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DISCLAIMER: These pages are presented solely as a source of INFORMATION and ENTERTAINMENT and to provide stern warnings against use where appropriate. No claims are made for the efficacy of any herb nor for any historical herbal treatment. In no way can the information provided here take the place of the standard, legal, medical practice of any country. Additionally, some of these plants are extremely toxic and should be used only by licensed professionals who have the means to process them properly into appropriate pharmaceuticals. One final note: many plants were used for a wide range of illnesses in the past, but be aware that many of the historical uses have proven to be ineffective for the problems to which they were applied.




BONDUC NUT
Leguminosae subfamily Caesalpiniaceae
aka Fever Nut
(Caesalpinia crista)
[cì huo su mu]
No Image Available

!OVERDOSE TOXIC and EMETIC!

CONTAINS: SEEDS contain 20-24% starch, sucrose, phytosterols (including sitosterol), heptocosane.
OIL contains unsaturated acids: palmitic, stearic, lignoceric, oleic, linolenic.

Tropical to subtropical tree/shrub, the fruit of which is used in Oriental medicine.

PROPAGATION: By seed which has been soaked in warm water for several hours before sowing.
PART USED: Fruit

USES

MEDICINAL:
Regarded in Oriental folk medicine as depurative, emmenagogue, emollient, laxative, rubefacient, tonic, vermifuge, and vesicant. Has been used for congestion, convulsion, earaches, fever, gonorrhea, hydrocele (collection of fluid in a sac surrounding the testicle), inflammations, leprosy, palsy, skin problems, snakebite, swellings, and toothache.
Plant has been used for asthma, colic, and dropsy.
Fruit oil has been used for rheumatism.
An oil from the leaves has been used in Indochina for convulsions and palsy. The Yunani of Indochina have used it as a preventative for contagious diseases, colic, hydrocele, inflammations, leprosy, malaria, and skin problems.
In Ayurvedic medicine the sprouts and root bark have been used to treat tumors; the juice of the leaves for elephantiasis, smallpox, and worms; the oil from the fruit for indolent ulcers; the fruit for diarrhea, dysuria, impotency, leucorrhea, piles, urinary discharge, worms, and wounds.
At one time was used in Oriental medicine as a substitute for quinine in cases of malaria (100-200 mg dose), although more recently, an isolate from the seed proved ineffective against malaria in experiments on birds.

COSMETIC:
In India the leaf juice has been used as an underarm deodorant.





©2004 by Ernestina Parziale, CH

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