GENITO-URINARY MALADIES.—Corn silk is serviceable in all inflammatory conditions of the genito-urinary appa ratus, acute or chronic, idiopathic or traumatic. It is especially- valuable where intravesical decomposition of urine has given rise to irritation; and it may with advantage be combined with other antilithics in the treatment of g-ravel, etc.
COTTON-PLANT.—Gossypium herba ceum is a plant indigenous to the trop ical and subtropical regions of Asia and Africa, and that by transplanta tion has become a native of the west ern hemisphere. It has long, petio late, palmate, three- or five- lobed leaves of a green or dark-green color; the flowers are yellow. The bark of the root occurs in thin, flexible bands or quilled pieces, the outer surface brownish yellow, with slight, longitudinal ridges or meshes; small, black, circular dots; and dull, brownish-orange patches from the abrasions of the thin cork; inner surface whitish, of a silky- lustre, and finely striate; bast-fibres long, tough, and separable into papery layers; in odorous; taste slightly acrid and as tringent; seeds oblong or ovate, pointed at one end and covered with silvery white hairs.
Preparations and Doses.—Cotton-root abstract, 3 to 15 grains.
Cotton-root extract, solid, 2 to 10 grains.
Cotton-root extract, fluid, 30 to 120 minims.
Cotton-root decoction (1 to 10), 4 to 16 drachms.
Cotton-root bark, powdered, 20 to 60 grains.
Cotton-root tincture (1 to 4), 1 to 4 drachms.
Cotton-seed extract, solid, 5 to 15 grains.
Cotton-seed oil, 2 to 16 drachms or more.
Cotton-leaves, tincture (expressed juice of fresh leaves, 1; proof-spirit, 8), 10 to 60 minims.
Gossypin (concentration), 1 to 5 grains.
Physiological Action. — Cotton-root bark is emmenagogic, oxytocic, ecbolic, and deobstruent. Its action is prac tically identical with that of ergot. It is safer than the latter, and operates without pain, but is not so active, espe cially during parturition. It also re quires to be given in larger doses, and may be exhibited with. impunity even in the first stage of labor. A decoction of the fresh root is inore active than either the tincture or fluid extract.
The juice of the fresh leaves seems to exert a tonic alterative action on the in testinal tract, very like that of coto and paracoto, but less pronounced.
Cotton-seed oil is a succedaneunt for olive-oil; it is bland and nutritious, also slightly expectorant, markedly galacta gogic and aphrodisiac. An extract made from cotton-seed exh ibits these properties in greater or less degree.
Therapeutics.—The therapeutic indi cations are the same as for ergot as re gards preparations of the root. The fresh leaves are employed internally in dysen tery and diarrhceas,externally to inflamed joints, the breasts of nursing women to promote the secretion of milk, and to boils and abscesses to hasten their mat uration. Cotton-seed oil finds its chief use in the preparation of liniments.