62. Argemone mexicana, Linn.

The medicinal plant Argemone mexicana is a member of the Papaveraceae (poppy) 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): I. 117. Roxb. 426.

English:—The Mexican or Prickly Poppy.

Sanskrit:—Srigala-Kanta; brahmadandi.

Vernacular:—Bharbhand, piladhutura, farangi-dhutura, ujar-Kanta Shial-kanta, sial-kanta (H.); Baro-Shial kanta (B.); Gokuhla janum (Santal); Bharbhurwa, Karwah kantela (N.-W. P.); Kandiari, Sialkanta bhatmil, Satyanasa, bherband, Katci, bhatkateya (Pb.); Farangi dhatura, bharamdandi, daruri, pila-dhatura (Dack.); Darudi (Guj.); Firangidhotra, daruri, pinvala-dhotra, kante-dhotra (Mar.); Birama-dandu, Kurukkum-Chedi, (Tam.); Brahma dandi-chettu (Tel.); Datturi, datturi-gidda (Kan.); Brahma-danti (MalJ; Kanta-kusham (Uriya).

Habitat:—By roadside and Simla 5,000 ft., in fields throughout India.

Botanical description:—An erect, prickly, robust annual herb, with copious yellow juice and rigid prickles, growing wild in rich roadside places and rice-fields, after the crops of rice-plants are cut down; stem sometimes half-woody below, 2-4 ft., with spreading branches.

Leaves: 3-7 in., amplexicaul, glaucous-green, blotched with white, deeply repand, sinuate, pinnatifid, with thorny teeth.

Peduncles: erect, both before and after flowering.

Flowers: yellow, scentless 1-3 in. diam.

Calyx: glabrous and prickly; sepals horned at the top. Petals 4-6; stamens numerous.

Stigmas: 4-5, radiating free, red.

Capsules: ¾-1½ in. long, terete, prickly, 4-5-valved; obovate, or elliptic-oblong, 1-celled; opening by valves at tbe apex.

Seeds: spherical, shining, black, pitted.

Parts used: —The seeds, and roots.

Medicinal uses:—The yellow juice of this plant is used as a medicine for dropsy, jaundice, and cutaneous affections. It is also diuretic, relieves blisters, and heals excoriations and indolent ulcers. (Watt.. The seeds yield on expression a fixed oil, which has long been in use amongst West India practitioners as an aperient. The unfavorable report of Sir W. O’Shaugh-nessy (Bengal Disp., p. 183) led to its being neglected; but more recent trials of its properties by several medical officers in Bengal serve to prove that in half drachm doses it acts as a gentle aperient, and at the same time allays, apparently by a sedative action, the pain in colic. The smallness of the doses, and the mildness of its operation are recommendations to its employment. Age apparently affects its activity, the freshly prepared oil proving more energetic and uniform in operation than that which has been long on hand. Applied to herpetic and other forms of skin disease, it is reported to exercise a well-marked soothing influence, according to Dr. Bonavia and others (Indian Med. Gaz. 18G6, vol. i., p. 206). As a local application to indolent and ill-conditioned ulcers, the expressed yellow glutinous juice of the plant is held in much esteem by the natives. Dr. W. Dymock, of Bombay reports having used it thus with good effect. The native practice of applying this juice to the eye in ophthalmia is dangerous. Both in a chemical and therapeutical point of view, this plant appears worthy of investigation. (Ph. Ind.).

“The seeds are laxative, emetic, nauseant, expectorant and demulcent; the oil, a drastic purgative, nauseant and expectoant; and the root, an alterative tonic. The seeds and oil have also a beneficial effect over asthma.

“The seeds are useful in cough and catarrhal affections of the throat and pulmonary mucous membrane, and in pertussis and asthma. Though they do not appear to possess any anti-spasmodic property, they have a distinct control over asthma, apparently, from their combined actions of nauseant, emetic, expectorant and demulcent. As their use is often accompanied by more or less vomiting and nausea, they are more suited as a laxative medicine to some pulmonary affections than other diseases. The oil is serviceable in some cases in which jalap, rhubarb and castor-oil are indicated, and also in some bronchial and catarrhal affections. The use of the root is attended with benefit in some chronic cases of skin diseases.

