Herbal Remedy : Solanum Trilobatum Extract for Cough and Cold

There are so many herbs growing around us and we consider most of them as weeds. Our ancestors used these herbs to cure themselves of ailments like Cough, Common Cold, Fever and many others.

In this instructable let us see how we can treat cough and cold with boiled extract from Solanum Trilobatum plant.

Solanum Trilobatum belongs to the Solanaceae family and is known by its Tamil name Thoodhuvalai. People also call it as Climbing Brinjal. The plant grows in Southern parts of India around Western Ghats.

The plant is full of thorns, even the front and backside of leaves have thorns. The flowers are purple in color. The matured fruits are red in color. You can collect the seeds from dried fruits.

The leaves can be cooked as green vegetable after removing the thorns. The boiled extract can be made from leaves as they are.

• Harvest a bunch of fresh leaves from the plant using a garden shear or scissors to prevent injury from thorns.
• Rinse the leaves in running water to get rid of soil and any other impurities from surrounding area
• Place the rinsed leaves in a bowl and add about 3 cups of water. We will extract about 2 cups from it after boiling

These are optional but you can add these ingredients to make the extract strong

• 3 to 4 fresh Holy Basil leaves
• A small piece of dried Ginger
• 2 to 3 pieces of Black Peppercorns

• Rinse the Holy Basil leaves in water and add to the bowl
• Lightly crush the dried ginger and black peppercorns and add to bowl
• Place the bowl on the stove and start boiling.
• Initially, keep the flame medium to high. Once the water starts to boil, reduce it to low to medium

• Keep the bowl with the herbs over low to medium flame till the leaves are fully boiled and the color of the extract is golden in color
• Remove the bowl from flame and filter out the extract using a tea filter
• Add a teaspoon of honey or any sweetener, stir well and drink the extract.

In Indian Ayurvedic system of medicine, the extract is known as "Kashayam"

The Kashayam from Solanum Trilobatum leaves will give you relief from cough, cold and irritation in throat

The leaves of Solanum Trilobatum are also dried, powdered and stored in air-tight containers for latter use. The powdered form is available in many online stores also.