# Melon root (Cucumis melo)

**Radice di pepone**

**Known today as.** Root of the melon plant, *Cucumis melo*.

Kind: Plant  
Poisoning: Gastrointestinal irritants (https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/poisons/gastrointestinal)

## What did Canale use it for?

Powdered, with honeyed wine, as a vomit (ch. 5).

## What does modern science say?

Melon root is purgative, and in large doses was held a certain emetic. The roots of the cucumber family hold cucurbitacins, bitter triterpenes that irritate the gut and empty it from both ends; the squirting cucumber of the same family is the strongest, and melon root the gentlest of the Greek emetics.

## Pharmacognosy and toxicology

- **cucurbitacins B and E**: bitter triterpenoids of the root
- **elaterin**: 

**Mechanism.** The root of the melon, like that of its cousin the squirting cucumber, holds cucurbitacins, among the bitterest and most violently emetic substances known, which is the vomit Canale used; they inhibit actin and the JAK–STAT pathway in cells and are studied as anticancer leads.

**Dose.** A small dose vomits and purges; the squirting cucumber’s elaterium has killed at a few milligrams.

**Standing.** No use; the cucurbitacins are preclinical.

## What lore surrounds it?

The melon of the ancients was the *pepon*, our melon when ripe and a cucumber when green; the root, like the wild cucumber’s, held the bitterness that the sweet flesh lost in cultivation.

## What did the older authorities say?

**Dioscorides.** Says the root of the melon, dried and given in honeyed water, provokes vomiting, two drams of it, and that it is milder than the white hellebore; Pliny repeats him.

## Sources

- Dioscorides, *De materia medica* II.
- Pliny, *Natural History* XX.
- Chen, J. C., et al. (2005). “Cucurbitacins and cucurbitane glycosides: structures and biological activities.” *Natural Product Reports* 22.

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*Melon root.* In *Materia Medica*, edited by B. C. P. Statema. Version 1, revised 2026-10-01. The Thinking Press. https://thethinkingpress.org/materia-medica/melon-root

Historical description, not medical advice.