48 THE MEDICINAL PLANTS OF THE PHILIPPINES 



about the size of a filbert, 5-sided, with 5 apartments each con- 

 taining 5 ovoid seeds attached by separate seed stalks to the 

 central axis of the ovary. Seeds not woolly. 

 HABITAT. Mandaloya Tayabas, Iloilo. 



Gossypium herbaceum, L. (G. Indicum, Lam.; G. 

 Capas, Rumph.) 



NOM. VULG. Algodon, Sp.; Bulak, Tag.; Cotton, Eng. 



USES. The root bark is antiasthmatic, emmenagogue, and 

 according to Daruty l is a substitute for ergot in uterine hemor- 

 rhage. The leaves are used in bronchial troubles and the seeds 

 are sudorific. The negroes in the United States use the root 

 bark in large doses as an abortifacient ; but a dose of 60 grams 

 to 1,200 of water in decoction is proper and useful in treating 

 dysmenorrhoea. 



For a long time the seeds went to waste but industry has 

 learned to obtain from them a brownish-red oil which is used 

 as a substitute for olive oil, from which it is hard to distinguish 

 it, if the latter is adulterated by mixing the two ; for both have 

 the same density and a very similar odor and taste. For this 

 reason the production of cottonseed oil is very considerable 

 nowadays. It is cheap and excellent for domestic, industrial 

 and pharmaceutic use. 



The seeds are used in North America in dysentery and as a 

 galactagogue, and the juice of the leaves as an emollient in 

 diarrhoea and mild dysentery. The pulp of the seeds, after 

 the oil is extracted, yields a sweet material called gossypose, 

 which is dextrogyrous and has the formula C 18 H 32 O 16 -f- 5H 2 O. 



The cotton itself, the part used in commerce as a textile, is 

 also the portion of the plant most widely employed in therapeu- 

 tics ; not only the fiber from this species is used, but also that 

 of others that grow in the Philippines, the G. Barbadense, L. 



1 Daruty, loc. cit., p. xxvi. 



