The use of camphor -

Often we read of foods laced with camphor (karpUra), as for example in today's description of the rice served at the Panihati-festival.

However, reading about camphor in Wikipedia, I find the following:

QUOTE

Camphor is readily absorbed through the skin and produces a feeling of cooling similar to that of menthol and acts as slight local anesthetic; however, it is poisonous when ingested and can cause seizures, mental confusion, irritability, and neuromuscular hyperactivity.

Do you have any information on what the camphor might have been that was added to the foods back in the days of yore?

QUOTE(Madhava @ Jun 20 2005, 12:02 PM)

Often we read of foods laced with camphor (karpUra), as for example in today's description of the rice served at the Panihati-festival.

However, reading about camphor in Wikipedia, I find the following:

QUOTE

Camphor is readily absorbed through the skin and produces a feeling of cooling similar to that of menthol and acts as slight local anesthetic; however, it is poisonous when ingested and can cause seizures, mental confusion, irritability, and neuromuscular hyperactivity.

Do you have any information on what the camphor might have been that was added to the foods back in the days of yore?

It was camphor. I have a jar in my cupboard that I occasionally add to sweets when I'm feeling extravagant.

There are two issues here, however:
1. Camphor in large quantities is poisonous, so follow the recipe when it says "the amount that would fit on the head of a pin".
2. There is an artificial camphor made by a chemical process that should never be used in cooking. Make sure the camphor you buy is "edible camphor", usually available in Indian stores.
3. Camphor is (or was, at least) used medicinally, and to some people smells too much like liniment or mothballs, so don't bother adding it to a recipe if you're feeding Westerners Indian food for the first time.

Dandavats,
Lancer

Hehe... After taking a good big cupful of flat rice with thick milk and camphor, I sat down to read, "Now, what's this camphor all about?" And came across what I cited above. Cough-cough - "Malati, just how much camphor did you put into that rice?" That was camphor brought from India, though - I hope it was of the edible kind!

QUOTE(Madhava @ Jun 20 2005, 08:02 PM)

Do you have any information on what the camphor might have been that was added to the foods back in the days of yore?

If ISKCON London around 1978 is not too recent to be considered "days of yore"

I can assure you that no sweetrice recipe was considered offerable, by those who were leading the cooking seva at that time, without a little black pepper and edible camphor, as sold in Indian food stores!

Though I understand the amount used was carefully controlled!

http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navc...mphor+poisoning

Oddly enough, it came up in discussion today at GR. I had recently read about it's toxic nature.

Here is a reference: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/c0594.htm

The more I read, the more determined I am not to ingest or inhale it ever again.

QUOTE(Tapati @ Jun 21 2005, 07:52 PM)

Oddly enough, it came up in discussion today at GR. I had recently read about it's toxic nature.

Here is a reference: http://www.jtbaker.com/msds/englishhtml/c0594.htm

The more I read, the more determined I am not to ingest or inhale it ever again.

In india we generally purify water by mixing with camphor. It is said to purify water , though I do not know if this is true scientifically or not. But this is widely used in India.

As Paracelsus said, poison or medicine depends upon the dosage. That is especially true with a substance like camphor.

Here is a differentiating source to this point, King's American Dispensatory. It was written in 1898. So you may think what you like since that's over a century old. However the positive of it all is that at that time medicine was experience-based, observation-oriented, patient-centred as it should be. The result is a more balanced, revealing kind of information.

QUOTE

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—In large doses camphor is a narcotic and irritant; in small ones, sedative, anodyne, antispasmodic, diaphoretic, and anthelmintic. Very small doses stimulate and large doses depress. Large doses cause oesophageal and gastric pain, vomiting, slow and enfeebled and subsequently intermittent pulse, dizziness, drowsiness, dimness of sight, pallid, cold skin, muscular weakness, cyanosis, spasms, muscular rigidity, and convulsions. Several deaths have resulted from its use, other circumstances contributing somewhat to the fatal issue, but cases of death in a healthy individual have been reported. Mental confusion may follow its excessive use. Its effects in small doses are transient, but are not followed by depression or exhaustion. It exerts an influence on the brain and nervous system, exhilarating and relieving pain, is an excitant to the vascular system, and irritates mucous tissues which are in proximity with it. When given in the solid form, it is capable of producing ulceration of the gastric mucous membrane. It is used to allay nervous excitement, subdue pain, arrest spasm, and sometimes to induce sleep. In the delirium, watchfulness, tremors, and starting of the tendons in typhoid conditions, it is of much utility as a nervo-stimulant. Occipital headache, from mental overwork, is relieved by small doses, and the external application of camphor. Large doses (grs. xx) are required in maniacal excitement. In inflammatory affections, as remittent and intermittent fevers, acute rheumatism, etc., it acts beneficially as a diaphoretic and sedative; and is also valuable in gout, neuralgia, dysmenorrhoea, after-pains, puerperal convulsions, and painful diseases of the urinary organs, acting as a sedative, anodyne, and antispasmodic. ....Etchttp://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed/eclectic/ki...momum-camp.html

A lot of the camphor that you buy in India is artificially made. I think the stuff used in temples is generally artificial; it's a kind of turpentine which is molecularly related to natural camphor. Years ago when I cooperated with a specialist to manufacture certain medicines in India, we were searching for a natural camphor supply, and could not find any. Of course, the problem is that the process of making natural camphor is technically complex also. So it is hard to know what to believe when you have a product in hand, as with every thing made in India.

You'll need more information than an MSDS can provide you in order to decide if a chemical is truly hazardous to your health. Take a look at this one for sodium chloride (table salt) and see if you also want to stop using salt based on the information.

http://msds.ehs.cornell.edu/msds/siri/files/cgk/cgkvh.html

Anything, in large enough doses can be deemed to be toxic. As noted above by Navadwipa - camphor has been in use for quite a long time - if there were serious health risks associated with such use it would have been known long before anyone thought about needing an MSDS for chemicals.