64 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Branches few-flowered. Pedicels \-\ in. long, also red. 

 Berries tapering into a very short style ; oblong, ovoid, spindle- 

 shaped, red. Young fruit cylindric. 



Uses:— The medicinal extract from the root, known as Rasout 

 is highly esteemed as a febrifuge and as a local application in 

 eye diseases, 



" Rusot is best given as a febrifuge in half drachm doses 

 diffused through water, and repeated thrice, . or still more 

 frequently, daily. It occasions a feeling of agreeable warmth 

 at the epigastrium, increases appetite, promotes digestion, and 

 acts as a very gentle, but certain aperient, The skin is invari- 

 ably moist during its operation, 



" In over thirty cases of tertian ague (several complicated 

 with spleen), we have succeeded in checking the fever, on an 

 average, within three days, after commencing the rusot. In 

 eight cases of quartan, six were cured. The cases of common 

 quotidian, thus successfully treated, were so numerous that they 

 were not recorded. In no instance was headache or constipation 

 produced ; but we have seen rusot exasperate the symptoms of 

 chronic dysentery and hepatitis, when complicated with ague. 

 (O'Shaughnessy.) 



"Is taken internally in 5 to 15 grain doses, with butter in 

 bleeding piles. Its solution, 1 drachm to 4 ozs. of water, is 

 used as a wash for piles. Its ointment, made with camphor 

 and butter, is applied to pimples and boils, being supposed 

 to suppress them." (Dr. Penny, in " Watt's Dictionary of Econo- 

 mic Products." Vol. II., p. 446.) 



1 The wood, root-bark and extract of Indian Barberry 

 have been used in Hindoo Medicine from a very remote 

 period. Its properties are said to be analogous to those of 

 turmeric. * * Indian Barberry and its extract, rasot, are regard- 

 ed as alterative and deobstruent, and are used in skin diseases, 

 menorrhagia, diarrhoea, jaundice, and above all in affections of 

 the eyes. :: * Sarangdhara recommends a simple decoction 

 of Indian barberry to be given, with the addition of honey in 

 jaundice. In painful micturition from bilious or acrid urine, 

 a decoction of Indian barberry and emblic myrobalan is given 



