Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/304

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INDIAN MEDICINAL PLANTS.


" Assistant-Surgeon B. M. Chatterjee reports having found it a very good expectorant, and that he has prescribed it in several cases of asthma with marked success. He employed it in the form of powder, decoction, and infusion, but the doses and proportions are not furnished. Taken largely it acts as an emetic." (Ph. Ind.)

In Food and Drugs for October 1910, p. 80, Dr. Lai Mohan Ghoshal concludes his observations on the action of this plant as follows : —

1. " The active principle is a diuretic, chiefly acting on the glomeruli of the kidney through the heart, increasing the beat and strength, and raising the peripheral blood pressure in consequence ; on the cells of the tubules it exerts little or no action: and, if any, it is only initial and comparative.

2. On respiration it has little or no action, and if it is anything, it is probably due to the fatty principle found in the weeds.

3. On liver the action is principally secondary and in chemical combination with other drugs.

4. On other organs the drug has practically no effect.

From what has been gone through it may be inferred that the drug may be given in any condition of the kidney where there is lessened secretion or where increased secretion of kidney is wanted. Thus it may be given in all renal affections stopping secretion of kidney, in ascites, either from cirrhosis of liver or heart or kidney. As it increases the systole of the heart, it may be useful in all stenosed conditions of the valves, as by increasing the force and duration of the systole it can pump all the blood from the heart. Where there is dropsy and ascites due to weaknes of the heart or to dilation of the heart, this medicine in my opinion may do extreme good by relieving the circulation through the kidney. In pleurisy and some such affections, where there is accumulation of fluid in the cavities, the drug may be useful by increasing the quantity of urine."

It contains (1) a sulphate of a body, alkaloidal in nature; (2) an oily amorphus mass of the nature of fat (probably) ; (3) sulphates and chlorides and traces of nitrates and chlorates from the ash. The amount of the alkaloidal body is very small. {Food and Drugs, Oct. 1910, p. 73.)

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