Plantain large - plantago major

Family Plantains (Plantaginaceae).

Подорожник большой - Plantago majorПодорожник большой - Plantago major Подорожник большой - Plantago major

Botanical characteristics. Perennial herbaceous plant. It has a small rhizome with filiform roots extending from it. The stem is an arborless arrow up to 15-45 cm high. The leaves are collected in a basal rosette, all-edged, broadly oval in shape, with thick vascular fibrous strands. Small brownish flowers on the end of the stems form an inflorescence - spikelets. Blossoms in June-August. Fruits - two-cavity boxes, ripen in August-October.

A characteristic feature is the property of plantain constantly accompanying a person ("plantago" in Latin - "foot", "drive").

Spread. Plantain in our country is widespread everywhere, except the Far North. It grows next to housing, on roads, on glades and meadows.

Used parts of the plant. Leaves and less often seeds and roots.

Chemical composition. The leaves of the plantain contain glycoside aukubin, flavonoids (homo-placenta, plantaginin, derivatives of baikalein and scutelarein), tannins, bitterness, saponins, traces of alkaloids, vitamins C, K, carotene, as well as choline, adenine, pectin substances. In the seeds - slime (up to 44%), fatty oils, aucubin, oleanolic acid, steroid saponins and carbohydrates, protein substances.

Application. Plantain is used for a long time. Avicenna also used leaves and plant seeds as a wound healing and hemostatic.

In Chinese and Tibetan medicine, plantain is known as wound healing, diuretic, expectorant and hypoglycemic.

Leaves and seeds of plants, preparations from plantain are released by pharmacies.

Leaves harvested during flowering plants and apply fresh, dried, and the seeds are harvested mature.

In folk medicine, plantain is used as a restorative, anti-inflammatory, emollient, soothing, expectorant, bactericidal, sugar-reducing, wound-healing, hemostatic, it has anti-allergic effect, is effective in diathesis, eczema, psoriasis, diabetic itching, diabetes mellitus with allergic conditions.

Preparations of plantain large activate the processes of digestion, increase appetite, are useful for swelling of the stomach, colitis, peptic ulcer of stomach and duodenum, tumors of the stomach and intestines, diseases of the gallbladder.

Fresh plant juice or decoction of seeds - active expectorants for coughing, they are drunk, combining with honey for bronchitis, bronchial asthma, tuberculosis, hemoptysis, lung cancer, whooping cough.

Infusion of fresh leaves acts as a tonic for fatigue, loss of strength, overfatigue, diabetes, anemia, hypertension, atherosclerosis, bladder inflammation, kidney disease, bedwetting. Infusion and juice of fresh leaves are also used to relieve toxicity during pregnancy, poisoning with salts of heavy metals, uterine bleeding.

Juice or decoction of leaves has long been treated in folk medicine pustular skin diseases, furuncles, carbuncles, non-healing wounds, bruises, pressure sores, diabetic gangrene.

Lotion from the decoction or juice of a fresh plant is applied for skin diseases, including malignant type, with erysipelas. Plantain juice, mixed with raw egg white, is used to treat burns of the first, second degrees.

Decoction of seeds is drunk with infertility, diabetes mellitus with infertility and decreased sexual function.

Juice and decoction of leaves rinse the mouth with periodontal disease, including diabetic.

Powder from the leaves of plantain is the basis of the ointment, which is effective for eczema, rash allergic and pustular type, for the treatment of purulent wounds.

Preparation

  • Powder from the seeds of psyllium take 1.0 g 3-4 times a day for 20-40 minutes before meals.
    "With lung and stomach cancer ... a mixture of finely chopped fresh leaf with an equal amount of granulated sugar is insisted in a warm place for 2 weeks. The received liquid is used 3-4 times a day for 1 tablespoon 20 minutes before eating "(N. G. Kovaleva).
  • Infusion of leaves of plantain large: 1 tbsp. L. Crushed fresh leaves pour 1 cup of boiling water and insist in a warm place for 30 minutes. Filter and take a quarter cup 3-4 times a day before meals with toxicosis of pregnant women, poisoning with salts of heavy metals, radionuclides, with bleeding.
  • Decoction of leaves of plantain large: 2 tbsp. L. Dry crushed leaves pour 1 cup of boiling water and insist 30 minutes, and then boil for 5 minutes. Defend and filter, drink a third cup for 15 minutes before meals 3 - 4 times a day for the same indications.
  • Juice from fresh leaves of plantain large: Fresh leaves are thoroughly washed in running water, and then rinsed with warm boiled. Finely chopped and passed through a meat grinder, a mixer or through a juicer. Use juice for irrigation of wound surfaces, bedsores, mouth cavity during inflammatory processes.
  • Decoction of seeds of plantain large: 1 tbsp. L. Raw materials pour 1 glass of water and boil for 2 minutes. Insist 30 minutes, strain and take 2 tbsp. L. The day before meals with infertility, impotence, menstrual irregularities.
  • Infusion of seeds of plantain large: 1 tbsp. L. Seeds are poured with boiling water and shaken for 15-20 minutes. Then filter and drink 1 tbsp. L. 3 times a day before meals with infertility or weakening the functions of the reproductive system.
  • Ointment from the leaves of plantain: Take 10 g of powder from dry leaves and mix thoroughly with 90 g of Vaseline. Used as an ointment for pustular skin diseases.
  • Ointment with the juice of plantain large: 2 tbsp. L. Fresh juice from the leaves thoroughly mixed with 100 g of fresh butter and 1 tsp. Honey. Use externally on inflamed, pustular and burn surfaces, lubricating them 3 - 4 times a day.
  • Before lubricating the wound surface should be washed with hydrogen peroxide, infusion of plantain leaves or solution of potassium permanganate.
  • Powder from the leaves of plantain large: Leaves thoroughly washed, allowed to drain, dried, and then ground into a fine powder. Used as a powder for wounds, bedsores, ulcers, abrasions.
  • Compress from the leaves of plantain large: For compress use either fresh leaves that are applied to the places of tumor changes, or juice, which moistens the napkin and puts it on the sore spot. Withstand the compress 10 - 12 h. On the course - 10 - 12 procedures daily.

Homeopathy. Homeopathic Plantago 3 x, 3, 6, in some patients it causes aversion to smoking tobacco, helps with toothache in the form of rinsing. Assign Plantago with enterocolitis, accompanied by intestinal colic and liquid stool, with shooting headaches, neurocirculatory dystonia, cardiac type, thyrotoxicosis, and also as a resorptive for myomas and mastopathies.