Silybum marianum (L.) Gaertn.
Habitat Western Himalayas at
1,800 and Kashmir at 2,400 m, also grown in gardens.
English Holy Thistle, Milk Thistle.
Action Seeds—liver protective, gallbladder protective, antioxidant. Used in jaundice and other biliary affections, intermittent fevers, uterine trouble, also as a galactagogue. Alcoholic extract used for haemorrhoids and as a general substitute for adrenaline. Seeds are used for controlling haemorrhages. Leaves—sudorific and aperient. Young leaves and flowering heads are consumed by diabetics.
Key application In dyspeptic complaints. As an ingredient of formulations for toxic liver damage; chronic inflammatory liver disease and hepatic cirrhosis induced by alcohol, drugs or toxins. (Expanded Commission E Monographs, WHO.)
The seeds gave silymarin (flavanol lignin mixture), composed mainly of silybin A, silybin B (mixture known as siibinin), with isosilybin A, isosilybin B, silychristin, silydianin. In Germany, Milk Thistle has been used extensively for liver diseases and jaundice. Silymann has been shown conclusively to exert an antihepatotoxic effect in animals against a variety of toxins, particularly those of death cap mushroom, Amanita phalloides. Silybin, when given by intravenous injection to human patients up to 48 hours after ingestion of the death cap, was found to be highly effective in preventing fatalities.
Family Compositae; Asteraceae.
Smilax aristolochiaefolia Miller. 607
Silymarin has been used successfully to treat patients with chronic hepatitis and cirrhosis; it is active against hepatitis B virus, and lowers fat deposits in the liver in animals.
(For hepatic cirrhosis: 420 mg per
day; for chronic active hepatitis 240mg
twice daily—extract containing 70— 80% siimarin.)
Sisymbrium irio Linn.
Family Crucferae; Brassicaeae.
Habitat Kashmir, Punjab, Haryana and from Rajasthan to Uttar Pradesh in moist soils.
English London Rocket.
Ayurvedic Khaaksi.
Unani Khuubkalaan.
Action Seeds—expectorant,
restorative, febrifuge, rubefacient, antibacterial. Used in asthma.
