626 JOURNAL, BOMBAY NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY, Vol.X. 

 POISONOUS PROPERTIES. 



What I have said of the poisonous properties of Plumlago rosea, 

 applies equally to the plant I am describing. Bymock and his col- 

 leagues, however, say in their " Pharmacographia Indica,"* that " Plum- 

 hago zcylanica is mentioned by several European writers upon Indian 

 drugs, but has not attracted the same amount of attention as Plumbago 

 rosea, ithicli is said to he more active.''^ (The Italics are mine. — K.R.K.] 

 Dr. Dymock says that Plumbago root given internally in large doses 

 acts as a narcotico-irritant poison. 



O'S-haughnessy f attributes to the root vesicant properties, not unlike 

 cantharides when used externally^ i.e., over the skin. To quote his 

 very words, the properties of Plumbago rosea, " and of the Plumbago 

 scandens and Plumbago zeylanica are nearly identical. It is applied 

 by the natives of India to buboes in the incipient stage. In fact, says 

 he, the prevailing characters of the entire Indian Plumbaginem are 

 " astringency and acridity." 



Udoy Chand Dutt % says distinctly that the root of the Plumbago 

 rosea is a more powerful vesicant than that oi Plumlago zeylanica. That 

 may be ; but I do not suppose there is any difference between the two 

 as regards their abortifacient property. They contain the same active 

 principle, Plumbagin, which I have already dwelt on in my paper on 

 Plumbago rosea. Dr. Dj'-mock observes § that " at present the physical 

 properties of the principle, the so-called plumbagin^ are not sufficiently 

 well-known to enable one to positively assert whether it is odourless 

 or not while its chemical constitution has not been studied." It is, 

 however, a matter of certainty that the active principle is detectable in 

 the contents of the stomach by the action of subacetate of lead. We 

 have the authority of O'Shaughnessy on this point. This is what he 

 gays : — " The root, in various forms, is much employed as a poison in 

 India ; and, as an irritant to occasion abortion, it is introduced into the 

 vagina and applied directly to the neck of the uterus. In a criminal 

 case of the former kind in 1837, the Editor HI succeeded in detecting the 

 poison by acting on the contents of the stomach with alcohol, concen- 



* Vol. II, p. 330, [op.cit.) 1891, Bombay, 

 t " Bengal Dispensatory," pp. 508 and 509, Ed. 1841, Calcutta. 

 J « The Materia Medica of the Hindoos," Calcutta, 1877, p. 187. 

 § " Pharmacographia In dica," p. 334, Vol. II, 1891. 

 ^ i.e., Dr. O'Shaughnessy himself. — K.K.K. 



