N. O. APOCYNAOEiE. 785 



employed as a rubefacient in rheumatism, and the blunt-ended 

 branches are introduced into the uterus to procure abortion. 

 According to Dymock, the bark is given in the Konkan, with 

 cocoanut, ghi, and rice, as a remedy for diarrhoea ; the flower- 

 buds are eaten with betel leaves in ague, and the juice, with 

 sandalwood oil and camphor, is employed as a cure for itch. 



" Sap mixed with cocoanut is used as a remedy for itch 

 (Talbot)." 



Campbell states that in Chutia Nagpur the leaves and root 

 are used medicinally, but that the part best known to the forest 

 tribes of Manbhum is the core of the young wood, which is 

 given to lying-in women, to allay thirst, and for cough. In the 

 Baroda Durbar Catalogue of Medicinal Plants, at the Col. and 

 Ind. Exhb., it is stated that the bark is purgative and used in 

 cases of leprosy. 



" This plant is known as Daldna phula in Northern Bengal, 

 where its milky juice has been tried and found to be an 

 effectual purgative. The dose is as much as a grain of parched 

 rice (khai) will absorb, the grain being administered as a pill." 

 (Surgeon-Major C. T. Peters, m.b , in Watt's Dictionary). 



Dr. A. J. Amadeo (Pharm. Journ; April 21st, 1888,) has the following 

 account of its medicinal uses in Porto Rico :«— " In small doses (8 to 12 grains) 

 given in emulsion, the milk produces abundant bilious watery stools. The 

 bark is a favourite remedy with the country people for gonorrhoea and gleet. 

 Two ounces of the fresh powdered bark is placed in 8 pints of euu sucree and 

 exposed to the sun for four days, being shaken occasionally. A wine, glassful 

 is administered four or five times a day, together with refreshing and muci- 

 laginous drink's, and the use of tepid baths. The action of the drug is at first 

 purgative, afterwards diuretic. An extract of the bark may be used beginning 

 with 3—4 grains daily to be gradually increased to 14 or 15 grains, or a wine 

 (loz.tol litre) may be given in liqueur glassfuls three times a day. The 

 decoction of the bark is a powerful antiherpetic. 



A crystalline, bitter principle C i7 H 72 33 -f 2 H 2 0, obtained by evaporation 

 of the alcoholic extract, melts at 157-158° and forms a colourless solution in 

 concentrated sulphuric acid, which, on warming, turns yellow, reddish -yellow, 

 brownish-red, or black. Its solution in concentrated nitric acid is also 

 colourless, but becomes yellow on warming, and, similarly, the solution in 

 sodium hydroxide turns yellow on boiling. This substance cannot be identical 

 with plumieride, which has been isolated by Boorsma.— J. Ch. S.A.I. ,1897; 

 p. 167. 

 99 



