Erbe mediche in ayurveda: Nirgundi

Hindi: Sambhalu
English: Five Leafed Chaste Tree
Latin: Vitex negundo Linn.
Part Used: Roots, root, flowers, leaves, bark
Habitat: Bengal, Southern India, Himalayas; Burma (Myanmar)
Energetics: Leaves—bitter; flowers—cold, astringent
P- V+ (K+ in excess)
Tissues: Plasma, blood, marrow/nerve, reproductive
Systems: Circulatory, female reproductive, nervous
Action: Leaves—antiparasitical, alterative, aromatic, vermifuge, pain reliever. Root—tonic, febrifuge, expectorant, diuretic. Fruit—nervine, cephalic, emmenagogue. Dried fruit—vermifuge
Uses: Hair, eyes, colic, swelling, worms, nausea, ulcers, ear disorders, malaria, hemorrhoids, spleen, uterus, removes obstructions, hemicrania.

External:
leaves— inflammatory joint swellings in acute rheumatism and of the testes from suppressed gonorrhea or gonorrheal epididymitis and orchitits; sprained limbs, contusions, bites (used as heated)  leaves or as a poultice).

Pillows stuffed with leaves  are slept on to remove catarrh and headache (they are also smoked for relief).

Crushed leaves or poultice is applied to temples for headaches. As a plaster on the spleen, it removes swelling; as a juice discharges worms from ulcers.

A juice oil is applied to sinuses and neck gland sores (scrofula), or for washing the head for glandular tubercular neck swellings.

Oil is also good for syphilis, venereal diseases, and other syphilitic skin disorders.

A leaf decoction with pippalí is used for catarrhal fever with heaviness of head and dull hearing.

A warm bath in a leaf decoction removes pains after childbirth. For rheumatism it is taken as a juice, with the juice of tulsí and eclipta alba) mixed with crushed ajwan seeds; or these persons can bathe in a nirgundi leaf decoction.

A tincture of root-bark is good for irritable bladder and also rheumatism.

Powdered root—good for hemorrhoids and as a demulcent for dysentery.

Root— dyspepsia, colic, rheumatism, worms, boils, skin disorders.

Flowers—diarrhea, cholera, fever, liver disorders, cardiac tonic; seeds—cold for skin disorders;

Flowers and stalk powder—for blood discharge from stomach and bowels.

Preparation: Fruit powder—sugar/water or honey paste, decoction; powder, tincture, decoction, poultice