BABOOL

English            :           Babool tree or gum/Indian acacia/Gum-arabic tree/Gum acacia

Urdu                :           Babool or kikar/Babool or Kikar gond

Telugu             :           Nallatumma/Tumma/Thumma/Barbaramu

Description :

It is a moderate-sized thorny tree with dark brown or black and fissured bark,slender branches,straight and sharp pointed spines, 2 pinnate leaves 5-10 cm long,yellow and round flowers and whitish green flat pods 7.5-15 by 1.3-1.6 cm containing 8-12 seeds. The gum exudes from fissures or cracks in the bark.

Acacia arabica gum occurs in the irregular and broken tears of varying size,brown or red to light straw color and brittle in nature. It is odourless and has bland and mucilagenous taste. It is almost entirely soluble in twice its volume of water yielding a viscous solution.

The extract of leaves and pods in known as Akakia.

Action and Uses:

Bark is asttingent,styptic and constipating and useful in diaffhoea,spongy,gums stomatitis,prolapse ani, piles ,leucorrohea and spermatorrohea. For this purpose, the solution or decocttion of the bark is used as mouth wash,gargle ,drink as a douche. Incinerated bark is used a sa good tooth powder.Tender twigs of the tree are used as tooth brush which strenghness the gums and clears the teeth. It prevents bleeding of gums. Leaves,flowers and pods are used as astringent in diarrhoea,dysentery.spermatorrhoea and premature ejaculation in the form of powder or decoction to be used orally, and externally for washing bleeding ulcers and wounds.

Akakia is used,like bark , leaves and pods as astrigent and styptic. Gum arabica is demulcent,nutritive tonic and aphrodisiac and used in the form of mucilage in dysentery and diarrhoea and in powder form in cases of cough,asthma and phthisis to remove dryness and irritation. Fried in ghee,it is given as nutritve tonic and aphrodisiac in sexual debility.

Ibn Sina’s View: It is astringent and arrests bleeding and all discharges. Useful in haemoptysis and leucorrhoea.