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THE DRUGS OF SIRSl AND KAPPAT HILLS. 



BY 

 L. B. KULKARNI, L. Ag. 



At Sirsi and in the surrounding villages native medicine is practised 

 to a considerable extent. The drugs used are chiefly forest products. 



It is difficult to study the locally-used drugs botanically because they 

 are imported from the forest to the shops, often in the form of chips of 

 wood, twigs, or roots quite unidentifiable ; and though the native name 

 is of much use, yet one can never be quite sure even that that is used 

 correctly by the drug-seller. In the villages, however, one can occa- 

 sionally get hold of a man who really knows the plants which are used. 



There is a tendency at Sirsi for this lore to die out as a European 

 dispensary has been opened. But in surrounding villages distant from 

 Sirsi, the people use only the native drugs. The people are without 

 any knowledge of human physiology and anatomy, and practise 

 medicine only in accord with traditional knowledge. They are 

 thoroughly acquainted with conspicuous and easily determined diseases 

 such as dysentery and small-pox and seem to know something about 

 these ailments ; but obscure diseases such as heart-diseases, hysteria 

 and consumption are always referred to witchcraft or the action of 

 devils and treated as such. 



Some drugs from the Kappat hills are so highly valued that they are 

 collected by people from considerable distances. About some drugs, 

 the people there have such superstitious ideas that they never collect 

 them without worshipping them and that too on a particular day. 



In this short article, the drugs are classified according to their uses 

 in local medicine. They were collected with the local names prevailing 

 there. Some drugs could not be identified in the Herbarium, Agricul- 

 tural College, Poona, as they had neither flowers nor fruits. The rest 

 were identified and compared in the Herbarium by Mr. Paranjpe, 

 Assistant Economic Botanist. 



The drufis that are doubtful in identification are marked with the 

 sign (?), and the drugs that could not be identified botanically have 

 been given only the local names. 



FeJjrifuyes. 



Owing to the cold climate in Sirsi and the surrounding district the people 

 frequently suffer from cold fever f or^which the following drugs are used. 



