Chapter 17

The oil is yellow, syrupy, transparent, odorless, insipid.

Botanical Description.--A tree with leaves bunched or clustered, 3-5 lobulate with as many nerves. Petioles about as long as the leaves. Flowers white, terminal in panicles, the pistillate mixed with the more numerous staminate flowers. Staminate: Calyx monophyllous, cylindrical, 2-toothed; corolla, 5 linear petals twice as long as the calyx; stamens 20 or more, joined in a column at their bases. Pistillate: Calyx and corolla as above; ovary of 2 or 3 uniovulate locules, encircled by a disk; style 2-or 3-branched. Seed vessel large, ovate, compressed, fleshy, 2 sutures at right angles, 2 compartments, in each a hard nut.

Habitat.--Grows all over Luzon and is well known to the natives.

_Croton Tiglium_, L. (_C. glandulosum_, _C. muricatum_, Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Tuba kamaisa_, Tag.; _The Purging Croton_, Eng.

Uses.--The fruit is used by the Filipinos to intoxicate the fish in ponds and sluggish streams. The seeds contain an oil that is official in all Pharmacopoeias as one of the most powerful hydragogue cathartics. As it is intensely irritating it should never be administered alone but combined with other substances, such as castor oil, or in pill form. The internal dose is 1 to 2 drops. It is considered a specific for lead colic and is indicated when not only purgation but active irritation of the digestive canal is desired.

Applied to the skin it is a strong irritant causing rapid and painful vesication. Great care should be exercised not to raise the hands to the eyes after touching the oil, as serious inflammation might result.

Botanical Description.--A small tree, 8-9° high, with rough trunk. Leaves alternate, ovate, acute, minutely serrate, both surfaces beset with sharp hairs. Flowers yellowish-white, monoecious. Staminate: Fewer than the pistillate, growing above them; calyx 5-toothed; corolla, 5 woolly petals; stamens 16, joined in the center. Pistillate: Calyx 5-toothed; corolla much less developed than in the staminate; ovary free, 3 uniovulate locules; styles 3, bifid. Seed vessel dry, with thin envelope bristling with stiff hairs; 3 carpels each containing a seed.

Habitat.--Common in Luzon.

_Acalypha Indica_, L. (_A. Caroliniana_, Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.--Not known.

Uses.--This plant is not used medicinally in the Philippines, but is very common in India. Dr. G. Bidie, of Madras, states that the expressed juice of the leaves is in great repute, wherever the plant grows, as an emetic for children and is safe, certain and speedy in its action. Like ipecacuanha it seems to have little tendency to act on the bowels or depress the vital powers, and it decidedly increases the secretion of the pulmonary organs. Probably an infusion of the dried leaves or an extract prepared from the green plant would retain all its active properties. The dose of the expressed juice for an infant is a teaspoonful.

Dr. A. E. Ross speaks highly of its use as an expectorant, ranking it in this respect with senega; he found it especially useful in the bronchitis of children. He also makes favorable report of a cataplasm of the leaves as a local application to syphilitic ulcers and as a means of relieving the pain attendant on the bites of venomous insects.

The alleged purgative action of the root noticed by Ainslie is confirmed by Dr. H. E. Busteed, who reports having used the expressed juice of the root and leaves as a laxative for children.

Langley, a military surgeon, states that in Canara the natives employ the leaf juice in congestive headache, soaking pledgets of cotton with it and introducing them into the nasal fossæ; the resultant nose bleed relieves the headache. The powder of the dry leaves is dusted on ulcers and putrid sores. In asthma and bronchitis, both of children and adults, Langley has used this plant with good results, and he recommends 1.25-3.50 grams of the tincture (100 grams of the fresh plant to 500 of alcohol, 90°) repeated several times a day; the effect is expectorant, nauseant and, in large doses, emetic.

It must be noted that only the young, growing plants are active.

The flowers of another species, _A. hispida_, Burm., called _bugos_ in Tag. and Vis., is used in India for the dysentery.

Botanical Description.--A little plant, about 3° high. Leaves alternate, broad, lanceolate, 5-nerved, serrate from middle to apex. Petioles much longer than the leaves, 2 stipules at their bases. Flowers greenish, monoecious in axillary spikes, pedunculate, as long as the leaves, crowned by a prolongation of the axis in the form of a cross. Staminate: Numerous, in upper part of spike; calyx 4 parts; no corolla; stamens 8-16, small, free. Pistillate: Less in number, at the base of the spike; perianth of 3 imbricated leaflets; ovary, 3 uniovulate locules; style, 3 branches which also subdivide. Capsule 3-celled, each cell containing a globose seed with cicatrix.

