Uses.--The entire plant reduced to a pulp and mixed with milk is used in India to treat dysentery. Ainslie states that the decoction is employed as a vermifuge and purgative. Botanical Description.--An herb with square stem, leaves alternate, lanceolate, nearly entire, glabrous. Flowers axillary, yellow, solitary. Calyx of 4-5 lobules. Corolla, 4 lanceolate petals inserted between the divisions of the calyx. Stamens 8, of these 4 alternate being shorter. Ovary very long, inferior, with 4 many-ovuled locules. Style the same length as the stamens. Stigma 4-lobuled. Seed vessels very long, with faint longitudinal ridges, crowned by the remains of the calyx, 4 pluriovulate locules. Habitat.--In the arable fields and along the banks of rivers. Blooms in January and March. PASSIFLORACEÆ. Passion Flower Family. _Carica Papaya_, L. Nom. Vulg.--_Papaya_, in many Phil. dialects; _Papaya_, _Papaw_, Eng. Uses.--The decoction of the leaves is used locally in sores and atonic ulcers, followed by a poultice of the boiled and mashed leaves. The natives use the cold infusion of the leaves to wash clothes spotted with blood and the spots disappear rapidly by virtue of the ferment papain which digests the fibrin. The infusion is also very useful as a wash for sores and gangrenous ulcers, modifying their appearance very rapidly. Before proceeding further it is desirable to give a description of papain, a digestive ferment which exists throughout the whole plant, fruit, trunk, leaves and petioles; it is contained in the milky juice which exudes from all these parts when cut. This juice was studied simultaneously by Wurtz in France and Peckolt in Brazil. The best method of collecting it is to make several superficial, longitudinal incisions in the green fruit without removing it from the tree; immediately an abundance of juice appears in the incisions and coagulates rapidly. The best time to do this is the early morning. The fruit does not suffer by this process but continues developing and ripens perhaps more rapidly, at the same time improving in flavor, becoming sweeter; the seeds, however, atrophy and lose their power of germination. Peckolt gives the following as the composition of the juice: A substance analogous to caoutchouc 4.525 Awa 2.424 Soft resin 0.110 Brown resin 2.776 Albuminoids 0.006 Papayotin (Papain of Wurtz) 1.059 Extractive matter 5.303 Malic acid 0.443 Peptic material and salts 7.100 Water 74.971