Note on the preparations and uses of the Bael fruit / by Alexander Grant.

  • Grant, Alexander, 1947-
Date:
[between 1850 and 1859?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Note on the preparations and uses of the Bael fruit / by Alexander Grant. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    NOTE ON THE PREPARATIONS AND USES OF THE BAEL FRUIT. By Alexander Grant, Esq., BENGAL MEDICAL SEBYICE. Having recently been occupied in making some inquiries regarding the Bael fruit, it has occurred to me that their publication, in connexion with the preceding note by Dr. Cleghorn, might be not unacceptable to many members of the profession, who have not previously had their attention directed to the medicinal virtues of this simple, cheap and agreeable vegetable astringent, the preparations and uses -of which, it is to be presumed, are not well known, especially in the Madras and Bombay presidencies. I purpose, therefore, to consider the subject somewhat in detail, and to give some fresh assurances and practical elucidations of the value of Bael as a native remedy, which has not been sufficiently test- ed, and on which we require information more ample and authoritative than the cursory notices 1 have seen in books. There is indeed strong reason to suspect that the occa- sionally unsatisfactory results of its use have been owing to imperfect administration of the remedy, either from inatten- tion in the selection of the fruit or carelessness in its preparation; to determine therefore the relative worth and preferableness of one form to another, is an inquiry by no means unimportant nor uninteresting. 1 may add to Dr. Clegliorn’s account of the tree, that it flowers during the hot season, the fruit ripens after the rains, and is in perfection and, in Bengal at least, in great abundance, during the cold weather, when three or four of the largest size may be purchased for a pice: at present the mature fruit is very scarce and dear, but not beyond a few annas each. As many of my readers may not have Dr. W. O’Shaugh- uessy’s Bengal Dispensatory to refer to, I extract the follow- ing particulars, to be found under Art. yEgle, page 233: “The statements we find in oriental works on Materia Medica, are very various as to tlie qualities of this tree and its products, liheede