Habitat.--Luzon, Panay and Mindanao. Blooms in October.

_Echinus Philippensis_, H. Baillon. (_Croton Philippense_, Lamk.; _Rottlera tinctoria_, Roxb.; _Mallotus Philippensis_, Müll.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Banato_, Tag.; _Buas_, _Vuas_, Iloc.; _Monkey-face Tree_, _Kamala_ or _Kamala Dye_, Indo-Eng.

Uses.--The capsular fruit of this plant is thickly beset with reddish glands and hairs, which, when brushed off and gathered in powder form, constitute the _kamala dye_ of the Hindoos. It was mentioned by the Arabian physicians of the tenth century under the names of _Kanbil_ and _Wars_. In India the powder is highly valued as a yellow dye-stuff for silk. Medicinally it is used as an anthelmintic, the English physician Mackinnon, of the Bengal Hospital, having been the first to scientifically prove this property; he reported that it was successful in expelling the tape-worm. It is now official in the Pharmacopoeia of India and also in the U. S. P. as an anthelmintic and purgative; in Switzerland it is commonly given to expel the bothriocephalus which abounds there, the lake fish acting as hosts.

The dose recommended by the Pharmacopoeia of India is 8-12 grams, divided in 3 or 4 doses. This amount sometimes causes nausea and colic; in the third or fourth stool the tænia is commonly expelled in a lifeless condition. Dujardin-Beaumetz advises a dose of 30 grams of castor oil in case the tænia has not been expelled 2 hours after the last dose of kamala. The powder is efficacious but the tincture seems to be surer; the dose is 6 grams for children and 20 for adults, given in divided doses in aromatic water every hour for 6 hours. This tincture is prepared by macerating 200 grams of kamala in 500 cc. alcohol for 7 days; then filtering with expression and adding enough alcohol to complete the 500 cc.

The powder is also used in India as a local application in herpes circinata. It is insoluble in water; in ether and alcohol it yields 80% of a red resin. Anderson noted that a concentrated ethereal solution of kamala after a few days formed a solid crystalline mass, yellow, very soluble in ether; this substance he named _rottlerin_, C_11_H_10_O_3_.

Botanical Description.--A tree, 6-8 meters high, covered with stellate groups of short yellow hairs. Leaves alternate, petiolate, rhomboid-oval or lanceolate, acuminate, 3-nerved, entire or slightly dentate, upper surface glabrous, lower surface covered with woolly hairs and powdery red glands. Flowers yellowish-green, small, dioecious, apetalous, in spikes. Staminate: By 3's in the axil of each bract; perianth, 3 or 5 deeply cut, lanceolate lobules; stamens 15-25, free, inserted in the center of the flower. Pistillate: In the axil of each bract; ovary, 3 locules each with 1 ovule, covered like the leaves with hairs and yellow, granular glands. Seed vessel globose, 3-celled, like ovary covered with hairs and glands.

Habitat.--Mountains of Morong, San Mateo, Tarlak, Bosoboso, Ilocos Norte, Albay and Batangas.

_Ricinus communis_, L. (Variety _microcarpus_, Müll.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Tangantangan_, _Lingasina_, Tag.; _Tangantangan_, _Tawatawasinga_, Iloc.; _Castor Oil Plant_, Eng.

Uses.--A purgative oil is expressed from the seeds, called "Aceite de Ricino" (castor oil). It operates mechanically in the intestinal tract and its action is rapid and is indicated whenever it is desired simply to empty the intestines without producing any irritating effect; it is, therefore, a purgative indicated in diseases of children, in pregnancy, and in hemorrhoidal congestions where a non-irritating evacuation of the rectum is desired. It is an anthelmintic, though not ordinarily given alone, but in combination with other drugs of a purely anthelmintic action, the object being to expel the worms which have been attacked by the specific.

Oil extracted simply by expression is less purgative than that obtained by treating the seeds with bisulphide of carbon and absolute alcohol; also less purgative than the seeds themselves, because it contains only a very small proportion of a drastic principle existing exclusively in the seeds; this principle is completely dissolved in the oil extracted by chemical process.

It is pale yellow in color, very viscid, with a characteristic mouldy odor. The purgative dose is 10-30 grams. A small dose may purge as actively as a larger one provided that the patient drink abundantly after the administration of the drug. The best method of disguising its taste is by giving it in half a cup of very strong, hot coffee. Just before the dose, take a swallow of coffee to disguise the taste even more effectually.

