Bhallataka.

Arushkara.

Vern. Bhelά. Beng. Hind.

The acrid juice of marking nuts is a powerful vesicant and is often employed by the natives for producing fictitious marks of bruises. These can be distinguished from actual bruises caused by blows with a stick or other weapon, by their deep bluish-black colour and from their presenting small vesicles or minute blisters on their surface.

The practice of causing blisters by the application of the juice of marking nuts among the Hindus appears to have been at one time very common, for in our ancient medical works a section or paragraph is generally devoted to the treatment of ulcerations thus produced.

The ripe fruits are regarded as acrid, heating, stimulant, digestive, nervine and escharotic, and are used in dyspepsia, piles skin diseases, nervous debility, etc. They are prepared for internal use by being boiled with cow-dung and afterwards washed with cold water. Equal parts of marking nuts, chebulic myrobalans and sesamum seeds, are made into a confection with treacle and administered in doses of forty to sixty grains.1

Amrita Bhallάtaki.2 Take of ripe marking nuts divided into halves, eight seers, boil them in thirty-two seers of water till the latter is reduced to one-fourth and strain. Again boil the nuts in sixteen seers of milk with the addition of four seers of clarified butter, till reduced to a thick consistence. Then add sugar two seers and set aside for seven days, when the prepartion will be ready for use. It is described as a powerful restorative tonic, which increases the appetite, promotes nutrition and strength, prolongs life and so forth. It is used in haemorrhoids and other diseases of the rectum. Dose, about one to two scruples. Another confection of marking nuts, made with the addition of a number of aromatic substances, is recommended for use in skin diseases and leprosy.

Marking nuts enter into the composition of some caustic applications for warts and piles. They form an ingredient of a liniment for rheumatic affections called Saindhavάdyataila, for which see Ginger.