KHASHKHASH
English : Poppy capsule or head/Poppy fruit’s rind
Urdu : Khashkhash/Post-e-Khashkhash
Telugu : Khaskhasu/Postakaya
Description :
This is an erect annual herb,green, glabrous, scarely branched about 0.6 m high or more. Leaves clapsing the stem by their cordate base, oblong, irregularly toothed and slightly sinuate or lobed. Flowers large usually of a bluish white with purple base. The fruit or capsule is large globular and glabrous. It is pale yellowish-brown in colour. Often marked with darker spots. It is odourless but has a slightly bitter taste. Numerous seeds of 1-1.25 mm length almost white are present in the fruit. When it becomes dry, it is removed from the plant and used as a drug. So long as it is filled with seeds, it is named Post-e-Khashkhash Musallum or Koknar Mussalum i.e the entire poppy capsule.
Action and Uses:
Poppy capsule is mindly sedative, hypnotic,anodyne, haemostatic and astrigent. It is included in the preperations of fomentations and gargles to relieve inflammatory swellings and pain.
It is prescribed in arthralgias, sciatic paints , gouty arthritis , muscular spasms, colics, pain in testicles and painful haemorrhoids. Gargle of capsule is used in gingivitis, stomatitis , sore-throat , elongaged uvula and hoarseness of voice. It is also included in some of the formulations to be used for irritative and acute coughs and in haemoptysis, haematemesis and malena e.g Lauq e-sapistan , Sharbat-e-Khashkhash and Dayakhoza etc.
It is used internally in the form of docoction in cases of insomnia, insanity, melancholia and acute watery diarrohoea.
Ibn sina’s view:
It is cold, desiccant, hypnotic and narcotic. It is useful in acute cough,catarrhal infiltration in haemotysis. Also useful in gastic secretions. Checks chronic diarrhoea.