A Detailed Guide to the Benefits, Uses and Detoxification Methods of Chinaberry Fruit

What is chinaberry fruit? What are the benefits and uses of chinaberry fruit? What can neutralize chinaberry fruit poisoning? The editors at Tuliu.com will answer these one by one below.

1. What is chinaberry fruit

In the rural areas of the past, living conditions were limited, the adults were busy with farm work, and there was not much to play with. Children had even fewer toys, so they just played with mud, caught bugs, picked wild fruits and so on. However, some children with strong hands-on skills would make their own toys to play with, such as fishing rods, small slingshots and the like. After making a slingshot from a tree branch, the children would pick some wild fruits and use them as the “ammunition” for the slingshot, shooting at birds and small animals for fun. And chinaberry [liàn] fruit was often used by children as “ammunition.” This is a fruit that ripens from October to December. It is not very big, and its appearance closely resembles a jujube, but because it is somewhat toxic it cannot be eaten. Besides children picking it up to use as slingshot ammunition, most people in the countryside thought it was useless and just let it fall to the ground and rot.

2. Benefits and uses of chinaberry fruit

1. Treating chilblains

This wild fruit, which no one in the countryside paid attention to except children, is actually not entirely useless. Although it is toxic, it is also a material used in traditional Chinese medicine and can be used to treat chilblains.

2. Making beaded bracelets

In addition, quite a few people nowadays like to process the pits of chinaberry fruit into delicate beaded bracelets, and such bracelets can sell for 60 yuan each. Pricing depends on quality, and those carefully hand-polished can sell for over a thousand

3. Ornamental value

The chinaberry tree has a very graceful shape. Its flowers and leaves are attractive to look at and to smell. It is also very effective at absorbing smoke, dust, sulfur dioxide and the like. More importantly, it can also kill insects. As a street tree and an ornamental garden tree, it is a very good choice.

3. What can neutralize chinaberry fruit poisoning

If you accidentally eat this chinaberry fruit and are poisoned, generally speaking you only need to treat the symptoms. There is no specific antidote for the treatment. The main measures are inducing vomiting (not to be used on comatose patients) and giving a 1:5000 potassium permanganate solution for gastric lavage. Then, after thorough vomiting and gastric lavage, administer oral liquid paraffin at 0.5ml/kg each time, or a purgative of 50% magnesium sulfate at lmg/kg each time to induce diarrhea. After all this is more or less done, then remember to use large doses of vitamin C, increase fluid intake and strengthen diuresis, so as to effectively help expel toxins from the body and protect kidney function, while also serving a liver-protective role.

Did you play with slingshots using chinaberry fruit when you were a child? What other inconspicuous little things from the countryside do you know of that are now made into ornaments and sold?