TRICHOSANT CUCUMBERINA (PARVAL)
It is used as a cooked vegetable, in juice form and is anti feberile. It improves digestion, removes colic pain, is stomachic. Its juice from leaves being emetic, should always be taken with coriander. Its root has strong purgative qualities. Its juice, if applied over head, can cure baldness (alopecia) which is not of hereditary origin. It is a heart tonic and subsides fever also. Its chemical properties consist of glycoside, tannis, saponin hydrocarbons, sterols. Principally, it affects stomach and head.
Medical uses
Acidity: For Acidic and bilious disorders, use juice/decoction of it with chebulic myrobalans. Take liquid in the morning, as first thing in the morning.
High Blood Pressure: Take its juice of leaves to control high blood pressure.
Alopecia (Baldness): Rub juice of its leaves on bald patches or only head and scalp viegorously to ensure its penetration into hair-roots.
Liquor Poisoning: Use its juice to ward off ill-effects of poisoning caused by spurious (?) liquour or otherwise.
TAMARIND 0MLI, TAMARINDUS INDICA)
Its use provides protection from heat conditions. It is rich in oxalic acid, vitamin ‘C’ in plentiful, tartaric acid; polysaccharide. It has both chutneys, and medicinal properties and is used all over the country in chutneys, sauces, in liquefied form, in pulp form, in chats, in a decoction form, in jalzeera etc. It has much medicinal, vegetative, nutritive properties. It is a tonic, laxative, carminative, antiseptic, cleaning agent, digestive, fibrifuge. It restores malfunctioning of intestines and other organs of digestion by removing habitual constipation and impaction of bowels, relieves vomiting of bilious nature and origin, nausea, dysentry and disorders arising from disordered febrile states, ptomaine poisoning or poisoning caused by dhatura etc.
It is an excellent tasty food for many pregnant ladies, kills and expels intestinal worms, expels foreign harmful deposits from the body. If taken in excess, in any form whatsoever, it can cause burning and acidity, hence only moderate and judicious use is recommended. It is both a curative and preventive of heart-stroke, quenches thirst, does not let mouth dry up. It stimulates digestive faculties and rectifies ill-functioning of liver. It provides cooling sensation to feet and hands.
Tamarind is an almost essential ingredient of indigenous cookery, as it is a store-house of vitamin ‘C’ and thus cures scurvy. In jaundice its pulp is used. Its seeds (powdered) are used for curing dysentry and also application of its fine powder (locally) to cause contraction of vaginal passage. It subdues bile (Pitta), increases retentive capacity of seminal flow, cures joint pains and inflammations, and other types of pain.
Soak ripe tamarind in fresh water and keep it soaked overnight. Crush the pulp with hands and then strain through a strainer, mixing some mint (green), rock salt, cumin seeds to it. Add some water to it. This liquid form of tamarind is a excellent and of unmatched use in removing nausea, vomiting, anorexia, loose stools, acidity, warding off and preventing heat-stroke, to quench thirst, regulate bowels and constipation and flatulence. Tamarind’s green beans, pulp, leaves seeds are also used for various recipes, sausages and chutneys also.
CABBAGE (BANDA GOBHI, PATTAGOBHI)
It is a low-calorie vegetable but abundant in vitamin ‘C, calcium and iron. It cures ulcers in stomach, when used in juice form. It was Dr. Garnett cheney who identified and isolated Vitamin ‘U’, a healing agent, from the cabbage. Vitamin ‘U’, being also an anti-ulcer vitamin also, is destroyed during course of cooking. If a glass of fresh cabbage juice forms part of regular dietary menu, it will remove many mental, nervous and psychic disorders like fear, brooding, headache, sighing, restlessness, trembling etc. It is also useful in headache which comes on in the afternoon, tones down rapid pulsation and anxiety; cures neuralgic pains, bronchial affections, pessimistic approach to events.
Its juice is a specific remedy for curing stomach ulcers. Juice of fresh cabbage, prepared from raw cabbage, is rich in organic food than (other) canned/cooked foods. Its rich vitamin ‘C content, available from its juice, cleanses the system and renders it (human body) immune from outside bad effects and, thus, acts as a shield against infections. Inflammation of gums and other more serious infections like pyorrhoea, are also cured by cabbage juice. If taken, regularly, it induces phagocytes ,and, if taken during illness, it will cure many disorders, as mentioned heretofore. Add some juice of carrots to its juice (but without use of any salt), to derive many other and quicker benefits.
It is often used in salads, consumed raw, cooked as a vegetable. It is more crispy if fried in mustard oil. But, by cooking, most of its food and nutritive value is destroyed. Usual dose of juice of cabbage is 150-200 ml twice daily with meals.