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trunk bark as an emmenagogue, calling it Fu-yong-pi.

Botanical Description.—A small tree about 7° high commonly called Gumamela in Manila; the leaves are ovate, acute, with about 5 nerves, serrate from the middle to the apex, hairs growing sparsely on both surfaces, with a small group of dark-colored, deciduous hairs growing on the lower part of the midrib. Petioles short with 2 stipules at the base. Calyx double, the outer part divided almost to the base into 6–8 parts; the inner cylindrical, divided in 5. Corolla large, splendid scarlet-red, often double, on slender peduncles. Styles numerous. Fruit identical with that of the Hibiscus tiliaceus.

Habitat.—Universally common in the Philippines.

Thespesia populnea, Corr.

Nom. Vulg.—Babuy or Bobuy gubat, Tag.; Bulakan, Vis.

Uses.—The fruit yields a yellow juice which is used locally in the itch and other cutaneous troubles, after first washing the affected part with a decoction of the roots and leaves. The bark is astringent and is used as a decoction in the treatment of dysentery and hemorrhoids.

Botanical Description.—A tree of the second order with leaves 4–5′ long, sparse, 5-nerved, heart-shaped, broad, acute, entire, glabrous, 6 small glands on the lower face of the base. Petioles of equal length with the leaves. Flowers large, axillary, solitary. Calyx double, the outer portion deciduous, consisting of 3 small, acute leaflets inserted on the base of the inner calyx; the inner is bell-shaped, larger than the outer, with 5 inconspicuous, persistent teeth. Corolla four times longer than the calyx, of 5 fleshy, fluted petals, their borders overlapping, much broader above. Stamens very numerous, arranged around and along a column. Filaments long. Anthers of half-moon shape. Style 1, very thick. Stigma cleft in 5 parts, which are twisted in spiral form. Seed vessels about the size of a filbert, 5-sided, with 5 apartments each containing 5 ovoid seeds attached by separate seed stalks to the central axis of the ovary. Seeds not woolly.

Habitat.—Mandaloya Tayabas, Iloilo.

Gossypium herbaceum, L. (G. Indicum, Lam.; G. Capas, Rumph.)

Nom. Vulg.—Algodón, Sp.; Bulak, Tag.; Cotton, Eng.

Uses.—The root bark is antiasthmatic, emmenagogue, and according to Daruty4 is a substitute for ergot in uterine hemorrhage. The leaves are used in bronchial troubles and the seeds are sudorific. The negroes in the United States use the root bark in large doses as an abortifacient; but a dose of 60 grams to 1,200 of water in decoction is proper and useful in treating dysmenorrhœa.

For a long time the seeds went to waste but industry has learned to obtain from them a brownish-red oil which is used as a substitute for olive oil, from which it is hard to distinguish it, if the latter is adulterated by mixing the two; for both have the same density and a very similar odor and taste. For this reason the production of cottonseed oil is very considerable nowadays. It is cheap and excellent for domestic, industrial and pharmaceutic use.

The seeds are used in North America in dysentery and as a galactagogue, and the juice of the leaves as an emollient in diarrhœa and mild dysentery. The pulp of the seeds, after the oil is extracted, yields a sweet material called gossypose, which is dextrogyrous and has the formula C18H32O16 + 5H2O.

The cotton itself, the part used in commerce as a textile, is also the portion of the plant most widely employed in therapeutics; not only the fiber from this species is used, but also that of others that grow in the Philippines, the G. Barbadense, L. (nom. vulg. Pernambuko, Tag.), and the G. arboreum, L. (Bulak na bundok, Bulak na totoo, Tag.).

Cotton is used extensively in bacteriological laboratories as a filter of liquids and gases. This property possessed by cotton, of retaining in its fibers the germs of the air was utilized by the famous French surgeon Guérin in the treatment that bears his name. The denuded surfaces exposed to infection by airborne bacteria are completely protected against them when, according to the Guérin treatment, they are enveloped in large masses of fresh, raw cotton, presumably free from microörganisms. To avoid the possibility of infection by the cotton itself, it is now the practice to sterilize it either by means of chemicals such as carbolic acid, iodoform, etc., or by physical means such as high temperatures.

