# Indian and Arabian pills

**Pillole inde et arabiche**

**Known today as.** Two named compound pills of the Arabic-Latin tradition: the Indian pills (from Mesue, after Haly), with black hellebore, myrobalans, and colocynth; the Arabian pills (from Nicolaus), with aloes, bryony, and scammony.

Kind: Compound  
Poisoning: The drastic resins (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/drastic-resin)

## What did Canale use it for?

Among the commended purges (ch. 4).

## What does modern science say?

Strong purgatives, as their ingredients imply.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **myrobalan tannins**: 
- **aloin**: 
- **agaric acid (agaricin)**: 
- **scammonin**: 
- **lapis lazuli**: in the Indian pills

**Mechanism.** Purges of Mesue and Nicolaus carried into the London Dispensatory: Indian myrobalans, black hellebore, polypody, agaric, troches of colocynth, and lapis lazuli in the Indian pills; aloes, bryony, myrobalans, and scammony in the Arabian. Pills with scammony or colocynth, Culpeper says, “work strongly.”

**Dose.** Culpeper gives half a drachm or a scruple of the Indian pills; of the Arabian, “a scruple is enough to take at a time.”

**Standing.** Obsolete.

## Sources

- *The British Pharmaceutical Codex* (1911). London: Pharmaceutical Society of Great Britain. Monographs as transcribed at Henriette’s Herbal Homepage, henriettes-herb.com.
- Culpeper, N. (1653). *Pharmacopoeia Londinensis*, “Pilulae Indae.”

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*Indian and Arabian pills.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-03. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/indian-and-arabian-pills

Historical description, not medical advice.