The Medicinal Plants of the Philippines, Trinidad Hermenegildo Pardo de Tavera [book club suggestions TXT] 📗
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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, monœcious, 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.—Lig̃aton, Lipa, Apariagua (?), Tag., Vis.; Lipag̃doton, 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 dyspnœa, 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, diœcious. 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.
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 diarrhœa, dysentery and hæmoptysis; it is also given in amenorrhœa, 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.
1 Do not grow in the Philippines.
2 Waring, loc. cit., p. 170.
3 Journal de Pharmacie, Vol. XIV., p. 441.
4 L’Union Pharm., Vol. XXIII., p. 291.
Banana Family.
Musa paradisiaca, L.
M. sapientum, L.
Nom. Vulg. Plátano, Sp.; Sagig̃, 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: bug̃ulag̃, lakatan, letondag̃, obispo, higo, morado, butuan, bentikohol, sabá, tampuhig̃.
Habitat.—Common everywhere in the islands.
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 pharmacopœias 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 oil1 (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.; Ag̃ay, 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 Pharmacopœia 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 (C14H14O4) 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 dysmenorrhœa; 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.—Lag̃kuas, Lag̃kawas, Vis.; Cardamon, Eng.
Uses.—This plant, though official in several pharmacopœias, 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
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