of Gossypium herbaceum, G. Arboreum and G. Barbadense. The benefit of the dry young fruits in calculus affections and chronic inflammation and ulceration of the bladder and kidneys, including strangury and all other forms of dysuria, except those depending on mechanical causes, is remarkable. The fruits are also useful in weakness of the genital organs and in most of the disorders in which gentian and calumba are resorted to. As therapeutic agents, the tap-root and the bark, in the forms of decoction and extract, are nearly identical in their
usefulness with Mârâtimoggu, and therefore employed in almost the same affections. The cotton of B. Malabaricum is useful in all the surgical cases, &c, in which the cotton of Cochlosperum Gossypium is employed, and the manner of using it is also the same.
There is no drug in India which enjoys a greater reputation as an aphrodisiac and tonic in native medical works than the tap-root of the young plant of B. Malabaricum. There is no doubt that it is one of the useful drugs in this country, but the exaggeration of its good effect in some of the Indian writers is so great, that it is quite ridiculous and not worth mentioning here. I have recently given a trial to this drug in my practice, and found it to be a good demulcent tonic, and slightly aphrodisiac, but nothing beyond it. I may also state that even the good influence, which it does exert occasionally on the genital organs, is neither certain nor uniform. The great practical objection to the use of the Semal-mush is that it is neither sold in the bazar, nor procurable always in any garden or field. Besides, there is no medical property in it, which, according to my own experience, is not possessed in equal degree, if not more, by the dry young fruits and bark of B. Malabaricum. In fact, the Marâti-moggu is not only the cheapest and most abundant, but also the best and most useful of all the parts of the above plant which are used as medicines. The young fruits seem to possess some soothing or special action on the mucous membrane of the genito-urinary tract, and have therefore proved themselves more useful than Pareira Brava in some of the diseases in which the latter is indicated (Moocleen Sheriff).
