XIV TURMERIC 437 
chemistry of its colouring matter is to be found in 
Watt’s Dictionary, 
Medicine. — As a drug, turmeric is no longer used in 
European medicine, except as a colouring matter. It is 
extensively used in native medicine, especially in skin 
disease, and as a powder for sores among the Malays. 
Children with excessive perspiration are often covered 
with the powdered rhizomes used in much the same way 
as orris root is in England. Women after confinement 
are often rubbed all over with it, and it is used largely 
as a cosmetic. In Java, I have seen children on the 
way to a circumcision ceremony so coated with turmeric 
that they appeared entirely of a bright yellow colour, 
giving them a most extraordinary appearance. 
It is recommended both in India and Malaya for 
bruises, leech bites, and skin diseases, but so far as I 
have seen in the case of sores, with more injurious than 
beneficial effects. It is said to relieve pain in purulent 
conjunctivitis, and to be beneficial burnt as a fumigation 
in catarrh and hysteria, and as powder with alum is 
blown into the ear in chronic otorrhoea. 
OTHER SPECIES OF CURCUMA 
There are several other Curcumas which are more 
or less cultivated and also wild in India and the Malay 
region, and which are used for various purposes by the 
natives, chiefiy as drugs, dyes, and as starch producers, 
but not as spices, and so need be no more than 
mentioned. 
Curcuma Amada, Roxb., mango ginger, is used in 
medicine and as a condiment and vegetable in Bengal. 
C. angustifolia, Roxb., East Indian arrowroot. 
Cultivated for its starch. 
C. aromatica^ Salisb., yellow zedoary. Cochin 
turmeric, used as a dye and cosmetic and as a drug. 
C. coesia, Roxb., black zedoary. 
C. caulina, Cresham, and C. leucorrhiza, Roxb., and 
other spices are used to make a form of arrowroot. 
