Sandalwood
Red and white saunders
- Known today as
- The heartwood of Santalum album; red saunders is Pterocarpus santalinus.
- Kind
- Resin & Wood, in 2 older authorities
- Constituents
- alpha-santalol, beta-santalol, santalenes
- Earliest authority here
- The Sanskrit chandana
- Qualities
- Cold and dry (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. Version 1, first published September 25, 2026.
Sandalwood: what was it used for?
Cooling and cordial, for hot fevers and the heart, in the cordial powders.
Sandalwood: what does modern science say?
A perfume; no established medicinal effect. Its scent is from santalol, which has a mild sedative effect when inhaled in laboratory studies; there is no evidence for its old medical uses. Indian sandalwood is now listed as vulnerable, the heartwood takes decades to form, and most of the world’s supply comes from plantations in Western Australia.
Pharmacognosy & Toxicology
- Constituents
- alpha-santalol ChEMBL45–55 per cent of the oil
- beta-santalol ChEMBL20 per cent
- santalenes
- Mechanism
- The santalols are sedative in mice on inhalation and antimicrobial; the oil was given for gonorrhoea into the twentieth century because it is excreted in the urine, and is now in trials as a cream for eczema and warts; the “cooling” of the Galenists and of Ayurveda is the scent and a mild skin anaesthesia. Alpha-santalol activates an olfactory receptor in skin cells that speeds wound healing in culture (Busse, 2014).
- Toxic dose
- Safe externally; the oil swallowed irritates the kidney.
- Standing
- Santalum album is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN and its export is controlled by India; the oil is a perfumery staple.
- Busse, D., et al. (2014). “A synthetic sandalwood odorant induces wound-healing processes in human keratinocytes via the olfactory receptor OR2AT4.” Journal of Investigative Dermatology 134. Verified against its record · doi:10.1038/jid.2014.273
- Moy, R. L., and Levenson, C. (2017). “Sandalwood album oil as a botanical therapeutic in dermatology.” Journal of Clinical and Aesthetic Dermatology 10. Verified against its record · PMID 29344319
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.
Sandalwood: what lore surrounds it?
The trees of Mysore were a royal monopoly from 1792, every one the property of the sultan and then of the maharaja, and the sandalwood of Hawaii was cut to nothing between 1790 and 1825 to pay for the chiefs’ purchases from American traders.
Sandalwood: what did the older authorities say?
- The Sanskrit chandana
- Sandalwood is the oldest of the Indian incense woods, pressed into a paste for the forehead marks of worship and the anointing of images, and burned on the pyre; Buddhism carried it east to China and Japan as the chief wood of the temple censer.
- The Arab and Persian physicians
- Brought it into the cooling cordials of Galenic medicine, red saunders for the blood and white for the heart and the fevers, from which it passed to the Latin West.
Sources
- Culpeper, N. (1653). Pharmacopœia Londinensis. Read in full · the text read
- Burdock, G. A., and Carabin, I. G. (2008). “Safety assessment of sandalwood oil.” Food and Chemical Toxicology 46. Verified against its record · doi:10.1016/j.fct.2007.09.092
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
- Sources
- 4 cited: 1 read in full, 3 verified against its record. 1 with the abstract on file.
- Corrections
- None were needed.
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
“Sandalwood.” 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/sandalwood.
- MLA
“Sandalwood.” Materia Medica, edited by B. C. P. Statema, version 1, The Thinking Press, 1 Oct. 2026, thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/sandalwood. Accessed 8 Oct. 2026.
- APA
Sandalwood. (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/sandalwood
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See Also
Drawing on the same sources: Culpeper, Burdock
Self-heal · Rosemary rice water · Shepherd’s purse · Castoreum · the bibliography →
Of the same qualities: cold and dry
Vinegar · Rose · White willow · Quince · Camphor · Opium poppy · what the degrees mean →
Nearby in the alphabet
Sarsaparilla (thorny climbers of Central and South America) · Saltpetre (scraped as a white bloom from cellar walls, stables, and dung heaps) · Sassafras (The root bark of Sassafras albidum) · Salt · The SATOR square (A five-line Latin word square that can be read in four directions) · Sal ammoniac (from volcanic vents and later made from soot and urine) · Savin (a low juniper) · Sage (Salvia officinalis)
Historical description, not medical advice.