Lemon Tree Medicinal Uses

By Liliana Usvat Blog 317-365

The lemon is a small tree with irregular branches armed with thick spines, stiff and sharp.

Essential oil of complex composition: limonene, pinene, citral, citronellal, terpineol, camphene, phellandrene, coumarins, flavonoids, vitamin C, carotenoids, mucilages, calcium oxalate. Abundant pectin, sugar, citric acid, malic acid, flavonoids.  Essential oil of complex composition: limonene, pinene, citral, citronellal, terpineol, camphene, phellandrene, coumarins, flavonoids, vitamin C, carotenoids, mucilages, calcium oxalate. Abundant pectin, sugar, citric acid, malic acid, flavonoids. 

Medicinal Uses

Parts used: Fruit, leaves, seeds.

Since ancient times, citron is used as a herbal remedy for 

• seasickness, 
• pulmonary and 
• intestinal disorders, 
• dysentery and 
• halitosis.
•  It can be very useful herbal remedy for diarrhea. 
• It eliminates gastric acidity, 
• stimulates functioning of the liver. 
• It is also helpful in cases of flatulence and 
• vomiting. 
• Citron can be very useful in cases of headaches, especially migraines.  

Lemon juice is used in topical application for 

• healing wounds,
• herpes and other 
• skin conditions.

• The boiled lemonade is used against colds and as sweat increaser. 
• The lemon juice in water is used against dyspepsia alkaline and 
• pure juice against catarrhal angina.

• The compress of juice applied to the upper stomach stops the vomiting. 
• It´s also used against chronic obstructions of liver and 
• spleen.

Methods of preparation: Boil for 5 minutes 5-12 g of fresh lemon leaves or the bark of fruit. Drinking 300-500 ml per day divided in 2-3 doses. The same decoction is applied topically to the affected parts 2-3 times a day.

 

•  Lemon seeds boiled in cow milk have vermicide effect. 
• The fruit is used in cooking and soft drinks. 
• For stabilizing the blood pressure must be taken the juice of 2 lemons in a glass of water, 2 or 3 times a day. 

• Lemons leaves are used as an anti-inflammatory when applied as an essential oil onto your skin. Steep the leaves in hot water for a natural diuretic and to help reduce cramps or relieve soar throats. Also a powerful antibacterial, lemons can help to combat bacterial-related ailments.
• The citron may thus be one of the first citrus cultivars due to its health connections. In early Asia it may have also been known as protection against scurvy along with other related properties such as helping to retain teeth; although this wasn’t understood in the West until the past few centuries. Not only high in ascorbic acid, Vitamin C, citrus fruit is also rich in folate and potassium, among other beneficial compounds and minerals.

History of the Lemon

Earliest cultivation of citrus goes back at least 2500 years to Asia. Although quite late as a Ming Dynasty work, this Chinese “still life” painting on silk below at the Freer-Sackler Gallery of the Smithsonian Museum shows a pair of citrus fruits at the lower left of the blue bowl. 

The occurrence of citrus in Europe and Mideast were thought to have been natural occurring native trees and shrubs, but historians today believe that the ancestor of the citrus trees, Citrus medica L., was introduced by Alexander the Great from India into Greece, Turkey, and North Africa in the late 4th century BC. The most ancient citrus was called ‘citron.’

There are ancient clues from wall paintings in the Egyptian temple at Karnak that citrus trees had been growing there. There were other suggestions that citrus trees may have been familiar to the Jews during their exile and slavery by the Babylonians in the 6th century BC. Even though speculations suggest that citrus trees were known and grown by the Hebrews, there is no direct mention in the Bible of citrus. 

According to some, the oldest attested reference to citrus (lemon and orange) occurs in Sanskrit in the sacred text Vajasineyi Samhita before 800 BCE, where it is named as jambhila [1] although not all agree this citrus reference is plausible. One of the earliest attested references to citrus, however, is from the Chinese poet Ch’u Yuan (Qu Yuan) in the 4th century BCE, who often mourned the loss of virtue in the state. He praised the orange tree as a possible allegory of ideal kingship rarely realized:
 
“Orange tree, nurtured by nature, born to be adaptable to the soil and water here…
Your leaves green and flowers clean,
so delightful is the riotous profusion.
even though between layers of leaves there are thorns,
the fruits are so beautiful and round…”

The first recording of citrus, Citrus medica L., in European history was done by Theophrastus, in 350 BC, following the introduction of the fruit by Alexander the Great. In early European history, writers wrote about Persian citrus, that it had a wonderful fragrance and was thought to be a remedy for poisoning, a breath sweetener, and a repellant to moths.

Citrus was well known by the ancient cultures of the Greeks and later the Romans. A beautiful ceramic tile was found in the ruins of Pompeii after the city was destroyed by a volcanic eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. Another mosaic tile in the ruins of a Roman villa in Carthage, North Africa, in about the 2nd century AD, clearly showed the fruit of a citron and a lemon fruit growing on a tree branch.

Early Christian tile mosaics dating back to 300 AD of both oranges and lemon were shown in lemon-yellow and orange colors surrounded by bright green leaves and freshly cut tree branches; the relics can still be seen in Istanbul, Turkey at mosques that once were churches of Emperor Constantine. 

 A Jewish coin from the Maccabean Era about 136 BCE shows a citrus fruit. It became an important Succoth fruit in Jewish tabernacle and temple ritual.

Around 1178 A.D.  twenty-seven varieties of sweet, sour, and mandarin oranges are described in detail  in China by the medieval period attested by Han Yen-chih’s Chü lu.

 The lemon was also known to Rome from its plantings in Pompeii. Paleobotany has now proven this not only visually interpreted from wallpaintings like the House of the Fruit Orchard  and mosaics but also from carbonized wood from the Villa Poppaea at nearby Oplontis. 



Citrus was especially prized in the 17th century by Dutch botanists whose botanical gardens at Leiden and Amsterdam brought the exotic fruit to the attention of the wealthy. Orangeries – built with many windows to let sun in but keep frost out for protecting the trees from Northern winter damage – soon sprang up in nearly every royal palace and garden once the health virtues of citrus became better known.

Links

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xjku2d97kk 

http://health-from-nature.net/Lemon,_Citron.html 

http://www.gardenguides.com/79195-ways-use-lemon-tree-leaves.html
http://www.electrummagazine.com/2012/10/exotic-history-of-citrus/