Practical observations on the use of the Indian bael or bela, in dysentery, diarrhoea, &c. / by a late member of the profession, Bengal Presidency.

Date:
[1857?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Practical observations on the use of the Indian bael or bela, in dysentery, diarrhoea, &c. / by a late member of the profession, Bengal Presidency. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    I am indebted to Mr. Henry Pollock for the following account of his examination of the preserved and ripe fruit, as imported in its dried and preserved forms from Calcutta, by Mr. Gould, of Oxford- street, and by others:—“The pulp and the dried shell of the fruit do not appear to me to differ chemically in any respect, except as to quantity. They both contain—1, tannic acid; 2, a concrete essential oil; 3, a bitter principle, which is not precipitated by tribasic acetate of lead, and a vegetable acid. The pulp, as I received it, also contained a considerable quantity of sugar, in which it was preserved. All three of the substances I have mentioned exist in the largest quantity in the dry rind. There is most acid in the pulp.” Mr. Gould states that in the fruit, as imported by him, the mucilage exists in about the proportion of twenty per cent. Dr, Stephen H. 'Ward, M.D. Lond., L.B.C.P., Physician to the I Seamen’s Hospital, H.M.S. Dreadnought, in detailing in the Lancet id the cases which were under his care, mentioned several in which the to] most marked and happy effects were obtained from the Bael; and in d conclusion says:—Of all the vegetable astringents, I have found none t equal to a strong decoction of the rind of the Bad Fruit of Bengal, u and adds that testimony to its value is borne out by the experience of '-l Drs. Boyle, J. Hooker, Wight, and B. Martin, and others. (Vide Lancet, Nov. 14th, 1847, vol. ii., pages 487-9.) Dr. A. Grant says:—With reference to my own experience in the i use of the Bael, I may state that I have been in the habit of recom- *j mending the sherbet. Many persons in Bengal suffer, especially hj during the rainy season, from attacks of irregularity of the bowels, T periods of looseness alternating with periods of constipation; in such >8| cases of the system it acts admirably, in the first instance as an astrin- ni gent, and in the second as an aperient; it seems in both these opposite fl conditions to stimulate the mucous membrane to more natural and ■ regular action, combining with the ingesta and aiding healthy assimu- 'J!latlon- 1 have also given it with very satisfactory results to persons I delicate and of weakly habit, subjeetju excessive mucous Diarrhoea;