COL'OCYNTH (Gr. kololoynthis), a well-known medicine, much used as a purgative, is the dried and powdered pulp of the colocynth gourd, coloquintida, bitter apple, or bitter cucumber, a globose fruit about the size of an orange, of a uniform yellow color, with a smooth, thin, solid rind. The plant which produces it, cuctimis (or citrullus) colocynthis, is nearly allied to the cucumber (q.v.). It is common in Asia, Africa, and Spain, which last country supplies no small part of the C. of commerce. The fruit is gathered when it begins to turn yellow, peeled, and dried quickly either in a stove or in the sun. It is chiefly in the form of a dried extract that it is used in medicine. It owes its properties to a bitter principle called colocynthine, which is more or less abundantly present in the fruits of many of the gourd family. It is a curious fact, but to which there are many analogous, that the seeds of the C. plant, produced in the midst of its medicinal pulp,
are perfectly bland, and they even form an important article of food in the n. of Africa. —The name false C. is sometimes given to the orange gourd (cucurbita aurantia), some times cultivated as an ornamental plant in our gardens, on account of its globose, deep orange fruit. The pulp of the fruit possesses the properties of C., but in a milder degree.
0. is generally administered in the form of pills, in which the extract is associated with aloes, scammony, and in some cases with calomel, or with extract of hyoscyamus. In small doses, the C. acts as a safe and useful purgative; and when accompanied by hyoscyamus, the latter prevents much of the pain and griping which are attendant on the use of C. by itself. In large doses, C. is a poison.