Raw cotton is used in compounding gun cotton or explosive cotton, also named pyroxylin, and this is used to make collodion, so extensively employed in medicine.

Pyroxylin is made by treating cotton with equal parts of nitric and sulphuric acids, then washing with water till the latter ceases to give a precipitate with chloride of baryta; then dry in the air.

Collodion is made by dissolving 5 grams of pyroxylin in the following mixture:

Sulphuric ether, rectified 75 grams. Alcohol at 95° 20 grams.

Filter.

Elastic collodion:

Canada Balsam 1.50 grams. Castor oil .50 grams. Collodion 30.00 grams.

Mix.

Botanical Description.—A plant 2–3° high, of herbaceous stem, branches sparsely covered with small, black points; leaves cleft at their base, with 5 lobules and a small gland on the midrib. Petiole long with 2 stipules at the base. Flowers axillary, solitary. Calyx double; the outer portion divided in 3 parts, heart-shaped, and each with 5–9 long, acute teeth. Corolla bell-shaped, of 5 petals, pale yellow or turning rose color, purple at the base. Stamens many, inserted on a column. Stigma in 4–5 parts. Ovary of 3–5 compartments. Seeds enveloped in the fiber.

Habitat.—Batangas, Ilocos.

Bombax malabaricum, DC. (B. Ceiba, Blanco.)

Nom. Vulg.—Taglinaw, Bobuy gubat, Tag.; Talutu, Vis.

Uses.—In India the roots are used to obtain an astringent and alterative effect and form part of a well-known aphrodisiac mixture called Musla-Samul. If the trunk is incised, an astringent gum exudes and this they use in diarrhœa, dysentery and menorrhagia. Dose of the gum 2½–3 grams.

Botanical Description.—A large tree covered with sharp, conical and tough spines. Leaves alternate, compound, digitate, caducous; leaflets 5–7 with long common petiole. Flowers solitary or in axillary cymes, hermaphrodite, regular. Calyx gamosepalous, cup-shaped, with 5 acute lobules. Corolla violet, with 5 deep clefts; æstivation convolute. Stamens numerous, united at the base in 5 bundles, free above, bearing unilocular anthers. Ovary of 5 many-ovulate compartments, with a style ending in 5 short branches. Capsule woody, ovoid, loculicidal, with 5 valves. Seeds numerous, black, covered with cottony fibers.

Habitat.—Angat, Iloilo. Blooms in February.

Eriodendron anfractuosum, DC. (Bombax pentandrum, L.)

Nom. Vulg.—Boboy, Tag.; Doldol, Vis.; Bulak kastila, Pam.

Uses.—The principal use made of this plant in the Philippines is to stuff the pillows with the cotton that it yields. The leaves, pounded with a little water, yield a mucilaginous juice highly prized by the natives as a wash for the hair, mixing it with gogo. The root bark is emetic in dose of 1.25 grm. The cotton yielded by this tree should be used for the same therapeutic purposes as that of gossypium, and being of an exceedingly fine fiber it would give better results. The Filipinos use it to treat burns and sores. I have often used it, being careful always to impregnate it thoroughly with some antiseptic solution. In the treatment of burns it has been my custom to envelope the part in a thick layer of this cotton, after bathing it with a tepid 1–2,000 solution of corrosive sublimate and dusting with a very fine powder of boracic acid.

Botanical Description.—A tree 40–50° high. Trunk somewhat thorny, the branches horizontal, arranged in stars of 3–4. Leaves compound with 7 leaflets, lanceolate, entire, glabrous. Flowers in umbels of 8 or more flowerets. No common peduncle, the individual ones long. Calyx, 5 obtuse sepals, slightly notched. Corolla, 5 fleshy petals, obtusely lanceolate and bent downwards. Stamens 5. Anthers of irregular shape, peltate, with the borders deeply undulate. Stigma in 5 parts. Pod 4–6′ long, spindle-shaped. Seeds enveloped in very fine cotton fiber.

Habitat.—Exceedingly common in all parts of the islands. Blooms in December.

Sterculiaceæ.

