Medicinal and aromatic plants – industrial profiles

L. stoechas 
L.
Used by Muslim physicians who consider it to be ‘cephalic (tonic), resolvent, deobstruent, and
carminative’ and prescribe it in ‘chest infections and for expelling bilous and phlegmatic
humours’ (Said, 1996). He suggests that the vernacular ‘Ustukhuddus’ come from the Roman
‘satukhas’. It appears to be the ‘Astadus’ or ‘Astiqus’ of Ibn Sina. Other folk-medicinal Indian
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Jo Castle and Maria Lis-Balchin

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writers have accredited 
L. stoechas
with cephalic virtues and called it the ‘broom of the brain’
because it sweeps away all phlegmatic impurities, removes obstructions, strengthens its powers
of expelling waste crudities and clarifies intellect’.