The Physiomedical Dispensatory by William Cook, M.D., 1869    

DIOSPYROS VIRGINIANA

PERSIMMON

Description:  Natural Order, Ebenaceae.  The persimmon is a tree indigenous to the Middle and Southern States, and westward about the parallel of 42E North.  Height twenty feet, but much larger Southward; with a spreading and roundish head, straight stem, and a blackish bark–which is much furrowed in the old trees.  Leaves alternate, ovate-oblong, acuminate, on downy petioles.  Flowers dioecious, lateral, axillary, quite small, pale greenish-yellow.   Fruit an inch or more in diameter, dark-yellow and pulpy when perfectly ripe, with numerous small seeds imbedded in the pulp after the manner of the berry.  This fruit is  intensely  acid,  when  young;  but  it  ripens  late  in  the  fall, after being touched with frost, and then becomes soft, sweet, and edible.

Properties and Uses:  The bark of persimmon is a very bitter astringent, intense, and lasting in its action.   It has been employed to advantage as a family remedy in intermittents, and it is my  opinion  that  it  will  be  found  a  better  antiperiodic  than the cornus florida.   It may be used as a wash in aphthous sores and ulcerated sore throat, and outwardly upon all ulcers of a low grade, to which it is antiseptic and strengthening.  Prof. C. S. Rafinesque, who first called the attention of the profession to this article, says that  an infusion of the  seeds is  good in dropsy.  The tree certainly deserves more attention than it has received, both as a remedy and for its fruit.


 Medical Herbalism journal and medherb.com