Cynodon dactylon commonly known as Durva is considered as a sacred herb by the Hindus and is used in religious rites. It is widely used by the people of India as a traditional medicine for diarrhea, dysentery, catarrhal opthalmia, dropsy, etc. This paper discusses the pharmacognostical and preliminary phytochemical studies of the herb.

CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 88, NO. 12, 25 JUNE 2005 1897 It provides an important link in the evolution of insects. The morphological characters of the reported bug, such as small body, short antennae comprising three segments, three-segmented, backwardly directed rostrum with thorax being the largest among the three parts of the insect body, are not yet known in a living or fossil insect family. It...

In 1898 Patrick Manson gave a graphic account of beriberi. He described how medical visitors to “native hospitals in many parts of the tropical world” were likely to have “their attention arrested by the large proportion of cases of partial paraplegia, of cases of oedema of the legs, and of cases of general dropsy. These, for the most part, are cases of beriberi”.1 The visitor, Manson continued...

of the body were gradually increasing instead of diminishing a little bit. The patient himself refused to undergo anv medical treatment. He earnestly prayed me for a radish Plant. First of all, I refused to recommend for the same though the patient expressed that among his (aboriginal) tribes radish is given to dropsical patients as the only remedy and cure. On his repeated prayers I agreed. I ...