Quince) Cirifole 



130 AURANTIACE^E. 



some of which as the Yajar Veda are supposed to have been WTitten 

 not later than 1 000 B.C. — Constantinus Af ricanus was acquainted with 



the fruit under notice. 



Garcia de Orta, who resided in India as physician to the Portuguese 

 viceroy at Goa in the 1 6th century, wrote an account of the fruit under 

 the name of Marmelos de Benguala (Bengal ^ ' 



describing its use in dysentery. 



In the following century it was noticed by Bontius, in whose 

 writings edited by Piso ^ there is a bad figure of the tree as 3Ialim 

 Cydoniwm. It was also figured by Rheede,^ and subsequently under 

 the designation of Bilack or Bilach tellor by Rumphius.^ The latter 

 states that it is indigenous to Gujarat, the eastern parts of Java, Sum- 

 bawa and Celebes, and that it has been introduced into Amboina. 



But although jEgle Mannelos has thus been long known and 

 appreciated in India, the use of its fruit as a medicine attracted no 

 attention in Europe till about the year 1850. The dried fruit which lias 

 a place in the British Phamiacopmia is now not unfrequently imported. 



Description— We have already described the form and structure of 

 the fruit, which for medicinal use should be dried w^ben in a half ripe 

 state. It is found in commerce in dried slices having on the outer side 

 a smooth greyish shell enclosing a hard, orange or red, gummy pulp in 

 which are some of ih^ 10 to 15 cells existing in the entire fruit, i^acn 

 cell includes G to 10 compressed oblong seeds nearly 3 lines in lengtji, 

 covered with whitish woolly hairs. When broken the pulp is seen to 

 be nearly colourless internally, the outside alone having assumed an 

 orange tint. The dried pulp has a mucilaginous, slightly acid ta.ste, 



hen 



without aroma, astringency, or sweetness. i 



_ There is also imported Bael fruit which has been collected wn 

 ripe, as shown by the well-formed seeds. Such fruits arrive broKc 

 irregularly and dried, or sawn into transverse slices and then dried, " 

 lastly entire, in which case they retain some of their original fragraiK 

 resembling that of elemi. 



Microscopic Structure— The rind of the fruit is covered wi^^^ 

 strong cuticle, and further shows two layers, the one exhibiting noU er 

 numerous oil-cells, and the other an inner made up of sclercnchyu^^ 

 i he tissue of the pulp, which, treated with water, swells into an eias 

 mass, consists of large cells with considerable cavities between tn , 

 llie seeds when moistened yield an abundance of mucilage nearly m 

 same way as White Mustard or Linseed. 'In the epidermis of the e «. 

 certain groups of cells are excessively lengthened, and thus cons ^. 

 the curious woolly hairs already noticed. They likewise afford in"^ 

 lage m the same way as the seed itself. ^^1, 



nr..P^"'ip^^ Composition-We are unable to confirm the remarka^^^; 



the drug alluded to in the Pharmacoj^ia of ^^.f;; . the 

 am by any chemical examination upon what coastituci 

 ™.^... .u^uicinal efficacy of bael depends. . , .^inini? 



^ he pulp moistened with cold /ater yields a red Uqnid contain .^ 



imlm re naf. et med. 1658, lib. vi. * //.^j.' Amb. i. tab. 81. 



Edition 1868, pp. 46 aTi<l 441. 



