THE TECHNOLOGIST, 



NOTES ON THE FEBRIFUGE PLANTS OF CEYLON. 



BY WM. C. ONDAATJE, COLONIAL ASSISTANT-SURGEON. 



For many years past my attention has been directed to the examination 

 of a large number of medicinal plants growing in Ceylon. I have from time 

 to time, while on duty, at the various stations, noted down the names of 

 such as are reputed to possess valuable medical properties, with a view 

 to future experiment. 



It need hardly be mentioned to those who are acquainted with our 

 Indian Materia Medica that the physicians of the East, have from the 

 earliest times, greatly exaggerated the remedial effects of plants, ascribing 

 to them many varied and wonderful properties, which the light of 

 Modern Science has shown to be mere creatures of a fertile imagination. 



It would be, comparatively, an easy task to repeat here the properties, 

 and uses which are assigned by the natives to plants of this country, as 

 well as to those found in India. But this having been frequently done, and 

 many absurd and unfounded statements being only thereby propagated, I 

 shall confine myself on this occasion to the consideration of the subject 

 practically — as it refers to a few indigenous plants. That our jungles do 

 abound with plants which may be converted into useful febrifuges none can 

 doubt, who has any acquaintance with the vegetable productions of this 

 beautiful island. A kind Providence has scattered in all directions the 

 means of removing a disease, which may be regarded, as more or less 

 endemic, and which of late has prevailed to so fearful an extent. I mean 

 fever — to the cure of which by medicines procurable on the spot our best 

 efforts ought to be directed. One of the highest botanical authorities says 

 " that every country spontaneously furnishes remedies for those maladies 

 which the people of the soil are naturally subject to." 



But as the European pharmacopoeia affords the necessary drugs for com- 

 bating the many evils to which flesh is heir, few look beyond it for any 

 new remedies, or for efficacious substitutes, for those already in use. We 

 are often satisfied with possessing so powerful and invaluable a remedy as 

 the disulphate of quinine ; and, with the present facilities for procuring it, 

 we feel little inclined to extend our researches into the jungles, with a view 

 VOL. II. k 



