198 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



Seeds glabrous, embedded in silky wool. This is the silk-cotton 

 tree of the Konkan. 



Parts used : — The gum, seed, fruit, tap-root, bark,' cotton 

 and flower. 



Uses : — The gam or dried juice, moeha-ras, which the tree 

 yields, is used as an aphrodisiac. The root has stimulant and 

 tonic properties. The bark and the root are emetic. The 

 young roots, dried in the shade and powdered, form the chief 

 ingredient in the musla-semul, a medicine highly thought of 

 as an aphrodisiac ; it is also given in impotence. The gum 

 contains a large proportion of tannic and gallic acids, and may 

 be successfully employed in cases requiring astringents. The 

 gum has also tonic and alterative properties, and is used in 

 diarrhoea, dysentery, and menorrhagia. 



The dry flowers, with poppy seeds, goats' milk, and sugar, 

 are boiled and inspissated, and of this conserve two drachms 

 are given three times a day in haemorrhoids (Medical Topography 

 of Dacca, by Dr. Taylor). 



" Its gum is useful in diarrhoea ; dose : 20-30 grs., with 

 equal parts of sugar (Surg. T. Anderson, Bijnor;. The taproot 

 is used for gonorrhoea and dysentery (Mukerji, Cuttack). The 

 leaves, singed and beaten, or rubbed with water to a pulp, make 

 a useful application to glandular swellings (Forsyth). Watt's 

 Diet. i. 491. 



The gum is astringent and demulcent ; the seeds nutrient 

 and demulcent ; the young fruit stimulant, diuretic, tonic, 

 aphrodisiac, expectorant, and exercises a great beneficial in- 

 fluence over the membranes of the genito-urinary organs ; the 

 tap-root is demulcent, tonic, slightly diuretic, and aphrodisiac ; 

 the bark is demulcent, diuretic, tonic, and slightly astringent ; 

 and the cotton is employed only externally for its mechanical 

 properties (softness and elasticity) in padding splints and 

 covering burned and inflamed surfaces, &c. 



The gum is useful in diarrhoea, dysentery and other 

 affections in which kino and catechu are beneficial. The 

 therapeutic uses of the seeds are similar to those of the seeds 



