Useful and medicinal properties of sorrel thick
( horse)
Perennial herbaceous plant up to 1 m high. Root stem, branching. Stem straight, branched at the top. Leaves are basal and lower stems - long-petioled, regular, broad, triangular in outline, upper cauline leaves - almost sessile, smaller. Flowers are bisexual, greenish, in leafy whorls, collected in a dense racemose inflorescence. Leaflets of perianth with nodules, growing with fruits. Fruit - trihedral nuts, winged, brown. Blossoms in June-July.
Distributed in all areas in the Southeast and in the middle of the European part of Russia. It grows along the flooded meadows, in floodplains of rivers, coastal shrub thickets.
Medicinal raw materials are all parts of the plant separately: leaves with petioles, fruits in panicles, roots. Leaves are harvested during flowering, fruits - in August, as they mature, roots - in autumn. Drying and storage according to general rules. Shelf life 3 years. Drying is considered complete if the roots do not bend, but break.
The roots contain organic acids( tannic, pyrocatechinic, pyrogallic, sorrel), vitamin K, essential oils and a little iron.
Leaves and stems contain mainly organic acids.
Action and application. In small doses, it has an astringent property, in large doses it has a laxative effect, close to rhubarb. The relaxing effect comes in 8-12 hours from the moment of reception. The acting principles have a stimulating effect on the musculature of the large intestine, contributing to the softening of the fecal masses. With prolonged use may become addictive to the drug, so you should alternate the appointment of sorrel with other drugs of laxative action.
For purification of the intestines during poisoning, as well as in the beginning of infectious diseases, the drug should not be used because of the duration of its development.
It is used in the form of infusion, decoction, extract for the treatment of colitis, enterocolitis and hemocolitics, with constipation on the atony of the intestine, hemorrhoids, fissures of the anus, as an antipark, antiscorbutic and hemostatic.
In the form of a powder of a root - at an anemia and as the means regulating work of a gastrointestinal tract. In small doses( 2.5-5 g of root powder) has a cholagogic effect of a reflex nature. Some noted the hypotensive effect of drugs from horse sorrel.
Sorrel horse is a part of the medicine Zdrenko, used for papillomatosis of the bladder and anacid gastritis.
In folk medicine, both roots and sorrel fruits are used as an astringent, with pulmonary, uterine and hemorrhoidal bleedings, bloody diarrhea, scurvy, ulcerative stomatitis and gingivitis. Inflorescence broth is drunk with diarrhea, dysentery, decoction of the root - with diarrhea, dysentery, gastric diseases, pulmonary tuberculosis, kidney disease;in diseases caused by lifting the gravity, the root( powder) is mixed with the pork fat, ointment is used for scabies.
Outwardly, both roots and fruits are used to treat tuberculosis and various skin diseases, decoction of fruits in the form of compresses is used for ulcers, burns and purulent wounds, fresh leaves are applied to purulent wounds.
Application of
Root and fruit broth: 20 g per 200 ml;1 tbsp.spoon 3 times a day with diarrhea.
Powder from the roots: 0.2-0.3 g 3 times a day with diarrhea.
Root broth: 3 grams per glass of water;1 tbsp.spoon 3 times a day for diarrhea.
Powder: 0.5 g per night( laxative).