14. Aconitum ferox, Wall.

The medicinal plant Aconitum ferox is a member of the Ranunculaceae (buttercup) family. This page includes its habitat, botanical descption, medicinal uses (eg., Ayurveda), chemical constituents and history of use in modern and ancient India.

Index in Flora of British India (Hooker): 1. 28.

Habitat:—Temperate, sub-Alpine Himalaya, from Sikkim to Garhwal.

Sanskrit:—Visha (Poison); Vatsanabha (resembling the navel of children).

Vernacular:—Bish, bachnak, mitha zahar; Singyabish; telyabish (H.); Kat bish, Mitha bish, Sringibish, (Beng.); Bachnag (Mar.); Vashanavi (Tam.); Vasanabhi, nabhi (Tel.); Vatsanabhi (Mai.); Vasanabhi (Kan.) Shingadio-Vachnag (Guz.).

Botanical description:—Roots: biennial,. paired, tuberous; daughter-tuber ovoid-oblong to ellipsoid, 2.5-4 cm, long, about 1-15 cm. thick, with a few filiform root-fibres, dark-brown externally, fracture scarcely farinaceous, yellowish, taste rather indifferent, followed by a strong tingling sensation, cambium continuous, forming in cross-section a slightly sinuous ring; mother-tuber much shrunk and wrinkled, with numerous root-fibres, outer sieve-strands, surrounded by a mantle of sclerenchymatic cells.

Innovation bud: conic, 4-5 mm. long; scales ovate, prominently finely nerved, persistent.

Stem: erect, with or without a slender hypogaeous base (up to 3 cm. long) which emits numerous fine roots near the upper end, simple erect, 40-90 cm. high, rather slender, covered with short spreading yellow hairs in the upper part, glabrous below, hollow.

Leaves: scattered, distant, excepting the lowest 2 or 3 which are usually delayed at the time of the flowering, up to 7, glabrous, or the uppermost very sparingly hairy; petioles slender, the lower up to 25 cm. long and much dilated at the base, uppermost very short; blade orbicular-cordate to reniform in outline with a rather wide sinus (up to 8 cm. deep) up to 11 cm. high from the sinus to the tip, up to 20 cm. across, 5-pedati-partite to the very base or almost so in the inner, and to 5/9-9/10 in the outer incisions, divisions deltoid from a cuneate base on the outermost trapezoid, intermediate division 3-lobed to the middle, middle lobe elongate, pinnate-laciniate to inciso-dentate, ultimate segments or teeth acute or very acute, inner lateral divisions similar, but less symmetric, outermost 2-lobed or 2-partite, all laciniae, more or less linear-lanceolate and divaricate, the outermost overlapping and thus closing the sinus; uppermost blades, sessile or subsessile, much smaller or dissected.

Inflorescence: a loose raceme 10-25 cm. long, often with slender, erect, few-flowered additional branches from the leafy base; rhachis slender, densely yellow-pubescent to sub-tomentose; floral leaves like the preceding leaves, but much reduced, passing upwards into trifid or entire and linear-lanceolate bracts; bracteoles at or below the middle, resembling reduced biacts, very often suppressed; pedicels slender, erect, the lowest at length up to 7 cm. long.

Sepals: blue, hairy; uppermost helmet-shaped, helmet semi-orbicular in profile, shortly beaked 20—24 mm. high, 17—20 mm. from tip to base, 7—9 mm. wide; lateral sepals slightly contiguous with the helmet, oblique, orbicular-obovate, broadly clawed, 16 mm. long, 14 mm. broad; lower sepals deflexed, oblong subacute, 10 mm. long.

Nectaries: glabrous; claw erect; hood oblique to subhorizontal, oblong, gibbous on the back; lip deflexed, lanceolate, acute, entire.

Filaments: glabrous, about 7 mm. long, narrowly winged, wings gradually alternate.

Carpels: 5, conniving and contiguous, tomen-tose, gradually passing into the style.

Follicles: oblong, obliquely subtruncate, 15—20 mm. long, 4-5 mm. broad, dorsally sub-convex, loosely tomentose or at length almost glabrous, conspicuously reticulate.

Seeds: obovoid or obpyramidal, 2.6—3 mm. long, winged along the raphe, transversely lamellate on the faces, lamellae undulate.

Habitat:—Alpine Himalaya of Nepal.

Part used:—The root.

Medicinal uses:—This drug is officinal in both the British and Indian Pharmacopoeias-

Extremely poisonous as the name indicates, It is very probably, says Stapf, the source or one of the sources of the “Bish Bikh” or “Hodoya Bish” of Hamilton.

“A few years ago I took the white variety, Bachnag, myself in small quantities, and found that its internal use is not attended with more danger than that of the European aconite root (Aconiturn Napellus). Since that period, I have employed it very extensively in my practice, and do not hesitate in saying that it is one of the most useful medicines in India, Its beneficial influence over diabetes is very remarkable, the immoderate flow of urine beginning to diminish from the very day of its use, with a proportionate decrease in the saccharine matter. Its control over spermatorrhoea and incontinence of urine is equally great. It has lately been found useful in some cases of paralysis and leprosy. The advantages of this drug over all other varieties of the Indian aconite root are that it is not only much milder, but also more certain and uniform in its actions.” (Mohideen Sheriff).