Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/615

purple ; pales 2, nearly equal, falling short of the glumes, lower 3-neived, upper 2-nerved and with inflexed margins ; lodicules fleshy, truncate ; stamens 3, protruded ; female spikelets nearly sessile, closely arranged in pairs on a thick spongy axis, forming a compact cylindrical spike surrounded at the base by broad imbricated bracts, upper flower of spikelet barren ; glumes 2, broad, thick and fleshy at the base, the lower emarginate, ciliate, the upper truncate ; pales 2, lower broad and blunt, the upper much longer, closely adhering to the ovary ; lodicules none ; ovary sessile, ovoid, styles very long, filiform, drooping. Fruit (the grain) roundish or reniform, compressed, smooth, shining, yellow, white, red or spotted. (Duthie.)

Uses : — It is considered by Mahomedan physicians to be resolvent, astringent, and very nourishing ; they consider it to be a suitable diet in consumption and a relaxed condition of the bowels. In Europe it is much used as a valuable article of diet for invalids and children under the names of Polenta (Maize meal) and Maizena (Maize flour). In Greece the silky stigmata are used in decoction in diseases of the bladder, and have lately attracted attention in America under the name of Corn silk, of which a liquid extract is sold in the shops as a remedy in irritable conditions of the bladder with turbid and irritating urine ; it has a marked diuretic action The meal has been long in use in America as a poultice, and gruel is also made of it. In the Concan an alkaline solution is prepared from the burnt cobs and is given in lithiasis.

In the United States for starch manufacture from maize it has been found desirable to get rid of the oily embryo — this is done by machinery. The embryo is too rich for feeding stock unless the oil is removed — this is done in the hydraulic press, and the cake when ground into meal is very valuable as a food for stock. The oil promises to be useful for medicinal purposes instead of olive oil.

Chemical composition.— The average results of the analysis of three varieties of maize in an undried state by Poison, yielded in 100 parts, 54.37 starch, 8.83 nitrogenous substance, 4.50 fat, 2.70 gum and sugar, 15.77 cellulose, 12.16 water, and 1.67 ash. Poggiale found on an average in 160 parts of the dried grain, 64.5 starch, 6.7 fat, and 9.9 nitrogenous substance. Church found it to