Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/58

808 the stout midrib ; veins reticulate. Petiole 1/6in. Pedicels short, clothed with ovate acute imbricating bracts. Calyx 1/10in., long, glabrous outside ; lobes ovate, acute, margins ciliate. Corolla 1/6in. diam., rotate, green without, purple within, tube very short, lobes fleshy, ovate-oblong, acuminate, valvate. Follicles 4-5in. Seeds 1/5in., ovate-oblong, flattened, black ; coma lin., pure white.

Parts used : — The root ; juice.

Uses : — In the more southern parts of the Concan, the milky juice is dropped into inflamed eyes ; it causes copious lachrymation, and afterwards a sensation of coolness in the part. The root is tied up in plantain leaves and roasted in hot ashes ; it is then beaten into a mass with cumin and sugar and administered with ghi as a remedy in heat or inflammation of the urinary passages. As a lêp, the root is applied to swellings ( Dymock).

The root is prescribed usually in the form of syrup. Sometimes the whole plant is pounded and a congee made with rice, or an infusion prepared of the dried leaves (Watt).

Roots are officinal in the Indian Pharmacopœia, and are used as a substitute for sarsaparillla. " They are said to be sweet, demulcent, alterative, diaphoretic, diuretic and tonic. Useful in loss of appetite, disinclination for food, fever, skin diseases, syphilis and leucorrrhæa" (Dutt's Materia Medica).

" In chronic cough and diarrhœa, the hot infusion with milk and sugar acts as an alterative and tonic, specially in children " (Dr. R. L. Dutt in Watt's Dictionary).

The aroma and taste of the drug is due to the presence of coumarin which can be obtained in part by boiling the root with water. Crystals of coumarin can be prepared from the residue after distillatian by drying and extracting with alcohol. This is no doubt the substance obtained by Garden in 1837 and called smilasperic acid, and subsequently by Scott in 1843, who described it as a crystalline stearopten.

(Pharmacographic Indica, Vol. II. p. 448).

Vern. : — Báta, barri, barrara (Pb.) ; Shabbi, barrarra (Pushtu); Hum, huma (Afg.) ; Um, nuna (Bel.) ; Buraye (Sind.).