Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/68

818 ppt. becomes hard in the air. After washing with alc. H2O and Me2Co, there remains an ash free substance C16H27O. The resin-free serum reacts alk; upon heating, the protein is coagulated. "With HC1. HN03, picric acid and salts of heavy metals, it gives a turbidity, with NaOH a gelatinous ppt., and with alc. (N. H4)2S04 or Na Cl a pptn. of albumose-like protein compounds. The active substance is found in the serum after freeing from resin, protein and sulphates. Upon cone, it appears as a black, resin-like mass, with a smell like coniine which causes headache. It is sol. in H2O and dil alc, with green fluorescene Et2O ppts. from alc, a yellow N-free mass, hygroscopic, reacts neutral, color of H2S04 solution is red. The same product is obtained by centrifuging and conc, of the serum and extraction with alc. or CH Cl3. The pharmacological action of the juice upon warm or cold-blooded animals is like that of digitalis. O. 02-O. 04. G of the purified principle, injected subcutaneously, kills a rabbit in 30 minutes, a guinea pig in 15 minutes. With pigeons, there results vomiting ; in frogs 1-3 mg, causes systolic arrest of heart action in 6 minutes.--Ch. Abs., August 10, 1913, page 2663.

Vern. : — Kuraki ; Kákatuncli (Bomb.).

Habitat : — Bengal and various parts of India, a weed introduced from the West Indies throughout the Tropics.

Parts used :— The leaves, root and flowers.

Perennial, erect herbs. Leaves opposite, lanceolate, or oblong-lanceolate, acute, narrowed into a short petiole, glabrous. Cymes umbelliform. Umbels many-fid, shortly peduncled. Sepals glandular within. Corolla rotate, lobes reflexed, orange-red. Stamens unite and form a tube round the pistil. Filaments have horn-like appendage, the cucullus which performs functions as a nectary. Follicles turgid, smooth. Seeds comose, numerous.

Uses : — In Jamaica, it is called ' blood-flower, ' owing to its efficacy in dysentery. The root is regarded as purgative, and subsequently astringent. It is also a remedy in piles and gonorrhea (Ainslie ; Baden-powell, Panjab Products).

According to the U. S. Dispensatory, the root and expressed juice are emetic and also cathartic. The juice of the leaves has been strongly recommended as anthelmintic ; and, according to Dr. W. Hamilton, it is useful in arresting hemorrhages and in obstinate gonorrhœa. The medicine is, however, somewhat