Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/334

254 elsewhere often 4 in. long (called T. floribunda. — Wall). Flowers small, cream-coloured, in axillary panicles longer than the petiole; ½in. diam. Calyx glandular. Petals 5, imbricate. Stamens not exceeding the petals. Ovary usually 5-celled. Style short. Stigma 5-lobed. Ovules 2, superposed in each cell. Fruit globose, size of a large pea, 3-5-grooved, orange-coloured, ½in. diam.; 3-5-celled. Seeds solitary in each cell. The whole plant hot and pungent,

Parts used : — The root, bark, leaves and fruit.

Uses :--The root is pungent and sub-aromatic, and is considered as stomachic and tonic. It is given in a weak infusion to the quantity of half a teacupful in the course of the clay ; the leaves are also sometimes used for the same purpose (Ainslie). The fresh leaves are eaten raw for pains in the bowels ; the fresh bark of the root is administered by the Telinga physicians for the cure of remittent fever. I conceive every part of this plant to be possessed of strong, stimulating powers, and have no doubt but, under proper management, it might prove a valuable medicine where stimulants are required (ROXB.)

The root-bark is officinal in the Indian Pharmacopœia, being described as an aromatic tonic, stimulant and anti- periodic ; useful in constitutional debility, and in convalescence after febrile and other exhausting diseases. Dr. Bidie of Madras says, he knows of no single remedy in which active stimulant, carminative, and tonic properties are so happily combined as in this drug.

Rheede states that the unripe fruit and root are rubbed down with oil to make a stimulant liniment for rheumatism.

"I have been using the root-bark of T. aculeata in my practice during the last twelve or thirteen years, and do not hesitate in saying that it is one of the most valuable drugs in India. It is, as antiperiodic and antipyretic, equal, if not superior, to quinine and other alkaloids of cinchona and to Warburg's tincture, respectively : and, as a diaphoretic, decidedly more efficacious than Pulv. Jacobi Vera or James' powder, and a few other antipyretic medicines mentioned