This section is from the book "The Materia Medica Of The Hindus", by Udoy Chand Dutt. Also available from Amazon: The Materia Medica Of The Hindus.
Tintidi.
Amlikά.
Vern. Tentul, Benq. Imli. Hind.
The tamarind tree is met with throughout India, and has been known from a very remote period. "From the Hindus it would seem that the fruit became known to the Arabians who called it Tamare-hindi:" from which last the word tamarind is derived. Tamarinds form an important ingredient in native cookery. The unripe fruit is very acid and possesses a peculiar aroma for which it is much relished when cooked with curry. The ripe fruit is regarded as refrigerant, digestive, carminative and laxative, and useful in diseases supposed to be caused by deranged bile, such as burn-ing of of the body, costiveness, intoxication from spirituous liquors or datura, etc. The shells of the ripe fruit are burnt, and their ashes used in medicine as an alkaline substance, along with other medicines of the sort, as for example in the preparation called Abhaya-lavana, (see Alkaline ashes). The pulp of the ripe fruit, as well as a poultice of the leaves, is recommended to be applied to inflam-matory swellings.

Amlikά pάna.1 Macerate some tamarind pulp in water; strain, and add black pepper, sugar, cloves, camphor and cardamoms to taste. This preparation is prescribed as an a greeeable cooling draught in loss of appetite and disinclination for food. In intoxica-tion from spirituous liquors the following mixture is recommended by Chakradatta. Take of dates, raisins, tamarind pulp, pomegra-nate seeds, fruits of Grewia Asiatica (parushaka) and ripe emblic myrobalans, each one tola, pound them together, and make an emulsion with thirty-two tolas of water. Dose, about two ounces.2
 
Continue to: