N. 0. SSLANAOE®. 
915 
Uses: — la Hindu medicine, the root of D. alba ia boiled in 
milk, and this milk is administered with clarified butter and 
treacle in insanity. The seeds, leaves and roots are considered 
useful in insanity, fever, with catarrhal and cerebral compli- 
cations; diarrhoea, skin diseases, lice, &c. (Dutt). 
It is officinal in the Pharmacopeia of India. 
Epithems of the braised leaves, or embrocations formed by 
macerating the braised seeds in any bland oil, are often very 
effectual in allaying the pain in rheumatic swellings, nodes, 
boils, and tumours (Ph. Ind.). 
873 . D. Metel, Linn, h.f.b.i., iv. 243 . 
Vern. : — Dhutura (B.). 
Habitat : — W. Himalaya and Mts. of W. Deccan Peninsula. 
Use : — Used like the preceding species. 
Datura Metel contains scopolamine (hyoscine) as almost the 
only constituent of alkaloidal nature. The leaves contain 0'55, 
the seeds 0'50, per cent of scopalamine. — J. Ch. S. 1905 A.. 
I. 717. 
The seed contains both hyoscyamine and scopolamine. — J. 
Ch. I. 15. 2. 1911, p. 152. 
The Indian plant (seeds and leaves) contains considerably less alkaloid 
than the European plant (0‘28-0 25 as compared with 0 50-0 65) ; in one sample 
scopolamine was the predominant alkaloid as in the European plant, but 
another sample contained more hyoxyamine than scopolamine.— [Bull. Imp. 
Inst. I9il], 
In his “ Poisonous Plants of Bombay,” Lieut.-Colonel 
Kirtikar writes 
“ The active ptinciple of the plant is an alkaloid once known as Daturine. 
The seed contains it in larger proportions than any other part of the plant 
weight for weight. The alkaloid was also known at one time as Daturia. 
Sohn says that commercial Daturine is frequently a mixture of Hyoscyamine 
and Atropine or the former solely. Datura stramonium, he says, also contains 
Stramohine which is an alkaloid like Hyoscyamine and Atropine, but it is not 
bitter. Hyoscyamine has a sharp and disagreeable odour; Atropine has a 
disagreeable metallic taste.* Erhlrdt and Poehl dispute the identity of 
Atropine and Daturine, says Sohn. Professor Dragendorff says ) that “ accord- 
ing to the more recent researches of Ladenburg, henbane contains two 
* Soe p. 14, Sohn’s Dictionary of the Active Principles of Plants, 1894 
London. 
t Plant Analysis— English Translation by Greenish, p. 60, 1884, London, 
