Nirgundi - used as a traditional Indian folk medicine / Home remedy

The Vitex plant is used as a folk medicine in Bangladesh, India, China, Indo-China, Indonesia, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka (Perry, 1980; Vishwanathan and Basavaraju, 2010). Various tribes in India use the leaves, juice of leaves, boiled leaf water, dry leaf powder, leaf extract, oil, fl owers, stem, roots, and fruits of V. negundo to treat various affl ictions (Table 2). Tarafdar (1983) has listed 33 uses of V. negundo by tribals of Hazaribagh, Bihar. It is used as folk medicine in diseases such as asthma, jaundice, urticaria, abscesses, carbuncles, eczema, and liver disorders in Assam; wounds and body ache in Himachal Pradesh; toothache, febrile catarrh, rheumatic afflictions, and migraine in Karnataka; rheumatism, encephalitis, joint pain and as expectorant in Maharashtra; jaundice in Odisha; as an antidote to snakebite, respiratory disorders, fever, sinus problem, and headache in Tamil Nadu; and in eye pain and 48 other ailments in Uttar Pradesh (Vishwanathan and Basavaraju, 2010). In the Dharward district of Karnataka, leaves are used in the treatment of impotency, crack foot, bone fracture, and paralysis (Hegde and Hebbar, 2009). The leaf juice is used to clean infected ulcers. The leaves are also used as a mosquito repellent. Its leaves are also tied around (tying is called ‘dava’) the area of the body having internal injury. The ointment made from leaf juice is applied as a hair tonic. Mixed with residual coconut oil after frying fi sh it is applied to the head to treat baldness and dandruff. Patients cured of typhoid fever are made to take a bath in water boiled with leaves on the fi rst and second days, for the purpose of antiseptic treatment and to bring body heat down. About 100–150 ml juice is given orally on an empty stomach for 15 days as a remedy for pile diseases (Tarafdar, 1986, 1987). In Andhra Pradesh, water boiled with fi ve leaves is used for bathing during the post-maternity period and to cure rheumatism and arthritis (Raju, 1985). The preparation of fresh leaves of nirgundi, along with jatiphal (Myristica fragrans), lajwanti 

(Mimosa pudica), satawari (Asparagus gonocladus), seeds of magji (Cucumis melo), fruits of silajit (Styrax offi cinalis), evaporated to dryness with cow milk, mixed with sugar (twice the weight) and 1 kg of ghee taken orally is a strong sterilizer (Lal and Lata, 1980). The dried leaves are considered a tonic by the Lodhas; the leaves are sometimes smoked for relief from headache and asthma. Leaf paste along with a paste of pepper is used to treat orchitis, and the leaf decoction for washing pox wounds to avoid scars (Tarafdar, 1983; Pal and Jain, 1998;). Among tribal women in the Udaipur district, Rajasthan, the powdered young roots are taken with milk to restore fertility. The juice obtained from the stem is taken orally with honey to relieve indigestion among the tribal inhabitants of northern Odisha. A leaf decoction of Vitex negundo with Andrographis paniculata and/or Hyoscyamus niger is used to cure cough, gout, and cold; the leaves are also used for fumigating houses to get rid of mosquitoes in Arunachal Pradesh (Srivastava and Choudhary, 2008).The Lodhas wear a 4-cm long piece of stem on a white thread as a cure for one-sided headache. Tribal women wear a piece of stem of Loranthus spp. (about 3 cm long) parasitizing on this plant as a magical agent for contraceptive purposes (Pal and Jain, 1998). In the Surguja district, Chhattisgarh, a decoction of the stem-bark is reportedly used to treat paralysis and tuberculosis. The decoction with pepper or swarasam is used by some as a specifi c in treating malaria. It is also used in the treatment of colic, dyspepsia, rheumatism, and worms. The crushed mass is tied to the head to treat heaviness of the head and fevers of the complicated or nervous type (http://www.indianetzone.com/48/shivari.htm). The Bengali community in Chhattisgarh believes that the presence of this shrub saves their home from ghosts. In acute and chronic rheumatism, they use nishindi in many ways. The most attractive and common use is wooden shoes. The use of bark powder of nishindi for the treatment of sciatica is also popular in this region.

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Refrence : 

Asian Agri-History Vol. 19, No. 1, 2015