Useful and medicinal properties of horsetail( pine)
Perennial herbaceous plant up to 35 cm tall, spores reproducing. The branched rhizome deep into the soil - up to 1 m or more, is covered with small, thin roots and spherical nodules. Stems are green, ribbed, articulate. Leaves are scaly, fused into cylindrical vagina with 8-10 teeth. Lateral branches - with four-toothed vaginas. In April-May shoots appear, pale yellow, up to 20 cm tall, juicy, articulate, with vaginas of fused scaly leaves. At the top of these stalks develops a sporiferous spikelet with modified leaves, on the lower surface of which sporangia with spores are located. Bad stems appear later: in May-June.
The horsetail is the most common plant in all regions of Russia, found in forest-steppe and steppe regions. It grows in meadows, crops, river banks, slopes of ravines and on steam fields.
Medicinal raw materials are summer vegetative green shoots( stems), collected throughout the summer. Cut off the root stems quickly dried in the air. The smell of the dried plant is absent, the taste is slightly sour.
Other types of horsetails with less medicinal properties should be distinguished: horsetail, in which the branches arc dangling downwards and re-branching, stem vagina 4-5-jagged, sporiferous stems develop simultaneously with infertile;horsetail, in which the stems in the upper part are seated with papillae and the vagina of the stems are 10-15-dentate, growing in meadows and fields;horsetail, with thick stems up to 1.5 m in height, vagina with 15-20 styliform denticles;horsetail marsh( poisonous) - with nerve branches( very similar to the field, but differs by hollow branches and the presence of sporiferous spikelet on the top).
In the grass of the horsetail, acetic acid( or equisetic acid), saponins, oxalic acid, malic acid, carotene and vitamin C, tannins, bitter substance, carbohydrates, resin, as well as a significant amount of silicic acid and calcium salts are contained in the grass of the horsetail.
Horsetail preparations have hemostatic and pronounced diuretic properties. They are used in the form of infusion and liquid extract as a diuretic for swelling due to circulatory failure, as well as inflammatory processes of the bladder and urinary tracts, pleurisy with a lot of exudate, hemorrhoidal and uterine bleeding, as a hemostatic. Especially effective are preparations from the horsetail of the field with diseases of the kidneys and bladder. They have a diuretic effect and the ability to dissolve stones in the kidneys and bladder. Preparations from the grass give good results for pulmonary tuberculosis and skin diseases that do not lend themselves to local external treatment. They act on the body as a firming and purifying
.As a cleanser, these drugs are indicated in dropsy and jaundice. Horsetail grass is part of the anti-asthma medicine( according to Traskov), there are indications of the use of horsetail in the treatment of dysentery. According to some scientists, the grass has a disinfectant, antioxidant, strengthening and re-healing effect. It is used inward in the form of tea with lung disease, kidney and bleeding( 4 teaspoons per 2 cups boiling water, take sips during the day).Outer - in the form of baths and herbal lotions for sluggish healing of wounds, boils, angina, inflammation of the gums( like rinsing);with nasal bleeding in the form of washes.
It is not recommended to use drugs from horsetail for inflammatory diseases of the kidneys, as they cause their irritation.
In Chinese medicine, horsetail decoction is used for inflammation of the eyes. In Poland - as a diuretic. Outwardly - from alopecia.
In folk medicine grass horsetail has long been known as a hemostatic and diuretic. Water infusion is used for edema, especially of cardiac origin, for cholelithiasis, gout, rheumatism, bleeding, pulmonary hemoptysis, hemorrhoids. In Europe, horsetail infusion is recommended to be consumed internally in the treatment of lung diseases, and externally for washing long-healing wounds and ulcers and in the form of rinses in inflammatory diseases of the oral cavity and pharynx.
In homeopathy, grass of horsetail is used as a hemostatic, diuretic, anti-inflammatory, antipyretic and tonic blood vessels, with hypertension, atherosclerosis, kidney disease( in small doses), liver and gastrointestinal tract.
Application of
Hemostatic effect is well achieved by drinking wine from horsetail: 15-20 g insist in 1 liter of white wine for a long time. Take in the morning on an empty stomach for 100-150 ml. Outerly this wine can be used as a cleansing lotion.
Decoction: 50 g for 200 ml of boiling water;insist 20 minutes;consume 3 tbsp each.spoons 3-4 times a day;or horsetail powder, dissolved in boiled water( 30-50 g per 1 liter).Take 150 g in the morning and evening. Effective in diarrhea, hemoptysis, as a diuretic and regulating menstruation remedy for kidney stones, etc.
Extract 30%: half a teaspoon 3-4 times a day.
Infusion 1: 4 teaspoons of herbs pour 2 cups of boiling water, insist 15 minutes and drink warm infusion during the day - a diuretic.
Infusion 2: 50 g of chopped grass to insist during the day in 3 glasses of cold water and eat for baths, rinses, compresses.
Ointment for ulcers: 1 part extract or thickened broth for 4 parts of butter( unsalted) oil or Vaseline( better yellow).
With a painful urination, tea is drunk from a hot infusion( napara) of a mixture of herb horsetail and chamomile flowers equally. Reception - 3 glasses a day."