BERBERIS 



Barberry 



RUSOT AND MAMIRAS 



D.E.P., 

 i., 439-41. 



oil. 



Medicine. 



D.E.P., 



i., 442-7. 

 Barberry. 



Dye and Tan. 

 Birch Bark. 



Oil. 



Medicine. 



Rusot. 



Mamiran. 



Lycium. 



Prices. 



BENINCASA CERIFERA, Snvi. ; Fl. Br. Ind., ii., 616 ; 

 CUCURBITACE^E. The White Gourd Melon, pethd, kumhra, etc., an ex- 

 tensive climber cultivated in India ; native of Japan and Java. 



Sown at the beginning of the rains or in the hot weather, it continues fruiting 

 until the close of the rainy season. The fruit excretes a waxy bloom which it is 

 said can be made into candles. The seeds yield a mild, pale OIL. The fruit 

 possesses alterative and styptic properties, and is popularly known as a valuable 

 antimercurial. It is also used as a vegetable and in curries or is made into 

 a kind of candied fruit called heshmi or heshim, sold at about 3 Ib. to the rupee. 



BERBERIS, Linn.; FL Br. Ind., i., 108-2; Gamble, Man. 

 Ind. Timbs., 28-30 ; Pharmacog. Ind., i., 64-8 ; Duthie, Fl. Upper Gang. 

 Plain, i., 31-2 ; Hooper, Rusot, in Journ. As. Soc., Ixxiii., pt. ii., 176 ; 

 Brandis, Ind. Trees, 28-30 ; BEBBERIDE^E. 



There are twelve species of Barberry mentioned in the Flora of British India. 

 They are not easily distinguishable, and the vernacular names are therefore 

 probably indiscriminate. The products are common to five or six Himalayan 

 species and may be dealt with collectively. The chief are the following : 



B. aristata, 00. ; chitra, sumlu, kasmal, tsema. 



B. asiatica, Roxb. ; kilmora, mate-kissi, chitra, etc. 



B. Lycium, Royle; kashmal, chotra, ambar-bdris, etc. 



B. vulgaris, Linn. ; kashmal, bedana, ambarbdris, etc. 



Habitat. The entire Himalayan districts between 6,000 and 10,000 feet, 

 also the Nilgiris, Ceylon, etc., etc. The bushes often constitute thickets many 

 miles in extent. 



A DYE is obtained from the roots and stems, which is sometimes used in 

 tanning and colouring leather. It would seem that the colour exists chiefly in 

 the bark and in the young wood immediately below the bark. In the older wood 

 there is less though better quality of dye. Barberry is perhaps one of the best 

 yellow dyes in India, and the supply is inexhaustible. The seeds yield an OIL. 

 The principal use of the barberry is, however, in MEDICINE, the parts employed 

 being the stem, ddrhalad, the fruit, zarishk or zirishk, and the root-bark. 

 A watery extract is prepared from the stem and root, called rusot or rasout (Taleef 

 Shereef (Playfair, transl.), 1833, 87). It is worthy of notice that this extract has 

 the same beneficial effects in the treatment of ophthalmia which have been 

 ascribed by certain Greek and other early writers to mamiras. The plants now 

 known in India as mdmirdn seem, however, to be Copti* Teeta, Wall., Corya-ati* 



Govfiiiintm, Wall., and tieraninnt tl'ii lli<-liin IIHIH . Sweet The juices of these 



are still used as applications to the eye, and two of them, at least, contain 

 berberine. In later times the barberry appears to have been extensively 

 sought by European oculists, and it seems to have been the origin of the 

 Lycium, whereof the empty pots were found in Herculaneum and Pompeii. 

 [Cf. Fluckiger and Hanbury, Pharmacog., 335.] .Berbers-sticks, 1 inch thick 

 and 12 to 18 inches long, are fairly extensively exported from Kangra and thence 

 carried all over India (see Coptis, p. 405). 



Trade. Various preparations of the barberry are used in fevers, the advantage 

 claimed over quinine being that repeated doses of berberine do not cause depres- 

 sion and deafness. The fruit is given as a cooling laxative to children, and the 

 stems are said to be diaphoretic and laxative in rheumatism. The berries are 

 dried like" currants," and thus brought down to the plains. The TKADE value of 

 ddrhalad is stated by Dymock (Mat. Med. W. Ind., 28) to be Rs. 3 permaund 

 of 37 Ib. ; of rusot, Rs. 8 to 9 ; oizirishk, Rs. J per Ib. Moodeen Sheriff (I.e. 15), 

 however, quotes the wholesale price of rusot as Rs. 35 per maund, and the retail 

 price as Rs. 2J per Ib. He says that the fruit (zirishk) may be had at Rs. 6 per 

 maund (wholesale), or 6 annas per Ib. (retail). Kanny Lall Dey gives the 

 price of the extract (rusot) as 8 annas per Ib. 



[Cf. Paulus Mgineta (Adams, transl.), iii., 239 ; Birdwood and Foster, E.I.C. 

 First Letterbook, 201, 480; Clusius, Arom. Hist., in Hist. Exot. PL, 1605, 163-4; 

 Moodeen Sheriff, Mat. Med. Mad., 1891, 13-5; Lawrence, Valley of Kashmir, 1895, 

 74-6 ; Kanny Lall Dey, Indig. Drugs Ind., 1896, 46-7 ; Rept. Cent. Indig. Drugs 

 Comm., i., 13; Journ. Linn. Soc., 1891, xxviii., 311-2; Pharm. Journ., 1901, 

 321, 402-3, 262; Bhaduri, Rept. Labor. Ind. Mus., 1902-3, 28-9; Hanausek, 

 Micro. Tech. Prod. (Winton and Barber, transl.), 1907, 250; etc., etc.] 



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