Terminalia chebula Retz. (Combretaceae)

Abstract

The tree is a native of India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, and southwestern China. Fruits are highly astringent, more intensely in the large intestine than in the small intestine or stomach; used in diarrhea, enterorrhagia, metrorrhagia and leucorrhea. The ripe fruit is chiefly used as purgative, and is considered to remove bile, phlegm, and adust bile; it should be combined with aromatics, such as fennel seeds, caraway, etc. Arabs say: “Halilaj is in the stomach like an intelligent housewife who is a good manager of the house.” The unripe fruit (Halileh-i-hindi) is most valued on account of its astringent and aperient properties and is a useful medicine in dysentery and diarrhea. The best way of using myrobalans as purgative is to make an infusion or decoction of fruit pulp with the addition of a pinch of caraway seeds and a little honey or sugar. Unani physicians consider it tonic to brain and vision, and use it in the treatment of diarrhea, piles, paralysis, headache, epilepsy, loss of memory, and to purge yellow-bile. The unripe fruit is a brain and gastrointestinal tonic, blood purifier and also black-bile remover; hence used for mental sluggishness and to enhance mental acuity, and in the treatment of melancholia, leprosy and piles. The infusion of almost mature fruit is stronger in effects than its powder or decoction. This drug can be used with benefit in people who may be suffering from ill effects of reckless eating and drinking. In Ayurveda, Bala-harade is successfully used in chronic diarrhea and dysentery, flatulence, vomiting, hiccup, colic, and enlarged spleen and liver. In Chinese medicine, it was first recorded in Tang Pen Tsao (659 A.D.), called Ho-tzu, and ascribed with astringent, expectorant, hemostatic, and antitussive properties, and used for prolonged diarrhea, night sweats, nocturnal emissions, and leucorrhea. It is known as the “king” of Mongolian and Tibetan medicines, and used in the treatment of asthma, sore throat, vomiting, hiccough, diarrhea, dysentery, bleeding piles, ulcers, gout, heart and bladder diseases. Fruits contain chebulic acid, fatty oil, tannins, and triterpenoids.