Powder made from neem seeds are used in traditional Indian agriculture to ward off insects, and a meal made from neem is plowed into soil as a fertilizer.
He picked up a rotting banana skin and hung it on the leaves of a neem tree that grew near the gate of the house, so that it would startle the owners when they came out.
Then, this week, the King Institute of Preventive Medicine, a flagship government hospital in the Tamil Nadu capital of Chennai, announced its intention to do a double-blind study to see how effective the neem-papaya mix is in battling dengue.