Indian Medicinal Plants/Natural Order Berberideæ

by Kanhoba Ranchoddas Kirtikar and Baman Das Basu

N. O. BERBERIDEÆ.

49. Berberis vulgaris, Linn, h.f.b.i, i. 109.

Vern.:—Zirishk; Kashmal; Chachar or Chochar (Pb.); Bedana; Cutch (Pers.) Chatrod (Jaunsar).

Habitat:—Himalaya from Nepal westward, in shady forests, above 8,000 ft., Jaunsar and Tehri-Garhwal 12,000 ft., Simla, Narkunda, 8,000—12,000 ft, Tibet, Afghanistan.

A small, deciduous, thorny shrub. Bark brown or grey, 1/6 in. thick. Wood lemon-yellow, moderately hard, even-grained. Annual rings marked by an irregular belt of small pores, which are larger than those in the rest of the wood. Leaves 1-3 in. long, broadly ovate, or spathulate, membranous or thinly-coriaceous, glaucous beneath, finely serrate, with equal spinulose teeth, crowded on arrested branchlets in the axils of the 3-fid, rarely 5-fid, or rarely simple spines. Petiole slender, 1/10-l in. long, Racemes pedunculate. Flowers pale-yellow, stigmas broad, sessile. Berry ovoid, or cylindric, as long as, or shorter than the pedicel, usually red when ripe; edible.

Hooker and Thomson observe that this is an extremely variable plant. Ho less than five varieties are known.

Use:—In the Punjab, the drug is used as diuretic, and for relief of heat, thirst and nausea. It is astringent, refrigerant and antibilious. In small doses it is tonic, in larger cathartic. In the form of decoction, it is useful in scarlet fever and brain affections. (Watt).

50. B. aristata, D.C. h.f.b.i, i. 110.

Sansk.:—Darvi, Daru haridra, Pitadaru (yellow wood , Kata (The hip), Kateri (Having the bile), of bile, Suvarnavarna (Gold-coloured Katankati (Growing on the hips).

Vern.:—Chitra; Chotra (Kumaon); dar-hald ; rasvat; Kashmal (H.); Sumlu; Simlu; Kasmal; Chitra (Pb.); Chitra (Nepal); Tsema (Bhutia). 'Rasout' in India is the root-extract—Trimen.

Habitat:—Temperate Himalaya, from Bhotan to Kunawer, Nilghiri Mts , Ceylon, Jaunsar and Tehri-Garhwal, Simla. 6,000-9,000 ft.

Parts used:—The stem, root-bark, and fruit.

An erect spinous shrub, evergreen, 10-12 ft. high. Bark soft, light-brown, corky. Annual rings distinctly marked by a narrow belt of numerous pores. Pores small, in short, narrow wavy tails of light-coloured tissue. Branches shining, reddish-brown, slightly drooping. Leaves sessile, broadly lanceolate, more or less persistent, 2-3 in. long, obovate or oblanceolate, rather coriaceous, entire or with a few remote teeth, in the axil of 5-fid, trifid or a simple spine. The spine is here but a reduced leaf. Flowers bright, golden-yellow, in cymosely-branched racemes, drooping, much longer than the leaves. Peduncle 1-1½ in., long, red. Style short, but distinct. Stigma small, sub-globose. Branches few-flowered. Pedicels 1/5-2/5 in. long, also red. Berries tapering into a very short style; oblong, ovoid, spindle-shaped, red. Young fruit cylindric.

Uses:—The medicinal extract from the root, known as Rasout is highly esteemed as a febrifuge and as a local application in eye diseases.

"Rusot is best given as a febrifuge in half drachm doses diffused through water, and repeated thrice, or still more frequently, daily. It occasions a feeling of agreeable warmth at the epigastrium, increases appetite, promotes digestion, and acts as a very gentle, but certain aperient, The skin is invariably moist during its operation.

"In over thirty cases of tertian ague (several complicated with spleen), we have succeeded in checking the fever, on an average, within three days, after commencing the rusot. In eight cases of quartan, six were cured. The cases of common quotidian, thus successfully treated, were so numerous that they were not recorded. In no instance was headache or constipation produced; but we have seen rusot exasperate the symptoms of chronic dysentery and hepatitis, when complicated with ague. (O'Shaughnessy.)

