Page:Indian Medicinal Plants (Text Part 2).djvu/573

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and the preparation of soap liniment " (Dymock). The Pharmacopœia, on the other hand, says this oil is inferior to ground-nut oil and sesamum oil as a vehicle for liniments. Sakharam Arjun remarks : " The fresh oil is prepared for medicinal purposes by boiling the milk of the ripe cocoanut. It is used as an application for burns and in baldness." Ainslie observes it is obtained by boiling the bruised kernels in water, or " on other occasions it is obtained by expression." Drury says : " The oil used internally for medicinal purposes is not the common commercial oil in its crude state, but the oleine obtained by pressure refined by being treated with alkalies, and then repeatedly washed and distilled with water." The therapeutic properties of the oil are discussed in the United States Dispensatory. " In Germany it has been used in pharmacy, to a considerable extent, as a substitute for lard, to which, according to Pettenkofer, it is preferable on account of its less tendency to rancidity, its more ready absorption when rubbed on the surface of the body, and its less liability to produce chemical changes in the substance with which it is associated. Thus the ointment of iodine of potassium, when made with lard, becomes yellow in a few days, while if made with cocoanut oil it remains unchanged for two months or more, Vegetable substances also keep better in ointment prepared with this oil than with lard. Besides, it takes up one-third more water, which is a useful quality when it is desirable to apply saline solutions externally." " A preparation has been shown to us, said to be the liquid part of cocoanut oil, prepared in London, and, under the name of coco-olein, used, instead of the oil itself, as a substitute for cod-liver oil. The dose of this, as well as of the oil, is half a fluid ounce three times a day."

The various processes adopted in India for preparing oil from the cocoanut result in the formation of substances that are reputed to possess widely different properties. This fact might almost be supposed to be in consequence of chemically different oils being isolated. Dr. Dymock says of the so-called muthel oil : " In the Konkan the oil which separates from the freshly-rasped kernel, alone or mixed with tamarind-seed oil,