Cranberry Mask
Cranberries is an evergreen shrub up to 15 cm high with thin subordinate roots. Stems thin, filiform, strongly branching, sometimes rooting. Leaves are simple, whole, soft, short-petioled, with curved edges and a network protruding on the underside of the veins, dark green above, grayish below. Flowers are regular, four-membered, drooping, on long pedicels, one to four in the axils of the leaves. Calyx four-toothed, corolla purple, four-parted with bent stems, stamens 8, pestle one, ovary lower, four-cavity, many-seeded. Fruit is a bright red globular berry. Blooms from late May to July. Fruits ripen in September-October.
Distributed in the northern and middle regions of Russia, in the tundra and forest zones. It grows mainly on acidic marsh and peat soils and sphagnum marshes.
Medicinal raw materials in scientific medicine are fruits that are used fresh or in the form of syrups. In folk medicine, in addition, leaves.
Use mature fruit collected after frost, in autumn or early spring. Berries contain glycoside vaccine, vitamin C, various acids, pectin and coloring substances, sugars.
The fruits preserved well under snow retain their appearance and taste, accumulate more citric acid, but lose vitamins. The smell is almost absent, the taste is sour or sweet.
Procurement and storage: medicinal raw materials are berries. Store cranberries in water( wetted) or in a grated form with sugar.
Indications: uses mature berries. Applied as a dietary remedy in the form of syrups, juice, acidic drinks in patients with fever. Cranberry drinks well quench thirst in patients, contribute to a decrease in temperature. Berries of cranberries with honey are also used for colds, rheumatism, angina. Cranberry lowers blood coagulability, is also used for inflammatory diseases of the kidneys and bladder( pyelonephritis, cystitis).
Dosage forms: fresh berries, syrups, juices, fruit drinks, etc. Cranberry drink with potato juice - 200 g of peeled potatoes are rubbed on a fine grater, squeeze the juice that is left to settle the starch for 1-2 hours. Then the juice is gently drained offand mixed with crushed raw cranberry juice( 50 g of cranberry), add 15 g of sugar.
In scientific medicine, cranberry berries have long been used for the preparation of acidic drinks, prescribed by a febrile patient as a refreshing agent. In addition to this, this drink is a source of vitamin C and can be used for hypovitaminosis. For a long time, cranberries have been used for medicinal purposes, mainly as a vitamin drink, with inflammatory diseases, rheumatism, hypertension, malaria, as an antipyretic and cooling agent. In folk medicine of Yakutia, leaves are used, the infusion of which is recommended for arthritis, rheumatism and cold. In folk herbal medicine, cranberry berries are used for cardiovascular diseases( atherosclerosis, hypertension, spasm of blood vessels), gastrointestinal( gastritis, diarrhea), pulmonary, as well as kidney, bladder and liver diseases, to prevent kidney stones. Infusion of cranberries heals wounds and burns. It is believed that the berries of cranberries can serve as a preventive agent in malignant formations.
Cranberry-containing benzoic acid is capable of killing germs. Thanks to this, cranberries are used in the food industry: it turns out, having got into the human body, it helps him to fight the infection. Thus, the fruit juice or cranberry extract is used to enhance the action of antibiotics and sulfonamides( in cases of reduced sensitivity to microbial flora) in the treatment of pyelonephritis.
Usually, preparations from cranberries are prescribed to patients after severe illnesses, with exhaustion, lack of appetite. Sweet and sour syrups and juices cause an intensification of the function of the glandular nervous system, laid throughout the gastrointestinal tract, starting from the oral cavity, the secretion of the glands of the oral cavity increases, the acidity of the gastric contents increases, the bile is separated, and the process of food processing improves.
In the egg whites, add 1 tsp.cranberry juice, 1 tsp.potato flour and 1 tbsp.l.fresh cream or milk. Mix all the ingredients well and apply to the face and neck. Keep the mask for at least 15 minutes, then you can wash it off with warm water with the addition of boric acid.