THE POTSONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY. 105 
around Cochen, flowering and fruiting throughout the year. I may 
observe that in the Konkan, C. trzgonus flowers and fruits only in the 
rains. It begins to dry up as soon as the cold weather sets in, and is 
shrivelled and leafiess before the hot weather is on. The fruit, as I 
have already said, remains hanging unshrivelled and’ unshrunken even 
in the succeeding hot weather. 
THE POISONOUS PROPERTIES, 
Being a congener of Colocynth, one would naturally expect that 
the juice of the bitter fruit of C. trigonus would be a purgative of 
the irritant type, and so it is more or less. Dr. Lyon, however, states 
in his Medical Jurisprudence (p. 199) that the plant possesses: another 
poisonous property. He says that in 1883 a case was reported to the 
Bombay Chemical Analyser’s office in which it was stated that this 
plant had been administered for the purpose of procuring abortion. 
In the Pharmacographia of India (Vol. IL., p.67) Dymock, Hooper,. 
and Wardell note that they digested the dried fruit with 84 per cent, of 
alcohol and concentrated the resulting tincture until most of the 
alcohol had been expelled ; they then agitated the mixture with water 
and petroleum ether. This solution, still containing some alcohol, 
was heated on the water bath to get rid of the alcohol ; the remnant 
then mixed with water and agitated with acetic ether containing 
some acetic acid. This yielded a reddish brown extract, very bitter, 
and partly soluble in boiling water. The insoluble residue was brittle 
when cold and very bitter, and had the properties of a resin, which 
would appear to correspond with the resin of Colocynth. The scientific 
world owes a deep debt of gratitude to this trio of distinguished 
pharmacologists for thus advancing our knowledge regarding the 
active principles of Kdrit. 
I need hardly enter here into a detailed description of the 
poisonous properties of Colocynth. They are well known to every 
student of the British Pharmacopecia. Suffice it to say that Colocynth 
and its congeners are irritant drastic purgatives. These properties 
were well known to the ancients, both Hastern and Western. I may 
note, however, what has been observed by Dr. Schmeidberg of Strasberg 
(wide Hlements of Pharmacology, Dixon. 1887, p. 109) with regard to 
the relative therapeutic action of the crystalloids and colloids in Colo- 
14 
