ON THE USE OF MARGOSA LEAVES IN SMALLPOX. 
393 
the epidemics themselves are thought to be a visitation of this goddess, in honour of 
whom the Margosa leaves are in common use with the Indians, particularly in cases of 
smallpox. The leaves are spread on the bed of, as well as used for fanning the patient, 
besides a bunch is fixed just above the door as a sign of the presence of the goddess in 
the house. However, the medical writings of the Hindus speak of it in a very different 
light to what is generally believed. The term Mari itself is a feminine form of 
Maraka, a Sanskrit word, signifying death and epidemic, and it is probable that the 
ancient Hindus might have deified the destructive tendency of Nature, and classed her 
amongst their mythological deities. Again, the term Vasuri, which is nothing but the 
corruption of an original Sanskrit word, Masurika, meaning gram, or a disease of gram¬ 
like eruptions, is used by the Hindu nosologists as the generic term for variola. 
According to the writings of Kishi Agastiar, the celebrated sags physician and theo¬ 
logian of Southern India, smallpox is produced as the result of the fermentation of the 
humours of the body, and he says that the articles generally offered to the goddess are 
in themselves a remedy for smallpox ; thus the use of Margosa leaves is supposed to 
bring out the eruptions freely, and the others are dietetic agents of a cooling and nou¬ 
rishing nature. 
When the remedial properties of Sarracenia purpurea and Nepenthes distillatoria 
(Mr. Loftus’ specific for smallpox) were discussed by the press, it struck me that Mar¬ 
gosa leaves, which have been in use in India from the time of antiquity, might also be 
found to possess some virtue, if trials were made. Unfortunately, my itinerating life 
did not offer me an opportunity of experimenting until April, 18G6. 
In the course of my first circuit to Alwaye, a place greatly resorted to by the natives 
during the hot months for health, in the northern extremity of Travancore, I came 
across a few cases of smallpox left neglected by their friends and thrown out on the 
plains under the shelter of cadjan sheds. In the absence of the other drugs referred to, 
I took the opportunity of prescribing the Margosa in the following form :■— 
Take of tender leaves of Margosa ( Azadirachta indica), or Uavanam, the leaves 
with stem of Artemisia austriaca and liquorice root, of each an equal quantity. Mix and 
grind up to a mass with a few drops of water, and divide into pills of five grains 
each. 
I ordered a pill to be given three times a day. They were tried in six cases ; all were 
of confluent form in adults. Two of them were on the 4th, three of them on the 7th 
and 8th, and the other on the 15th day of the disease. With the exception of the 
last patient, who died of exhaustion the same day that the medicine was administered, 
all recovered. 
When I visited the same locality in November, after a period of six months, there 
were also eight cases of smallpox, and their friends, on hearing of my arrival, came and 
begged of me for the pills I gave during my last visit. With the exception of one 
case of a malignant type in a man aged fifty, who was in a dying state when I took him 
under treatment, the rest of moderate severity also recovered. 
As far as I had an opportunity of testing the drug in these fourteen cases, it appeared 
to be beneficial when administered during the premonitory and progressive stage of the 
disease, and to be of little or no use after the eruption had passed the stage of matura¬ 
tion. It seemed to decrease the severity of fever, facilitate the throwing out of the eruption 
freely, and alleviate all other sufferings usually experienced in this disease. In fact, the 
patient expresses himself as passing through the several stages of the disease with 
comparative ease, without much pain or uneasiness. 
I simply bring forward the facts as they occurred to my observation, and I now leave 
it to other members of the profession to give a fair trial of the drug, as opportunity 
offers them. Owing to the nature of my itinerating life, I scarcely find opportunity or 
command sufficient time, to watch the effect of the drug or the progress of the disease 
under its influence, to note down observations and to collect satisfactory statistics on the 
subject. I shall feel obliged to any one who may undertake the trial on an extensive 
scale, and publish the results, whereby greater light may be thrown as to the real value 
of the drug in this most loathsome disease, smallpox. 
In places where fresh plants cannot be had, I would suggest the use of the dried 
tender leaves of Margosa, either in the form of infusion or decoction, with the other 
ingredients, in the proportion of a drachm each to a pint of water; the dose for an 
adult being one ounce of the decoction twice or thrice a day.— Madras Quarterly 
Journal. 
