Dose.—For an adult one dessert-spoonful every 4 hours; may be given in cauge or arrowroot.
The flowers, testa and bark are, in Hindoo therapeutics, considered “cold,” and “astringent,” and are used especially in diarrhœa. In certain throat affections the Hindoos employ the burning leaves for inhalation. They also use the gum made by evaporating the juice of the ripe fruit, as a confection and an antiscorbutic. Dr. Linguist recommends the bark as a local astringent in uterine, intestinal and pulmonary hemorrhage and employs the following:
Fluid Extract.—
| Fluid extract of manga bark | 10 grams. |
| Water | 120 grams. |
Mix. Dose, 1 teaspoonful every 1 or 2 hours.
Botanical Description.—A noble tree, 30° to 40° high, dome-like or rotund in outline. Leaves dark green, lustrous, alternate, lanceolate, entire; short petioles. Flowers racemose, in verticillate panicles. Calyx, 4, 5 or 6 sepals. Corolla white, fragrant, 4, 5 or 6 petals. Stamens 5, of which perhaps 1, 2 or 3 are fertile. Style on one side of the ovary. Stigma simple. Fruit large, reniform, fleshy, yellow when ripe; contains a large, flattened, reniform pit. Blooms from January even till June. The natives force the fruit by building fires under the trees when but little air is stirring.
Habitat.—Common throughout the islands.
Anacardium occidentale, L. (Cassuvium reniforme, Blanco.)
Nom. Vulg.—Kasuy, Tag.; Caskew Nut, Eng.
Uses.—The pericarp of the nut contains an essential oil which is very irritant and used by the Hindoos as a vesicant; it severely blisters the lips and tongues of imprudent persons who break the nut without taking the precaution of cleansing it of the oil before opening it. In addition to the oil called cardol, the pericarp contains an especial acid anacardic, a little tannin and ammonia. Cardol (C21H31O2) is an oleaginous, yellow liquid very unstable, neutral, soluble in alcohol and ether, insoluble in water, volatile, and vesicant if applied to the skin. “Anacardic” acid is white, crystalline, odorless, with a burning, aromatic taste. It melts at 26° and decomposes at 200° forming a colorless oil; it is not vesicant, burns with a dark flame, and has the odor of rancid oil. A tincture of the pericarp has been made (1 part to 10 of alcohol) and given internally as a vermifuge in doses of 2–10 drops. Cardol, according to some authors, does not exercise a vesicant action in the gastro-intestinal canal, because it is not dissolved by the gastro-intestinal juices; I am sure, however, that I have seen a choleraic diarrhœa brought on by swallowing, in fun, the pericarp of one nut and a half. Cardol is eliminated by the urine.