Folk Jungli Nimbu.
Action Oil from leaves and berry— antibacterial, antifungal. Leaves— a decoction is applied to cutaneous affections. Fruit—juice, antibilious.
The rootbark yields alkaloids, atalaphylline and its N-methyl derivatives and atalaphyllidine, which have close structural similarities with the antitumour alkaloid, acronycine, and its cogeners. The rootbark also contains the limonoid, atalantin.
The leafjuice forms an ingredient of a compound liniment used in hemiplegia. The essential oil is used in paralysis. The oil contains higher terpene esters belonging to azulene group (29%). (Azulenes impart anti-inflammatory activity.)
Atropa acuminata Royle ex Lindl. Synonym A. belladonna auct. non
L.
Family Solanaceae.
Habitat Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh up to 2,500 m.
English Indian Belladonna, Indian
Atropa.
Ayurvedic Suuchi.
Unani Luffaah, Luffaah-Barri, Yabaruj, Shaabiraj.
Action Highly poisonous; sedative, narcotic, anodyne, nervine, antispasmodic (used in paralysis); parkinsonism; encephalitis; carcinoma; spastic dysmenorrhoea; whooping cough, spasmodic asthma; colic of intestines, gall bladder or kidney, spasm of bladder and ureters; contraindicated in enlarged prostate.
Key application In spasm and colic-like pain in the areas of
Avena sativa Linn. 73
the gastrointestinal tract and bile ducts. (German Commission E, The British Herbal Pharmacopoeia.) It
is contraindicated in tachycardiac arrhythmias, prostate adenoma, glaucoma, acute oedema of lungs.
A. belladonna L. (European sp. Belladonna, Deadly Nightshade) is cultivated in Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh.
The herb contains tropane (tropine) or solanaceous alkaloids (up to 0.6%), including hyoscamine and atropine; flavonoids; coumarins; volatile bases (nicotine).
Tropane alkaloids inhibit the parasympathetic nervous system, which controls involuntary bodily activities; reduces saliva, gastric, intestinal and bronchial secretions, and also the activity of urinary tubules. Tropane alkaloids also increase the heart rate and dilate the pupils. These alkaloids are used as