"Is taken internally in 5 to 15 grain doses, with butter in bleeding piles. Its solution, 1 drachm to 4 ozs. of water, is used as a wash for piles. Its ointment, made with camphor and butter, is applied to pimples and boils, being supposed to suppress them." (Dr. Penny, in "Watt's Dictionary of Economic Products." Vol. II., p. 446.)

The wood, root-bark and extract of Indian Barberry have been used in Hindoo Medicine from a very remote period. Its properties are said to be analogous to those of turmeric. * * Indian Barberry and its extract, rasot, are regarded as alterative and deobstruent, and are used in skin diseases, menorrhagia, diarrhoea, jaundice, and above all in affections of the eyes. * * * Sarangdhara recommends a simple decoction of Indian barberry to be given, with the addition of honey in jaundice. In painful micturition from bilious or acrid urine, a decoction of Indian barberry and emblic myrobalan is given with honey. A decoction of the root-bark is used as a wash for unhealthy ulcers, and is said to improve their appearance and promote cicatrization. * * Rasot, mixed with honey, is said to be an useful application to aphthous sores." (Dutt's Materia Medica of the Hindus).

50. B. Lycium, Boyle, h.f.b.i., i. 10.

Vern.:—The same as those for B. aristata.

Habitat:—Western Himalaya, in dry, hot places, from Garhwal to Hazara, Jaunsar, Tehri and Garhwal, outer Himalayas 3-7,000 ft. Simla, 9,000 ft.

An erect rigid shrub. Bark white or pale grey. Branches angular. Leaves sessile or subsessile, tough, coriaceous, narrowly-lanceolate, obovate, oblong, sub-persistent, not lacunose, 1½-2½ by ⅓-½ in., inner ovate, very spinulose, or the teeth few and small or entire (Collett.); upper surface bright green, lower paler; venation lax. Racemes shortly stalked, simple or compound, longer than the leaves, often corymbose, drooping, barely longer than the leaves. Flowers pale yellow, stalks slender, ½ in., style short, but distinct. Berry ovoid, violet, covered with bloom.

Part used:—The extract, known as Rasout. Rasot or Rasavanti, used as an antidote against opium-habit, by Bhagwanlal Indraji (Pandit J. Indraji.)

Dr. Royle says:—"I have myself occasionally prescribed it, and the native mode of application makes it peculiarly eligible in cases succeeding acute inflammation, when the eye remains much swollen. The extract is, by native practitioners, in such cases rubbed into a proper consistence with a little water, sometimes with the addition of opium and alum, and applied in a thick layer over the swollen eyelids; the addition of a little oil I have found preferable, as preventing the too rapid desiccation. Patients generally express themselves as experiencing considerable relief from the application."

It is mentioned by the author of the Periplus, who lived about the first century, as an export from the Indies, and that in the second century a duty was levied on it at the Roman custom-house of Alexandria; also that it was preserved in singular little jars which are now to be found in collections of Greek antiquities.

The fruit, which is of a beautiful purple colour and covered with a delicate bloom, is eatable, and is exported in a dried state.

Use:—The mode of preparation of the extract Rasot, Rasvanti or Rasanjan is as follows:—Take 4 tolas of the Root cut into thin slices, boil it in half a seer of water, until reduced to a mass weighing 8 tolas; add to it eight tolas of goat's milk, and boil again into a solid mass. This mass is Rasot—(Dr. T. M. Shah of Junagadh). The following powder is given as an effective remedy in dysenteric diarrhoea, in one dram doses. Take equal parts of Rasot, the bark and seeds. Holorrhena antidysenterica, (kuda) the flowers of Woodfordia floribunda (Dhaiti), and the root-tube of Aconitum heterophyllum (Atis) and ginger, and reduce them to an impalpable powder (Dr. Shah).

Dr. Shah recommends Rasot, opium, alum and Bal-Hirda (immature fruit of chebulic Myrobalan), rubbed on a stone, in equal parts, as an external application round inflamed eyes.

