425. Gutta-percha, N.F.
425. GUTTA-PERCHA, N.F.—The concrete juice of large trees, Isonandra (or Palaquium oblongifolium), Dichop'sis gut'ta, and other species, growing in the Malay Peninsula and the East Indies. In grayish or yellowish masses, often streaked with red; hard and tenacious at ordinary temperatures, with a somewhat unctuous feeling, but at a higher temperature, or when immersed in hot water, it becomes plastic, retaining, when hard and dry, the form into which it has been molded. Upon this property its uses in the arts chiefly depend. In medicine it is used as a surgical dressing in the formation of splints, supports, etc. A Liquor Guttae Perchae is often applied as a protective, the evaporation of its solvent, carbon disulphide, leaving a thin, flexible coating over the wounded surface.
