asishimbi :

General Use:

Sword bean is usually grown as a fodder, green manure or as a cover crop. The young pods and beans are extensively used as vegetables in tropical Asia (Purseglove, 1974).

Therapeutic Uses:

Urease is extracted from the seed; it is used in clinical laboratories for the in-vitro determination of urea in human blood.
In Korea it is used in the treatment of vomiting, abdominal dropsy, kidney-related lumbago, asthma, obesity, stomach-ache, dysentery, coughs, headache, intercostal neuralgia, epilepsy, schizophrenia, inflammatory diseases and swellings. A soap is marketed there which is based on extracts of sword bean; it is used for the treatment of athlete’s foot and acne.
In Japan it is effective in treating ozena, haemorrhoids, pyorrhoea, otitis media, boils and cancers, all kinds of inflammatory diseases and atopic dermatitis