD, a product of Caesalpinia, is distinguished by forming a red colour with alkalis. It is now used only as a dye. WEST INDIAN LOGWOOD is Ceanothus Chloroxylon.

Resources:

http://www.botanical.com/botanical/mgmh/l/logwoo39.html

http://www.henriettesherbal.com/eclectic/bpc1911/haematoxylon.html

http://www.mamadoc.org/pics/dr-logwood-tree-big.html

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