Tylophora leaves. Tylophora asthmatica.
Tylophora Leaves. Tylophorae Folia. Br. Add. (Fam. Asclepiadaceae.)—The dried leaves of Tylophora asthmatica (L.) Wight and Arnott, are used in certain parts of India as a poison for vermin, and have been used with fatal results as a poison. Tylophora asthmatica, which grows in Bengal, Burmah and Ceylon, has been known in Indian medicine since 1780, and has been largely used in both the civil and the military medical service of Madras. It is officially described as "petiolate, entire, from two to five inches (five to twelve and a half centimeters) long and from three-quarters of an inch to two and one-half inches (eighteen to sixty-five millimeters) broad, lanceolate-ovate or ovate or subrotund in outline, somewhat cordate at the base, abruptly acuminated; rather leathery in texture, glabrous on the upper surface, and finely downy on the lower; of a brownish-green color, which is paler on the lower surface. Odor slightly aromatic; almost devoid of taste." Br. Add.
David Hooper has separated from this drug an alkaloid, tylophorine, soluble in ether and alcohol, but scarcely so in water; forming crystalline salts, and striking with nitric acid a purplish-red color, with Frohde's reagents a deep sap-green, and with potassium dichromate and sulphuric acid a dirty violet. Tylophora resembles in its activity ipecac, and is used as a substitute for that drug in bronchitis and in dysentery. In doses of from twenty to thirty .grains (1.3-2.0 Gm.) it is used as an emetic. The expectorant dose is from one-half to two grains (0.032-0.13 Gm.).
