N. 0. SAUrfNE.F,. 
1210 
which is Highly valued as a medicine, being cordial, stimulant, 
and aphrodisiac, ami is externally applied in headache and 
ophthalmia. The ashes of the wood are useful in haemoptysis, 
and, mixed with vinegar, applied to hmmorrhoids. The stem 
and leaves are astringent, and the juice and gum are also used 
medicinally to increase visual powers. (Dr. Stewart.) 
In Europe, the bark of this species of willow was at one 
time used as a substitute for Cinchona. 
The leaves have been found useful in fevers in the form of a 
decoction. (Asst.-Surg. Bhagwan Das.) 
The distilled water from the [lowers is useful in palpitation 
of the heart. (Dr. Perry i-n Watt’s Die.) 
The Persian settlers in India have introduced the flowers 
(bedmushlc) and the distilled water (ma-el-khilaf) of S. Capren, 
both of which are used by the upper classes of Mahometans and 
Parsecs, who consider them to be cephalic and cardiacal and use 
them as domestic remedies in almost every kind of slight ail- 
ment. Raughan-i-bed, an oil prepared by boiling two parts of 
the distilled water with one of sesamum oil until the water has 
all evaporated, is a favorite remedy for Cough. (Pharmacog. Ind.) 
Chemical composition.— Willow bark has been shown to contain saliein, 
wax, fat, gum, and a tannin which gives with ferric salts a bluo-black pre- 
cipitate, the liquid becoming purplish-red on the addition o| soda. Johansen 
(1875) has also shown the presence of a kind of sugar having a slightly swoet 
taste and reducing alkaline copper solution with difficulty, and of the 
gtueoside benzohelicin, C ,n H , "0\ Saliein, a glucosido, crystallizes in colour- 
less plates or flat rhombic prisms, but it usually occurs in commerce in white 
glossy scales or needles. It remains unaltered in the air, is neutral to test- 
paper, inodorous, and has a persistently bittor taste. 
Bidenguebine or “willow honey," said to be derived from the leaves and 
young branches of a willow, 'and to have a feebly saccharine taste. 
Bidangubin or “willow honey" has been examined by Rally (Union Pharra., 
May, 1886, p. 201). It affords about 12 per cent, of sugar, estimated as 
glucose, and a considerable quantity of a sugar crystallizing in opaque hard 
crystals like those of sugar of milk. It melts at 150° to a transparent liquid, 
and dissolves in 5'5 parts of water at 15° C. The formula is given as 
CuHjjO,,. This sugar evidently possesses considerable affinity to melezitose, 
from which it differs, according to M. Raby, in not being efflorescent, and 
in the greater rotatory power of the glucose derived from it by inversion 
over that obtained from melezitose. The inversion by means of dilute 
hydrochloric acid also takes place more rapidly. U<‘ therefore proposes to 
call the new sugar bidengueblnose. 
