Uses of Sandalwood Oil
The major quantity of the edible sandalwood oil is used for the manufacture of perfumes and cosmetics. Also the sandalwood oil is playing a vital roll for the preparation of medicines.
Sandal oil is a popular remedy in Gonorrhoea, Chronic foetid bronchitis and Cystitis, gleet, urethral haemorrhage. Oil is valuable in bronchial catarrh. A mixture of oil of sandal of cubebs and copaiba is generally recommended for gonorrhoea – Dose seven drops on sugar.
In remittent fevers this oil acts as a diaphoretic. It diminishes the rapidity of heart’s action. Externally, the oil is an excellent application in scabies in every stage and form. Sandal oil mixed with its double the quantity of mustard oil is a good application for pimples on nose.
The chief use of sandalwood oil in medicine is in the symptomatic treatment of disuria. It is given in the sub – acute stages of cystitis and gonorrhoea for its action on the urinary passage during excretion. It is also used in diminishing the frequency of mictorition, which is so marked in the tuber – culosis of the bladder.
Sandal oil is employed as dis–infectants for the urinogential tract and as expectorants in bronchittes.
Specification for sandalwood oil limits as per I S 329 – 1993:
1. Color and appearance
: Nearly colorless to golden yellow,
viscously liquid.
2. Odour
: Pleasant, sweet, woody persistent.
3. Refractive index @ 27 C
:1.500 to 1.507.
4. Optical rotation
: -15 to -20.
5. Relative density @ 27 / 27 C
: 0.9635 – 0.9775
6. Free alcohol as santalol
: 90% minimum
7. Esters as santalylacetate
: 7% maximu essential oils best essential oils