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Botanical Name:
Smilax China
Sanskrit Name: Chopchini
English Name: China Root
Family: Liliaceae
Plant part use: Root.
Description of
Smilax China:
It has a hard, large, knotty, uneven rhizome, blackish externally, pale
coloured or whitish internally. Stem without support, about 3 feet high,
but growing much taller if it has a bush to cling to. Leaves thin,
membraneous, round, five-nerved acute or obtuse at each end, mucronate
at points. Stipules distinct obtuse; umbels greenish yellow, small
ten-flowered; fruit red, size of bird cherry. This is the commercial
China root, used as a substitute for Sarsaparilla. It is in large
ligneous pieces 2 to 6 inches long and about 2 inches in diameter.
Odourless, taste at first slightly bitter and acrid like Sarsaparilla.
The root-stocks yield a yellow dye with alum and a brown one with
sulphate of iron.
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Chemical Composition.—
Besides
volatile oil (Pareira, Mat. Med.), resin, starch, coloring
matter, calcium oxalate, etc., sarsaparilla root contains several
glucosids, to which its peculiar properties are due.
Medical Uses:
Sarsaparilla is generally considered as an alterative, though stated by
some to possess diuretic, diaphoretic, and emetic properties. The
diseases in which it has been more particularly recommended, are
inveterate syphilis, pseudo-syphilis, mercurio-syphilis, and
struma in all its forms. It has been used in several chronic
diseases, as of the skin, as herpes (best associated with sodium
sulphite), rheumatic affections (with potassium iodide),
passive general dropsy, gonorrhoeal rheumatism, and other depraved
conditions of the system where an alterative is required.
Herbal Extract packing:
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