Sterculia Family.

Sterculia fœtida, L. (S. polyphilla, R. Br.; Clompanus major, Rumph.)

Nom. Vulg.—Kalumpag̃, Tag.; Bag̃ar, Iloc.

Uses.—A decoction of the leaves is used as a wash in suppurative cutaneous eruptions. The fruit is astringent and is used in Java as an injection for gonorrhœa. In western India and in the Philippines it is an article of diet. The seeds yield an oil that is used for illumination and as a comestible.

Botanical Description.—A large tree of the first order with digitate leaves of 6–8 leaflets, broad, oval, very acute, tough, glabrous, growing on a long common petiole. No petiole proper. Flowers of a fœtid or feculent odor, hermaphrodite, in compound racemes. Calyx fleshy, soft pubescent internally, bell-shaped, in 5 parts. Corolla none. Nectary 5-toothed, on the end of a small column. Stamens 15, inserted on the border of the nectary by threes, forming a triangle. Filament almost entirely wanting. In the midst of the stamens is visible a small, hairy body of 5 lobules which are the rudiments of the ovaries. The style protrudes and twists downwards. Stigma thick, compressed, of 5 lobules. Fruit, five woody pods, semicircular, joined to a common center, each enclosing many oval seeds inserted in the superior suture.

Habitat.—Luzon, Mindanao, Cebú, Iloilo. Blooms in March.

Sterculia urens, Roxb. (S. cordifolia, Blanco; Cavallium urens, Schott. & Endl.)

Nom. Vulg.—Banilad, Tag.

Uses.—The root bark is pounded up and applied locally in orchitis and in severe contusions with supposed fracture of the bones; native charlatans pretend to cure the latter condition by this treatment.

The trunk exudes a sort of gum, which with water forms a sort of colorless, odorless gelatin which dissolves at the boiling point. I do not know to what use this gum is applied in therapeutics, but it is often found mixed with the Senegambian gum acacia.

Botanical Description.—A tree with leaves bunched, 7–9-veined, heart-shaped, ovate, broad and entire, glabrous upper surface, short white down on lower surface. Petioles of same length as the leaves. Flowers small, yellow, numerous, polygamous, growing in large, terminal panicles covered with a fine, sticky down. Calyx bell-shaped, 5 acute papyraceous divisions, each bearing a small gland near its base. No corolla. Stamens 10, united in a column, the upper ends free. Five pods joined at one point, half-moon shaped, with woody shell, glabrous within and with a short down on the outer surface. Three or four kidney-shaped seeds, the testa thin and crustaceous.

Habitat.—Cebú, Iloilo.

Kleinhovia hospitata, L.

Nom. Vulg.—Tanag, Tag., Vis.; Hamitanago, Vis.; Panampat, Pam.; Bitnog̃, Iloc.

Uses.—The decoction of the leaves is used, according to P. Blanco, to cure the itch. It is also used locally in all forms of dermatitis, and the tender leaves and sprouts are cooked and eaten.

Botanical Description.—Tree 25° high or more, with leaves alternate, heart-shaped, pubescent, almost entire. Petioles long with 2 stipules at the base. Flowers red, axillary, in large panicles. Calyx, 5 sepals, almost linear. Corolla the same size as the calyx, 5 linear petals, the lower shorter and curved. Nectary bell-shaped, of 5 parts, each 3-toothed; set on a column; at its base a wavy fringe with dentate edge. Stamens 15. No filaments. Anthers seated on the 15 teeth of the nectary. Ovary within the nectary, 5-angled, 5 apartments each containing an almost spherical seed.

Habitat.—Luzon, Mindanao, Panay, Cebú, Joló. Flowers in March and September.

Helicteres Isora, L. (H. chrysocalyx, Miq.; H. Roxburghii, G. Don.)

Nom. Vulg.—(?); Indian Screw Tree, Eng.

Uses.—I am ignorant of the use that the Filipinos make of this plant, though it is very possible that they do not employ it at all in medicine, which is usually the case with those plants to which they have given no name. In India the peculiar spiral form of the fruit has suggested its application, according to the theories of the doctrine of symbolism. Ainslie says

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