Medicinal
Tubers
Carrot
Daucus carota
L.Apiaceae, Cultivated carrot, Queen-Anne's lace (Wild)
Seeds are aromatic, carminative, diuretic,
emmenagogue, and stimulant, and are used for dropsy, chronic
dysentery, kidney ailments, and worms. Also as an aphrodisiac, a
nervine tonic, and for uterine pain. Roots are refrigerant and
are used in infusion for threadworm. Diuretic, and eliminating
uric acid, carrots belong in the diet of gout-prone people.
Local stimulant for indolent ulcers; other
ingredients of carrot lower blood sugar; hence carrot might be
increased to good advantage in the prevention of cancer,
diabetes, dyspepsia, and gout, possibly heart disease. Elsewhere
the root, prepared in various manners, is used for tumors,
cancerous ulcers, cancerous wounds, tumors of the testicles,
mammary carcinoma, and skin cancer.
The juice of the root is applied to
carcinomatous ulcers of the neck and uterus, cancer of the
bowels and stomach cancer. Scraped roots are used to stimulate
indolent ulcers. Cancer-fearers may be reinforced by the
knowledge that carrots are relatively high in fiber, retinoid
like substances, and the seeds also contain the rather
ubiquitous ß-sitosterol, which has shown activity in Ca, LL, and
WA tumor systems.
Having heard from three different sources that
wild carrot seed were used as a morning-after contraceptive in
Pennsylvania, I was particularly interested to read that, "At
doses of 80 and 120 mg/mouse, the seed extract, if given orally
from day 4 to 6 post-coitum, effectively inhibits implantation."
Experimentally hypoglycemic, a tea made from Queen Anne's Lace
was believed to help maintain low blood sugar levels in humans,
but it had no effect on diabetes artifically induced in animals.
Wild carrot tea has been recommended for
bladder and kidney ailment, dropsy, gout, gravel; seeds are
recommended for calculus, obstructions of the viscera, dropsy,
jaundice, scurvy.
