The Collaborative International Dictionary
Inulin \In"u*lin\, n. [From NL. Inula Helenium, the elecampane: cf. F. inuline.] (Chem.) A substance of very wide occurrence. It is found dissolved in the sap of the roots and rhizomes of many composite and other plants, as Inula, Helianthus, Campanula, etc., and is extracted by solution as a tasteless, white, semicrystalline substance, resembling starch, with which it is isomeric, having fructose units in place of most of the glucose units. It is intermediate in nature between starch and sugar, and replaces starch as the reserve food in Compositae. Called also dahlin, helenin, alantin, alant starch, etc.
Wiktionary
n. A stearoptene from (taxlink Inula helenium species noshow=1) used as an internal and external antiseptic.
Wikipedia
Helenin is a phytochemical mixture found in many plant species, including the Inula helenium (elecampane) of the Asteraceae family. It is a mixture of two isomeric sesquiterpene lactones, alantolactone and isoalantolactone.
In 1895 a German scientists Julius Bredt and Wilhelm Posh extracted helenin from Inula helenium and determined its physical and chemical properties.
Usage examples of "helenin".
Inulin is allied to starch, and its crystallized camphor is separable into true helenin, and alantin camphor.
Moreover, at the present time, when there is so much talk about the inoculative treatment of pulmonary consumption by the cultivated virus of its special microbe, it is highly interesting to know that the helenin of Elecampane is said to be peculiarly destructive to the bacillus of tubercular disease.
Obiol, in 1886, stated it to be an efficient local remedy in the treatment of diphtheria, the false membrane being painted with a solution of Helenin in Oil of Almond.