100 D. Hooper — Silajit : an ancient Eastern Medicine. [No. 3, 



in Dehra Dan and Hard war. The Kabirajis are aware of the distinc- 

 tion between the two products, and hold out a warning that the Nepal 

 alum earth is not the silajit of Sanskrit writers ; they state that the for- 

 mer is an article of Yunani medicine, while the latter, or black kind, is 

 only suitable for Hindu practitioners. 



Dr. Campbell appears to be the first to discriminate between the two 

 drugs. He says {Jour. As. Soc. Beng. II. 483) : "There is a dark bitu- 

 minous substance used in Nepal, said to exude from rocks, and is called 

 " Black Salajit." It resembles bituminous alum ore, but there is 

 much vegetable matter in it, and it is probably a vegetable production, 

 notwithstanding the belief by the Nepal physicians of its mineral 

 nature." 



Black silajit is sold in the form of brown or black cakes, tough or 

 pasty in consistence, and having an odour of rancidity which has been 

 stated in Sanskrit works to resemble that of cow's urine. The usual 

 odour is that of leather. Its taste is bitter, saline, pungent and astrin- 

 gent. The partially purified specimens of this black substance, as brought 

 down by the Bhuteas, are in the form of rounded flattened cakes about 

 2^ inches in diameter and half an inch thick, or in sticks resembling 

 liquorice juice. Silajat is hygroscopic, and when exposed to a damp at- 

 mosphere becomes unctuous and sticky. In a dry state it is quite hard, 

 and breaks with a shining black fracture, and in course of time some 

 samples assume a brownish crystalline efflorescence on the surface. 



Black silajit is soluble for the most part in distilled water, yielding 

 a dark reddish-brown extract with an alkaline reaction. Ether, alco- 

 hol and other volatile liquids have little or no solvent action upon it. In 

 one case ether extracted a small amount of a fatty compound having an 

 odour of Russian leather. The aqueous solution is precipitated by 

 mineral acids, plumbic acetate and ferric chloride, but not by acetic acid 

 or alkalis. The aqueous solution is not precipitated by four volumes of 

 alcohol. The organic matter is of the nature of an organic acid, and, in 

 the specimens I examined, not one was of a bituminous nature. 



There is a large quantity of mineral matter or ash left on incin- 

 erating the samples, and as this consists mainly of carbonated alkalis, it is 

 indicative of the presence of one or more organic acids combined with 

 bases in the orignal extract. In Dr. U. C. Dutt's " Materia Medica of 

 the Hindus," p. 95, it is stated that the ashes left after burning silajatu on 

 platinum foil, consist chiefly of lime, magnesia, silica, and iron in a mixed 

 state of proto- and per oxide." It is said by the native doctors that the 

 mineral constituents are regarded as impurities, and that the active prin- 

 ciple is a cream-like body which rises to the surface of the liquid when 

 the solid silajit is dissolved in hot water. The solution is placed in the 