Mr. W. H. Lovegrove, Conservator of Forests, Jammu and Kashmir State, contributes an article on "Rasaunt" to The Indian Forester for May 1914 (pages 229-232), from which the following extracts are made:—

"Rasaunt is a brown extract prepared from the root and lower stem wood of Berberies aristata, Berberies Lycium and probably Berberies asiatica or voriaria. The Berberis is locally called Kemlu.
"In boiling out the product large quantities of green fuel are burnt. The common species used are banj (Quercus inca.ua), keint (Pijms Pashia), kakoa (Flucourtia Ramontchi), kembla (Mallotus philippinensis) and other broad leaves. Dry fuel is objected to as being more difficult to control in the kind of furnace used.
The roots of the berberies are dug up and after cutting off, say, the upper ¾ of the stem branches are well washed to remove all earth and foreign matter. They are then cut up into small pieces, the smaller the better. In the Basantgarh Range the sizes of the chips are about 1½" or 2" X ¼" or ½", but in : the Basohli Tabsil (which prides itself on producing a better quality Rasaunt) the pieees are much smaller. The chips are then put into earthen pots, in the proportion of 3 seers of chips to 5 seers of water, the pots being roughly 1' high 7" diameter.
These pots are then placed in two parallel rows on the top of a long furnace, the pots being sealed with clay into the small holes left on the top of the furnace for their reception, thus closing all cracks to the draught and distributing the heat from the fire evenly throughout the flume of the furnace.
The boiling goes on for about six hours. As water evaporates fresh water is poured in so as to keep the chips aiwavs well covered. At the end of this period the contents of pot 2 are poured into the practically empty pot 1, the contents of pot 3 into pot 2 and so on. This is not done quickly but leisurely and water added to rinse the chips. Where the iron pan is used, the extract is poured into that instead of into pot 1,
In this way the liquid contents of all the pots eventually finds its way to pot 1 on each row, or into the iron pan where it is still farther evaporated until sufficiently concentrated. It is not known how long this takes, but apparently there is no hurry about it, and it may stand for some days or for a few hours. When ready it is of the consistency of a thick treacle, and is poured out into small receptacles made of the leaves of belangor (Bauhinia Vahlii) where it cools and thickens ; eventually being packed into baskets for transport to Amritsar.
The larger part of the 'resaunt' extract appears to be exported from Amritsar to Multan, whence it probably extends to Sindh and other desert tracts. Its use is largely in mixing with drinking water. What its effect on the water is, is not known to the writer at present, but its presence probably neutralises a salt, as it is said to make the water "cooler."

51. B. asiatica, Roxb. h.f.b.l, i. 110. Roxb. 300.

Habitat:—Dry valleys of the Himalaya, from Bhutan to Garhwal, Behar, on Parasnath, Lower hills Dehra.

Vern.:— Kilmora (Kumaon); Kingora (Dehra Dun and Garhwal); Mate-Kissi ; Chitra (Nepal), Kishornoi (Jaunsar).

Uses:— The medicinal uses of this are the same as those of B. aristata.

An erect thorny shrub, 3-6 ft. Bark soft, pale, light brown, yellow in bast layers, corky outside, and deeply cleft vertically. Wood yellow, hard Easily recognized by its net-veined leaves. The arrested leaf-bearing shoots often on the top of stout woody tuberculate branchlets of previous years. Leaves 1-3 in., rarely acute, rigidly coriaceous, white beneath, obovate, sometimes nearly orbicular, nerves and veins strongly reticulate, laciniose between the veins. Seedlings have broadly-ovate leave's, petiole slender, more than twice the length of the blade (Brandis). Usually the leaves, says Kanjilal, are with large distant spinous teeth. Racemes corymbose, dense-flowered, shorter than the leaves. Flowers peduncled or sessile, 2 in. diam., pale-yellow, at times only 1/12-1/2 in. diam. Stigma capitate on a distinct style. Berries large, 1/2 in. long, ovoid, often nearly globose, glaucous red or black : edible.

---

52. Podophyllum Emodi, Wall, h.f.b.i. i. 112.

Sanskrit—Laghu Pattra.

Vern.:—Papra, papri, bliavan-bakra, bakra-chimyaka, Nirbishi, Pilijadi (H.); Papri, ban-kakri; banbakri, Kakra, bankakra, Chimyaka, Chijakri, gul-kakri, wan-wangan (Pb.). Veniwel (Guj.); Padwel (Mar.).

Habitat:—Interior ranges of the Himalaya, from Sikkim to Hazara ; Kashmir. Simla, Jaunsar and Tehri Garhwal, 7,000, ft.

