# Cassia wood (Cinnamomum aromaticum)

**Cassia lignea**

**Known today as.** The bark of Chinese cassia, *Cinnamomum aromaticum* (long known as *Cinnamomum cassia*); distinct from flower of cassia.

Kind: Resin & Wood  
Poisoning: Coumarin and the liver (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/coumarin)

## What did Canale use it for?

In the oil for the bewitched; in Scripture’s anointing oil (ch. 9; Treatise Two; Exodus 30:24).

## What does modern science say?

Aromatic. Cassia contains more coumarin than true cinnamon, which is harmful to the liver in quantity.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **cinnamaldehyde**: 70–90 per cent of the oil
- **coumarin**: up to 1 per cent in cassia, a hundredfold more than in Ceylon cinnamon
- **cinnamyl acetate**: 

**Mechanism.** Cinnamaldehyde activates the TRPA1 receptor, the warmth and the sting, and is antimicrobial; cassia’s coumarin, at the levels in heavy daily use, is hepatotoxic in sensitive people, which is why the German authorities warn about cinnamon rolls. Small trials of cassia for blood sugar in diabetes have been inconsistent.

**Dose.** The tolerable daily intake of coumarin is 0.1 mg per kilogram; a teaspoon of cassia a day can exceed it in a child.

**Standing.** A spice; the EMA monograph (2011) is for Ceylon cinnamon bark; the Cochrane review (2012) found no benefit of cinnamon in diabetes.

## What lore surrounds it?

Folkard takes the cassia of Exodus, “called in Hebrew Kidda, the bark,” to be “a sweet spice commanded to be used in the composition of the holy oil employed in the consecration of the sacred vessels of the Tabernacle,” and supposes it the bark of the tree the ancients knew as Costus, “preparations of the bark and root of which were sometimes burnt on the pagan altars.”

## What did the older authorities say?

**Pliny.** “Arabia produces neither cinnamon nor cassia; and this is the country styled Happy Arabia!” Cassia, he says, is a shrub growing in the mountains near the cinnamon plains, with thicker branches and a thin skin rather than a bark, most valued when the bark crumbles; the choice kind “may be said to burn the tongue,” is purple, and is called lada by the barbarians; the bitter balsamodes serves medicine and the black kind the unguents; and “there is no substance known that is subject to greater variations in price,” fifty denarii the pound for the best and five for the rest. He repeats Herodotus’s tale that cassia and cinnamon are taken from the nests of the phoenix.

## Sources

- Pliny the Elder, *Natural History* 12.41–43, trans. J. Bostock & H. T. Riley (1855), Perseus Digital Library.
- Folkard, R. (1884). *Plant Lore, Legends, and Lyrics*, “Cassia.” Project Gutenberg #44638.
- Abraham, K., et al. (2010). “Toxicology and risk assessment of coumarin: focus on human data.” *Molecular Nutrition and Food Research* 54.
- Leach, M. J., and Kumar, S. (2012). “Cinnamon for diabetes mellitus.” *Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews* 9.

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*Cassia wood.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/cassia-wood

Historical description, not medical advice.