Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Rhubarb
More than Pie Filling
Family: Polygonaceae; (include Buckwheat)
Genus and Species: Rheum Officinale, R. Palma Tum; garden rhubarb, R. Rhaponticum has similar but less powerful action
Also known as: Rheum, or Chinese, Himalayan, Turkish, or Medicinal Rhubarb
Parts used: Roots
Rhubarb is an odd plant. Its roots are medicinal. Its stems make tasty pies. And its leaves are poisonous.
Powerful Asian Laxative
Chinese physicians have used rhubarb root since ancient times. They prescribed it externally as a treatment for cuts and burns and internally in small amounts for dysentery. They also discovered that large amounts have powerful laxative action and promote menstruation. Over the centuries, the Indians, Russians, and Europeans adopted rhubarb as a Healing herb and discovered their own native species have similar, though less powerful effects.
Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper endorsed rhubarb’s laxative action: “This herb purges downward.” He also recommended it externally as “a most effectual remedy to heal scabs and running sores.” In addition,
Culpeper claimed rhubarb “heals jaundice provokes urine … is very effectual for reins [gonorrheal and helps gout sciatica ... toothache ... the stone [kidney stones I ... and dimness of sight."
Later herbalists repudiated most of Culpeper's recommendations and returned to prescribing small doses of rhubarb root for diarrhea and larger doses as a laxative.
Widely Used for Dysentery
America's 19th-century Eclectics used rhubarb primarily to treat diarrhea and dysentery. King's American Dispensatory noted its effectiveness for constipation but said "it sometimes produces griping [cramping].” The Eclectics also considered the herb helpful in treating “hepatic derangement” (liver problems) and delirium tremens.
Bacterial dysentery was a common-and often fatal-disease in British East Africa between the World Wars. In 1921, Nairobi-based physician R. W. Burkitt wrote in Lancet that he’d treated it with rhubarb almost exclusively for three years: “I know of no remedy in medicine which has such a magical effect. No one who has ever used rhubarb would dream of using anything else … in this dreadful tropical scourge.”
Contemporary herbalists are divided on rhubarb. Some recommend low doses for diarrhea and large doses for constipation. Others simply recommend it as a laxative.