01 Identity and provenance
- Accepted binomial
- Semecarpus anacardium
- Common names
- Bhilawa
- Family (APG IV)
- Anacardiaceae
- Part used
- Fruit
- Verification tier
- Tier 2 · Verified Clinical columns reviewed and a source is on record.
- Reviewer note (2026 audit)
- Ilanchezhian R et al. Ayu 2012;33:270-3. PMC3611655 | PMC8922479 | VERIFIED 2026 (batch 2) - synthetic analogue, application, interactions, side effects and references populated from retrieved primary/regulatory sources. Interactions labelled CLINICAL vs THEORETICAL. Marketed-formulation column intentionally blank. | PREPARATION
02 Constituent chemistry
| Chemical class | Marker compound | Synthetic analogue in use |
|---|---|---|
| Phenolic lipids | Bhilawanol
Fruit
|
No synthetic analogue. Bhilawanol is a urushiol-type alkyl catechol, chemically analogous to the poison-ivy allergen. |
The analogue column is what makes the interaction reasoning tractable: where a constituent has a marketed structural counterpart, the counterpart's interaction profile is the starting hypothesis for the plant.
03 Stated application
- Reported activity
- Ayurvedic use (Bhallataka) in refractory arthritis and chronic skin disease, ONLY after shodhana (repeated boiling in water then milk). Classified as Upavisha in Ayurvedic texts and listed as a poisonous plant under the Indian Drugs and Cosmetics Act 1940.
- Reported adverse effects
- Irritant and allergic contact dermatitis, often severe and blistering. Presents in many patterns (vesiculobullous, erythema-multiforme-like, zoster-like) and is FREQUENTLY MISDIAGNOSED as fixed drug eruption or erythema multiforme. Ectopic spread via hands to face and genitalia; airborne and mail-borne cases reported. Used deliberately to produce factitious dermatitis (dermatitis artefacta) - consider in unexplained recurrent blistering. Also reported during shodhana itself. Washing within 10 min removes about 50%; after 60 min, none. Oral overdose causes nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain.
04 Interaction matrix
Source column, verbatim: Not well characterised. Anacardiaceae cross-reactivity - patients allergic to cashew, mango, pistachio or poison ivy may react.
Normalised onto 0 canonical drug classes below.
No interaction edges recorded, and the constituent chemistry did not trigger any rule. That is an absence of data, not evidence of safety.
05 Hazard register
06 Confusable material
No same-genus or shared-common-name entry in the corpus.
07 Mechanism map
Chemistry sorts to the left, pharmacology to the right. Dashed edges are predicted. Drag nodes, scroll to zoom, export at 3× for a figure.
08 Open literature
Abstract-scoped query built from this binomial, its common names and its marker compounds, run live against Europe PMC, PubMed and OpenAlex, then ranked locally against an evidence hierarchy.
09 Isomechanistic neighbours
No overlapping interaction profile in the corpus.
10 References and notes
Source column: Neema S et al. Med J Armed Forces India 2023;79:470-3. PMC10334126
Neema S et al. Med J Armed Forces India 2023
79:470-3. PMC10334126
BibTeX for all 2 records
@article{NeemaSeta2023,
title = {Neema S et al. Med J Armed Forces India 2023},
author = {Neema S et al.},
journal = {Med J Armed Forces India},
year = {2023},
}
@article{anon,
title = {79:470-3. PMC10334126},
}
Curator notes
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