N. 0. PALMES. 1319 



Revd. Father J. E. Blatter, S. J. Professor of Botany, 

 St. Xavier's College, Bombay, in his account of this palm in 

 the Journal of the Bombay Natural History Society, Vol. XXI, 

 has reprinted an English translation of a Tamil poem, entitled 

 "Tala Vilasum," written by "Arunachalam, a poet of Terruk- 

 Kudantei, the same with Combaconam in the province of 

 Tanjore." This poem enumerates no less than 801 different 

 purposes to which the Palmyra may be applied. The extracts 

 given below show some of its uses in medicine : 



Griping of the bowels, diarrhoea and lodging of small fish bones in the 

 oesophagus may be removed by eating dried Palmyra pulp. 



If the flour of the dried edible Palmyra-root (Odial) be mixed with Cocoanut 

 milk, salt water and fish, and if the paste be steamed, the cake when eaten 

 will daily add strength to any body. The middle pieces of the Odial are 

 cleared of their outer fibrous skin, soaked in water, then dried and powdered ; 

 If the flour be mixed with the cocoanut milk, salt water, fish and herbs, and 

 if the paste be steamed and then ghee be added to it, the cake will indeed 

 be very sweet ; if certain fruits and pungent substances be added to the 

 above, the cake will be of an agreeable taste. If the Odial flour be mixed 

 with the scrapings of the kernel of the cocoanut and powdered rice, cummin, 

 pepper and chilly ; if the paste be steamed and the cake be broken and 

 dried, it can be preserved for two months. No other cakes will resemble the 

 above. Sweets are more agreeable to cakes of the above description. If 

 curds, milk, ghee, and cocoanut milk be added to the paste of the Odial flour, 

 and be steamed, the cake, when used, has the power of retinendi seminis 

 virilis in corpore sine pollutione, conferendique facultatem horas in thalamo 

 jugali protrahere, and increasing muscular strength ; the person will not be 

 reduced by labour. 



Toddy if taken daily, will increase one's muscular strength and give a 

 gloss to his person ; if used by children in small quantity it will remove itch 

 and many other diseases. If powdered load-stone and scoria of iron and file 

 be put into the pot that is attached to the incised blossom, and the toddy 

 collected in such a pot be drunk for seven days in the morning. 



If shell-lime be put in the pot that should be attached to the blossom, and 

 the toddy be used, hunger, thirst, languor and laziness will be removed, heat 

 in the constitution will be destroyed and coolness be created. Toddy will 

 be very sweet if powdered pepper be put in it and boiled. If toddy be 

 boiled nicely, and if slices of ash-coloured pumpkin be boiled in it. 



1303. Cocos nucifera, Linn., h.f.b.l, vi., 482 ; 

 Roxb. 664. 



Eng. : — The Coco-nut Palm. 



Sans. : — Narikela, nari-kera, nari-keli, langalin. 



