618 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol. XL 



I have already said that Graham, on the authority of Captain 

 Twemlow, says, that " The hill people about Mahableshwar obtain an 

 intoxicating liquor called Bar from the plant" (Catalogue of Bombay 

 Plants, p. 121, 1839). I may add here that Sir George Birdwood 

 repeats this observation. (Vide his Vegetable Products of Bombay, 

 p. 222, 2nd. Ed., 1865). Balfour observes that in Arabic authors 

 on " Materia Medica," Mudar is said to have been known even to the 

 Greeks. 



POISONOUS PROPERTIES. 



In a previous communication to this Journal, describing the 

 poisonous properties of Gloriosa superba (see Yol. VII, p. 492), I 

 have already said that the leading Sanskrit writers recognize Calotropis 

 g'igantea among the nine secondary poisons (Upvisha) along with 

 Gloriosa superba and seven others. (See also Mghanta Ratnakar, 

 p. 255, Bombay, 1867). The leading Sanskrit writers are agreed that 

 this plant is " heating," or " burning," in other words " acrid " and 

 drastic. Among the modern native writers of authority Rao Bahadur 

 Kanny Lai Dey makes the following remarks about this plant : — 

 "The powdered Root -bark and inspissated juice are used extensively 

 for their diaphoretic, emetic, alterative and purgative properties which 

 have been known to the Indian practitioners for many centuries and 

 regarded in some parts as vegetable mercury?' Thirty to sixty 

 grains of the powder are used for an emetic. " The author has lately 

 found that a fluid extract of the leaves given in doses of one to five 

 drops in intermittent fever, during intermission, generally cuts off 

 the paroxysm more effectually than quinine. Poisonous in large 

 doses " (Indigenous Drugs of India, p. 57, 2nd. Ed., Calcutta, 1896). 

 Dr. Sakharam Arjun says " That the milky juice is a mild rubefacient, 

 and is believed to produce abortion" (" Bombay Drugs," p. 85, 1879). 

 The learned Doctor does not however specifically mention as to 

 whether abortion is caused by the internal administration of the 

 juice or by its topical application to the os uteri. Jaikisan Indraji 

 says " That the milky juice is believed to procure abortion. It is 

 a caustic, also an emetic and purgative." This writer also does not 

 mention whether the abortive properties are displayed in internal 

 administration of the juice or in topical application to the os uteri. More 

 direct evidence is wanted on this score, as both Dr. Sakharam and 



