Chaksu

Sluggish, chronically inflamed eyes with sticky discharge where a mild astringent, antimicrobial local remedy is wanted

Stubborn ringworm patches or depigmented skin in a kapha-dominant patient who tolerates heating, drying herbs

Overview. Chaksu is a small, sticky annual legume of the Indian subcontinent, Africa and Southeast Asia, growing as a weed of fields and waste ground. The hard, dark brown seeds are the medicinal part. In Ayurveda the plant's very name, chakshushya, means beneficial to the eyes, and the seeds have long been ground into collyriums and eye washes, though today they are used at least as often for ringworm, leucoderma and slow-healing skin, and as a bitter, drying seed for kapha-type respiratory catarrh.

Overview. Chamaecrista absus, long known as Cassia absus, is a small erect annual herb of the pea family with sticky hairy stems, four-leaflet leaves and small yellow flowers, growing as a weed of fallow fields, roadsides and open scrub across the plains of India, tropical Africa and Southeast Asia during the rains.

Clinical Notes. This is a minor remedy with a narrow but distinctive niche. Most classical use is external: the seed is powdered and made into a paste with water or ghee for tinea, leucoderma and old ulcers, or a very weak, well-filtered decoction is cooled and used as an eye wash for chronic conjunctivitis.

Clinical Notes. The Ayurvedic and Unani use of Chakshushya is centered on the eye. The seed is powdered finely and given in small doses with honey or ghee for netraroga and timira, and the seed ground with rose water or ghee is applied to the closed eyelids and around the orbit for conjunctivitis, watering and inflammation of the lids; traditional collyria (anjana) include the seed alongside Triphala and other eye herbs, a practice best left to those trained in it because the seed is irritant and the alkaloids are active.