Papaya - a world class meat tenderizer, natural digestive aid, prevents ulcers, and also a soft contact lense cleaner.Senna
A Powerful Laxative
Family: Caesalpinioideae; (includes Brazilwood)
Genus and Species: Cassia Senna, C. Acutifolia (Alexandrian and Khartoum), C. Angustifolia (Indian or Tinnevelly), C. Marilandica (American)
Also known as: Cassia
Parts used: Leaflets, seed pods
Senna is a powerful laxative-so powerful, in fact, that many authorities call it a cathartic. Arab physicians first wrote of its bowel-stimulating action in the 9th century, but their descriptions suggest it had been widely used for centuries from the Middle East to India.
Senna was introduced into European herbal Healing before the Crusades and has been widely used ever since.
Internal Cleanser
Seventeenth-century English herbalist Nicholas Culpeper, who came close to prescribing every herb for every ill, could not resist claiming senna “cleanses the stomach, purges melancholy and phlegm from the head, brain, lungs, heart, liver, and spleen, cleansing those parts of evil humour; strengthens the senses, procures mirth, purifies the blood [treats venereal diseaseJ, and is also good in chronic agues [fevers].” Other herbalists generally recommended senna only as a laxative.
The American Indians recognized native American senna’s laxative action but used it primarily to treat fever. The 19th-century Eclectics, influenced by Indian medicine, called senna “very useful in all forms of febrile [fever-producing] diseases in which laxative action is desired.”
Contemporary herbalists all tout senna’s laxative action but warn of its terrible taste and side effects-primarily intestinal cramps.
Not for Toast
Both senna and cinnamon come from trees with peelable bark, in Arabic, quetsiah, meaning to cut, which became cassia in English. Both are sometimes called cassia today. But these two herbs have very different actions and should not be confused.