N. 0. SALICINE^E. 1219 



which is highly valued as a medicine, being cordial, stimulant, 

 and aphrodisiac, and is externally applied in headache and 

 ophthalmia. The ashes of the wood are useful in haemoptysis, 

 and, mixed with vinegar, applied to haemorrhoids. The stem 

 and leaves are astringent, and the juice and gum are also used 

 medicinally to increase visual powers. (Dr. Stewart.) 



In Europe, the bark of this species of willow was at one 

 time used as a substitute for Cinchona. 



The leaves have been found useful in fevers in the form of a 

 decoction. (Asst.-Surg. Bhagwan Das.) 



The distilled water from the flowers is useful in palpitation 

 of the heart. (Dr. Perry in Watt's Die.) 



The Persian settlers in India have introduced the flowers 

 (bedmushk) and the distilled water (ma-el-khilaf) of S. Caprea, 

 both of which are used by the upper classes of Mahometans and 

 Parsees. who consider them to be cephalic and cardiacal and use 

 them as domestic remedies in almost every kind of slight ail- 

 ment. Raughan-i-bed, an oil prepared by boiling two parts of 

 the distilled water with one of sesamum oil until the water has 

 all evaporated, is a favorite remedy for cough. (Pharmacog. Ind.) 



Chemical composition. — Willow bark has been shown to contain salicin, 

 wax, fab, gum, and a tannin which gives with ferric salts a blue-black pre- 

 cipitate, the liquid becoming purplish-red on the addition of soda. Johanson 

 (1875) has also shown the presence of a kind of sugar having a slightly sweet 

 taste and reducing alkaline copper solution with difficulty, and of the 

 glucoside benzohelicin, C 20 H*°O 8 . Salicin, a glucoside, crystallizes in colour- 

 less plates or flat rhombic prisms, but it usually occurs in commerce in white 

 glossy scales or needles. It remains unaltered in the air, is neutral to test- 

 paper, inodorous, and has a persistently bitter taste. 



Bidenguebine or "willow honey," said to be derived from the leaves and 

 young branches of a willow, and to have a feebly saccharine taste. 



Bidangubin or "willow honey" has been examined by Raby (Union Pharm., 

 May, 1886, p. 201). It affords about 12 per cent, of sugar, estimated as 

 glucose, and a considerable quantity of a sugar crystallizing in opaque hard 

 crystals like those of sugar of milk. It melts at 150° to a transparent liquid, 

 and dissolves in 5*5 parts of water at 15° C. The formula is given as 

 C 12 H 22 O u . This sugar evidently possesses considerable affinity to melezitose, 

 from which it differs, according to M. Raby, in not being efflorescent, and 

 in the greater rotatory power of the glucose derived from it by inversion 

 over that obtained from melezitose. The inversion by means of dilute 

 hydrochloric acid also takes place more rapidly, Mo therefore proposes to 

 call the new sugar bidenguebinose. 