Castor oil enters into the composition of elastic collodion (simple collodion, 30 grams, castor oil, 2 grams). The leaves pounded and boiled are applied as a poultice to foul ulcers.

Botanical Description.--There are two forms of this variety in the Philippines, possessing the same properties and known by the same common name: _R. viridis_, Müll. (_R. communis_, Blanco) and _R. subpurpurascens_, Müll.; the former is the more common and has a glabrous, fistular stem. Leaves peltate, palmately cleft in 7 or 9 lobules, lanceolate, serrate. Petioles long. Flowers greenish, monoecious, the staminate ones in large panicled clusters below the pistillate. Filaments numerous, subdivided into several anther-bearing branches. Pistillate flowers, 3 sepals, 3 styles. Seed vessel, 3 prickly capsules, containing solitary seeds.

The _R. subpurpurascens_ is distinguished from the former by bearing 2 glandules at the base of the leaves, the mulberry color of which latter suggests its common name, _Tangantangan na morado_, Tag., Vis.

Habitat.--Very common in Luzon, Mindanao and other islands.

URTICACEÆ.

Nettle Family.

_Artocarpus integrifolia_, Willd.

Nom. Vulg.--_Nangka_, Tag.; _Jack Fruit Tree_, Eng.

Uses.--The huge fruit of this tree is well known to the Filipinos and well liked by them as an article of food, eaten fresh or in sweet preserves. The arils and pulpy envelopes of the seeds are the parts eaten, also the seeds themselves, boiled or roasted. According to Padre Mercado the roasted seeds have an aphrodisiac action.

The heated and powdered leaves are applied to wounds and given internally for congestions. The resin of the trunk is a useful application to ulcers and in India they give it internally to cure la melena, the dose, one "tola" mixed with the same amount of _manga_ resin and a little lime water. The same resin if heated makes an excellent cement for broken china.

Botanical Description.--A tree, 20° or more in height, with abundant milky sap. Leaves alternate, oval, acute at both ends, slightly wavy and revolute borders, tough, glabrous and dark green upper surface; light green, slightly rough under surface. Petioles short. Flowers greenish, monoecious, growing on root, trunk and branches. Calyx very small, monophyllous, of about 7 deciduous lobules. Staminate: On a club-shaped receptacle, 3' or 4' long, bristling with the stamens; filaments very short, anthers 2-celled. Pistillate: On a common, oblong receptacle which ripens to the great fruit; style 1, short; rarely 2 divergent styles; stigmas acute. Fruit about size and shape of a small watermelon, beset with many sharp eminences, containing many seeds enveloped in thick arils.

Habitat.--It grows in all parts of the Archipelago and is commonly known.

_Laportea gaudichaudiana_, Wedd. (_Urtica umbellata_, _U. ferox_, Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Lingaton_, _Lipa_, _Apariagua_ (?), Tag., Vis.; _Lipangdoton_, Pam.

Uses.--The Padre Mercado writes as follows concerning the properties of this plant: "The leaves, applied with salt in the form of a plaster, purify dog bites, foul, putrid, malignant and cankerous ulcers; they cure boils, contusions and all abscesses; mixed with wax they may be applied for obstruction of the spleen; mashed with the juice and inserted in the nose they arrest nose-bleed; cooked with snails they soften the stomach, excite the secretion of urine and dissipate flatus; the juice given as a gargle aborts inflammation of the epiglottis. The seeds mixed with wine are a sexual excitant and "clear out" the womb; taken with syrup they relieve dyspnoea, pain in the side and inflammation of the lungs and force up the humors from the chest; it may be mixed with medicines that corrupt the flesh (sic). The grated root drunk with wine relieves painful flatulence. I myself (continues the Padre Mercado) have experimented with a woman who suffered with painful flatulence and this remedy relieved her."

We repeat that all the foregoing is copied from the writings of Padre Mercado and we offer it as a therapeutic curiosity.

P. Blanco states that merely to touch the leaves causes an intolerable itching.

Botanical Description.--A small tree, 12-15° high, trunk richly branched. Leaves opposite, bunched at the ends of the branches, notched at the base, long, ovate, serrate, hairy on both surfaces. Flowers yellowish-white, dioecious. Staminate: In compound racemes; calyx 4 parts; corolla none; stamens 4, inserted on the base of the calyx. Pistillate: Flowers in 2-forked umbel, flat, very large; calyx, none; stamens none; stigma 1; seed heart-shaped.

Habitat.--Very common in all the fields and in the mountains. Blooms in June.

