Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/623

Rh diarrhœa and chronic diarrhœa. He administers it in pills of 25 centigrammes each, the dose being from four to twelve pills or even more in the twenty-four hours (Pharmacog. Ind.).

It is therefore possible that the therapeutic value of myrobalans may before long form the subject of systematic investigation (Watt).

A fruit, finely powdered, is used as dentifrice. Said to be useful in carious teeth, bleeding and ulcerations of the gums (B. D. Basu).

A fruit, coarsely powdered and smoked in a pipe, affords relief in a fit of asthma. A decoction of the fruit is a good astringent wash. A fine paste, obtained by rubbing the fruit on a rough stone with little water, mixed with the carron oil of the Pharmacopeia and applied to burns and scalds, effects a more rapid cure than when carron oil alone is used (D. R. Thompson in Watt's Dic).

Water in which the fruits are kept for the night is considered a very cooling wash for the eyes. The ashes mixed with butter form a good ointment for sores (Robb, in Watt's Dic).

{{smaller|On removing the astringent pulp of the myrobalans a hard, stony seed remains which weighs 37.5 per cent, of the fruit. The seeds are sent in large quantities from the Central Provinces to Bombay as an oil seed. Within the seed is a kernel which yields to ether 36.7 per cent, of a yellowish, pleasant and edible oil. A sample of the oil had an acid value of 8.9, saponification value of 192.6, iodine value 87.5, and 96.2 per cent, of insoluble fatty acids and unsaponifiabie matter.

{{smaller|Chebulic acid : — This is obtained from the fruits in the following manner :— The dried fruits are powdered, macerated for 10 days at the ordinary temperature with 90 per cent, alcohol, pressed and filtered. The alcohol is completely removed from the extract, and the residue then dissolved in hot water ; cold water is added until no further milkiness appears, and the whole is allowed to settle, and then filtered. To the filtrate, sodium chloride is added until a permanent turbidity appears, and the solution is then shaken out with ethyl acetate, which dissolves chebulic and tannic acids. To remove the latter, the ethylacetate is distilled off, and the residue dissolved in water, and shaken out with ether ; from the aqueous solution crystals of chebulic acid then separate on standing, and may be recrystallised from hot water. The yield is 3.5 per cent.}}

{{smaller|Chebulic acid, C{{sub|28}}H{{sub|24}}O{{sub|19}}+H{{sub|2}}O, begins to melt at about 200°, and is optically active, having [a]{{sub|D}}= + 66.94°. The molecular weight of the anhydrous compound was determined by Beckmann's boiling point method}}