“There is a great difference in opinion as to the action and dose of the oil of Argemone Mexicana. Some say that thirty minims of it act as an efficient cathartic, while others consider it to be quite inert and incapable of producing any purgative effect in “ounce doses.” I have got this oil prepared three or four times in my own presence, and tried it in many cases. The former opinion is quite correct, and with regard to the latter, it is necessary to say that the oil, so far from being inert in “ounce doses,” is unsafe in more than forty minim doses, and produces a dangerous hypercatharsis when the dose is increased to one drachm. If the oil is fresh, its average dose is twenty-five minims; and, if old, thirty-five. It is a good drastic or hydragogue cathartic in such doses, and generally produces from 5 to 12 motions. Its advantage over jalap, rhubarb, castor-oil, &c., is the smallness of its doses; and over the croton oil, its freeness from unpleasant, nauseous and acrid taste. Its disadvantages as a purgative are, firstly, that its action is not uniform even in its average dose which produces more than fifteen or sixteen motions at one time, and only three or four at another; and, secondly, that it is generally accompanied by vomiting at the commencement of its operation. Though the latter is not severe, yet it has a very unpleasant effect in a purgative medicine. Hypercatharsis from the use of this oil is not generally attended with great debility and other dangerous symptoms, frequently observed under a similar condition from croton oil and some other purgatives.” (Moodeen Sheriff’s Materia Medica of Madras).

In the Concan, the juice with milk is given in leprosy. * * * An extract made from the whole plant has been found to have an aperient action, and the milky juice to promote the healing of indolent ulcers. I have not noticed any bad effects from its application to the eyes. Its use as an external application to the eyelids in conjunctivitis was probably introduced into this country by the Portugese, who appear to have adopted it in Brazil as a substitute for the Argemone of the Greeks and Homans which was used for a similar purpose (Dymock).

“The yellow juice mixed with Ghi is given internally in gonorrhoea (D. R. Thompson, M.D., C.I.E.)”

“I found the juice very useful in scabies. Asst.-Surgeon Gowry Coomar Mukerji found the powdered root in drachm doses useful in tapeworm (R. L. Dutt, M.D.)”—Watt’s Dictionary.

The smoke of the seeds is used in Delhi to relieve tooth-ache. It is also said to be useful in caries of the teeth.

The seeds are used as a purgative in syphilis.

In leprosy it is used as follows:—

One tola of the juice, early in the morning, taken on empty stomach.

It is said to cure leprosy in 40 days.

“The juice is useful in malarious fevers of a low chronic type. How it acts I am not sure, but I believe it has some specific effect (germicidal) on the malarial parasites and, secondly, it acts probably as a purgative.

“I have only tried this juice in a few cases—about six or seven cases—and it only acted well in one or two cases; so I cannot speak with confidence.

“I believe the oil is abetter preparation than the juice, which is an unstable compound.

“I am certain also the oil is a powerful alterative in syphilis and leprosy, the same as Neem oil, but I have not used it yet for this purpose.

“This drug has only lately come to my notice, and I believe there is a great future before it (Major D. B. Spencer, I. M. S.)

Chemistry:—

Charbonnier claimed to have isolated morphine, and his statement was confirmed by Ortega. Peckolt, however, concluded that the plant contained a new alkaloid, argemonine, and not morphine.

To determine this question, Mr. J. O. Schlotterbeck exhausted a large quantity of the dried plant, with chloroform, and obtained a large yield of berberine, whilst a second alkaloid, identified as protopine, was extracted with ether from the filtrate.

In Schlotterbeck’s opinion, protopine was the substance regarded as morphine by Charbonnier, and as a new alkaloid by Peckolt.

Potassium nitrate was identified among the salts naturally existing in the plant. J. S. Ch. I. April 31, 1902, p. 560.

Some crushed seeds were steam-distilled by K. Bhaduri of Calcutta. The distillate had a slight opalescence and a very pungent odour, but no oil came over. Extraction of the crushed seeds with petroleum-ether gave 22.3% of a pale greenish yellow oil with a green fluorescence. The oil obtained by pressing the crushed seeds was deep brown, mild odour, tasteless, d₂₈ 0.9117, d₁₀₀ 0.9007, n 32/D 43°34, sapon. no. 185.5, acetyl no. 27.9, acid no. 146, I. no. 106.7, R.-M. no. 0.61, Hehner no. 94.02, glycerol 15.48%, Maumene test 65°. The oil, very thin at first, gradually thickens on keeping. AcOH and valeric acid are present. The mixed fatty acids, pale in color and thin, showed: d₂₃ 0.9065, d₁₀₀ 0.8889, sapone. no. 194, I no. 147.4; temp, of turbidity 22°; contains 8.14% of lauric acid. No stearic acid is present.—Chemical Abstracts for March 20, 1914, pp. 1186-7.