Lac
Carteria lacca or Coccus lacca or Tachardia lacca

Vernacular Names
Sanskrit - Laksha Malayalam - Laksha Tamil - Kombarakku

Source
Lac is a resinous substance usually of reddish or dark brown in colour with a disagreeable odour & easily breakable with a cracking sound. It is deposited on the twigs of trees such as banyan, accasia and peepal tree by a small insect - Carteria lacca. Writers are at variace as to the formation of lac. Some say that the insects attack the young branches of the trees above mentioned & fix themselves to the branches.

The female insect after oviposition is affected dies, giving out from her body a reddish liquid which solidifies & forms a crust about an inch thick round the branch attached. Others again affirm that the sting of the inect affects the sap or gum of the trees which forms the lac.

Another writer is of the opinion that the deposit is the excreta of the insect.

Origin of Lac
The minute hemipterous insect Tachardia lacca lives upon juices sucked up by its proboscis. In the adult stage females have no power of locomotion. But the males on attaining maturity emerge from their pupal cases, becomes possessed of a long transparent wings & fly away to visit the females & shortly after, they die off.

At two or three seasons, swarming of the larvae takes place. The larvae are seemed to emerge from dead bodies of the females & to crawl away in quest of fresh feeding grounds. They are thin minute creatures of an orange - red colour. Have no separation of body into head, thorax and abdomen. But have fully formedfeatures and powerful legs. They measure about 1/40 of an inch in size. For some days the swarming continues until the twigs become distinctly reddish in colour & literally alike. The vast majority however perish, the more fortunate are wafted on the breeze & carried by the bees, birds, squirrels or by their own excretion to new situations. The larvae thus becomes fixed and their legs being useless drop off. Lastly a resinous excretion begins to form around their body which by aggregation of many in times assumes the condition of a more or less complete encrestation of the twigs.

In cold weather, the branches of lac plant, Laksha tharu often swamp with the lac insect & seem covered with a red dust. The female insect produces small nipple like encrustations on the twigs, their bodies being apparently glued together by a liquid which forms acellular texture. Animals resembles a small bus. After a time the young ones escape leaving empty shells on the branches.

Stick Lac
Stick lac is the name given to the twigs encrusted with lac, that are collected from the trees. These twigs are dried in the shade. Various forms and sizes are given to stick lac. Thus when the resinous concretion is taken off , the twigs are broken and triturated & washed in water. The greater part of the colouring matter is dissolved & granular matter is known as seed lac.

Seed lac is stick lac crushed & reduced to roundish pieces. Seed lac breaks off into small particles ie grain seed lac; when it is melted over a fire & squeezed through a piece of calico & spread into thin glossy plates known as shell lac. ie: Seed lac is specially washed , bleached & mixed with a proportion of Arsenic & resin. This is put in lags and placed over a fire. Then lac is squeezed through the meshes. The molten is spread off in sheet form & allowed to cool. The result being shell lac.

Shellac is contained in many products such as sealing wax, electrical insulators, fireworks, phonographic records and other instruments. Odourish varnish can be obtained from shellac by mixing with alcogol.

Taste - Astringent, Bitter

Potency - Hot

Actions - 1)Astringent 2)Alterative.

General Properties

Shellac will cure:-

a) Kuttam - Leprosy

b) Any diseases arising from altered conditions of blood in the state.

c) Elumburukki (TB)

d) Body pain

e) Arthritic pain

f) Sannipatha Suram (Fever that occurs due to derangement of 3 types of doshas).

g) Kapham (one of three doshas or vital forces)

i) Its also effective in menorrhagia & dysentry & acts as a cardiac tonic.

j) Shellac is finely powdered & given with honey and given in haematemesis.

k) Choornam(fine dry powders of drugs) of shellac is given with Bombax malabaricum. This has astringent action and used in dysentry.

l) Shellac - 1part
Resin of bombax - 1/2 part
Curcus infectoria - 1/4 part
Nutmeg - 1/8 part
This is divided in to 2 parts & used as squirt in diorrhoea & dysentry.

m) Arakku choornam or shellac powder is used for dressings in injuries. It will arrest the bleeding & also heals the ulcers. Locally shellac is used as a stimulant application to scrophulous scorbutic ulcers.

n) Shellac is the specific application for carries tooth & diseased tooth.

Siddha Medicinal Preparation - Arakku Thailam - Its an external preparation used in chronic fever, sore throat, hoarseness of voice, specially used in the conditions of head ache due to any cause, body odour due to excessive sweating, gingivitis(inflammation of abdomen), cough, anemia, used for massage of scalp and body, in neuralgia, cephalalgia, hemicrania, inflammations and asthmatic affections.

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