to a rice congee become more completely assimilated, and their properties are
therefore enhanced.Uncommon properties of common vegetables and fruits:
BITTER GOURD
This is a creeper. It is cultivated in all parts of India. The leaf is an anthelmintic
(kills worms in the bowels) and lactagogue (increases the milk in the nursing
mothers).
The juice of the leaf in which black pepper is ground is applied round the orbit of
the eye to cure night-blindness or nyctolopia.
The fruit is a tonic, stomachic (tonic of the stomach), stimulant, antibilious,
laxative and alterative. The unripe fruit is taken us a curry in the treatment of
Diabetes Mellitus (sugar in the urine). The fruit is useful in fever, cough, piles,
leprosy, worms in the bowels, gonorrhea, dyspnoea, gout, rheumatism, diseases
of the spleen and liver, and jaundice. It purifies the blood.
A teaspoonful of the expressed juice of the fruit is useful in apthae and
dysmenorrhoea or difficult menstruation. The juice of the fruit is mixed with sugar
and applied as a paste in ulcers.
The whole plant powdered is used as a dusting powder in leprous and other
obstinate ulcers. The root is used externally as paste in hemorrhoids or piles.
The seed is an anthelmintic.