new nation 17/02/2008
Medicine at our doorsteps: Chalta and Latkan
Jamayet Ali
Chalta is a large handsome evergreen tree, 30-80 ft. in height and six ft. in girth, with a dense rounded leathery crown leaf and fleshy and juicy persisting sepal forming the edible part of the fruits, flower large, 5-8 inches diam, white, fragrant and solitary. The fruit is large, about 3 inches in diameter, and is surrounded by fleshy accrescent calyces, which, when the fruit is full grown on February, have an agreeably acid taste, and are eaten by the people, either raw or cooked - chiefly cooked in curries. They are also made into a pleasant jelly. The acid juice sweetened with sugar forms a cooling drink. It is grown in garden for its handsome foliage and attractive flower. The plant is a shade bearer and vigorous saplings are found under dense shade. It thrives best in damp situations in deep fertile soil. The tree reproduces satisfactorily from coppice shoots. Seed dispersal under natural conditions is brought about by wild elephants which eat the fruits and eject the seeds or by forest streams which carry down until stranded, the buoyant fruits which fall into them. On reaching the ground, the fruits dry up and decay, the fleshy portions are eaten away by white ants and the seeds, which remain unaffected, germinate at the commencement of rains. The seedlings are washed away by rains and take root wherever they gain a footing.
For artificial reproduction, the seeds are sown about May in boxes or nursery beds, or seedlings which develop from fruits falling to the ground are collected and planted in nursery beds. Seedlings are transplanted at the commencement of first rains when they are one year old or 3-4 in high. Growth is moderately fast. The tree flowers during May-August and fruits ripen during September-February. The timber is used in the form of planks and rafters for internal work. It is used also for making tool handles, gun-stocks and bottoms of boats. It may be used for oars and telegraph posts. Botanical name of Chalta is Dillenia indica Linn. The tree is planted in most areas of Bangladesh. It is also planted in India, Srilanka, Malay Peninsula and Indo-China.
Medicinal Properties: The raw fruit is sour, bitter, pungent. The ripe fruit sweet, sour, tasty, removes 'vata' and 'kapha', dispels fatigue; stops abdominal pains (Ayurveda). The juice of the fruit mixed with sugar and water is used as a cooling beverage in fevers, and as a cough mixtute. The fruit is slightly laxative, and is apt to induce diarrhoea if too freely indulged in. The bark and the leaves are astringent (Indian Medicinal Plants, K.R.Kirtikar & B.D.Basu, Vol. 1,54)
Medicine: Fruit juice is used as expectorant in cough mixtures, as laxative, and tonic. Fruit is also used for additional pains and as a cooling beverage in fevers. Leaves and barks are astringent. Ethanolic extract of leaves possesses anti-amphetamine activity. Seed extract shows anti fungal activities (Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, George Watt, Vol. III, 113)
Latkan
Latkan is a medium sized evergreen tree with large leaves, pink or white flowers and red fruit capsules containing red seeds, occasionally planted in the forests of Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet. Each capsule contains about fifty small seeds, the pulpy outer covering of which contains pigments. The plant is a native of Central America and is cultivated in Brazil, Guiana, Mexico and India. The plant is propagated either from seeds or from stem-cuttings. Fruits are produced from about the third year after planting, and are collected when nearly ripe. The pulp gives a beautiful flesh colour, largely used in dyeing silks. It is altered by certain combinations into orange, deep orange, or red and brighter orange. For extracting the dye, the seeds are bruised and the pulp macerated with hot water, in wooden vessels, and soaked in it for several days till the colouring matter forms a fine suspension. The seeds are then removed, and the brei, which contains the pigment, is about to forment for about a week. The dye, annatto, that settles at the bottom is separated and dried into cakes. Latkan (Annatta) was once used for colouring silk and cotton, but it is not a fast dye and has now been replaced by coal-tar dyes. On account of its non-toxic nature, it is now mainly used for colouring edible materials like butter, ghee, margarine, cheese, chocolate, etc.
