Uses of Aloe vera (Sabila)

Scientific name: Aloe vera (L.) Burm.f.

Common names: Dilang buwaya, acibar (general); Curacao aloe, aloe.

Indications and preparations: Sap from fresh leaves for alopecia, falling hair, burns, psoriasis, complexion care. Pounded leaves poultice for contusions and localized edema.

Sabila is used for ornamental and medicinal purposes in the Philippines. The stems of sabila grow from 30 to 40 centimeters in height. The leaves are fleshy, mucilaginous, and succulent, 20 to 50 centimeters long, 5 to 8 centimeters wide; gradually narrowed and the base, pale green, and irregular, white-clothed, and the margins having weak prickles. The inflorescence is erect, and usually twice the height of the plant. The flowers are 2 to 3 centimeters long, yellow, with the segments about equal the oblong tube.

The leaves contain barbaloin 25 per cent, isobarbaloin 0.5 per cent, emodin, resin, and traces of volatile oil; in the Sicilian variety, with sicaloiu. It also contains cinnamic acid, d-arakinose and oxydase.

The juice of the fleshy leaves is usually mixed with gogo by the Filipino women to prevent falling of the hair and to cure baldness. The juice from the leaves mixed with wine preserves the hair, according to reports. Also the juice mixed with milk cures dysentery and pains in the kidney. The leaves are used by Filipino herbalist to poultice edema of beriberi patients. The alcoholic tincture of this inspissated juice is used in India and in the Antilles to cure bruises or contusions and ecchymosis.
Thank natural to make herbals for good life!