A scapigerous herb. Stem or scape 6-12 in., erect, stout, herbaceous. Leaves 2, vernal, alternate, long-petioled, plaited and deflexed in venation, 6-10 in. diam., orbicular, 3-5-lobed to the middle or base; lobes cuneate, laciniate or acutely serrate. Peduncle terminal in bud, then apparently supra-axillary or inserted on the petiole of the upper leaf. Flowers white or light rose, 1-11/2 in. diam., cup-shaped. Sepals very deciduous. Petals 6, sometimes 4 (Royle), ovate-oblong. Stamens usually six. Anther-cells opening by slits. Ovary simple. Stigma large, sessile, peltate. Berry 1-12 in., ellipsoid, red, edible. Seeds many, obovoid, imbedded in pulp, on a broad ventral placenta.

In the Indian Forester for October 1915, Mr. R. S. Troup, I. F S., has contributed a note on the cultivation of Podophyllum Emodi. According to him the plant can be cultivated easily from seed or from pieces of rhizome, but owing to the very slow growth of the rhizomes it is by no means certain to what extent the plant can be cultivated j with profit. He has summarized the following facts from his experiments:— (1) that Podophyllum can be grown successfully either from seed or from sections of rhizomes of any size down to under 1/4 in. in length, though perhaps this length should be taken as a minimum;
(2) that in either case transplanting can be carried out without danger, though in the case of planting rhizome cuttings it is preferable to plant direct in the forest and not to transplant from nursery beds;
(3) that the development of rhizomes is extremely slow : in the case of plants raised from rhizome cuttings it may possibly take at least 12 years to produce fair sized marketable rhizomes, while in the case of seedling plants the period is likely to be longer.

Mr. Puran Singh, F.C.S., Chemist at the Forest Research Institute, Dehra Dun, in a note on the Resin-value of Podophyllum Emodi and the best season for collecting it, writes:—

"The rhizome should apparently be collected in May about the time when the plant is in flower and not in the autumn as has been suggested.
The Comparative Value of the Indian and the American Drugs.
"It has been admitted that the Indian plant is richer in resin as well as in Podophyllotoxin than the American. From the results of the assay of American Podophyllum given by Dunstan and Henry it is calculated that the percentage of the active principle in the resin of the American plant ranges from 15.29 to 23.74. According to the analysis of a sample of the American drug by Umney, the active principle amounts to 22'9 per cent, of the resin. In a sample of the Indian drug examined by him, in 1892, he found 25 per cent., while in another sample collected after fruiting in 1910, he found 50.3 per cent. The percentage of Podophyllotoxin in the Indian resin varies according to the season of collection from 25 to 50 per cent., and it is safe to assert that an average quality of the Indian plant will contain as a rule twice as much of the active principle as the American."

Part used:—The root.

Use:—"Half a grain of the resin, mixed with a little sugar, produced unmistakable cathartic effects in the course of a few hours. * * As there is such a great resemblance between the Indian and the American species of Podophyllum in their botanical and technical characters, and as the former yields such a large quantity as 10 to 12 per cent of an active principle, it is desirable that attention be drawn to such a promising and useful medicinal agent." (Dymock and Hooper in the Ph J. for Jan. 26th, 1889, p. 585.) Chemistry:—
The constituents of P. Emodi are identical with those of P. Peltatum, Crystalline podophyilotoxin C 15 H 14 5 2H 2 0, when acted on by aqueous alkalis, is converted into the isomeric picropodophyllin. The formula of podophyllic acid is C 15 H 16 7 c There is also a yellow coloring matter Cl5 H10 O7J which is identical with the quercetin.
Podophylio-resin has the formula C12 H12 O4 .
Podophyllin is as valuable a purgative as the podophyllin obtained from P. peltatim. The action of this resinous mixture is due partly to the podophyilotoxin it contains, and partly to the active podophyllo-resin. Owing to its intensely irritating action internally, even when given in small doses, podophyilotoxin is unsuitable as a medicinal substitute for podophyllin, whilst podophyllo-resin would seem to present no therapeutic advantage as compared with the podophyllin now employed. Picropodophyllin, picropodophyllic acid, and the quercetin are very slightly, if at all, active as purgatives. Since P. Emodi furnishes more podophyllin than P. peltatum, the Indian plant is of greater value as the source of this resin.— J. Ch. S. T. 1898, p. 209.

---

(Improve this image)

PLATE No. 44.

Berberis aristata, DC.

PLATE No. 45.

Berberis asiatica, Roxb.

PLATE No. 46.

Podophyllum emodi, Wall.