11 
traders in Bengal, more especially Orissa. Further, that the traffic 
hey allude to gave to the English language the expression 
* Grass-cloth," which later on became associated with a textile 
derived from China. Thus Cesar Frederike (1563-7) speaks of 
“ Cloth of herbes,’—“a kind of silke which groweth amongst the 
woodes without any labour of man. And when the bole thereof 
is growen round as bigge as an orenge, then they take care onely 
to gather them." Rhea never could have been found e: * wild 
plant in Orissa, and the allusion to the “bole” or fruit, from 
which the fibre was obtained, precludes rhea from secre sitom 
altogether. The passage most unquestionably denotes Calotropis 
gigantea. This view is confirmed by Fitch (1585) who gave an 
account of his explorations of the eee including Orissa (Orixa 
as he calls it) where there was “great store of | the cloth which is 
made from the Grasse which they nias That v ernacular 
er ds oy ihi. to Linschoten, under Rehmeria nivea, 
because all modern writers, whom I have been able to consult, 
quote the above passages, ed several itio to the same effect 
under Rhea, in place of Calotropis, to which they most un- 
doubtedly belong. Coming to more deer dates, Capt. A. Hamilton 
( of 
New Account of E. Indis, pub. 4) who, in 1627, visited 
Bengal, and passed up the utr to Benares and tna, 
describes Bala as produc ing manufactures of eme silk, 
Sore 
mixed silk and cotton, and of * herba (a sort of toug 
of which they make gighams, pinaseos, and several other goods for 
exportation. ” Even so late as md Milburn mentions, among his 
Bengal piece goods, ** herba toffatie 
Though it is certainly most sure that this ancient industry 
in silk-cotton textiles should have died out completely, and been 
all but forgotten, it is a useful object lesson of the possibilities of 
the future, which manufacturers would do well to consider. 
MEDICINE. 
would take man es to indicate even a tithe of the 
the flowers, the E and the root-bark. The late 
Dr. Kanny Lall Dey, C.I.E., regarded madar as a useful medicine 
when given during remission of intermittent fevers, and especially 
if these were associated with eczema. ‘The majority of Indian 
medical writers extol the merits er the root-bark in the treatment 
of irem ntery. In order to verify these emere the study of 
was taken up by the Central Indigenous Drugs Committee 
of India. Authentie parcels of the root-bark were procured and 
made up in the É of both a powder and liquid extract. These 
preparations were issued to a selected number of Hospitals and 
Dispensaries ehe India, with the suggestion that they 
should be used as alteratives and alterative tonies. By chemical 
tests it n previously ascertained that the bark of mature 
plants was preferable to that of immature ones, since they con- 
tained a higher percentage of the acid and bitter resinous matter 
on which the property depended. Asa substitute for ipecac 
