Through its 600 year history, Friar’s Balsam has been known by such names as Balsamum Traumaticum, Balsamic Tincture, Jesuits’ Drops and Jerusalem Drops.
Friar’s Balsam is an antiseptic and stimulating expectorant.
Action & Uses: Can be used as an antiseptic and protectant to minor cuts and abrasions, chapped skin and lips, cracked nipples, small fissures of skin and anus, bedsores, indolent ulcers, herpes simplex, and gingivitis. Can relieve itching of chilblains, eczema, and urticaria. Can be taken internally and/or inhaled with steam vapor as a stimulating expectorant in old coughs and catarrhs, laryngitis, acute and chronic bronchitis, and asthma.
Dose: Topical: Lesion should be cleaned and dried, and then covered with the balsam, over which should be laid fresh cotton gauze, extending well beyond the lesion. This application may be painful at first, and should be changed daily, taking care to remove any dead tissue that is loose.
Internal: Two to four times per day, take 25 to 35 drops in water. To make a soothing syrup for throat or bronchial affections, mix drops in a spoonful of honey, maple syrup or malt syrup.
Inhalant: Mix one or two droppersful of the balsam into a pint of hot, steaming (not boiling) water and then breathe the vapors in deeply.
Active Ingredients: Benzoin 10 g, Aloe 2g, Storax 8g, Balsam 4g in each 100 mL. Inactive Ingredient: Ethyl Alcohol.