THE COLOCYNTH 



Uses. 



Imports 

 JJow-priced. 



CITRULLUS 



VULOARIS 



Water-melon 



Cassia is from 3 to 5 or even 8 annas per lb., according to purity. [Cf. 

 also Mus. Rept. Pharm. Soc. Gt. Brit., 1895-1902, 48-56.] 



Value. The uses of cinnamon bark and oil, both in food and 

 medicine, are sufficiently well known to render description unnecessary. 

 In India and Ceylon cinnamon is largely replaced by taj or Jcalfah barks. 

 The position of the Ceylon cinnamon with India may be judged of by 

 the fact that the imports are unimportant, and moreover low-priced, 

 so that it may be said there is hardly any demand in India for the fine 

 qualities. But, conversely, the exports from India to Ceylon, of locally 

 produced cassia bark or cinnamon, seem of expanding importance. 

 This traffic was 5,393 lb., Rs. 2,530, in 1899-1900; 26,686 lb., Rs. 8,221, 

 in 1903-4; and 21,040 lb., Rs. 7,697, in 1906-7. It goes mainly from 

 Bengal and Madras and to a small extent from Burma. As already 

 stated, there is no evidence whatever of any economic cultivation 

 of C. zeylanicum in India, and the bark exported as cinnamon must 



cinnamon Bark, therefore be Cassia Lignea, or at most wild cinnamon, the collection 

 of which in N. Kanara is mentioned both by Talbot and Dymock as 

 important. It may be here added that so long ago as 1687 Thevenot 

 (Trav. in Levant, Indostan, etc., pt. hi., 109) speaks of wild cinnamon in 

 Cochin. 



Wild 



D.E.P., 

 ii., 329-31. 

 Colocynth. 



Habitat. 



Wild Fruit. 



Cultivated. 



Medicine. 



Oil. 



Trade. 



D.E.P., 

 ii., 331-3. 

 Water- 

 melon.. 



CITRULLUS COLOCYNTHIS, Schrad. ; Fl. Br. Ind., ii., 

 620 ; Duthie and Fuller, Field and Garden Crops, 1882, pt. ii., pi. 57 ; Phar- 

 macog. Ind., ii., 59; White and Humphrey, Pharmacop., 1901, 145-6; 

 Cooke, Fl. Pres. Bomb., i., 537 ; Duthie, Fl. Upper Gang. Plain, i., 374-5 ; 

 CUCURBITACE.S;. The Colocynth, indrdyan, mdkal or mukhdl, khdrtuma, 

 tuh or karwa-tu, ghurumba, trund deda, henzil, Jciydsi, etc. A creeping 

 or climbing herb found wild in the waste tracts of North- West (Sind, 

 Dera Ismail Khan, Multan and Bhawalpur, etc.), Central and South 

 India ; is indigenous also in Arabia, Western Asia, Tropical Africa and 

 the Mediterranean region. 



The fruit (the " wild gourd " of 2 Kings, iv., 39) is in size and shapa 

 much like an orange, marble-green on the surface and changing to yellow as 

 it ripens. The fresh fruit is sold by the herbalists of India, being collected 

 from wild supplies. To meet the requirements of the Medical Depots an effort 

 has been made to cultivate it specially at the Saharanpur Botanic Gardens. The 

 intensely bitter taste of the pulp is due to an amorphous yellow glucoside, 

 Colocynthin, which is found in it to the extent of about 0'6 per cent., but not 

 in the seeds. The fruit is a drastic purgative, and is so used both in Native and 

 European MEDICINE. The Indian extract is in fact quite as active as that of 

 the European drug. The yield is about 110 lb. compound extract to 60 lb. 

 dried fruit. 



The seeds contain from 15 to 17 per cent, of a fixed OIL which is said to 

 make a xiseful illuminant, but though inquiries were recently instituted in Sind 

 and other localities, no one could be discovered who was in the habit of using 

 the seeds in any form. For the London market the peeled fruit is imported 

 chiefly from Smyrna, Trieste, France, Spain, and more rarely from Persia. The 

 unpeeled fruit is brought from Mogador. The Indian fruit has a much thinner 

 pulp, which cannot be separated from the rind. According to the authors of 

 the Pharmacographia Indica, large parcels, collected and dried up country, come 

 into market in December to January and are sold at about Us. 1 per 100 fruits. 

 [Cf. Rept. Cent.' Indig. Drugs Comm., 1901, 154 ; Dowzard, Pharm. Journ., Sept. 

 12, 1903.] 



C. vulgaris, Schrad. ; Fl. Br. Ind., ii., 621 ; Duthie and Fuller^ 

 I.e. pt. ii., 56, tt. 55-6 ; Duthie, Fl. Upper Gang. Plain, i., 375 ; Cooke, 

 Fl. Pres. Bomb., i. ; 537 ; the Water-melon or tarbuza, tarmus, Jcalinda, 



316 



