80 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Parts used : — The seeds, and roots. 



Uses : — The yellow juice of this plant is used as a medicine 

 for dropsy, jaundice, and cutaneous affections. It is also 

 diuretic, relieves blisters, and heals excoriations and indolent 

 ulcers. (Watt). The seeds yield on expression a fixed oil, 

 which has long been in use amongst West India practitioners 

 as an aperient. The unfavorable report of Sir W. O'Shaugh- 

 nessy [Bengal Oisp., p. 183; led to its being neglected ; but 

 more recent trials of its properties by several medical officers 

 in Bengal serve to prove that in half drachm doses it acts as a 

 gentle aperient, and at the same time allays, apparently by a 

 sedative action, the pain in colic. The smallness of the doses, 

 and the mildness of its operation are recommendations to its 

 employment. Age apparently affects its activity, the freshly 

 prepared oil proving more energetic and uniform in operation 

 than that which has been long on hand. Applied to herpetic 

 and other forms of skin disease, it is reported to exercise a well- 

 marked soothing influence, according to Dr. Bonavia and 

 others {Indian Med. Gaz. 18C6, vol. i., p. 206). As a local 

 application to indolent and ill-conditioned ulcers, the expressed 

 yellow glutinous juice of the plant is held in much esteem by 

 the natives. Dr. W. Dymock, of Bombay reports having used 

 it thus with good effect. The native practice of applying this 

 juice to the eye in ophthalmia is dangerous. Both in a chemical 

 and therapeutical point of view, this plant appears worthy of 

 investigation. (Ph. Ind.). 



" The seeds are laxative, emetic, nauseant, expectorant and 

 demulcent ; the oil, a drastic purgative, nauseant and expecto- 

 ant ; and the root, an alterative tonic. The seeds and oil have 

 also a beneficial effect over asthma. 



" The seeds are useful in cough and catarrhal affections of 

 the throat and pulmonary mucous membrane, and in pertussis 

 and asthma. Though they do not appear to possess any anti- 

 spasmodic property, they have a distinct control over asthma, 

 apparently, from their combined actions of nauseant, emetic, 

 expectorant and demulcent. As their use is often accompanied 

 by more or less vomiting and nausea, they are more suited 