CASUARINEÆ.

Beefwood Family.

_Casuarina Sumatrana_, Jung. (_C. equisetifolia_, Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Agoho_, Tag.; _Malabohok_, _Agoho_, Vis.; _Aro_, _Karo_, _Agoó_, Iloc.

Uses.--The bark is astringent by virtue of the large quantity of tannin it contains. Its principal use is in decoction in the treatment of diarrhoea, dysentery and hæmoptysis; it is also given in amenorrhoea, though it is apt to increase the pain. Externally it is used as a wash for contusions and ulcers.

Another species, _C. equisetifolia_, Forst., confounded with the former species by the natives, has the same therapeutic applications.

Botanical Description.--A tree with stellately arranged straight branches. Leaves stellate, long, narrow, linear, 4-grooved. They have been compared to the tail of a horse and the tail of a certain bird--the casobar. Staminate and pistillate flowers greenish, on different parts of the same stalk. Staminate, in small aments. Pistillate on small globose aments; calyx proper of the floweret, a coarse scale; corolla none; ovary conical; styles 2, flattened, divergent; stigmas acute. Fruit: Each floweret produces a woody seed-vessel, bivalved, ovate, glabrous, with a small seed ending in an oval wing; all these seed vessels joined form a small cone about 1' long.

Habitat.--Very common in Ilocos, Tarlak, Binangonang of Lampong and N. Ecija.

MONOCOTYLEDONS.

MUSACEÆ.

Banana Family.

_Musa paradisiaca_, L.

_M. sapientum_, L.

Nom. Vulg. _Plátano_, Sp.; _Saging_, Tag., etc.; _Banana_, Eng.

Uses.--The fruit produced by the various varieties of the banana plant constitutes one of the most wholesome and delicious of foods, appreciated by natives and Europeans alike. According to Boussingaul its nutritive value is greater than that of the potato and it may be used constantly without ill effects. Bananas contain a large percentage of sugar and mucilage. In India they dry them in the sun, as figs and grapes are treated in other countries and thus preserve them for long voyages by sea or land; eaten in conjunction with animal food they are a strong preventive of scurvy. If eaten when thoroughly ripe they have a laxative effect.

The young and tender leaves are used in the Philippines as a protective dressing for ulcers, dermatitis, burns and cantharidal or other artificial blisters. Before applying to the affected surface the leaf is heated to make it more flexible and coated with a thin layer of cocoanut oil or other fatty substance.

In the dispensaries of India they also use the leaves in this way, thus protecting and at the same time maintaining the moisture of the part. Dr. Waring recommends the practice and Dr. Van Someren follows it in the application of water dressings, having substituted banana leaves for gutta-percha.

In Mauritius the fruit is used for dysentery, and the flowers, together with an equal quantity of those of _Spilanthes Acmella_, are made into a decoction and prescribed for dropsy.

Botanical Description.--The banana plant with its huge waving leaves and succulent stem is universally familiar. The flower stalk rises through the center developing a drooping spike, the flowers in short rows in the axils of its large purplish bracts. According to Blanco there are 57 varieties of this plant in the Philippines, the following being the most common edible varieties: _bungulang_, _lakatan_, _letondang_, _obispo_, _higo_, _morado_, _butuan_, _bentikohol_, _sabá_, _tampuhing_.

Habitat.--Common everywhere in the islands.

ZINGIBERACEÆ.

Ginger Family.

_Zingiber officinale_, L. (_Amomum zingiber_, L. and Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Ajengibre_, _Jengibre_, Sp.; _Luya_, Tag.; _Laya_, Bic.; _Ginger_, Eng.

Uses.--The rhizome is used principally as a condiment in the Philippines. Its flavor is extremely agreeable, much appreciated in Europe by the English who are the greatest consumers of the condiment. In the Philippines a decoction is made of ginger and brown sugar, called _tahu_ by the Chinese who drink it regularly as we do coffee in the early hours of the morning. It is an excellent drink, aromatic, tonic, stomachic and stimulant, and would probably be highly useful as well as economical as a part of the ration of European and native troops in the field. Hot _tahú_ or _tahu_ is an active diuretic; and during the last epidemic of cholera in Manila some physicians used it with very satisfactory results.

Ginger is a good carminative and is official in the pharmacopoeias of Europe, America and India. It is used with good effect in flatulent colic, atonic diseases of the intestines so common in the Philippines and in chronic rheumatism.

The tincture is given in doses of 2-4 grams. The official infusion 30-60 grams.

