477 Raab.--Treacle; it is heavy; strengthens the system; is diuretic;
increases perspiration, and the three secretions.
478 Raje Umber.--A fruit of India; sweet, cool, astringent, and useful
in disorders of mucus and bile.
479 Rassun..--Commonly called Raisun or Rowasun; a tree about the
size of a Baer tree, or larger; it is a weak biennial plant, but
grows rapidly when transplanted. Its leaves grow on both sides of
a centre stem, like the Tamarind, and it is rather longer: the tree
grows straight from the root. The author of the Topha has described it
as a root, and says that the people of India call different medicines
by the former names, but they are both the same, and it is the common
kind that I have described. Its pod is like the Lobeia (bean.) The
flower is outside yellow and inside red, with a tinge of yellow. Its
leaves contract in the night and unfold in the morning. Some have
called it sweet and cool, and have described many varieties of it,
white, yellow, red, and grey; but I fancy the difference is merely
confined to the color of the flowers; some have said that it diminishes
strength. Its flowers are peculiarly beautiful. If its leaves are
bruised and applied moist to swellings, it either resolves the tumour
or hastens suppuration; it is bitter and heavy, cures disorders
of wind and mucus, swellings of the body, difficulty of breathing,
eruptions from suffusion of bile, itchiness in the stomach, dropsy,
and increases the powers of digestion.
480 Rajejakha. A medicine of India; astringent to the taste; dry,
heavy, and astringent in its effects; increases wind and foecal
evacuation; decreases appetite, and adds to the secretion of milk.