PIPPALI/PIPPALA MUL
English : Long peppar or Pipal
Urdu : Pippali and Pippla Moul
Telugu : Pippalu/Modi
Description :
It is a slender,aromatic climber with perennial woody roots occuring in the hotter parts of India and Ceylon.Stems are creeping,jointed,young shoots downy,leaves 5-9 cm long and 3.5 cm wide,ovate,cordate with broad rounded lobes at base and glabrous;spikes cylindrical and fruits ovoid,yellowish orange sunk in fleshy spike.It has a pungent pepper-like taste and produces salivation and numbness of the mouth.Root and thicker part of stem are cut and dried and used as drug.It also has a pungent bitter taste producing numbness on the tongue.
Action and Uses:
Both the fruits and roots are warming,alterative,resolvent,stomatchic,carminative and expectorant.They are beneficially used in cold or chronic diseases especially cough,bronchitis and asthma,dyspepsia,flatulence and abdominal colic.They are also cholagogue,liver tonic and useful in obstruction of bile duct and gall bladder.They are used as general and sexual tonic.They are given as sedative in insomnia and epilepsy.They are externally used as counter-irritant and analgesic for muscular pains and inflammations.
Ibn Sina’s view:
It is resolvent and excellent for cold diseases.Also digestive,stomachic and sex-stimulant.