Useful and therapeutic properties of lanceolate thermopsis( mushroom, drunken herb)

Perennial herbaceous plant with an unpleasant mouse odor. Rhizome long, branched, creeping, almost horizontal. Stem erect, simple or branched, whitish-pubescent. Leaves are triple, greyish-green, with large stipules, like leaves, lanceolate. The flowers are yellow, irregular( butterfly), large, in the hands. Fruits - beans, linear, with a spout. Blossoms in June-July. Seeds mature in August-September.

occurs in the steppe regions of the South-East, in the Trans-Volga and other regions. It grows on moist solonetsous meadows, steppes, grassy slopes, fields.

Medicinal raw materials are grass and seeds. The grass is going at the time of flowering, and the seeds are ripe.

Collection and drying should be done with caution, remembering that the plant is highly poisonous!

Stored raw materials in compliance with the rules for storage of poisonous plants.

The grass contains alkaloids, thermopsin, homotherm-mopsin, methylcytisine, cytisine, pachycarpine( d-sportsite), anagyrin. In addition to alkaloids, an ester is contained - thermopylan cin, digested by hydrolysis into aglucon and glucose, saponins, tannins, resins, mucus, traces of essential oil and ascorbic acid( about 285 mg%).Seeds contain alkaloids( 2-3%), represented mainly by cytisine. The main active substances are thermopsin, cytisine and pachycarpin.

The lanceolate thermopsis is partly a substitute for imported ipecacuanas and lobeline.

The preparation from a grass as a whole exhauses, in large doses - vomiting action( along with preparations of ipecacuana).Alkaloids, contained in the plant, have a diverse effect. So cytisine( to a lesser extent methylcitizine) stimulates breathing, raises blood pressure, pahikarpin depresses the nodes of the autonomic nervous system, increases muscle tone;thermopsin excites the vomiting center( small doses exert an expectorant effect, and large doses cause vomiting).Another alkaloid, anagyrine in the experiment, exhibits an action similar to cytisine, and possesses curare-like properties.

In medical practice, preparations of thermopsis( infusion, powder and dry extract from grass) are used as an expectorant for various inflammatory diseases of the respiratory tract. The deepening and acceleration of

respiration, observed with the use of thermopsis, in turn, facilitates the removal of sputum.

A solution of cytisine alkaloid( cytiton) is used to stimulate respiration. Pahikarpin is prescribed for spasms of peripheral vessels, hypertensive disease and for the acceleration of labor. Powder of a dry plant has insecticidal properties, being a poison of contact action;there are indications that the decoctions of grass are used as an anthelmintic.

In folk medicine, thermopsis is used as an expectorant for the catarrh of the upper respiratory tract;at an inflammation of lungs and, besides, as anthelmintic, at a flu, a fever, an atony of an intestine, a headache.

Use caution when prescribing thermopsis preparations, since they are highly active substances( List B).Higher doses of the herb of thermopsis( for adults): single-dose 0.1 g, daily - 0.3 g.

Application of

Decoction or eight-hour infusion: 0.6 g per 200 ml, i.e. 1/10 h.glass of water;consume 1 tbsp.spoon 3-5 times a day.

Decoction for children: 0.2 g per 100 ml;1 tsp 3-4 times a day.

Powder from grass: for adults - 0.1 g 3 times a day;children under two years of age - to 0,032 g.

Infusion of grass: 0.6-1 g for 180-200 ml of water;1 tbsp.spoon 3-4 times a day.

5%.