The rhizome contains a volatile oil [10] (25 per cent.), a pale yellow liquid, specific gravity 0.878, the odor like that of the rhizome but lacking its strong and piquant taste. Its reaction is not acid; it dissolves slowly in alcohol. The burning taste is due to a resin that produces protocatechuic acid when melted with potassa.

Botanical Description.--The only part employed is the rhizome, well known all over the islands and found in all their pharmacies and shops.

Several stems rise 2-3° directly from the peculiar, branched rhizome; long-lanceolate, acuminate, entire, glabrous, alternate leaves diverge stiffly from the sides of the stem; petiole proper very short, its broader extension ensheathing the stem; general appearance of a single stem is much like that of the Solomon's seal so familiar in the U. S.

_Curcuma longa_, L.

Nom. Vulg.--_Dilaw_, Tag.; _Dulaw_, _Kalawaga_, _Kinamboy_, Vis.; _Angay_, Pam.; _Turmeric Plant_, Eng.

Uses.--The yellow rhizome called by some _azafrán_ (saffron), is used as a condiment; its odor is remotely suggestive of vanilla. The Philippine herb-doctors give it internally for hæmoptysis, externally as a plaster or in infusion for acute dermatitis. The juice is prescribed in doses of 30-60 grams in bronchial catarrh. In India they inhale the fumes of burning turmeric paper for coryza, and with good effect according to the testimony of Dr. Waring.

The drug is official in the Pharmacopoeia of India. It is carminative, stimulant and probably antiseptic. Its decoction is used as an eye-wash in catarrhal and purulent conjunctivitis. The Mohammedans of Deccan use it for jaundice upon the theory that the yellow color of the skin in that disease is an indication for a remedy of the same color. The juice is also used in many parts of India to stain the face, nails and other parts of the body.

The tincture is prepared by macerating 30 grams of bruised rhizome in 200 cc. alcohol for seven days, then filtering. Turmeric paper is prepared by impregnating unsized paper with this tincture, and then drying. Both tincture and paper are used to test for alkalies.

The rhizomes contain a pigment called curcumin, an essential oil and fæcula. Curcumin (C_14_H_14_O_4_) is crystalline, yellow by direct light and blue by reflected light; it was studied by Jackson and Menke.

In the Philippines it is used extensively as a diaphoretic and emmenagogue and in icterus, intestinal colic and dysmenorrhoea; externally for skin diseases, contusions and atonic ulcers.

Gubler regards it as a diffusible stimulant. Its use is more extensive in England than in France and Spain; in India it forms an ingredient of _curry_, called _carí_ in Manila. Curcumin is eliminated by the urine, which it colors yellow, and if at the same time an alkali be taken by the patient, especially a salt of calcium, the urine becomes red and may communicate this stain to the clothes. This fact should be borne in mind to avoid embarrassing mistakes in diagnosis or prognosis. Dose of powder, 2-5 grams.

Botanical Description.--Leaves 2-4° long, rising in bush-like bunches directly from the rhizome, broad-lanceolate, acuminate, gradually tapering down the long petioles; numerous prominent nerves give a ribbed appearance to the blade. Rhizome cylindrical, irregular, bright yellow within.

_Elettaria Cardamomum_, White.

Nom. Vulg.--_Langkuas_, _Langkawas_, Vis.; _Cardamon_, Eng.

Uses.--This plant, though official in several pharmacopoeias, is not used as a medicine in the Philippines, probably on account of its scarcity here. The seeds are used as a condiment; they are stimulant and carminative and yield good results in atonic dyspepsia, nervous depression and spasmodic or flatulent affections of the intestine. The dose of the powdered seeds is from 0.60-1.50 grams in pill form; the tincture is, however, more convenient and is given in doses of from 4 to 8 grams.

Botanical Description.--A plant with a scaly rhizome and adventitious roots from which spring the stems, some of which bear leaves and others flowers. The leaves are alternate, in pairs; extended, lanceolate blade, with a short petiole. Branches bearing flowers, short, flexible and scaly. The flowers spring from the sheaths of the leaves. Calyx tubular, 3-toothed; second calyx with limb divided into 3 unequal lobules. Stamens 3. Ovary inferior, 3 many-ovuled compartments. Style simple. Stigma rounded. Fruit an oblong, ovoid capsule, 3-celled, trivalvate. Seeds blackish, albuminous.

Habitat.--Visayan Islands.

AMARYLLIDACEÆ.

Amaryllis Family.

_Crinum Asiaticum, L._ (_C. giganteum_, Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.--_Bakong_, Tag.