Bitter gourd is named after its taste, and the bitter word is not pleasant to listen to. Cantonese also call it cold melon. Bitter gourd is shaped like a tumor, also called melon; Melon has wrinkles, like litchi, so it is also called brocade litchi.

Sexual taste and meridian tropism:

Bitter and cold. Enter spleen, stomach, heart and liver meridians.

Efficacy:

Clearing away heat and heart fire, detoxifying and improving eyesight, invigorating qi and essence, quenching thirst and relieving summer heat, and treating carbuncle.

Clinical application:

1. Used for upset, thirst, heatstroke, etc.

Hot thirst: 1 fresh bitter gourd, pulp cut, sliced and decocted in water;

Heatstroke: Take 1 fresh bitter gourd, cut off the pulp, add it to tea, then add it, hang it in a ventilated place and dry in the shade, 6-9g each time, and take it with water or soak it in boiling water instead of drinking tea.

2. Used for carbuncle and dysentery.

Carbuncle swelling: take fresh bitter gourd and mash it and apply it to the affected area;

Dysentery: take fresh bitter gourd juice and take it with boiling water; Or a fresh bitter gourd, mashed to get juice, washed with boiling water or dried with bitter gourd vines and ground into powder, 3g each time, once every 6 hours, washed with boiling water.

3. Used for liver heat, red eyes or pain.

Boil soup or juice for drinking;

Or dry bitter gourd 15g, chrysanthemum 10g, decocted in water.

4. Used for cold and fever, body pain and bitter taste in summer.

Dry bitter gourd 15g, onion 10g, ginger 6g, decocted in water.

5. Used for stomachache.

Bitter gourd is burnt into charcoal and ground into powder, each time 1g, washed with boiling water, 2-3 times a day.

Dosage and usage:

6- 15g。 Boil soup, wring juice or stir fry.

Appropriate amount for external use, tamping.

Precautions for use:

People with spleen and stomach deficiency and cold should not eat raw food, which makes people vomit, diarrhea and abdominal pain.

Pregnant women are not suitable.

Reference materials:

Herbal Medicine in South Yunnan: "Treating Dan fire poison gas, furuncle poison, or sesame boils all over the body is unbearable." Purging six meridians to strengthen fire, clearing heat and relieving summer heat, benefiting qi and quenching thirst. "

Life Sutra: "Eliminating pathogenic heat, relieving fatigue, clearing heart and improving eyesight."

Seeking truth from materia medica: "except pyrolysis."

Wang Qing Meng Ying's Diet Spectrum with Interest: "Bitter gourd is bitter and cold when it is clear; Clearing heat, improving eyesight and clearing heart. This sauce can be pickled. ┅┅ People with moderate cold (cold bottom) should not eat it. When cooked, it is red, sweet and flat, nourishing blood and softening the liver, strengthening the spleen and tonifying the kidney. "

Toxic and side effects:

Modern research:

Bitter gourd contains bitter gourd, 5- hydroxytryptamine and glutamic acid, alanine, proline, γ -aminobutyric acid, citrulline, galacturonic acid, pectin, sugar, trace fat, protein, calcium, phosphorus, iron, carotene, vitamin B 1, vitamin B2, vitamin C and so on.

Bitter gourd juice or bitter claw has the effect of lowering blood sugar.

Bitter gourd kernel (seed) tastes bitter and sweet, but it can "replenish qi and strengthen yang" The aphrodisiac here almost refers to the accumulation of heat in kidney fire, and sexual intercourse will be discharged at the touch, so bitter gourd kernel will dispel its evil heat, and sexual intercourse will be balanced and return to normal, so it can strengthen yang. If impotence is weak and cold, it will aggravate impotence.

According to animal experiments, pregnant rats fed with bitter gourd juice will cause uterine bleeding and die within a few hours, so pregnant women should not eat bitter gourd.

(Information quoted from the Internet)

Melon alias

It comes from Momordica charantia of Cucurbitaceae, and is used as medicine with melons, roots, vines and leaves. Collect in summer, treat separately, and dry in the sun.

Nature and taste belong to melons, roots and leaves: bitter and cold.

Function is mainly used for clearing away heat and toxic materials. Used for heatstroke, fever, toothache, enteritis, dysentery and bloody stool; Topical treatment of miliaria, boils, boils.

Usage and dosage: melon, root and grade: 2 ~ 3; Appropriate amount is applied externally, mashed or rubbed on the affected area.

Excerpted from the National Collection of Chinese Herbal Medicine