Papaya
Papaya
Carica papaya
Analgesic, amebicide, antibiotic, antibacterial, cardiotonic, cholagogue,
digestive, emmenagogue, febrifuge, hypotensive, laxative, pectoral,
stomachic, vermifuge.
Papaya is cultivated for its ripe fruits, favored by tropical people, as breakfast fruit, and as an ingredient in jellies, preserves, or cooked in various ways; juice makes a popular beverage; young leaves, shoots, and fruits cooked as a vegetable. Latex used to remove freckles. Bark used for making rope. Leaves used as a soap substitute, are supposed to remove stains. Flowers eaten in Java. Papain, the proteolytic enzyme, has a wealth of industrial uses. It has milk-clotting (rennet) and protein digesting properties. Active over a wide pH range, papain is useful in medicine, combatting dyspepsia and other digestive orders. In liquid preparations it has been used for reducing enlarged tonsils. Nearly 80% of American beer is treated with papain, which digests the precipitable protein fragments and then the beer remains clear on cooling. Papain is also used for degumming natural silk. But most of the papain imported in the U.S. is used for meat-tenderizers and chewing gums. Also used to extract the oil from tuna liver. Cosmetically it is used in some dentifrices, shampoos, and face-lifting preparations. Used to clean silks and wools before dying, and to remove hair from hides during tanning (Duke, 1984b). It is also used in the manufacture of rubber from Hevea (Morton, 1977). Recently, the FDA has cleared chymopapain for intradiscal injection in patients with documented herniated lumbar intervertebral discs whose signs and symptoms have not responded to conservative therapy over an adequate period of time (FDA Drug Bull. 12(3): 17-18). Fruit and seed extracts have pronounced bactericidal activity against Staphylococcus aureus, Bacillus cereus, Escherischia coli, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, and Shigella flexneri (Emeruwa, 1982).
This information is gathered directly from:
https://rain-tree.com/papaya.htm