108 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
Seeds glabrous, embedded in silky wool. This is the silk-cotton 
tree of the Konkan. 
Parts used : — The gum, seed, fruit, tap-root, bark, cotton 
and flower. 
Uses : — The gum or dried juice, mocha-ras, which the tree 
yields, is used as au aphrodisiac. The root has stimulant and 
tonic properties. The bark and the root are emetic. The 
young roots, dried in the shade and powdered, form the chief 
ingredient in the musla-semul, a medicine highly thought of 
as an aphrodisiac ; it is also given in impotence. The gum 
contains a large proportion of_tannic and gallic acids, and may 
be successfully employed in cases requiring astringents. The 
gum has also tonic and alterative properties, and is used in 
diarrhoea, dysentery, and menorrhagia. 
The dry flowers, with poppy seeds, goats’ milk, and sugar, 
are boiled and inspissated, and of this conserve two drachms 
are given three times a day in haemorrhoids (Medical Topography 
of Dacca, by Dr. Taylor). 
“ Its gum is useful in diarrhoea ; dose : 20-30 grs., with 
equal parts of sugar (Surg. T. Anderson, Bijnor;. The taproot 
is used for gonorrhoea and dysentery (Mukerji, Cuttack). The 
leaves, singed and beaten, or rubbed with water to a pulp, make 
a useful application to glandular swellings (Forsyth). Watt’s 
Diet. i. 491. 
The gum is astringent and demulcent ; the seeds nutrient 
and demulcent ; the young fruit stimulant, diuretic, tonic, 
aphrodisiac, expectorant, and exercises a great beneficial in- 
fluence over the membranes of the genito-urinary organs; the 
tap-root is demulcent, tonic, slightly diuretic, and aphrodisiac ; 
the bark is demulcent, diuretic, tonic, and slightly astringent ; 
and the cotton is employed only externally for its mechanical 
properties (softness and elasticity) in padding splints and 
covering burned and inflamed surfaces, &c. 
The gum is useful in diarrhoea, dysentery and other 
affections in which kino and catechu are beneficial. The 
therapeutic uses of the seeds are similar to those of the seeds 
