224 
INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS. 
An annual herb. Stem cylindric erect, simple below ; 2-4 
ft., often solitary, coiymbosely branched above. Leaves narrow, 
linear or lanceolate, sub-3-nerved, without stipular glands. 
Flowers lin. diam., in broad cymes; sepals 5, ovate-acuminate, 
3-nerved, glandular, margins ciliate or not. Petals 5, crenate, 
contorted, fugacious, blue ; style, quite free ; stigmas linear- 
clavate. Carpels with ciliated axile margins in the Indian 
plant,- § celled ; cells 2-locellate, 2-ovuled. Capsule scarcely 
exceeding the narrowly white-margined sepals, 5-celled, 
septicidally splitting into 5 simple or 10 1-seeded Cocci. Seeds 
compressed, albumen sparing ; Embryo straight. 
Parts used : — The seeds, oil and flowers. 
Uses : — The Mahomedans consider it to be cold and dry, and 
that clothes made with the fibre, cool the body and lessen pers- 
piration ; they recommend fumigation with the smoke, for colds 
in the head and hysteria, and use the tinder to staunch haemorr- 
hages. The flowers are said to be cardiacal, the seeds aphrodi- 
siacal, and hot and dry. Linseed poultice is recommended for 
gouty and rheumatic swellings ; as an emollient, the mucilage 
is dropped into the eye ; with honey it is prescribed in coughs 
and colds. The roasted seeds are said to be astringent (Dy- 
mock). 
The seeds are used internally for gonorrhoea and irrita- 
tion of the genito-urinary system. The flowers are considered 
a cardiac tonic (Emerson). 
It is officinal in the Indian and the British Pharmacopoeias. 
Medicinally, it is used for poultices. 
The proteins of linseed were extracted with 0 2 per cent, potassium 
hydroxide solution and hvdrolysed with hydrochloric acid of sp. gr. 116 
They yielded glycine traces; alanine, 103 per cent. ; valine, 12*71 ; leucine 
and isoleucine, 3*97 ; proline, 2 85 ; phenylalanine, 4*14 ; aspartic acid, 1*65 ; 
glutamic acid, 11*58 ; 'serine, traces; trosine, 0-65 ; arginine, 6 06 ; histidine, 
166; lysine, 1*19 ; ammonia 1*94 ; and tryptophane, traces— in all amounting 
to 49*43 per cent. The chief feature of the hydrolysis is the very high pro- 
portion of valine, 12*7 per cent , as most proteins yield less than 1 per cent, 
of valine. The amount of tyrosine is exceptionally low and the accuracy of 
the methods of separating this amino-acid is open to doubt. Basic lead 
acetate precipitates from neutral or faintly alkaline solutions containing 