Medicinal Properties: The plant is bitter and sharply acrid; alexipharmic; cures "kapha" and "vata", headache, leprosy, blood diseases, biliousness, vomiting; allays thirst (Ayurveda). Astringent and slightly purgative, also a good remedy for dysentery and kidney diseases. The root-bark is antiperiodic and antipyretic, of great use in uncomplicated intermittent, remittent, and continued fevers. The seeds are cordial, astringent and febrifuge and a very good remedy for gonorrhoea. They possess the antiperiodic and antipyretic properties of the root-bark, but to a smaller extent.
The leaves are a popular febrifuge in Cambodia. the pulp (a well-known colouring matter) surrounding the seeds is astringent. The seed pulp is used by the American Indians to paint their body all over for full dress and this use of it is said also to prevent mosquito bites. In French Guiana the leaves are considered detergent; an infusion is prescribed as a purgative in dysentery. The root in combination with other drugs has been recommended for internal use in snake bite (Bapat) ; but it is not an antidote to snake venom (Mhaskar and Caius) (Indian Medicinal Plants, K.R.Kirtikar & B.D.Basu, Vol. I, 217)
Medicine: Astringent and slightly purgative, also a good remedy for dysentery and kidney diseases. The pulp (a well-known colouring matter) surrounding the seeds is astringent. The seeds are cordial, astringent, and febrifuge (Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vol. I, Watt, 455)
Medicinal Values: Aqueous extract of root is spasmogenic, antispasmodic and hypotensive, and is also used in jaundice and fever. Root bark and seeds are a good remedy for gonorrhoea. Seed is astringent, antidysenteric and diuretic and the pulp is haemostatic, antidysenteric, diuretic, laxative, febrifuge, digestive and prescribed in epilepsy and skin disease. Infusion of the leaves and roots is used in fever, epilepsy, dysentery and jaundice, and the seed pulp reduces blistering when applied immediately to burns (Medicinal Plants Of Bangladesh, Abdul Ghani, Second Edition, 117)
Chalta is a large handsome evergreen tree, 30-80 ft. in height and six ft. in girth, with a dense rounded leathery crown leaf and fleshy and juicy persisting sepal forming the edible part of the fruits, flower large, 5-8 inches diam, white, fragrant and solitary. The fruit is large, about 3 inches in diameter, and is surrounded by fleshy accrescent calyces, which, when the fruit is full grown on February, have an agreeably acid taste, and are eaten by the people, either raw or cooked - chiefly cooked in curries. They are also made into a pleasant jelly. The acid juice sweetened with sugar forms a cooling drink. It is grown in garden for its handsome foliage and attractive flower. The plant is a shade bearer and vigorous saplings are found under dense shade. It thrives best in damp situations in deep fertile soil. The tree reproduces satisfactorily from coppice shoots. Seed dispersal under natural conditions is brought about by wild elephants which eat the fruits and eject the seeds or by forest streams which carry down until stranded, the buoyant fruits which fall into them. On reaching the ground, the fruits dry up and decay, the fleshy portions are eaten away by white ants and the seeds, which remain unaffected, germinate at the commencement of rains. The seedlings are washed away by rains and take root wherever they gain a footing.
For artificial reproduction, the seeds are sown about May in boxes or nursery beds, or seedlings which develop from fruits falling to the ground are collected and planted in nursery beds. Seedlings are transplanted at the commencement of first rains when they are one year old or 3-4 in high. Growth is moderately fast. The tree flowers during May-August and fruits ripen during September-February. The timber is used in the form of planks and rafters for internal work. It is used also for making tool handles, gun-stocks and bottoms of boats. It may be used for oars and telegraph posts. Botanical name of Chalta is Dillenia indica Linn. The tree is planted in most areas of Bangladesh. It is also planted in India, Srilanka, Malay Peninsula and Indo-China.
