THE POISONOUS PLANTS OF BOMBAY, 251 



tules formed on these parts on the third day ; the right forearm, over 

 which the fluid was actually used, suffered most. It was considerably 

 swollen. Within two days, under the same plan of treatment as followed 

 in the first case, coupled with suitable constitutional treatment, the 

 swelling of the ears, face, chest and abdomen subsided ; the parts over 

 which pustules had appeared healed up, and the man was discharged 

 cured within ten days of the application. 



The first case mentioned here is not the only one of its kind where the 

 marking-nut is used by a cruel husband to punish a helpless wife. Dr. 

 Lyon mentions a case (Med. Jurisprudence, p. 190,) in which a man 

 was tried before the Bombay High Court, and il convicted of causing 

 hurt to his wife by throwing marking-nut juice over her face, blister- 

 ing of the skin and severe ophthalmia of one eye lasting for several 

 days being the result." Dr. Wellington Gray, when acting Chemical 

 Analyser of Bombay, came across a case where a man introduced 

 three marking-nuts into the genitals of his wife. 



It is not uncommon to find persons painting their skins over to 

 support false charges of assault. Dr. Newton mentions that the bruised 

 nut applied locally to the os uteri is often in use amongst the 

 native women for procuring abortion. 



Dr. A. Gibson records a case in the Transactions of the Bombay 

 Medical and Physical Society, in which a singular vesicular eruption 

 was produced by the external application of the juice of the marking- 

 nut (p. 117, Vol. for 1841). At page 271 of the same volume, is record- 

 ed a case in which the juice of the marking-nut was used mixed with 

 Nereum odorum (Marathi — Kanher), Plumbago zeylanica (Marathi-— 

 ChitraJc), sulphate of copper, beetles (genus Mylabris) and a snake to 

 boot. No wonder such a diabolical combination, as virulent in effect as 

 it was disgusting in conception and practice, produced a fatal result ! 



Dr. O'Shaughnessy records his experience of the deleterious nature 

 of the resinous juice of the marking-nut with the true spirit of a phar- 

 macological martyr, in his Bengal Dispensatory (page 280, Ed. 1841). 

 A minute drop of the juice placed by himself on the back of his hand 

 occasioned " the eruption of an herpetic blotch, intensely itchy and scal- 

 ing from the centre to the circumference, which did not disappear for 

 eight months, and left a scar like that of a burn. Dr. O'Shaughnessy 



