50. Berberis aristata, D.C.

The medicinal plant Berberis aristata is a member of the Berberidaceae (barberry) 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. 110.

Sanskrit:—Darvi, Daru haridra, Pitadaru (yellow wood), Kata (The hip), Kateri (Having the bile), of bile, Suvarnavarna (Gold-coloured), Katankati (Growing on the hips).

Vernacular:—Chitra; Chotra (Kumaon); dar-hald; rasvat; Kashmal (H.); Sumlu; Sirnlu; Kasmal; Chitra (Pb.); Chitra (Nepal); Tsema (Bhutia). ‘Rasout’ in India is the root-extract—Trimen.

Habitat:—Temperate Himalaya, from Bhotan to Kunawer, Nilghiri Mts., Ceylon, Jaunsar and Tehri-Garhwal, Simla. 6,000-9,000 ft.

Parts used:—The stem, root-bark, and fruit.

Botanical description:—An erect spinous shrub, evergreen, 10-12 ft. high.

Bark: soft, light-brown, corky.

Annual: rings distinctly marked by a narrow belt of numerous pores.

Pores: small, in short, narrow wavy tails of light-coloured tissue. Branches shining, reddish-brown, slightly drooping.

Leaves: sessile, broadly lanceolate, more or less persistent, 2-3 in. long, obovate or oblanceolate, rather coriaceous, entire or with a few remote teeth, in the axil of 5-fid, trifid or a simple spine.

Spine: the spine is here but a reduced leaf.

Flowers: bright, golden-yellow, in cymosely-branched racemes, drooping, much longer than the leaves.

Peduncle: 1-1½ in., long, red.

Style: short, but distinct.

Stigma: small, sub-globose.

Branches: few-flowered.

Pedicels: ⅕-⅖ in. long, also red.

Berries: tapering into a very short style; oblong, ovoid, spindle-shaped, red.

Young fruit: cylindric.

Medicinal uses:—The medicinal extract from the root, known as Rasout is highly esteemed as a febrifuge and as a local application in eye diseases.

“Rusot is best given as a febrifuge in half drachm doses diffused through water, and repeated thrice, or still more frequently, daily. It occasions a feeling of agreeable warmth at the epigastrium, increases appetite, promotes digestion, and acts as a very gentle, but certain aperient. The skin is invariably moist during its operation,

“In over thirty cases of tertian ague (several complicated with spleen), we have succeeded in checking the fever, on an average, within three days, after commencing the rusot. In eight cases of quartan, six were cured. The cases of common quotidian, thus successfully treated, were so numerous that they were not recorded. In no instance was headache or constipation produced; but we have seen rusot exasperate the symptoms of chronic dysentery and hepatitis, when complicated with ague”. (O’Shaughnessy.)

“Is taken internally in 5 to 15 grain doses, with butter in bleeding piles. Its solution, 1 drachm to 4 ozs. of water, is used as a wash for piles. Its ointment, made with camphor and butter, is applied to pimples and boils, being supposed to suppress them.” (Dr. Penny, in “Watt’s Dictionary of Economic Products.” Vol. II., p. 446.)

“The wood, root-bark and extract of Indian Barberry have been used in Hindoo Medicine from a very remote period. Its properties are said to be analogous to those of turmeric. * * Indian Barberry and its extract, rasot, are regarded as alterative and deobstruent, and are used in skin diseases, menorrhagia, diarrhoea, jaundice, and above all in affections of the eyes. * * * Sarangdhara recommends a simple decoction of Indian barberry to be given, with the addition of honey in jaundice. In painful micturition from bilious or acrid urine, a decoction of Indian barberry and emblic myrobalan is given with honey, A decoction of the root-bark is used as a wash for unhealthy ulcers, and is said to improve their appearance and promote cicatrization. * * Rasot, mixed with honey, is said to be an useful application to aphthous sores.” (Dutt’s Materia Medica of the Hindus).