Health Benefits of Castor Seeds

Castor Seeds

The castor is small annual plant. It ranges from 1 to 7 meters in height. It has well developed roots, with green and radish stems which become hollow with age. The fruit is a spherical capsule with small grey seeds with brown spots.

Castor seeds were an important item of commerce in ancient Egypt. It has been found in tombs dating from 4000 B.C. In India too, castor seeds has been used since ancient times. In Susruta Atharvaveda, dating back to 2000 B.C. it is referred to indigenous plant that its oil was used for lamps. Two varieties the red and the white seeded are mentioned. The oil was and still, used extensively in local medicines mainly as a laxative but also to soften dry and coarse skin. The Chinese have used the oil for medicinal purpose for centuries.

The castor plant appears to have originated in Eastern Africa, especially around Ethiopia. It now grows through out the war temperate and tropical regions and flourishes under a variety of climatic conditions. It can be grown almost everywhere and this is one of castor’s greatest virtues.

The seeds of the plant contain alkaloid, ricinine and toxalbumine ricin. They yield fix oil, which is used chiefly for medicinal purpose. Though castor plant or its oil is not a food, yet it is one of the most commonly used oil all over the world as a safe purgative and drug for reducing irritation of the skin and alleviating swelling and pain.

Castor oil chiefly consists of ricinoleate of glycerol or triricinolein with a small quantity of palmitin and strearin. Unlike most fixed oils, castor oil possesses the remarkable property of mixing with absolute alcohol and glacial acetic acid in all proportions. The glycerides of ricinoleic acid in castor oil are mainly responsible for its purgative effect.

Healing Power and Curative Properties
Castor oil is used very effectively in the treatment of rheumatic and skin disorders. It is harmless purgative.

Rheumatism
A poultice of castor seeds can be applied with beneficial results to gouty and rheumatic swellings. A decoction of the root of the castor plant with carbonate of potash is useful in the treatment of lumbago, rheumatism and sciatica. A paste of the kernel without the embryo, boiled in milk, is also given as a medicine in this condition.

Skin Disorders
A poultice of castor leaves is useful as an external application to boils and swellings. Coated with some band oil such as coconut oil and heated, the hot leaves can be applied over guinea worm sores to extract the worms. A poultice of castor seeds is also applied to scrofulous sores and boils due to tuberculosis of lymph nodes.

Problem of Breast Milk Secretion

Castor oil massaged over the breast after the child birth increases the flow of milk, as it stimulates the mammary glands. Castor leaves can be used to foment the breasts for the same purpose.

Dandruff

If used regularly as hair oil, it helps the growth of the hair and cures dandruff.

Constipation
Castor oil is simple, harmless purgative and can be used without any rigid consideration and limitations of weather and psychological nature of the patient. Generally, spring is the best season to administer purgative, but castor oil can be safely used round the year. It simply passes out after completing its purgative action, making the patient feel the mild irritation in the anus at that time.

Administration of castor oil as a purgative is very simple. About 30 to 60 grams of pure odorless castor oil is given orally with 250 to 375 grams of lukewarm milk. It acts just after an hour.

Those who find its use nauseating and unpalatable can take it with ginger water or aqua anisi in place of milk. This greatly reduces its unpleasantness, while destroying mucous and promoting healthy appetite.

Other uses

Natural Birth control: according to Ayurvedic and unani treatises if a woman chews one castor seed daily for a period of seven days after the menstruation she becomes sterile. This has interpreted by many that castor seed is a herb for birth control and if woman swallows one castor seeds after the menstruation she will not conceive during that month. When pregnancy is desired, the practice can be given up and conception follows up after a year.

Castor oil massaged over the body before birth keeps the skin healthy and imparts sound sleep. Such an oil bath may be taken once in a week. Applying castor oil over hands and feet before going to bed keeps them soft and similarly over the eyebrows and eyelashes keeps them well groomed.

Precautions: repeated use of castor oil as a laxative should be avoided as it causes secondary constipation, that is, recurrence of the condition after cure. Persons suffering from kidney infections should not take castor oil as purgative. It should also not be used when there is an abdominal pain or intestinal infections such as appendicitis, enteritis or inflammation of the small intestine and peritonitis. Large doses of castor oil during early months of pregnancy may cause abortion.