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

Date:
[1858?]
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

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

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    the important property different from most vegetable astrin¬ gents, of not subsequently confining the bowels, but appears rather to strengthen and regulate their action. There is also imported a preparation of the ripe fruit, the Bael preserve, or jelly, which has an opposite effect from the unripe fruit, being a gentle but effectual laxative. It is eaten at meals like mar¬ malade, every morning, acting moderately on the bowels; and will be found to supersede lenitive electuary, and all other medicines of this kind, possessing a more agreeable flavour and acting with greater certainty. This is a most valuable remedy for ladies, many of whom suffer from habitual costiveness, which purgatives have a tendency to increase rather than relieve; by continual use of the preserve it restores the bowels to a per¬ fectly normal condition, and imparts tone to the system. Tannin also, alone and in combination, has been highly recommended by Professor Alison, and the value of oxide oj silver in intestinal fluxes as well as in gastric disorders insisted upon by Sir James Eyre; so that it has been urged by many that there is no need of a medicine like the Bael, for that Dysentery can either be cured without it, or an artificial Bael compounded of Tannin and mucilaginous ingredients. As far as I have observed, however, I cannot say I have found this to be the case. The Bael, like many other vegetable medicines, possesses properties peculiar to itself, and does not owe its efficacy to the mere presence of tannin in its composi¬ tion ; what these precise properties may be, is at present out of our research, but they certainly impart to it somewhat of the character of a specific. It is the same with other drugs whose active principles have been extracted by chemistry, but which, thus isolated, produce dissimilar effects from the original natural compound. This is strikingly the case with opium, whose place its alka¬ loid morphia cannot be made to supply by any artificial com¬ bination whatsoever; and the delicate distinctions between the )