MALVACEZ. 295 
Vernacular.—Kapas (Hind., Mar.), Vona (Guz.), Paruthi- 
(Tum.), Hatti-gida (Can.), Karpés (Beng.), Patti-chettu, 
Karp4samu (Tel.), 
History, Uses, &c.—Cotton, the Karpdsi of Sanskrit 
writers, was doubtless first. known and made use of by the 
Hindus ; it is the Svooos of the later Greek writers, such as 
Philostratus* and Pausanias,t but not of the earlier Greeks, 
who applied this term to a fine kind of flax used for making 
mummy cloths. Theophrastust calls it Hriophora, Pliny 
Gossympinus, Gossypion, and Xylinum.§ In Arabic cotton is 
called |45 and .»%,3 (Kuttun and Kurfus), the latter term 
being evidently derived from the Sanskrit. astern physicians 
consider all parts of the cotton plant to be 
_ Moist ; a syrup of the flowers is prescribed in hypochondriasis — 
On account of its stimulating and exhilarant effect ; a poultice 
; of them is applied to burns and scalds. Cotton cloth or mixed — 
fabrics of cotton with wool or silk are recommended as the 
. most healthy for wear. Burnt cotton is applied to sores and 
wounds to promote healthy granulation ; dropsical or paralysed 
_ limbs are wrapped in cotton after the application of a ginger or 
zedoary lép (plaster) ; pounded cotton seed, mixed with ginger 
and water, is applied in orchitis. Cotton is also used as a 
moxa, and the seeds as a laxative, expectorant, and aphrodisiac. 
The juice of the leaves is considered a good remedy in 
dysentery, and the leaves with oil are applied as a plaster to. 
Souty joints ; a hip bath of the young leaves and roots is recom- — 
mended in uterine colic. In the Concan the root of the 
Deokapés (fairy or Sacred cotton bush) rubbed to a paste with — 
the juice of patchouli leaves, has a reputation as a promoter of __ 
8ranulation in wounds, and the juice of the leaves made into a 
_ Paste with the seeds of Vernonia anthelmintica is applied to p 
_ €ruptions of the skin following fever. In Pudukota the leaves 
Sround and mixed with milk are given for strangury. 
Cotton root bark is official in the United States Pharma 
: alsoa fluid extract of the bark ; it appears to have first 
* 7. t VL, 26° 9 BPA Oe 
29 : ee ae 
Bey. 
