368 CHINESE MATERIA MEDICA. 



provinces, and its wood was said to have been used by the 

 Persians for making ships. The bark is used medicinally, and 

 is considered to be slightly deleterious. It is regarded as a 

 drastic, and is used in ascites. 



QUISQUALIS INDICA.— -^g:? (Shih-chiin-tzu), 1145. 

 It is said that a famous physician named f [5 -^ S (Kuo Shih- 

 chiin) made a specialty of treating children's diseases, and 

 extensively used this drug for the purpose ; therefore it was 

 given his name. It is a combretaceous plant which originally 

 came from the south, but is now grown in Fukien. It is not 

 difficult of cultivation, is a climbing vine growing upon trees 

 or poles, and has green leaves resembling those of Acantho- 

 panax. In the fifth month it bears a bnnch of fifteen or twenty 

 red flowers. The fruits are about an inch or an inch and a half 

 long, oblong, pointed at both ends, with a slight obliquity, and 

 sharply pentagonal. The pericarp is smooth, hard, thin be- 

 tween the ridges, of a dark brown or black color, and enclos- 

 ing an oily seed with two cotyledons, which should be of a 

 yellow color. The taste is by no means unpleasant. Fruits 

 showing any signs of dehiscence, or at all worm eaten, should 

 be rejected. The principal property of the drng is that of a safe 

 and efficient vermifuge. It is said to cure the hundred diseases 

 of children, of which it is safe to say that in China from seventy 

 to ninety are due to animal parasites. The ^ (Kan) disease 

 (marasmus), and the ^ ^ (P'i-k'uai), enlarged abdomen in 

 children, both of which are due to intestinal worms, are 

 successfully treated with it. It is also given in the diarrhoeas 

 and leucorrhoeal discharges of children, which likewise are 

 frequently due to nematode infection. Macerated in oil, it 

 is applied to parasitic skin diseases. Four or five seeds, 

 roasted and eaten on the first morning of the month before 

 taking food, is the usual method of administering the drug to 

 Chinese children, and this seldom fails to expel worms. Few 

 children are brought to the mission hospitals for simple worm 

 infectious. There are two reasons why this is so : namely, 

 that the Chinese have such an excellent vermifuge in these 

 Quisqualis fruits, and because they believe that worms are 

 necessary in the process of digestion, especially to voracious 



