胡瓜 오이 (호과)

Original, read line by line 東醫寶鑑 · Tangaek — Decoctions vol. 2

1. 性寒, 味甘, 無毒.

   Its nature is cold, its taste sweet, and it is non-toxic. It has long been valued as a summer vegetable that cools the body.

2. 不可多食, 動寒熱, 多瘧病.

   It should not be eaten in excess, for it stirs up cold and heat in the body and tends to induce malarial illness. Its strongly cooling nature can upset the stomach when overeaten.

3. 卽今常食瓜子也. 老則色黃, 故謂之黃瓜. 《本草》

   This is the very cucumber we eat every day. When it ripens fully it turns yellow, and so it is also called hwanggwa, the yellow gourd, according to the Bencao.

4. 葉

   The leaves. The green leaves trailing along the cucumber vine were also used as medicine.

5. 主小兒閃癖. 挼汁服, 得吐下, 良. 《本草》

   It treats seompyeok, a knotted mass beneath a child's ribs. Rubbing the leaves to extract their juice and giving it to drink induces vomiting or purging that clears the blockage, says the Bencao.

6. 根

   The root. The cucumber's buried root also had its own use.

7. 擣付狐刺毒腫. 《本草》

   Pound the root and apply it to swellings poisoned by hoja, the prickly thorn wounds. It was an external remedy for festering puncture wounds, according to the Bencao.

8. 越瓜

   Wolgwa, a cousin in the gourd family — a white cucumber that grows in the land of Yue.

9. 性寒, 味甘.

   Its nature is cold and its taste sweet — a cooling vegetable of the same character as the common cucumber.

10. 利腸胃, 止煩渴, 不可多食.

    It eases the bowels and stomach and quiets feverish thirst, but should not be eaten in excess because of its strongly cooling nature.

11. 生越地, 色正白, 越人食之. 《本草》

    It grows in the land of Yue, is pure white in color, and the people of Yue eat it often, the Bencao records — referring to a white cucumber from what is now southern China.