There are many plants of medicinal importance in the botanical family of Meliaceae to which neem belongs. Some of these have been listed earlier. It is time to look at them in some detail. The most famous of them is Melia azadarch Linn, (bakayan in Hindi), or mahanimba in Sanskrit. This means the Greater neem, a plant which is much praised in Ayurveda for many of its medicinal uses.
This is a very magnificent though a rather small sized tree grown for its fragrance and shade almost every where in our country. The tree remains generally leafless from March to April but from May onwards it becomes filled with a luxury of beautiful flowers and leaves. Flowers are in larger branches than neem, bluish and have a sweet, bitter but rich fragrance. The yellow fruits start ripening with the leaf fall and continue to dangle on the tree itself as the leaf fall goes on. The tree looks remarkably impressive at this stage.
The Sanskrit names are many and quite striking. Some of them are: maha nimba (greater than neem), girika (available in the hill), himadruma (a Himalayan tree unlike neem which does not grow in high altitudes and not at all on the Himalayas); ramayaka (charming), nlmbaka (neem like), nimbapatra (leaf, neem like), malaka (referring to the garland of fruits); mahatikta (greatly bitter), kamuka (referring to the very fragrant flowers) and vishamushtika (the seed being a fistful of poison).
This is a drake (Punjabi), Persian lilac. Common bead tree (English), malalvembu (hill neem, Tamil), konda vepa (hill neem) and turaka vepa (Telugu), turuka bevu, huccha bevu (wild neem, Kannada), malaivempu (Malayalam) and vUayatinirnb (Marathi).
The tree is found wild in Persia but well cultivated all over India. Its hard seeds are very commonly used as beads in rosary. The timber is quite valuable, somewhat resembling teak in durability and takes a beautiful polish. However it still remains a timber tree worth being exploited much better in the future, than at present.
The parts used in medicine are root-bark, fruits, seeds, flowers, seeds, oil and gum.
The bark causes purging and vomiting. Flowers and seeds restore menstrual flow. Root bark is bitter, vomit Inducing and act against intestinal worms. It causes a good urine flow and corrects errors in mensus rhythm. Its decoction is astringent i.e has a power of contracting tissues and hence healing.
Root-bark is used in decoction as a worm killer for children. Dosage Is one fourth of an ounce every third hour or morning and evening for some days successively. This procedure is then followed by a mild purging. Leaf Juice is a worm killer and given internalry. Flowers and leaves are made into poultice and applied in the cases of nervous head aches.
A decoction of the leaves is useful in so serious a mental upset as hysteria. Both leaves and bark are employed internally as well as externally in leprosy,scrofula, rashes, fungal infections and other skin diseases. A poultice of the flowers is advised as valuable in eruptive skin diseases. Almost all parts of the plant, bark, leaves and fruits (especially when fresh) are poisonous and even fatal in large doses. Even six to eight fruits can cause death. But it is these that are used in scrofula and leprosy. Seeds are used in rheumatism and the gum, in splenic enlargement.
It is the poisonous nature of the plant that makes it a fit subject for better exploitation medicinally; at present its value is not much realised in our country because of the more common neem though experts do suggest the need for a greater utilisation of this valuable medicinal plant. The plant is utilised in many medicinal preparations in America—for eg. fresh bark and fruits are considered very effective in removing worms and insects.
Some of the important general medicinal actions of mahantmba are as follows:
This is cooling, rough, astringent, bitter and also pungent as the ayurvedists regard. This destroys the imbalances due to kapha. The diseases on which it has been found to be useful are: all those skin diseases which leave blotches or dark spots on the surface of the skin, leucoderma, bleeding and the diseases of blood, nausea, giddiness of the head, vomiting, worms in the alimentary tract, cholera, gas troubles, bleeding piles and its haemorrhage as well as papillae or outgrowths and the sensation or burning at the extremeties viz feet and hands as well as all over the body. Another popular use is to counteract the rat poisoning when there is a mouse-bite and in a preliminary dressing of any type of injury.
The bark of both the trunk and the root are used in medicine. The inner bark is yellowish white, resinous, very bitter and nauseating infact but wholly lacks in the astringent property. But the outer bark is highly astringent (and hence healing). Most of the useful properties of the bark disappear on drying. The bark of the root is an officially accepted drug in America.