GALBANUM, a gum-resin, the product of Ferula galbaniflua, indigenous to Persia. It occurs usually in irregular, more or less translucent and shining lumps, or occasionally in separate tears, of a light-brown, yellowish or greenish-yellow colour, and has a bitter taste, a musky odour, and a specific gravity of 1.212. It contains about 8% of terpene, 65% of a resin which contains sulphur, 20% of gum; and a very small quantity of the colour less crystalline substance umbelliferone, Galbanum is one of the oldest of drugs. In Exodus xxx. 34 it is mentioned as a sweet spice. Hippocrates employed it in medicine, and Pliny (Nat. Hist., xxiv. 13) ascribes to it extraordinary curative powers. Its use in medicine is obsolescent.