laxative ; used to relieve thirst, burning of the body and fever. (Dutt).
The seed is very palatable and nutritious when roasted ; used in medicine and considered heating (Irvine, Med. Top., Ajmere).
It yields a gum said to be administered in diarhœa. The oil extracted from the kernels of the fruit is used as a substitute for almond oil in Native medicinal preparations and confectionery. It is also applied to glandular swellings of the neck (Watt).
In the Jhansi District, the kernel worked up into an ointment, is used in skin diseases.
In the Central Provinces, the roots and leaves, pounded and mixed with butter-milk, are taken in cases of diarrhœa. The fruit is used by Hakims in tonic medicines and for applying to the tongue when inflamed or very hard.
It is believed to cure pimples, prickly heat and itch. In Berar, kernels pounded and applied outwardly are used as a remedy for itch ; also employed by women to remove spots and blemishes from the face. (The Agricultural Ledger, 1900, No. 9.)
In the Bombay Presidency, the kernel is employed as a tonic, being sometimes substituted for the almond.
In the Madras Presidency, the gum with goat's milk is given internally for intercostal pains.
It is used to flavour preserved preparations of milk, such as Barfi, Basundi, Pêdhê, Halvâ of the white gourd ; preserved cocoanut sweets, such as Khobripâk, in Bombay, Surat, Ahmedabad, Poona.
The kernels are brown and mottled with darker brown, and laterally compressed like vetch seeds. They yield 58.6 per cent, of oil (Church), which commences to congeal into a white semisolid mass at 18.5°.
Crossley and Le Sueur obtained the following constants : Specific gravity at 100°, 0.8942; melting point, 32°; acid value, 15.4; saponification value, 193.6; iodine value, 57.3; Reichert-Meissl value, 0.33; refractive index, 1.4584 ; insoluble acids and unsaponifiable, 95.8 per cent.
329. — Melanorrhœa usitata, Wall, h.f.b.l, ii. 25,
Eng. :— The Varnish Tree.
