POISONOUS PLANTS OP BOMBAY. 619 



Mr. Jaikisan simply say it is believed to possess abortive properties. 

 Personally, I have no knowledge of snch use ; I am therefore unable 

 to express any opinion one way or the other. To come to the 

 European and Anglo-Indian Pharmacologists who have studied this 

 plant, O'Shaughnessy says that the powdered bark of the root, in 

 doses of from half to one dram, " Proves emetic aftar an interval of 

 from 20 minutes to an hour, generally causing much nausea, and in 

 about one case in every three inducing a cathartic operation. In 

 doses of from 2 to 5 grains, taken every half hour, it proves nauseant, 

 powerfully diaphoretic, and after several doses gently cathartic." 

 An alcoholic extract of the milky juice, says O'Shaughnessy, ll In 

 doses of 10 grains acts as a powerful, but uncertain, cathartic and 

 frequently causes vioieut vomiting." The dried bark of the root, says 

 O'Shaughnessy, " Is of greyish-yellow colour ; heavy and very peculiar 

 smell, acrid, nauseous. It yields to water at 70°, 15 per 100 of 

 gummy saccharine matter, and a peculiar extractive principle which 

 has the singular property of gelatinizing as it is heated, then liquefying 

 again and, as the solution cools, gelatinizing as before. This principle 

 is termed Muddrine by its discoverer, Dr. Duncan, at whose chemical 

 and clinical experiments thereon, the Editor was present " — meaning 

 O'Shaughnessy himself (Bengal Dispensatory, p. 453, Calcutta, 1841). 

 In passing, I may add that O'Shaughnessy feels satisfied that the 

 powdered root is efficacious in incipient leprosy, for he says that the 

 clinical experiments of Drs. Playfair Duncan and Royle leave no doubt 

 of the bark of the root being '' really efficacious in incipient leprosy and 

 in numerous diseases of the skin."* To enter into a critical examination 

 of this very broad statement of three able exponents of the pharmacology 

 of Indian plants, viewed in the light of recent clinical experience, would 

 be beyond the scope of this paper. Dr. Duncan's discovery of the active 

 principle of the root of Asclepias gigantea, Linn., as Ccdotropis gigantea^ 

 Br., was named in Dr. Duncan's days, marks an important epoch in the 

 pharmacological and clinical history of the plant I am describing. It is 

 described by Dr. A. Duncan as an " Extractive matter" in Phil. Mag., 

 X, 465 (see Watt's " Dictionary of Chemistry," Vol. Ill, 1868). 

 Dr. Duncan calls it Muddrine. A recent writer on the Active Principles 

 of Plants, namely, Charles E. Sohn, drops the <?, and calls the 



* N.B.— The italic; are mine.— (K. R. K.) 



