64 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Branches few-flowered. Pedicels J-J in. long, also red. 
Berries tapering into a very short style ; oblong, ovoid, spindle- 
shaped, red. Young fruit cylindric. 
Uses The medicinal extract from the root, known as Rasout 
is highly esteemed as a febrifuge and as a local application in 
eye diseases. 
“ Rusot is best given as a febrifuge in half drachm doses 
diffused through water, and repeated thrice, or still more 
frequently, daily. It occasions a feeling of agreeable warmth 
at the epigastrium, increases appetite, promotes digestion, and 
acts as a very gentle, but certain aperient. The skin is invari- 
ably moist during its operation. 
“ In over thirty cases of tertian ague (several complicated 
with spleen), we have succeeded in checking the fever, on an 
average, within three days, after commencing the rusot. In 
eight cases of quartan, six were cured. The cases of common 
quotidian, thus successfully treated, were so numerous that they 
were not recorded. In no instance was headache or constipation 
produced ; but we have seen rusot exasperate the symptoms of 
chronic dysentery and hepatitis, when complicated with ague. 
(O’Shaughnessy.) 
“Is taken internally in 5 to 15 grain doses, with butter in 
bleeding piles. Its solution, 1 drachm to 4 ozs. of water, is 
used as a wash for piles. Its ointment, made with camphor 
and butter, is applied to pimples and boils, being supposed 
to suppress them.” (Dr. Penny, in “ Watt’s Dictionary of Econo- 
mic Products.” Vol. II., p. 446.) 
“ The wood, root-bark and extract of Indian Barberry 
have been used in Hindoo Medicine from a very remote 
period. Its properties are said to be analogous to those of 
turmeric. 0 0 Indian Barberry and its extract, rasot, are regard- 
ed as alterative and deobstruent, and are used in skin diseases, 
menorrhagia, diarrhoea, jaundice, and above all in affections of 
the eyes. ® 0 0 Sarangdhara recommends a simple decoction 
of Indian barberry to be given, with the addition of honey in 
jaundice. In painful micturition from bilious or acrid urine, 
a decoction of Indian barberry and emblic myrobalan is given 
