Camphor
Arabic kāfūr
- Known today as
- The crystalline gum of Cinnamomum camphora.
- Kind
- Resin & Wood, in 3 older authorities
- Constituents
- camphor
- Earliest authority here
- The Qur’an
- Qualities
- Cold and dry (Arabic and Galenic tradition). What the degrees mean
- In other databases
- Plants of the World Online search · GBIF search · Wikidata search
Revised October 1, 2026: Tradition, lore, modern assessment, and sources extended. The mechanism corrected against ChEMBL. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Caution. Poisonous by mouth; seizures in children.
Camphor: what was it used for?
Cooling: against fevers and inflammations, carried against the plague, and held to quench desire.
Camphor: what does modern science say?
A counterirritant in rubs; poisonous by mouth, especially to children. From the 1870s most of the world’s camphor went into celluloid, the first plastic, and Japan and Taiwan held a near-monopoly of the natural product until it was synthesised from turpentine. By the 1930s physicians were injecting it to provoke convulsions in the treatment of schizophrenia, the first of the convulsive therapies, soon replaced by insulin and then by electricity. It survives in chest rubs at low strength; swallowed, as little as a teaspoon of the oil can kill a small child.
Camphor: is it poisonous?
Yes, in some form or dose. Poisonous by mouth; seizures in children. Its poisoning is convulsant terpenes (thujone, pinocamphone, camphor): Minutes to an hour from the oils. Historical description, not medical advice; in a poisoning, call a poison centre.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- Mechanism
- Camphor acts on the temperature-sensing channels of the skin: the assays show it activating TRPV3 and, only at very high concentration, blocking TRPA1. In the brain it is a convulsant.
- Checked against ChEMBL
- camphor: The entry once said “stimulates the cold receptors of the skin”, and was corrected to what ChEMBL holds: Transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily A member 1 (human), IC50 660 µM, CHEMBL1155439; Transient receptor potential cation channel subfamily V member 3 (human), agonist activity at 100 µM, CHEMBL1221170.
- Toxic dose
- About a gram has killed a small child; 50 mg per kilogram in adults.
- Syndrome
- Convulsant terpenes (thujone, pinocamphone, camphor)
- Standing
- Limited to 11 per cent in rubs in the United States; swallowed products withdrawn.
- Love, J. N., et al. (2004). “Camphor exposure.” Journal of Emergency Medicine 27. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/j.jemermed.2004.02.010
The abstract of each source, beneath its citation. For Club members. About the Club or sign in.
Constituent names open the compound’s record at PubChem, and “ChEMBL” beside a name opens its record at ChEMBL, the European Bioinformatics Institute’s database of bioactive molecules. Where a mechanism line was checked against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37, read 1 October 2026), the check is shown with the measured value and its source paper, or says plainly that nothing has been measured. Doses are as the references give them, for description only; this is not medical advice. Each source carries the result of its check against Crossref, PubMed, or the authority’s page: see Verification.
Camphor: what lore surrounds it?
After the Black Death camphor was carried in pomanders and burned in sickrooms as a preventive, and in the cholera years of the nineteenth century François-Vincent Raspail made it the centre of a whole system of household medicine. Camphor bags hung at the neck of schoolchildren against infection within living memory.
Camphor: what did the older authorities say?
- The Qur’an
- Promises the righteous a cup “mixed with camphor” from a spring in Paradise (76:5); in the Islamic world camphor was a scent of the blessed and of the washed dead.
- The camphor of Barus
- The earliest and dearest camphor was not from the camphor laurel at all but from Dryobalanops trees of Sumatra and Borneo, shipped through the port of Barus, whence the Malay kapur barus; Arab merchants carried it west, and Marco Polo reported its price in gold.
- Avicenna
- Counts it among the cold medicines, to be given against hot fevers and to quiet the heat of desire, which is why monks and physicians alike prescribed it as an anaphrodisiac.
Sources
- Avicenna, Canon of Medicine II. Verified against its record · doi:10.24157/arc_11745
- Qur’an 76:5. Primary text
- Donkin, R. A. (1999). Dragon’s Brain Perfume: An Historical Geography of Camphor. Leiden: Brill. Verified against its record · doi:10.1163/9789004644786_007
Verification
- Checked
- October 1, 2026
- Passes
- Every sentence read against its sources, in the pass over the remaining 343 entries
- The Standing line checked against the authority it names (EMA, WHO, FDA, CITES, Commission E)
- Every dated or regulatory claim checked by category across the database
- The mechanism read against ChEMBL (ChEMBL 37): curated mechanisms and measured activity
- Sources
- 4 cited: 3 verified against its record, 1 primary text. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- said camphor stimulates the cold receptors of the skin. ChEMBL records it as a TRPV3 agonist and, only at 400 to 660 µM, a TRPA1 blocker, with no cold-receptor record; reworded.
What was checked, how, and what was found is set out on the Verification page. A checked source is one whose record was found; it does not make the entry medical advice.
Cite This Entry
Version 1 · first published September 25, 2026 · last revised October 1, 2026
- Chicago
“Camphor.” In Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1. The Thinking Press, 2026–. Last modified October 1, 2026. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/camphor.
- MLA
“Camphor.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/camphor. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Camphor. (2026, October 1). In B. C. P. Statema (Ed.), Materia medica (Version 1). The Thinking Press. Retrieved October 8, 2026, from https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/camphor
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See Also
Poisoned alike: convulsant terpenes (thujone, pinocamphone, camphor)
Hungary water · Wormwood, oil of · Hyssop · Tansy · Mint, oil of · Sage · Mugwort · Rosemary · the syndrome, with all of them →
Sharing camphor
Also in Avicenna
Of the same qualities: cold and dry
Chicory · White willow · Coral, red · Vinegar · Endive · Sandalwood · what the degrees mean →
Nearby in the alphabet
Cantharides (The dried blister beetle Lytta vesicatoria) · Calamine (Zinc carbonate and zinc oxide) · Caper spurge (Euphorbia lathyris) · Caesar’s mushroom (egg-like when young and seated in a white cup) · The Caravaca cross · Butterbur (of the daisy family, with huge rhubarb-like leaves in damp places) · Caraway broth (Carum carvi) · Burdock
Historical description, not medical advice.