Colocynthis – Citrullus colocynthis or coloquintide, also called watermelon or bitter cucumber, is a Mediterranean climbing plant of the Cucurbitaceae family.
From the fruit of this plant is obtained the homonymous homeopathic remedy useful for treating paroxysmal pains that arise after conflict situations.
Colocynthis in nature
This plant is native to the warm regions of the Mediterranean basin and Africa.
It is a creeping plant that twists very energetically and restlessly. The shaggy and angular stem is sprinkled with palmate and hairy leaves of a beautiful green color in the upper part, wrinkled and pale in the lower one.
The flowers, yellow with greenish veins, have 5 petals and star shape; they are born from the armpit of the leaf and have a short peduncle. The organs, containing pollen and seed vessels, are located on separate flowers.
The fruit is a spherical yellow-green berry with a diameter of 5-10 cm, almost too large in relation to the size of the flower. It has a thin and solid skin that encloses a white porous pulp in which smooth, oval, yellowish-orange seeds are located. The taste is intensely sour, so much so that it is still felt in the mother tincture prepared from the pulp. Cucumis Colocynthis is a poisonous, sometimes lethal plant.
Colocynthis : curiosities and history
Colocynthis – Citrullus colocynthis known by the Egyptians, was mentioned as early as 1500 BC.C. and was mainly used as a drastic purgative.
The plant in question is also mentioned in the Bible and in the Ebers papyri (c. 1550 a.C.) for its healing properties and for its dangerousness.
Its characteristic seeds have been found in several Saharan archaeological sites, testifying to an ancient use rooted in local traditions.
Colocynthis: properties and benefits
The mother tincture, which is obtained from the dried pulp of the fruit of Citrullus colocynthis, contains:
- cucurbitacine: natural compounds with anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects;
- elaterins: substances with purgative action and anticancer properties.
Colocynthis has a spasmolytic action on smooth muscles, which is why it is indicated at the level of the digestive system to treat crampoid epigastric pains, hepatic colic, spastic colonopathies, painful diarrhea with tenesmus.
Colocynthis: homeopathic medicine
The process of preparation with dilution-dynamization makes the medicine Colocynthis incapable of harming and able to express many other healing properties that the raw substance not dynamized does not possess.
The remedy Colocynthis is indicated for those patients who express in suffering predominantly the following organotropisms:
- digestive system;
- peripheral nervous system;
- gall bladder.
In particular, this homeopathic remedy is indicated in the treatment of ailments such as:
- hepatic and biliary colic, abdominal spasms;
- painful menstruation;
- lumbosciatica that worsen with cold and extension;
- facial neuralgias that improve with the heat;
- epigastric pains, gastritis, ulcers;
- acute inflammation of the biliary tract even with fever and pain;
- intestinal colic also violent, especially in the infant;
- severe and painful diarrhea, tenesmus;
- dysmenorrhea;
- sciatica that subsides by bending the leg;
- spasmodic pains, in the form of spasms;
- pains that arise as a result of a violent anger, in bursts of anger;
- renal colic, lithiasis, calculosis in the urinary tract.
Colocynthis and homeopathic Constitutions
According to the study of homeopathic Constitutions, the remedies to act must correspond to a character and / or psychic discomfort. The patient who will be treated with Colocynthis – Citrullus colocynthis has some behavioral characteristics; it is in fact:
- fearful;
- angry;
- irritable;
- impatient;
- taciturn.
Colocynthis is the perfect cure for people who get angry about nothing and easily and who are sick because of this. How so? With tremendous colic that improves by bending in two, with pressure on the abdomen and with warm applications.
The subject Colocynthis feels constrictions and contractions, cramps, dagger blows, which he defines as agonizing and which occur in successive waves.
Colocynthis: Allopathic therapeutic properties
Colocynthis is used not only as a homeopathic remedy but also as a cure in Allopathic Medicine. Thanks to its diuretic and purgative properties, it is, in fact, used above all in the treatment of rheumatic diseases.
