Plantain - A Universal Healer

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

Plantain - useful properties and uses

Dirt country roads are usually covered with a thick layer of gray dust. The legs get stuck in it, and a gray cloud stretches behind the traveler, settling on shoes and clothes.

Therefore, the locals usually trample a footpath parallel to the road. On the right and on the left, it is entwined with thickets of creeping knotweed and dense plantain bushes. Its flexible leaves tickle the feet of a pedestrian; if you walk barefoot, they rustle, but they do not break off, because the white veins fanning out along the leaf are resistant to breaking.

Features of culture

Plantain is very common in Russia. It grows along roads and paths, near residential buildings and in meadows. And it got its name from the main place of growth. It is a herbaceous perennial plant of the Plantain family. In total, more than one and a half hundred of its species are known on the globe, and over ten grows in our country. But the most common plantain (Plantago major).

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Like all plants in this family, it has a rosette of ten or more succulent petioled elliptical leaves. Plantain expels one or several strong flexible peduncle stems up to 30-40 cm high, on which a long inflorescence is formed, resembling an ear. Starting from May, and all summer long, many small brownish flowers open on these peduncles. They are pollinated by the wind, which carries their pollen around. In place of the flowers, ellipsoid capsules with very small seeds are formed.

Medicinal properties of plantain

Plantain has always been considered a valuable medicinal plant in folk medicine. Scientific medicine later joined this opinion. This is explained by the fact that its leaves contain many valuable substances: carotene, vitamins C and K, citric acid, phytoncides, bitter and tannins, and oleic acid, saponins, and carbohydrates are found in its seeds. And it is no coincidence that the villagers have long added young leaves to salads, omelets, and cooked cabbage soup from them.

Our ancestors have long noticed that plantain leaves, crushed to juice, applied to a wound, stop bleeding, and such a patch on a wound or abscess relieves or reduces the inflammatory process. It only needs to be replaced regularly, after two to three hours, with a fresh one.

In addition to hemostatic, plantain also has anti-inflammatory, bactericidal and wound-healing properties. This is due to the high content of tannins and phytoncides in this plant, which provide a bactericidal effect. And the presence of polysaccharides in it helps to quickly heal wounds and reduces inflammation.

Plantain is also used as a diuretic, diaphoretic, analgesic, sedative.

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A decoction of plantain leaves has an expectorant effect, and therefore it is used to treat bronchitis, bronchial asthma, pulmonary tuberculosis.

To obtain it, 2 tablespoons of crushed raw materials are poured with one glass of boiling water. Then the liquid, covered with a lid, is kept on a steam bath for half an hour. Then the resulting broth is cooled, filtered and taken half a glass three times a day 15 minutes before meals.

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Outwardly, this broth is used in the form of lotions, rinses to cleanse and treat wounds, cuts, skin ulcers, fistulas, abscesses and boils.

The juice of fresh plantain leaves is recommended in the treatment of gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer, chronic gastritis. However, it should not be taken to treat these diseases for those people who have an acidic stomach.

An aqueous infusion of fresh leaves is also used for the same purposes. It is prepared from 1 tablespoon of crushed leaves, which are poured with one glass of boiling water. Then the liquid is infused for 15 minutes. Take 1 tablespoon twenty minutes before meals. Infusion is also contraindicated in case of increased acidity of the stomach.

Plantain is used to get rid of calluses and cracked legs. To do this, you need to soar your feet in an infusion of plantain leaves - 2 tablespoons of chopped leaves are poured with 1 liter of boiling water, then the leaves are infused until the temperature becomes tolerable for the skin of the legs. The resulting infusion is poured into a bowl and the legs soar in it for at least 20 minutes. Then, it is advisable to apply gruel from fresh leaves skipped in a meat grinder to the problem areas, and fix it on the leg with a bandage or other bandage and leave it like that overnight. After 3-4 procedures, calluses and cracks will disappear.

In traditional medicine, plantain leaves and preparations are also actively used. For example, an infusion of its leaves is used as an expectorant for bronchial asthma, bronchitis, pulmonary tuberculosis, and plantain preparations are used for gastric ulcer and duodenal ulcer (but only with low and neutral acidity).

Preparations - plantaglucid - are produced in the form of granules, and also include dried leaves in medicinal collections.

When using fresh leaves and preparations from them, you need to remember that there are contraindications: as already mentioned above, they cannot be used in the treatment of gastritis and gastric ulcer with high acidity and with a predisposition to thrombus formation. In general, it will not be superfluous if you consult a doctor before using drugs according to folk recipes.

Sergey Pavlov