Luffa is also known as Manggua, Caigua, Luo Tian Flour, Bugua, and snail hair. Luffa originated in India and was introduced to China in the late Tang Dynasty. It was widely planted in the Ming Dynasty. Li Mingshizhen described it in detail in Compendium of Materia Medica: "Loofah, planted in February, grows seedlings to attract vines, extends trees and bamboos, or makes scaffolding. Its leaves are bigger than hollyhock, with many sharp thorns, and its juice can be dyed green. Its stems are angular, and yellow flowers bloom in June and July, slightly like gourd flowers with yellow petals. Its melon is one foot big, one or two feet long, or even three or four feet long. Dark green, wrinkled, melon head like a turtle head, peeled when tender, cooked and exposed, filled with tea. Old age is as big as a pestle, exhausted, but withered by frost. Only boots and shoes can be used to wash the kettle, so the villagers call it washing the kettle and washing the melon. There is a partition inside, and the child is in the partition. It looks like a building, black and flat. Unknown before the Tang and Song Dynasties, it began in the south, so it is called pretty melon, which is found in both north and south today. Its flower buds, tender leaves and tendrils can be eaten, which is a normal vegetable. " Luffa contains protein, fat, carbohydrate, crude fiber, calcium, phosphorus, iron, citrulline, riboflavin and other B vitamins and vitamin C, and also contains saponins contained in ginseng. It is a home-cooked vegetable in summer and autumn. It is delicious, smooth and nutritious, and has considerable medicinal value in Xianyi. Chinese medicine believes that loofah is sweet, cool and non-toxic. It has the functions of clearing away heat, promoting bowel movement, cooling blood and detoxicating, dredging channels and collaterals, relieving summer-heat, quenching thirst, expelling wind and resolving phlegm, promoting blood circulation and milk ejection, and killing insects. It is a good health care product in summer. Besides Luffa, flowers, skins, leaves, vines, nets, seeds and roots of Luffa can be used as medicine. Melon flowers clear heat and detoxify, and melon skin cures sores. Cucumber leaves have the functions of clearing away heat and toxic materials, relieving cough and resolving phlegm, stopping bleeding and diminishing inflammation, and are used externally. Gua Teng Jin Tong is active, relieving cough and eliminating phlegm. Gualuo can treat chest pain and breast pain caused by qi stagnation and blood stasis. Melon seeds clear away heat, moisten dryness and detoxify. Melon seeds can repel roundworms. Cucumber root disinfection and antisepsis can treat hemorrhoids and bleeding in stool. Modern medicine believes that loofah contains antiviral and antiallergic active ingredients. Because it is rich in vitamin C, it can be used to fight scurvy and prevent various vitamin C deficiency. B vitamins are beneficial to the brain health care of children and middle-aged and elderly people. The juice of towel gourd stem has the special function of keeping skin elastic, and can beautify and wrinkle. Peel the loofah when you eat it. Can be cold, fried, baked, made into soup or juice for dietotherapy. For example, it can be washed and sliced, cooked in boiling water, mixed with sesame oil, soy sauce and vinegar, and made into cold towel gourd. Fried loofah is light and delicious, clearing away heat and promoting diuresis; Burn mushrooms and loofah to replenish qi and blood and dredge meridians; Tomato and loofah soup can clear away heat and toxic materials, eliminate irritability, and is especially suitable for eating when you are hot, thirsty and dry throat. Take a proper amount of raw loofah, wash it and juice it, and mix it with honey according to the ratio of 10: 1. Raw towel gourd juice has the effects of clearing away heat, relieving cough and resolving phlegm. So far, no one has heard that eating too much loofah is harmful, and the difficulty has not been found.