The New Nation - Internet Edition

Jamayet Ali

Jaipal is a small evergreen, glabrous tree, 15-20 ft. high with 3-nerved, ovate- acuminate thin leaves, and glabrous or slightly hispid capsules occasionally planted in gardens in many parts of Bangladesh. It is also planted or cultivated throughout the greater part of India and southward to Malacca, Myanmar, and Srilanka, China and Malay Islands. The nuts yield a valuable medicinal oil which is orange yellow or sherrycoloured, of the consistence of nut-oil, has a slight odour resembling that of jalap, and an acrid flavour. Its Botanical name is Croton tiglium Linn. It is necessary to be cautious in handling the nuts or the oil, owing to their blistering the skin. The oil is frequently used for colds in the chest as an external application, causing a severe blister.

Medicinal Properties: The oil from the seed is purgative, carminative; useful in diseases of the abdomen, mental troubles, convulsions, fever in anility, inflammations, bronchitis (Ayurveda). The seeds have a bitter bad taste, causing a burning sensation; cathartic, expectorant, emetic; good in sore eyes, excessive phlegm, leucoderma. The oil is cathartic, tonic; removes pus and bad matter from the body (Yunani). The seeds and the oil are officinal and their properties are well known: irritant, rubefacient, cathartic. In Lakhimpur, the seeds are ground in water, and the infusion is used to kill insect pests. The fruits are employed by dayaks in Borneo to poison fish. The root is used in Kelantan as an abortifacient. On account of their drastic purgative properties the seeds and oil are regarded by the Chinese as entirely poisonous. The bark is used as a tonic in Aonam. Croton oil is quite ineffective as an anthelmintic. The seeds are useless as an external application to the sting of the scorpion. The seeds are not an antidote to snake-venom, and they are useless as a collyrium in the treatment of snake-bite. The leaves are equally useless as an external application. (Indian Medicinal Plants, Vol. III, K.R. Kirtikar & B.D. Basu, 1256,1257)

Medicine: The seeds are used as a powerful drastic purgative, and the oil is regarded as a valuable medicine. in overdoses they act as an aero-narcotic poison. When externally applied the oil is a stimulant rubefacient and counter-irritant. Croton oil is said to possess powerful hydragogue cathartic properties. It is also useful in dropsy, obstinate, constipation, and apoplexy. The ancient Hindu books make no mention of the oil, the nuts boiled in milk or roasted in a pellet of cow-dung, appear (as at the present day) to have been used. One seed is a sufficient dose, and according to many writers, the skin of the seed, as also contained cotyledons (or seed leaves), are poisonous. The boiled or torrefied albuminous substance, mashed up and deposited in the interior of a raisin, is the form in which natives generally prescribe the drug, but it is often combined with astringents, such as myrobalams, cutch etc., these additions checking the acrimony of the nut and preventing griping. Waring says that should the administration of the nut cause griping, vomiting, or too violent purging, a good large draught of lime-juice is the best remedy; and it may safely be repeated in half an hour if the vomiting continue. Dutt remarks that, according to Hindu literature, the seeds are "useful in fever, constipation , intestinal worms, enlargements ofthe abdominal viscera, ascites, anasarca etc."

Dr. Fleming (in the Asiatic researches, 1840) writes :- "The seeds of this plants were formerly well known in Europe, under the names of Grana tiglia and Grana Molucca. They were employed as hydragogue purgatives; but on account of the violence of their operation, they have been long banished from modern practice. For the same reason, they are seldom used by the Hindu pra9titioners, though not unfrequently taken, as purgatives, by the poorer classes of the natives. One seed is sufficient for a dose. it is frrst carefully cleared from the membranaceous parts, the rudiments of the seminal leaves, that adhere to the centre of it ; by which precaution, it is found to act less roughly, and then rubbed with a little rice gruel, or taken in a bit of the plantain fruit."

Ainslie quotes (in the first edition of his work published in 1813) the opinions of a few Indian medical officers whore-made known the properties of this drug at about the beginning of the present century or the close of the last. Practically all subsequent writers have but slightly altered the sentences used by these early observers without having added any thing of consequence to the literature of the subject. The discovery of other drugs may be viewed as having thrown into the shade croton oil and croton nuts.

Dr. Dymock remarks ofthe expressed oil: "Ainslie notices the use of the expressed oil by the Tamils as an external application in rheumatic affections, but it does not appear to have been used for internal administration until the year 1821." Completing Ainslie's own account of it, after stating that the oil is used for external application, he goes on to say, "As a purge it has been of late years often resorted to the England, and is thought to have still more powerful effects as a hydragogue than the torrefied seeds. Mr. Thompson tells us that, in some cases, merely touching the tongue with a drop has produced many loose stools; and in others, doses of one or two minims have excited the most frightful hypercantharsis; although some individuals have taken it to the extent of even ten minims without any very sensible effect. He adds from his own experience, that he would be very cautious in exhibiting the oil at first in larger doses than one or two minims, to adults; in apoplexy, convulsions, and mania the croton oil is likely to prove a medicine of great value; a very good mode of giving it is, rubbed up with the mucilage of Acacia gum, sugar and almond emulsion, by which means its acrimony is blunted." Ainslie adds that Mr. R. Daly of Madras found the oil highly useful as an emmenagogue.

"Rumphius informs us that the root of the plant is supposed, by the inhabitants of Aboyna, to be a useful drastic purgative, in cases of dropsy, given rasped in doses of a few grains, or as much as can be held between the thumb and finger." "Rheede, who speaks of the plant under the name cade lavanacu, says, that the leaves rubbed and soaked in water also are purgative; and when dried and powdered are a good external application in cases of bites of serpents" (Ainslie).

Special Opinions: "Drastic purgative, used in obstinate constipation and dropsical affections. I have known instances of extreme prostration, amounting to collapse, produced by seeds, administered by natives in Bengal and the North-Western Provinces" (Assistant Surgeon Shib Chunder Bhattacharji, Chanda, Central Provinces). "in addition to their uses as a drastic purgative the seeds are applied in the form of liniment to the penis in cases of impotence and a high reputation in this disease amongst the natives" (Lal Mahomed, 1st Class, Hospl. Asstt. Mani dispensary, Hosangabad, Central

Provinces). "The seeds, half roasted over a lamp or candle flame, and the smoke inhaled through the nostrils, relieves a fit of asthma" (Surgeon-Major R. Thomson, M.D., C.I.E., Madras). "I have found the oil diluted with 9 or 10 parts of Mustard oil or olive oil to be a very useful liniment in infantile bronchitis" (Doyal Chunder Shome).

"Have used it as a diuretic, purgative, and rubefacient" (D. Picachy, Civil Medical Officer, Purncah). "The seed is frequently applied over the temples for headache and eye affections" (Surgeon Major Robb, Civil Surgeon, Ahmedabad). (Dictionary ofthe Economic Products of India, Vol. II, Watt, 618-20)

Properties and Uses : Seed oil is a violent cathartic and powerful hydragogue and externally it acts as vesicant. all parts of the plant possess drastic purgative properties. The oil is used as a violent purgative in dropsy and apoplexy; in convulsions, insanity and ardent fever attended with high blood pressure. Seeds are useful in asthma. Seed extract is inhibitory against P-388 lymphocytic leuremia in mice. Wood is diaphoretic, purgative and emetic. The root possesses abortifacient property. (Medicinal Plants of Bangladesh, Abdul Ghani, Second Edition, 192)