N. O. SCITAMINE^. 1267 



drink and mouth-wash to allay thirst in cholera. According to 

 Dymock, Mir Muhammad Husain states in the Mahhzan, that 

 the kind of plantain, called mdlbhok, is used as a poultice to 

 burns, while that called bolhad is boiled and employed as an 

 ointment for the syphilitic eruptions of children. He also 

 notices the use of the ashes on account of their alkaline pro- 

 perties, and of the root as an anthelmintic. Ainslie writes, 

 " The plantain is one of the most delicious of all the Indian 

 fruits, and one of the safest for such as have delicate stomachs, 

 being entirely free from acidity ; it is, moreover, very nourish- 

 ing, and is always prescribed as food by the Hindu practi- 

 tioners for such as suffer from bile and heat of habit." 



The fruit has long been known and commented on by Euro- 

 pean writers. Perhaps the first authentic description is by 

 Pliny, who quotes the name pala, sl term which still exists in 

 Malabar. He states that the Greeks of Alexander's expedition 

 saw it in India, and that sages reposed beneath its shade and 

 ate its fruit (hence the name " sapientum "). In the middle 

 ages, it had some reputation as a medicine. Avicenna 

 wrote that it engendered phlegm, and that it spoiled the 

 stomach, but that it was good for heat in the stomach, lungs 

 and kidneys, and provoked urine. Rhasis stated that the fruit 

 was hurtful to the " maw ;" Serapio that it was in the end of the 

 first degree warming, diuretic and aphrodisiac. Paludanus, the 

 commentator and friend of Linschoten, confirms these state- 

 ments, and, from personal observation, supports the remark that 

 the fruit breeds " a heaviness in the maw." In modern times, 

 it is employed medicinally by Europeans as an anti-scorbutic 

 only, and as a mild, demulcent astringent diet in cases of 

 dysentery, but several other less well-known properties arc 

 attributed to different parts of the plant in the following 

 opinions : — 



" The ripe fruit of the finer varieties of the plantain is 

 useful in chronic dysentery and diarrhoea. The dried fruit of 

 the larger varieties is a valuable antiscorbutic. In North 

 Bengal, the dried leaves, and in fact the entire plant, is burnt, 

 and the ashes, dissolved in water and strained, yield an alkaline 



