X. 0. SCITAMINE*. 
1267 
drink and mouth-wash to allay thirst in cholera. According to 
Dymock, Mir Muhammad Husain states in the Makhzan, that 
the kind of plantain, called mdlbhok, is used as a poultice to 
burns, while that called bolkad is boiled and employed as an 
ointment for the syphilitic eruptions of children. He also 
notices the use of the ashes on account of their alkaline pro- 
perties, and of the root as an anthelmintic. Ainslie writes, 
“ The plantain is one of the most delicious of all the Indian 
fruits, and one of the safest for such as have delicate stomachs, 
being entirely free from acidity ; it is, moreover, very nourish- 
ing, and is always prescribed as food by the Hindu practi- 
tioners for such as suffer from bile and heat of habit.” 
The fruit has long been known and commented on by Euro- 
pean writers. Perhaps the first authentic description is by 
Pliny, who quotes the name pala, a term which still exists in 
Malabar. He states that the Greeks of Alexander’s expedition 
saw it in India, and that sages reposed beneath its shade ami 
ate its fruit (hence the name “ sapientum ”). In the middle 
ages, it had some reputation rs a medicine. Avicenna 
wrote that it engendered phlegm, and that it spoiled the 
stomach, but that it was good for heat in the stomach, luDgs 
and kidneys, and provoked urine. Rhasis stated that the fruit 
was hurtful to the “ maw Serapio that it was in the end of the 
first degree warming, diuretic and aphrodisiac. Paludanus, the 
commentator and friend of Linschoten, confirms these state- 
ments, and, from personal observation, supports the remark that 
the fruit breeds “ a heaviness in the maw.” In modern times, 
it is employed medicinally by Europeans as an anti-scorbutic 
only, and as a mild, demulcent astringent diet in cases of 
dysentery, but several other less well-known properties are 
attributed to different parts of the plant in the following 
opinions : — 
“ The ripe fruit of the finer varieties of the plantain is 
useful in chronic dysentery and diarrhoea. The dried fruit of 
the larger varieties is a valuable antiscorbutic. In North 
Bengal, the dried leaves, and in fact the entire plant, is burnt, 
and the ashes, dissolved in water and strained, yield an alkaline 
