Indian Medicinal Plants/Natural Order Salvodoraceæ
N. 0. SALVADORACEÆ.
744. Salvadora persica, Linn, h.f.b.l, III. 619 ; Roxb. 130.
Vern. :— Arák (Arab.) ; Darakhte-misvak (Pers.) ; Kabbar, kharidjar, pilu (Sind.) ; Jhál (Rajputana); Kaurivan, jhár (Pb.) ; Kharjál (H). Opa, ughai, kár kol, kalarva (Tam.) ; Waragu-wenki ; Ghoonia (Tel.) ; Pilu (Mar.) ; Khikan (Bom.).
Habitat : — India in the drier climates from the Punjab and Sindh to Patna. The Circars, North Ceylon.
A small glabrous evergreen tree, with usually a short and crooked trunk. Branches many, drooping, terete, glabrous, whitish-yellow. Bark thin, wood white, soft. Leaves, ovate or oblong, obtuse, 1¾ by ½ in. ; some-what fleshy. Petiole ½in. Panixllary or terminal, compound, 2-5 in., numerous in the upper axils. Flowers greenish white, scattered, pedicelled. Calyx 1/20in. loves ovate. Corolla 1/10 almost 5-partite. Filaments short, anthers ovate. Drupe or Berry red, smooth, ½ in. diam., scattered ; tastes of mustard. Flowers all the year.
Parts used: — The fruit; bark; shoots; leaves; juice, and roots.
Uses:— In Persian works on medicine, the fruit is described as deobstruent, carminative, and diuretic.(Dymock.) It is said to be administered in Sind with good effect in cases of snakebite, and to be used both in the fresh and in the dried state, although in the latter it loses much of its efficacy, and has to be administered in considerably larger doses and combined with borax. (Dr. Milach.) The fruit is also held to be purgative. Ainslie states that the bark of the stem is a little warm and somewhat acrid, and is recommended by Native physicians to be used as a decoction in low fever, and as a stimulant and tonic in amenorrhœa. The dose of the decoction is half a teacupful twice daily. (Materia Medica.) The shoots and leaves are pungent, and are considered by the Natives of the Punjab as an antidote to poisons of all sorts. (Murray.) The juice of the leaves is given in scurvy. The leaves are used by the country-people in the south of Bombay as an external application in rheumatism; they are heated and tied up in thin cotton cloth. (Dymock.) The bruised bark of the roots is acrid, and acts as a vesicant. (Ainslie.) It is " remarkably acrid ; bruised and applied to the skin, soon raises blisters, for which purpose the Natives often use it. As a stimulant, it promises to be a medicine possessed of every considerable powers." (Roxburgh.)
The tree derives its Persian name (darakht-i-miswák, or tooth-brush tree) from the fact that the wood is much employed for the manufacture of tooth-brushes, and it is supposed by the Natives that tooth-brushes made of it strengthen the gums, keep them from becoming spongy, and improve digestion. (Stewart and Murray.)
745. S. Oleoides, Dcne, h.f.b.l, iii. 620.
Vern. :— Jhal(H.); Kabbar ; Jhár ; Mithi-diár (Sind) ; Jál, rán (Pb.) ; Khikan (Bomb.); Khikhanela, pilu (Mar.) ; Ughai ; Koku (Tam.)
Habitat : —Punjab, Central and Northern and Sindh in the plains; Merwara, Trans-Indns.
A large evergreen tree or shrub. Bark ½in. thick whitish grey, tessellaled- Wood light red moderately hard with a small irregular purple heartwood. Branches many, spreading, whitish. Leaves dull grey, linear or narrowly lanceolate, acute, 2 by ½ in.; petiole ½ in. Panicles mostly reduced to axillary fascicles of short spikes 1-1½ in. Rachises after flowers have dropped rough from the crowded scars. Flowers greenish- white, sessile. Calyx about I½in. long, divided about ½ way down into 4 rounded lobes. Corolla as long as or a little longer than the Calyx, lobes obovate-oblong, reflexed. Stamens exserted. Drupe — yellow when ripe reddish brown when dry, clustered, ½ in., often touching each other.
Uses : — The oil obtained from the seeds by expression, is used as a stimulating application in painful rheumatic affections and after child-birth. The root-bark is used as a vesicant. (Dymock.)
The leaves Rasuna resemble the lanceolate senna, and are purgative. (Honnigberger.)
The fruit is sweet in taste, and is supposed by the natives of the Punjab to have aphrodisiac properties. The fruits eaten singly are said to cause tingling and small ulcers of the mouth, hence people prefer to eat them by handfuls, seeds and all, and the latter are apt to accumulate in masses in the sigmoid flexure of the intestines and lead to disagreeable results. (Stewart.)
The leaves are made into a decoction and given as a purgative to horses. (Watt.)
