market this reason of the year, but, as a rule, the fresh plant only can be obtained from the herbalists. Cultivated at Matunga, near Bombay. Kiryat as a substitue for Quassia and Chiretta, and as a possible means of lessening quinine expenditure seems well worthy of consideration. Chiretta is almost always adulterated and is produced, I believe, in Nepal. Can be readily cultivated from the seed in shady places" (Report, Central Indigen. Drugs Com. Vol. I p. 157.)
In the Second Report of the said Committee (p. 61) it is stated that : —
Andrographis puniculata is very extensively used in India as a remedy for malaria and also in dysentey and diarrhœa. It is not unlikely that in the bazaars it and Indian chiretta are offered rather indiscriminately. It is also the basis of an English " patent " tonic. Ward, in the Pharmaceutical Journal LV, page 197, remarks that there are so many bitters in England that there is little call to resort to it. But in India there are not so many, and the plant is so common that the drug is very readily available. The whole of it is medicinal. Boorsma (Mededeelingen uit S' Lands Plantentuin XVIII 66) reports that the plant may contain an alkaloid, but that he could not definitely prove its presence. The bitter principle is another substance— a crystalline glucoside, most abundant in the leaves, which Boorsma calls " andrographid." Its chemical properties were to some extent investigated by Boorsma, but no one has yet had it isolated in quantity for pharmacological examination.
Chemical composition.— According to the authors of the Pharmacographia : — " The aqueous infusion of the herb exhibits a slight acid reaction and has an intensely bitter taste, which appears to be due to an indifferent, non-basic principle, for the usual reagents do not indicate the presence of an alkaloid. Tannic acid, on the other hand, produces an abundant precipitate, a compound of itself with the bitter principle. The infusion is but little altered by the salts of iron ; it contains a considerable quantity of chloride of sodium."
In " Food and Drugs " of Calcutta, for Jany 1915, Mr. Kshiti Bhushan Bhaduri, M. Sc, gives the results of his analysis of this plant as follows : —
For examination 68 Gm. of the powdered leaves and stems were taken and exhausted in a Soxhleb apparatus successively by petroleum ether, ether, chloroform, and alcohol. ******
The plant is very rich in chlorophyll, one portion of which is soluble in chloroform and the other not, though both are soluble in alcohol.
Examination of the Petroleum Ether Extract.
This was a viscid, brownish- yellow colored liquid from which, on keeping a small quantity of an inactive, needle shaped crystalline substance separated out, having 117° C. as its melting-point, the quantity obtained was so small that no further examination was possible. The viscid mass also contained a
