THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 275 



The cathartic properties of this plant are also referred to in '^ Dhan- 

 vantari Nighanta " {vide p. 60, shloka 250, advanced proofs, Edition 

 Anandashram Series of Mr. M. C. Apte). So far as I know, 

 Bh^v-Misra does not allude to this plant in his celebrated work entitled 

 " Bhav-Prakash." 



Coming to the later, indigenous writers of our own generation we 

 have the following information. Jaikisson Indraji maintains distinctly 

 that in large doses the root-bark is emetic, but he adds that it is safe. 

 In this I fear he follows Mooideen Sheriff, and has no special clinical 

 e^cperience of his own to guide him. Dr. Sakharam Arjun does not refer 

 to any of the cathartic or emetic properties of the plant. When he 

 dismisses his note on this plant in his Catalogue of the Bombay Drugs 

 in the brief manner he does, one can gather he had no personal know- 

 ledge of the use of the plant. It certainly does not grow in Bombay ; 

 and when, in 1882, he saw it with me in the Thana Military Hospital, 

 some years after he had published his Catalogue, he admired the tree 

 immensely — the true lover of beautiful plants he ever was. A younger 

 indigenous writer of the present day is Dr. Virji Zina Baval, l. m. and s., 

 of the Bombay University. He notes in his Gujerati work named 

 ''Arya Aushadha " (p. 169, 1889, Ahmedabad) that the root is 

 diaphoretic and emetic ; for the former purpose smaller doses suffice 

 (1 to 2, ivdls) i for the latter J tola is required.* '* As a purgative," 

 says he, " the dose is up to one loal" 



To Honorary Surgeon Mooideen Sheriff of Madras is due the 

 credit of having brought to the notice of the profession of our day the 

 emetic properties of the root-bark of Alangium Lamarchii. The first 

 reference to this experience of Mooideen Sheriff appears to have been 

 made by Dymock so far back as 1879t in the Pharmaceutical Journal 

 of London. Watt has subsequently referred to the same in his " Dic- 

 tionary of the Economic Products of India. "J The emetic properties 

 referred to are mentioned by Mooideen Sheriff in his supplement to the 

 " Pharmacopoeia of India." He says that " the root-bark has proved itself 

 an epcient and safe emetic in doses of fifty grains ; in small doses it w 



* A tola is 48 wdls ; a wdl is about 4^ or 5 grains. 



t Vol. ix, 3rd Series, 1878-79, p. 1017. (The same reference is repeated by Dymock in tia 

 " Pharmacooraphia Indica," vide vol, ii, pp. 165-66. — K. R.K.) 

 I Fk^e vol. i, pp. 154-155. 



