Use :— The roots are bruised, and, boiled in combination with Catechu (Kath), used as a gargle for sore-gums. (Murray.)
1055. Polygonum, aviculare Linn., h.f.b.i., v. 26.
Vern. :— Indranee, bigbund, hunraj (Hind.) ; Kesrú, bandúke (Pb.); Miromati (Sans.) ; Machooti (Pb.) ; Drob (Kash.).
Habitat : — Western Himalaya, from Kashmir to Kumaon ; Rawal Pindee and the Deccan.
A glabrous herb. Root mostly annual. Branches procumbent or ascending, grooved, leafy. Leaves elliptic or elliptic-oblong or lanceolate, obtuse flat, nerveless ; stipules shorter than the internodes, hyaline, lacerate, many-nerved. Flowers axillary ; pedicel short, pointed at the tip. Perianth obovoid, cleft to near the base ; nut ovoid, obtusely 3-gonous, minutely rugosely striolate.
Uses : — In Chumba, the dried root is applied externally as an anodyne, and officinal in Kashmir. (Stewart.) The seeds are also said to be powerfully emetic and purgative. In Europe, the whole plant is considered vulnerary and astringent. In the Year Book of Pharmacy for 1874, an interesting account is given of the reputed value of the decoction of the herb in cases of: vesical calculus. A case is described in which a dose of two tumblerfuls of the decoction is said to have been followed by almost immediate relief.
" It was used by the ancients to arrest hemorrhage, the seeds were considered to be laxative and diuretic and to arrest defluxions. For burning pains in the stomach the leaves were applied topically, and were used in the form of a liniment for pains in the bladder and for erysipelas. The juice was administered in fevers, tertian and quartan more particularly, in doses of two cyathi, just before the paroxysms. Arabian physicians consider it to be cold and dry, and reproduce what the Greeks have said concerning its medicinal uses.
In India, the plant is still used by the Hakims in the diseases named by Dioscorides.
In our own times Polygonum root has been used as a febrifuge in Algeria, and has been reported upon as being an excellent remedy for chronic diarrhœa and stone in the bladder. Its value has apparently been much exaggerated. (J. R. Jackson, Amer. Journ. Pharm., 1873, p. 247.)
In the Lancet, (1885, p. 658) it is said to be used in Russia, under the name of Homeriana, as a popular remedy in lung affections. Dr. Rotschinin, who has experimented with the drug, found it really valuable in several cases of
