1899.] D. Hooper — Akakia t an Ancient Eastern Medicine. 247 



reduced to a brown powder; it is partly soluble in water forming a red 

 coloured mucilaginous liquid, leaving behind a quantity of brownish- 

 green matter. Small fragments held up between the eye and the light 

 have a reddish tinge similar to the glass of hock bottles. Other samples 

 are coal black and quite insoluble in water. 



Mohideen Sheriff, Khan Bahadur, a distinguished Muhammadan 

 practitioner in Madras, discusses very fully in his " Materia Medica of 

 Madras," the appearance, preparation and therapeutic uses of this extract. 

 He describes two varieties met with in that city — a hard and a soft 

 ■variety. The hard kind is black and brittle, like the substance described 

 above ; the soft kind is reddish or deep brown in colour, and even after 

 being kept for a long time, it is sufficiently tough and plastic to be made 

 into boluses. He considers all the hard varieties to be impure or not 

 at all made from the pods of an Acacia. An extract made by himself 

 from fresh pods had a soft consistence, an astringent taste, and a slight, 

 peculiar odour. 



I would not attempt to enumerate in this paper all the medicinal 

 virtues ascribed to this drug. It has been used in the East, especially 

 aftiong the Muhammadan community, as a panacea. It is supposed to 

 be cold and dry, astringent, styptic and tonic, and is used internally and 

 externally in relaxed conditions of the mucous membranes. It ia 

 recommended for nervous debility, dysentery, diarrhoea of children, 

 and as a collyrium in purulent conjunctivitis. Applied as a lotion to 

 the face it is said to improve the complexion, and to grey hair to give 

 a black colour. Made into an ointment with beeswax, or mixed with 

 white of egg, it has been used for burns, scalds, inflammation and 

 erysipelas ; and in a powdered state it arrests haemorrhage. 



Further details of the effects said to result from the administration 

 of this medicine will be found in Mr. DaCosfa's translation of the 

 chapter from the Makhzan, or in Dr. Mohideen Sheriff's work. 



It will be well to turn our attention to the source of this wonder- 

 ful medicament and endeavour to trace the origin of the useful thera- 

 peutic properties attributed to it. 



Bahill pods are used in India chiefly in two connections. Firstly, 

 they are astringent, and are employed for tanning leather and making 

 ink ; and secondly, they are employed by native agriculturists for feeding 

 and fattening cattle. No poisonous action has been recorded concern- 

 ing the pods, and no active alkaloid has been detected in them. The 

 tannic acid peculiar to the hahul is one of the pyrogallol series, which 

 affords a blue-black colour with persalts of iron. 



Bahul or bablah pods have been analysed on various occasions by 

 chemists, with the object, in most cases, to determine the amount of 