Medicinal Properties: The raw fruit is sour, bitter, pungent. The ripe fruit sweet, sour, tasty, removes 'vata' and 'kapha', dispels fatigue; stops abdominal pains (Ayurveda). The juice of the fruit mixed with sugar and water is used as a cooling beverage in fevers, and as a cough mixtute. The fruit is slightly laxative, and is apt to induce diarrhoea if too freely indulged in. The bark and the leaves are astringent (Indian Medicinal Plants, K.R.Kirtikar & B.D.Basu, Vol. 1,54)
Medicine: Fruit juice is used as expectorant in cough mixtures, as laxative, and tonic. Fruit is also used for additional pains and as a cooling beverage in fevers. Leaves and barks are astringent. Ethanolic extract of leaves possesses anti-amphetamine activity. Seed extract shows anti fungal activities (Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, George Watt, Vol. III, 113)
Latkan
Latkan is a medium sized evergreen tree with large leaves, pink or white flowers and red fruit capsules containing red seeds, occasionally planted in the forests of Chittagong, Dhaka and Sylhet. Each capsule contains about fifty small seeds, the pulpy outer covering of which contains pigments. The plant is a native of Central America and is cultivated in Brazil, Guiana, Mexico and India. The plant is propagated either from seeds or from stem-cuttings. Fruits are produced from about the third year after planting, and are collected when nearly ripe. The pulp gives a beautiful flesh colour, largely used in dyeing silks. It is altered by certain combinations into orange, deep orange, or red and brighter orange. For extracting the dye, the seeds are bruised and the pulp macerated with hot water, in wooden vessels, and soaked in it for several days till the colouring matter forms a fine suspension. The seeds are then removed, and the brei, which contains the pigment, is about to forment for about a week. The dye, annatto, that settles at the bottom is separated and dried into cakes. Latkan (Annatta) was once used for colouring silk and cotton, but it is not a fast dye and has now been replaced by coal-tar dyes. On account of its non-toxic nature, it is now mainly used for colouring edible materials like butter, ghee, margarine, cheese, chocolate, etc.
Medicinal Properties: The plant is bitter and sharply acrid; alexipharmic; cures "kapha" and "vata", headache, leprosy, blood diseases, biliousness, vomiting; allays thirst (Ayurveda). Astringent and slightly purgative, also a good remedy for dysentery and kidney diseases. The root-bark is antiperiodic and antipyretic, of great use in uncomplicated intermittent, remittent, and continued fevers. The seeds are cordial, astringent and febrifuge and a very good remedy for gonorrhoea. They possess the antiperiodic and antipyretic properties of the root-bark, but to a smaller extent.
The leaves are a popular febrifuge in Cambodia. the pulp (a well-known colouring matter) surrounding the seeds is astringent. The seed pulp is used by the American Indians to paint their body all over for full dress and this use of it is said also to prevent mosquito bites. In French Guiana the leaves are considered detergent; an infusion is prescribed as a purgative in dysentery. The root in combination with other drugs has been recommended for internal use in snake bite (Bapat) ; but it is not an antidote to snake venom (Mhaskar and Caius) (Indian Medicinal Plants, K.R.Kirtikar & B.D.Basu, Vol. I, 217)
Medicine: Astringent and slightly purgative, also a good remedy for dysentery and kidney diseases. The pulp (a well-known colouring matter) surrounding the seeds is astringent. The seeds are cordial, astringent, and febrifuge (Dictionary of the Economic Products of India, vol. I, Watt, 455)
Medicinal Values: Aqueous extract of root is spasmogenic, antispasmodic and hypotensive, and is also used in jaundice and fever. Root bark and seeds are a good remedy for gonorrhoea. Seed is astringent, antidysenteric and diuretic and the pulp is haemostatic, antidysenteric, diuretic, laxative, febrifuge, digestive and prescribed in epilepsy and skin disease. Infusion of the leaves and roots is used in fever, epilepsy, dysentery and jaundice, and the seed pulp reduces blistering when applied immediately to burns (Medicinal Plants Of Bangladesh, Abdul Ghani, Second Edition, 117)
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