Balsam apple

Chapped, cracked hands in cold weather with dry, fissured skin that resists ordinary emollients

Slow-healing old sores or indolent ulcers with poor granulation tissue

Overview. Momordica balsamina is a slender annual climbing vine of the cucurbit family, cultivated as a garden ornamental and food plant for its warty, orange-ripening fruit. It grows widely in warm climates of Africa, Asia and the Americas and has been used both as a folk food and topical remedy. In nineteenth century American eclectic practice the fresh fruit, macerated in alcohol or whisky, was applied externally as a dressing for old sores, chapped hands and hemorrhoids, reflecting a broader traditional use of Momordica species as topical vulneraries across several cultures.

Clinical Notes. The traditional preparation is a simple alcoholic maceration of the whole ripe fruit, applied directly to the affected skin. Eclectic writers valued it chiefly as a local dressing rather than an internal remedy, describing its effect on old, sluggish sores and on chapped or fissured hands as reliably softening and healing.

Specific indications and reasoning. (BALBAN APPLE.) The Balsam Apple is an annual climbing plant, growu in our gardens for its fruit, which is employed in domestic practice as a vulnerary, and an applicatiou to old soros, chapped hands, piles, etc.