Origin:
Cultivated throughout the hotter parts of India.
Action:
Latex—bacteriolytic, promotes healing of abscesses.
Juice of the plant—applied to glandular swellings and abscesses for promoting suppuration.
Root— used for diarrhoea, asthma, skin diseases. Unripe fruit—acrid, astringent.
Ripe fruit—cooling, laxative, difficult to digest.
Seeds— diuretic. Lactin extraction showed potent and selective stimulation of distinct human T and B cells.
Warning:
The ripe fruit is difficult to digest.
Khare, C.P./ Indian Medicinal Plants. -- Nueva Dheli: Springer, 2007 . - p. 836.