What is Ral?

Ral is a hardened resin. It seeps from the cut bark of the sal tree (Latin name Shorea robusta). The sal tree is a large hardwood tree of north and central India.

In the Persian/Unani tradition, Ral counts as a single drug, not a mix. It is also called sal dammar or Indian dammar. Healers have used it mostly on the skin and as an incense.

In old practice, healers put Ral on wounds, boils, cracked skin and piles. It is blended into an ointment, an oil or a plaster. It is also burned, so the smoke fills a room.

Ral has been given by mouth too, in small amounts. This was for loose stools and for discharges.

Here is the honest verdict up front. Ral has a long and real record in Unani, Ayurvedic and Siddha practice. But there is almost no modern testing in people.

Long use tells you that people valued something. It is not proof that it works. That point applies to everything on this page.

How does Ral work?

No one has shown, in people, how Ral works. What follows is the old reasoning plus some lab findings. Neither one settles the question.

Unani texts call Ral cold and dry. They class it as a habis, which means something that dries and binds tissue. That is the classic reason for its use on weeping wounds, loose stools and discharges.

In modern terms, the resin is sticky and it repels water. So a layer of it forms a physical seal over broken skin.

Lab work on sal resin and its extracts reports some action against bacteria. It also reports some anti-inflammatory (swelling-reducing) effects in cells and animals.

Test-tube results often fail to repeat in people. So treat this as a possible reason and nothing more.

What forms does Ral come in?

Ral reaches users in a handful of forms:

Raw lumps or tears of resin, pale yellow to brown, sold by weight.

Powdered resin, used in wound powders and in made-up Unani preparations.

Ointments, plasters and medicated oils, in which the resin has been melted into a fat or oil base.

Incense cones, sticks and loose resin for burning.

There is no standard dose or strength. So the amount of real resin in a shop-bought ointment or incense stick can vary a lot. It is often not stated on the label.

Where it comes from:

Sal resin has been gathered in India for well over two thousand years. It appears in Ayurvedic texts as sarjarasa.

It later entered Unani practice under the name Ral. Unani is the Persian-Greek medical tradition. It took root in India from about the twelfth century onward.

Unani doctors listed it among the drying, binding drugs. They built it into wound salves and plasters.

Siddha healers of south India used it in much the same way. It also has a second life as a temple and household incense.

So the traditional standing is strong, and it spans more than one system. The modern research record is thin. The two are measured on different scales.

What does Ral help with?

• Minor wounds, cuts and grazes: This is the best-known traditional use of Ral, and it has no human trial behind it. Unani and Ayurvedic wound salves fold the resin into oil or ghee and spread it over the broken skin, where it forms a sticky protective film. Laboratory tests have found some antibacterial activity in sal resin extracts, but that has never been tested on wounds in people. Use ordinary wound care first, and see a doctor for any wound that is deep, dirty, or not closing.
• Boils and skin eruptions: Traditional use only. Ral is worked into plasters and laid over boils to draw and settle them. There are no published human trials on this. A boil that is enlarging, very painful, or comes with fever needs medical care, not a plaster.
• Cracked skin and chapped heels: Traditional use only, and the most plausible of the lot. A resin-and-oil ointment is greasy and water-repellent, so it seals cracked skin much as any thick barrier cream would. The benefit may come from the oil base rather than the resin, and no study has separated the two.
• Piles (haemorrhoids, swollen veins around the back passage): Traditional use only. Unani formulations combine Ral with other binding drugs in ointments and suppositories for bleeding piles. No human trial tests Ral on its own for this. Bleeding from the back passage always needs a doctor's opinion first, because other causes must be ruled out.
• Diarrhoea (loose watery stools): Traditional internal use, and the one to be most careful with. Classical texts give small amounts of the powdered resin as a binding drug for chronic loose stools and discharges. There are no human trials, no established safe dose, and no modern safety data for swallowing the resin. Rehydration and medical review matter far more, especially for a child or an older adult.
• Room fumigation: A household and ritual use rather than a medical one. Burning Ral was believed to purify a sickroom's air. Burning any resin produces smoke and fine particles that irritate the lungs, so this is not something to do around asthma or any long-term lung condition.

Which foods are rich in Ral?

Ral is a tree resin, not a food, and it is not present in any food.

What are the side effects of Ral?

• Skin redness, itching or rash where the ointment was applied
• Allergic contact dermatitis (an itchy allergic skin reaction), which resins can trigger in some people
• Blocked or clogged pores under a thick greasy layer
• Stomach upset, nausea or constipation if the resin is swallowed
• Coughing, wheezing or watery eyes from the smoke when it is burned
• Worsening of asthma symptoms from incense smoke

Good to know:

Reported problems are mostly mild and local, but that partly reflects how little Ral has been studied. No one is collecting safety reports on it, so the absence of bad news is weak evidence of safety.

The most likely reaction is a skin one. Try a small patch on your inner forearm first and wait a day before treating a larger area.

Swallowing the resin is the least-studied route and the one we would avoid. Smoke from burning any resin irritates airways, so keep the room ventilated or skip it.

How much Ral should you take?

• Recommended daily: No safe or effective dose has been established for Ral in modern terms. Nothing here is a recommendation. For reference only, traditional Unani texts describe small amounts of the powdered resin taken by mouth, roughly 1 to 3 grams a day, usually divided and usually inside a compounded formula rather than alone. Because no modern safety testing supports this, we do not suggest swallowing Ral at all. For skin use, traditional practice is a thin layer of resin-based ointment on the affected patch, once or twice a day. Do not put it into a deep or dirty wound.
• Best time of day: There is no evidence that timing matters. Ointments are usually applied after washing the area, morning and evening. Incense is traditionally burned in the evening.
• With or without food: Skin use makes this irrelevant. Where traditional texts give the resin by mouth it is taken with food or with a drink such as buttermilk to reduce stomach upset.
• Time to effect: Unknown, because it has not been measured in people. A greasy barrier ointment feels soothing on cracked skin within minutes, but that is the base doing the work as much as the resin.
• How long to take it: Short-term only. If you are using a Ral ointment on a skin problem and you see no change in about 7 days, stop and get it looked at. No one has studied what long-term use does, so open-ended daily use is not supportable. Reassess after a week, and sooner if anything worsens.