140 Brigade-Surgeon J. E. T. Aitchison's Notes on Products 



Nicotiana Tabacum, Linn. SoLANACEiK, and 

 Nicotiana rustica, Linn. SoLANACBiE. 



Tobacco, tanibdha, turndku, tamdku; and N. rustica is especi- 

 ally identified as tui^komdni. The tobacco plant is largely 

 cultivated for local consumption, as well as to be employed 

 in local trade. It is an expensive crop to raise, as the fields 

 are very heavily manured, and they require a great deal of 

 irrigation to give anything of a fair crop ; these fields of 

 tobacco are terribly infested by the parasite Orobanche 

 Egyptiaca, so much so that on its being in flower the 

 blossoms give the land a general blue hue. In addition to the 

 leaf being smoked it is much used either as an errhine as 

 snuff, or is applied to the gum under the upper lip, above 

 the incisor teeth, where the morsel lies like a plug of 

 tobacco, and I suppose acts much in the same way on the con- 

 stitution as chewing. A somewhat similar habit of applying 

 snuff' to the gums was called in the southern states of 

 America " snuff-dipping" (Webster's Dictionary, 1880.) The 

 ordinary term for snuff is nashwdr ; now it is curious that 

 this should be the term applied by the Arabs for the cud 

 that is kept in the mouth and chewed by ruminants, which 

 would exactly apply to the use of the word in either chewing 

 tobacco or placing it between the lip and gum, allowing it to 

 lie in the mouth. Snuff' is mixed with the powdered stems 

 or ashes of Ephedra pachyclada ; this is said to improve its 

 errhine action, making it more pungent. 



Nigella, species. Ranunculace^. 



The seeds of a species of Nigella are imported from 

 Afghanistan into India as a drug, under the names shaoddru, 

 shavaddru, shaomz. 



N'd—^^^) — nila — aXjJ — Indigo, the dye-stuff obtained 



from Indigofera tinctorum. Blue colour. 

 Nill — ^Xj.3 — belonging to the Nile ; blue, livid. 

 Nll-a -fa ) ', nllfar — ^iXj.j — nilpar — -j-x^xj — 



A water lily ; liere the name of a species of Ipomcea, the 

 flowers of which are of a lovely blue colour; this is cultivated 

 for the beauty of its flowers, as well as for its seed, to be 

 employed in medicine. 



