924 INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 



ben minutes in a pint of new milk. This should be strained slightly sweetened 

 with lump sugar, and drunk warm. This quantity should be taken twice or 

 three times a day, and is liked by the patients. There is no doubt of its 

 efficacy as a curative in the earlier, and a palliative in the later stages of 

 pulmonary consumption." 



Again, in the B. M. J. for April 5, 1884 p. 664, he mentions the control of 

 phthisical cough by smoking the dried leaves of the mullein plant in an 

 ordinary tobacco pipe. • 



Chemical composition. — Morin (Journ. Chin. Med. ii, p. 223) obtained from 

 the flowers a yellow volatile oil, a fatty acid, free malic and phosphoric acids, 

 malate and phosphate of lime, acetate of potash, uncrystallizable sugar, gum, 

 chlorophyll, and a yellow resinous colouring matter. 



Adolph Latin submitted the leaves to proximate analysis and found the 

 constituents to be 0*80 per cent, of a crystalline wax, a trace of volatile oil, 

 078 per cent, of resin soluble in ether, 1*00 per cent, of resin insoluble in 

 ether, but soluble in absolute alcohol, a small quantity of tannin, a bitter 

 principle, sugar, mucilage, &c. The moisture in the air-dried sample 

 amounted to 5*90 per cent., and the ash to 12*60 per cent. He concludes that 

 the plant contains many of the usual constituents, and a bitter principle 

 which may be prepared by exhausting the drug with alcohol, dissolving the 

 alcoholic extract in water and agitating with ether or chloroform. Several 

 trials failed to secure this substance in a crystalline condition. It was 

 found to be soluble in water, ether, alcohol, and chloroform, and to possess a 

 decidedly bitter taste. It responded to none of the tests for a glucoside or 

 alkaloid. (Am. Journ. Pharm., Feb. 1890. E. L. Janson (1890) found that 

 petroleum ether and stronger ether used successively, extracted from the 

 flowers about \ per cent, in each case. A decided change in the colour of the 

 drug was noticed after the extraction with ether, which removed the yellow 

 colour, leaving the residue of a dark green. The yellow colouring matter 

 was either a part of, or else it was retained by the resin dissolved by ether, 

 and it was not found possible to separate it in the pure state. The drug 

 after exhaustion with ether yielded 10 - 06 per cent, to absolute alcohol. A 

 considerable portion of this alcoholic extract was soluble in water acidified 

 with hydrochloric acid. When agitated with petroleum ether the acid 

 solution yielded some colour to it, and this latter solvent on evaporation 

 left a greenish-brown crystalline mass of a strong disagreeable odour and a 

 sweet taste, which proved to be an easily decomposable p;lucoside, Another 

 crystalline extractive was obtained by making the above acid solution of the 

 alcoholic extract alkaline and agitating with ether ; while chloroform subse- 

 quently extracted a red-brown amorphous mass. 



Both of these extractives reduced Fehling's solution, and many changes in 

 colour were noticed, indicating that these substances take some part in the 

 colouring matter of the flowers. 



The drug was also found to contain 2*49 per cent, of mucilage, 11*76 per 

 cent, of carbohydrate corresponding to dextrin, 5*48 per cent, of glucose, 

 1*29 per cent, of saccharose, 16*76 per cent, of moisture, 4*11 per cent, of ash, 

 and 32*75 per cent, of cellulose and lignin. No reaction indicating tannin was 



