Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/459

Rh the intestinal lining is found. Gardol seems to be excreted chiefly with the urine, but partially also with fæces. Applied on a small piece of lint to the skin of the breast, it raised a watery blister in 1A hours (Am. Journ. Pharm., 1882, Dymock).

Between the laminæ of the shell of the kernel there is a black caustic fluid, which contains an acrid, oily principle, cardol and a peculiar acid, anacardic acid.

The spirit distilled from the expressed juice of the fruit may be used as a stimulant (Watt.)

The kernel is nutritive, demulcent and emollient ; and the oil emollient. In the form of mixture, the kernel is useful for all the purposes for which the Mistura Amygdalae is employed, and also as a food in very weak patients suffering from incessant and chronic vomiting, with two or three minims of acid hydro-cyanic dil. in each dose. The oil is a mechanical as well as a chemical antidote for irritant poisons. It not only protects, to some extent, the lining membrane of the stomach and bowels from the irritation of the poison, and prevents both the solution and absorption of it, but also neutralizes it by forming a soap with it, if it happens to be an alkaline. It is also a good vehicle for liniments and other external applications (Mooden Sheriff).

The kernels yield a light, yellow, bland oil. Niederstadt (1902) found the saponification value to be 179.84, and the iodine value, 60.6.

The pericarp or shell yields a black, acrid and powerfully vesicating oil. Crossley and Le Sueur determined the following constants : Specific gravity, 0.9594 ; saponification value, 45.1 ; iodine value, 294.2 ; Reichert-Meissl value, 1.26. Though it possessed an abnormally high iodine value, practical experiments showed it to be a non-drying oil.

Sans. : — Piyála ; Chára ; Chirika.

Vern. :— Piyáar, piyáal, piyâla, chironji (the kernel), (H.), Chironji, peal (the fruit), chirunji (the kernel), piyâl, pîal, pear (the tree), (B.) ; Chirauli, chirâoli (the fruit), chironji, (Pb.) ; Piâl, payâla, muriâ, katbhilawa, (Garhwal) ; Piâr, peira, paira, paila, pairwa, perrah, (Oudh) ; Tarum, (Kol) ; Pial, (Bhumij) ;