Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 1).djvu/715

Rh In the Concan, a poultice of carrots and salt is used in tetter, and the seeds are eaten as an aphrodisiac (Dymock).

Its fruits are recommended in chronic diarrhœa (Balfour).

A decoction of carrot is a popular remedy for jaundice in Europe. Rasped carrot is applied to burns and foul ulcers (Dymock).

Said to possess diuretic properties (Meadows' Prescribers' Companion).

A poultice made of the roots is used to correct the discharge from ill-conditioned sores. The raw rasped root is also deemed useful as a stimulating application, and is made into an ointment with lard. This is much used in burns and scalds to good effect (Watt).

The raw carrot when eaten acts as a mechanical anthelmintic (Watt's Dictionary).

The seed yields by distillation a medicinal oil. [Cf. Taleef Shereef (Play-fair, transl.), 113 ] The chemical constituents of the root are crystallisable and uncrystallisable sugar, a little starch, gluten, albumen, volatile oil, vegetable jelly, malic acid, saline matters, lignin and a peculiar crystallisable, ruby-red neutral principle, without odour or taste, called carotin. [Cf. Pharmacog. Ind., ii., 136.]

The amounts of fixed oil obtained from the fruits of plants in this order are exhibited in the following table :—

These were greenish or greenish-brown oils having the characteristic odours of the seeds. C. Grimme (Pharm. Centralb., 1911, 52, 661-667).

 

Habitat : — Nepal, Sikkim, and Bhotan. Khasia Mts. 