498 
PHARMACEUTICAL MEETING. 
bracts and sepals linear ; flowers large, of a beautiful light but bright blue ; 
stigma subglobose, large, glandular, 3-lobed; capsule much shorter than the 
calyx, smooth, 3-celled, with two seeds in each cell.” 
Before proceeding further, it may be advisable to say a word on what, to 
many of you, may seem its curious specific name— Nil. This is a Hindustani 
name, and simply signifies blue , and is applied to this plant, on account of its 
large, beautiful blue flowers. This word has, in a measure, become Anglicized, 
as in the word Nilgherries, which simply signifies blue mountains. The Hin¬ 
dustani name of Indigo is Nil, or the blue dye, and when gentlemen are speak¬ 
ing of Aniline, they are unconsciously employing a word of purely Hindustani 
•origin. 
I he seeds (. Semina Pharbitis Nil ) are commonly met with in the bazaars of 
Bengal, and Northern and Central India, under the Hindustani name of Kala 
dana , which signifies literally black seed ( Kala black, dana seed), and their 
average cost in Calcutta, according to a return published by Sub-Assistant 
Surgeon Kenny Loll Dey, is about 6d. per pound. They are comparatively 
rarely met with in the Madras bazaars, hence it happens that they find no place 
in Ainslie’s Materia Indica, the researches of that gentleman having all been 
conducted in the southern portions of the Peninsula. 
The seeds, as their name indicates, are of a black colour, angular, about four 
lines or more in length, weighing on an average about half a grain each, having 
the form of a segment of an orange. On being chewed they are sweetish ; but 
they subsequently leave rather an acrid taste in the mouth ; they have, espe¬ 
cially when fresh, a slight, peculiar, heavy smell, but these sensible qualities 
become diminished or are lost by long keeping. 
No satisfactory analysis of them has been made, but according to O’Shaugh- 
nessy they contain a resin, gum, starch, a bland fixed oil, fibre, and colouring 
matter. 0 
1 hough the purgative nature of these seeds appears to have been long known 
to the natives of those portions of India in which the plant is indigenous, their 
properties, in modern times, were first noticed in 1824, by Roxburgh (Flor. Ind. 
1st ed. vol. ii. p. 91), who states that he has heard them much praised as an 
effectual quickly-operating, safe cathartic. The first clinical trials made 
with them. were by Sir W. O’Shaughnessy, about 1840 (Bengal Disp. p. 505), 
in the Police Hospital, Calcutta, when he found that in doses from 30 to 40 
grains, they acted in the manner represented by Roxburgh. In a hundred 
cases in which they were administered, they proved purgative in ninety- 
four, occasioned vomiting in five, and griping in fifteen. They produced, on 
an average, five stools within two hours and half, their operation generally com¬ 
mencing in about one hour and ceasing within four hours. In addition to his 
own experience, he cites that of Drs. Chapman, Green, Martin, Goodeve, Leckie, 
and Stewart, to the same effect. He reported equally favourably of an alcoholic 
extract prepared from them, in 10-grain doses. 
^ r Ihe next, and even more conclusive testimony I would mention is that of Dr. 
Kirkpatrick, Madras Medical Service. In his Catalogue of Mysore Drugs 
(^o- 407), he states that after employing these seeds in between five and six 
hundred cases, he has come to the conclusion that they form a very valuable, 
safe, and certain purgative, intermediate in strength betw r een rhubarb and jalap. 
He advises that the seeds should be boiled in water for three minutes, then 
dried and reduced to a fine powder, and thus prepared to be administered in 
doses of a drachm. He further advises that the powder should be conjoined 
with ah tile ginger or omum-water (distilled water of Ptychotis Ajowan ), and 
given in conjunction with cream of tartar, like Pulv. Jalapse Comp. He is of 
opinion that it is not so apt to nauseate as Jalap, and that, though not quite 
so active, it is no less certain in its operation. In an official report from Dr. 
