Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/175

Rh obtained with iron salts, bat an aqueous solution of the alcoholic extract yielded a slight precipitate with gelatin. The seeds yielded to petroleum ether 20.75 per cent, of a bright green fixed oil. The acrid principle was obtained from the alcoholic extract soluble in water by agitating with petroleum ether. The moisture was 10*86 per cent., and the ash 3.90 per cent, (Amer. Journ, Pharm., Dec. 1890). (Pharmacographia Indica, III. 3-4).

Sans. : — Kulâhala.

Vern: — Kukshima (B.) ; Kutki (M.) ; Gaidar tambáku (H.); Kolhal (Bom.).

Habitat : — Throughout India, from the Punjab to Ceylon.

An annual herb, with alternate leaves. Stems 2-3ft., stout, hairy, branched at summit. Radical leaves on long petioles, compound or pinnatisect, with several small leaflets or segments at base and large oblong, oval, acute terminal one. Cauline leaves alternate, sessile, oblong-ovate, passing into bracts, all coarsely dentate, hairy on both sides. Flowers yellow, moderate sized, on slender, glandular, pubescent pedicels, in long erect racemes l-2ft., terminating stem and branches ; bracts leafy. Calyx-segments oblong, acute, glandular-pubescent. Corolla ½in. diam., lobes rounded. Filaments hairy. Capsule ¼-⅓in. diam., subglobose, glabrous. Seeds oblong, truncate, verrucose.

Uses : — The inspissated juice of the leaves prescribed in several cases of acute and chronic dysentery with manifest advantage. Its action appears to be that of a sedative and astrigent (Ph. Ind.).

"Juice of the whole plant squeezed out by pounding it, is used in half chittak doses, morning and evening, in cases of syphilitic eruptions. The juice of the leaves, mixed with mustard oil, in equal proportions, is applied as an external application for relieving the burning sensations of the hands and feet" (Surg. Mukerji, in Watt's Dictionary^.

" If a little of the root is chewed in fever, or when there is urgent thirst, a cooling sensation will occur and thirst be appeased " (Surg. Wilson, in Watt's Dictionary..

"Expressed juice of the leaves, mixed with sugar and water, used as a drink in bleeding piles" [Dr. Shircore).