VIOLACEA. a 
is recommended are too numerous to be mentioned heré; 
suffice it to say that they are generally those in which a _ 
_ cooling treatment is thought to be indicated by the hakims. 
- The root has been tried by Huropean medical men in India 
as a substitute for Ipecacuanha, but according to the Bengal 
Dispensatory, without satisfactory results. Native doctors 
_ eonsider the purple-flowered variety to be the best; they use 
_ the flowers separately, and also the entire plant. 
_ _Description.—The root is as thick as a crow quill, very — 
crooked, and furnished with a number of thin radicles ; it has 
a spongy bark, and a hard woody meditullium ; the colour is 
_ pale yellow; odour and taste not peculiar. 
Chemical composition.—The flowers are said to contain, 
_ besides colouring matter, slight traces of a volatile oil, three 
acids, one red and the other colourless, and salicylic acid ; an — 
netic principle called violin, probably identical with emetine ; 
jolaquercitrin in close relation to, but not identical with, 
quercitrin or rutin (Mandelin); and sugar, &c. The colouring 
‘matter of the flowers is easily turned red by acids, and green 
by alkalies, and hence the syrup of violets was formerly used — 
s a reagent. The colourless acid called violenic acid .by 
Peretti, is said to crystallize in silky needles, to be soluble 
in water, alcohol, and ether, and to form yellow salts which - 
‘Stain the skin. According to Boullay, all parts of the plant — 
contain violin. The ash of V. calaminaris (yellow plas 
growing in Rhenish-Prussia in soil in which zinc is re 
_has been found to ‘contain that metal. 
Commerce.—Violet flowers (Gul-i- Baviaelieh) and the site 
Kashmiri Banafshah) are’ the two forms of this drug met 
with in the Indian markets ; the first is generally imported 
rom Persia, and consists of the flowers of the purple viol 
she second comes from Cashmere, and is the whole plant 
ower; if seems to be a white or yellow flowered 
1 Novikete India Viola cinerea, Boiss., V. 
Vall., are used as substitutes for v. odorata, 
Banafsheh, 