The seeds yield 44-6 per cent, of a hard, bright, yellow fat, having a faint slightly unpleasant odour and the following characters: sp. gr, at 99° -150°c, 0.867; acid value, 9.3. saponif value 254.2; iodine value, 5.9; solid if pt. of fatty acids (titer test), 304°e. (approx) ; m. pt. 38 c c. The fat could he used in the manufacture of candles, and if freed from its unpleasant odour and taste might be of use in the preparation of vegetable butter and "chocolate fats." —J. Ch. I. May 15, 1913, p. 496.
The following chemical and physical constants were obtained with the commercial fat : Specific gravity at 50°, 0.9084 : melting point, 41° ; acid value, 11.26; saponification value, 242.36 ; iodine value, 7.48; Reichert-Meissl value, 1.28. Fatty acids : per cent. 94.12 ; melting point, 40° ; iodine value, 8.3 ; neutralisation value, 244.42.
The oil of S. persica has similar properties. The oil-cake contains nitrogen 4.8, potash 2.8, and phosphoric anhydride 1.05 per cent. (Hooper).
746. Azima tetracantha, Lamk. h.f.b.i.. iii. 620.
Syn. : — Monetia barlerioides, D'Herit. Roxb. 716.
Sans. : — Kundali.
Vern. :— Kántagúr-kamai (Hind.); Trikanta-gati (Beng.); Sukkápát (Dec); Sung-elley (Tam.); Tella-upi (Tel.); Sungelley or sung-ilai, changan-chedi, muttu-chengan-chedi, nallo-changan-chedi (Tam.) ; Uppiaku (Tel.). Habitat : — Deccan Peninsula ; " one of the commonest shrubs of Coromandel, growing in all situations." (Roxburgh.)
A sraggling thorny shrub. Branches green herbaceous. Bark light brown, rough, wood white, soft, consisting of concentred layers in which the pores, surrounded by white loose tissue, are alternately scanty and many — (Gamble) young shoots pubescent, glabrous afterwards ; spines in each axil 1-2 in. number, ½-lin. long. Leaves stiff, shining, sharply mucronate or spinescent ½-2in. long 5-¾in. broad, elliptic, acute. Flowers greenish white, sessile, axillary, clustered, scarcely ½ in. diam. Female flowers solitary or in 2-fid clustered. Male flowers in dense globose fascicles, the supporting leaves of the upper fascicles reduced to bracts or obsolete, so that the flower-branches end in naked interrupted spikes on which the flowers are whorled. Calyx 1/10 in.; petals linear-lanceolate, acute, spreading, ⅓ in. Ovary 2-celled. Cells 2-ovulate, or more often- lovulate. Berry ½ in. diam. white ; usually 1 seeded.
Uses : — The leaves, root, and milky juice are bitter and are used medicinally by the Hindus. Dr. P. S. Mootooswamy, (Ind. Med. Gazette, October 1889), states that the leaves are considered stimulant, and are given to puerperal women immediately after confinement. They are administered in the following manner by the villagers : — The leaves with an equal quantity of Neem leaves, and a little powdered brick, are finely ground and given twice a day for the first two days, no food being allowed. For the next six days the woman gets a little boiled rice and pepper water once a day, and is allowed to drink a little warm water after the meal ; she is not allowed to sleep after her food during the day, and if thirsty must quench her thirst by eating betel leaves and areca nut. From the seventh day she gets her ordinary food. It is also the practice among the rural classes to give 2 or 4 ounces of Neem oil soon after delivery ; with a little roasted assafœtida, and the woman is made to take daily for a month from the morning of the third or fourth day a bolus of a stimulating confection, called Nadaycayam in Tamil, which is supposed to keep off cold from the system. (This practice is general amongst the country people in most part of India). The leaves are also administered with food as a remedy for rheumatism, and their juice to relieve cough.
The root is considered to have the same properties as the leaves, and to be also diuretic ; it is gien in dropsy along with other drugs. Dr. Mootooswamy gives the following formula as much used by native doctors: — Take of the root bark 3x, Tribulus terrestris fruits, root of Trianthema monogyna and Cephalandra indica ad3. Beleric and chebulic myrobalans asss. Iron dross gx. Goat's urine gviii, water four seers, Make a decoction and keep it for several days in the oven. Dose 2 to 3 ounces twice a day in as much water.
A decoction of the root leaves and bark with an equal quantity of Acorus calamus, ajowan seeds and salt is recommended as a remedy for chronic diarrhæa and 1 to 1½ ounces of the juice obtained from the root bark, with three ounces of Goat's milk, twice a day as a diuretic in dropsy.
(Pharmacographia Indica, Vol. II. pp. 385 etseq.)
" A decoction of bark is given as an antiperiodic in ague with success. It is astringent and tonic. The leaves used for ulcers, and especially after small-pox." (Surgeon-Major Lionel Beech, Cocanada.)
"The root-bark is used in muscular rheumatism." (Moodeliar, Madras.)
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