part 23

(1877).

=History=—It is probable that in ancient Hindu medicine this plant was administered indiscriminately with chiretta, which, with several other species of _Ophelia_, is known in India by nearly the same vernacular names. Ainslie asserts that it was a component of a famous bitter tincture called by the Portuguese of India _Droga amara_; but on consulting the authority he quotes[1728] we find that the bitter employed in that medicine was _Calumba_. _Andrographis_ is known in Bengal as _Mahā-tīta_, literally _king of bitters_, from the Sanskrit tikta, “bitter,” a title of which it has been thought so far deserving that it has been admitted to a place in the _Pharmacopœia of India_.

=Description=—The straight, knotty branch stems are obtusely quadrangular, about ¼ of an inch thick at the base, of a dark green colour and longitudinally furrowed. The leaves are opposite, petiolate, lanceolate, entire, the largest ½ an inch or more wide and 3 inches long. Their upper surface is dark green, the under somewhat lighter, and as seen under a lens finely granular. The leaves are very thin, brittle, and, like the stems, entirely glabrous.

In the well-dried specimen before us, for which we are indebted to Dr. G. Bidie of Madras, flowers are wanting and only a few roots are present. The latter are tapering and simple, emitting numerous thin rootlets, greyish externally, woody and whitish within. The plant is inodorous and has a persistent pure bitter taste.

=Chemical Composition=—The aqueous infusion of the herb exhibits a slight acid reaction, and has an intensely bitter taste, which appears due to an indifferent, non-basic principle, for the usual reagents do not indicate the presence of an alkaloid. Tannic acid on the other hand produces an abundant precipitate, a compound of itself with the bitter principle. The infusion is but little altered by the salts of iron; it contains a considerable quantity of chloride of sodium.

=Uses=—Employed as a pure bitter tonic like quassia, gentian, or chiretta, with the last of which it is sometimes confounded.

SESAMEÆ.

OLEUM SESAMI.

_Sesamé Oil_, _Gingeli_, _Gingili_ or _Jinjili Oil_, _Til_ or _Teel Oil_, _Benné Oil_; F. _Huile de Sésame_; G. _Sesamöl_.

=Botanical Origin=—_Sesamum indicum_ DC., an erect, pubescent annual herb, 2 to 4 feet high,[1729] indigenous to India, but propagated by cultivation throughout the warmer regions of the globe, and not now found anywhere in the wild state. In Europe, _Sesamum_ is only grown in some districts of Turkey and Greece, and on a small scale in Sicily and in the islands of Malta and Gozo. It does not succeed well even in the South of France.

[1728] Paolino da San Bartolomeo, _Voyage to the East Indies_ (1776-1789), translated from the German, Lond. 1800; pp. 14. 409.

[1729] Fig. in Bentley and Trimen’s _Med. Plants_,