THE COMMERCIAL PRODUCTS 

 OF INDIA 



ABROM A AUGUSTA, Linn. ; Roxb., Trans. Soc. Arts, 1804, D.E.P., 

 xxii., 382 ; 1806, xxiv., 151 ; Fl. Br. Ind., i., 375 ; Gamble, i , 1 

 Man. Ind. Timbs., 1902, 104 ; STERCULIACE^E. Perennial Indian Hemp Perennial 

 or Devil's Cotton, ulatkambal, kumal, olak-tambol, sanu-kapashi, etc. Hemp. 

 A large open bush, widely distributed throughout the hot moist tracts 

 of India and readily propagated by cuttings. 



The bark affords a strong white bast FIBRE, first discovered by Roxburgh Fibre. 

 in 1801 (Substitutes for Hemp and Flax) : it is easily separated by retting in 

 water or by decortication. It may be made to yield annually two or three 

 crops of shoots, from 4 to 8 feet long, but according to Gamble requires rich 

 land and plenty of moisture. The root-bark is held in high esteem by Native 

 practitioners as a MEDICINE for dysmenorrhoea. [Cf. Cross, Chem. Exam, in Imp. Medicine. 

 Inst. Tech. Repts., 68; Pharmacog. Ind., i., 233; Kanny Lall Dey, Indig. Drugs 

 Ind., 1896, 2; Agri. Ledg., 1896, 6; etc., etc.] 



ABRUS PRECATORIUS, Linn. ; Fl. Br. Ind.,\i., 175; Gamble, D.E.P., 

 Man. Ind. Timbs., 1902, 240 ; LEGUMINOS^E. Crab's-eye, Jequirity, * 9-14. 

 the so-called Indian Liquorice ; a plant more or less sacred, and Crab's-Eye. 

 known by the following names rail, gaungchi, gunjhd, quri-ginjd, 

 etc., mostly traceable to gunjhd in the Sanskrit. A beautiful climbing 

 shrub found throughout the plains of India and Burma, and on the Hima- 

 laya and other hills up to altitudes of 3,000 feet cosmopolitan in the 

 tropics. 



The small shining red seeds are almost universally used by Indian gold- 

 smiths as weights: they average I 1 7 !> grains. The Koh-i-nur diamond was Weights. 

 weighed with rati seeds. The chief interest turns, however, on the criminal 

 use to which they are put. Ground down to a paste with a little cold water, 

 they are made up into small pointed cylinders (suis or sutaris), which if insertpd Suit. 

 below the skin of a bullock, or even of a human being, cause death in a few hours. 

 There were, for example, 20 cases of abrus-poisoning in animals reported from 

 the N.-W. and C. Provinces in 1897-9 ; from the Panjab (1897-1903) 16 cases 

 of animal and one of human poisoning ; and from Bengal, 5 animal and 3 human 

 cases. The lethal dose (according to Kobert) is only O'OOOOl grin, per kilo of 

 the animal's weight. The TOXIC property is due to two proteids a globulin 

 and an albumose and is thus closely analogous to the venom of snakes. When 

 boiled, the seeds may be EATEN, since their poisonous property is then destroyed. Food. 

 The roots are sold as an indifferent substitute for liquorice. [The names of a 

 few only of the more important writers need be quoted: Warden, Waddell, 

 Sidney Martin, Weir- Mitchell, Reichert, Klein, etc. ; also Pharmacog. Ind., iii. 

 (app.), 151-2; Thevenot, Travels in Levant, Indostan, etc., 1687, pt. iii., 98.] 



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