What Does Pepper, Or Water Pepper, Treat

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

Highlander pepper

This herb has been familiar to me since childhood. Several times over the summer, our cow gave bitter milk. Mother grumbled with displeasure: “I ate this mustard again …”. This is what the locals called the Pepper Mountaineer. Maybe someone knew the correct name, but most of them called it “gorchachka”.

I do not know why our Lyska ate this herb. Either she tasted good to her, or maybe the animal thus treated some kind of ailment or fought against gastric parasites, but the milk did not taste bitter often, which means that usually the cow preferred another grass.

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We, children, also knew the bitter peculiarity of this plant. In some places along the edge of the field or on the slopes of small ravines, it formed real thickets. And in our games, we often used this grass to create soft bedding when we lay in the trenches left after the war. The stems of the plant broke easily, we collected them in armfuls and covered the bottom of the trench for convenience.

Practice has shown: if you tore this herb, then in no case should you touch your eye with your fingers, for example, rubbing it - this will lead to cramps and profuse lacrimation, you will need to run to the water to wash your eyes. You shouldn't even touch your hands with your tongue, with which you tore the grass, because the bitterness was unbearable. We had no idea that this "mustard" can be useful as a medicinal plant.

We also did not know what the name of this herb is Peppermint, or water pepper (Persicaria hydropiper) and belongs to the Buckwheat family. In some publications you can find the Latin name for the mountaineer as (Polygonum hydropiper), i.e. it used to be referred to the Highlander family. People also call it buckwheat pepper, frog, wild mustard, forest mustard, turnip.

It is an annual herb with a height of 30 to 70 cm. It has an erect, branched stem, green at the beginning of the growing season and gradually reddening by the time of flowering. At the ends of the shoots, greenish-pink flowers are formed, collected in spike-shaped brushes. Leaves are lanceolate, 0.5 to 3 cm wide and 3 to 10 cm long.

You can meet waterweed throughout the entire territory of our country - both in the European part and in the Far East. This plant loves to grow in damp places. You can meet him on the outskirts of swamps, on the banks of rivers, lakes, ponds and ditches, on damp meadows, along fields and in vegetable gardens, as well as along roadsides. In some places it forms rugged thickets.

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Medicinal properties of the mountaineer

Highlander pepper

Even the ancient Greeks and Romans noticed the healing properties of the herb of this plant and used them as an astringent, antimalarial and hemostatic agent.

In modern medicine, water pepper is used - in the form of an infusion and liquid extract, also as a hemostatic agent for hemorrhoids and uterine bleeding, with uterine fibroids, chronic endometritis and heavy menstruation. Pepper is also included in the composition of antihemorrhoid suppositories. This plant also has antibacterial activity.

In folk medicine and homeopathy, the range of uses of this herb is much wider. It is used for diseases of the thyroid gland, as an astringent, hemostatic, analgesic, wound-healing agent, as well as for skin diseases and liver diseases, urolithiasis, edema, gastric ulcer, eczema, bronchial asthma.

These medicinal properties are attributed to the rich chemical composition of the plant. Knotweed herb contains flavonoids (biologically active substances) - hyperoside, quercitrin, quercetin, kaempferol, rutin, rhamnazine, isorhamnetin, as well as tannins, vitamins A, D, E, K, ascorbic acid, organic acids - formic, acetic, and also glycoside polytopinerine.

Galenic preparations (medicines obtained from plant materials by extraction (extraction) are tinctures (alcoholic or aqueous-alcoholic extracts) or extracts) of peppermint have hemostatic properties. The flavonoid compounds contained in it reduce the permeability of the vascular wall of the arteries and capillaries.

Due to the content of tannins in the plant, there is a slight anti-inflammatory and antimicrobial effect of galenic preparations.

The volatile essential oil of water pepper slightly lowers blood pressure. Herbal preparations of this plant also have some cardiotonic and diuretic properties and to some extent increase the tone of peripheral vessels.

On the basis of these properties, galenic preparations of Knotweed are actively used in obstetric and gynecological practice.

Also, infusions and extracts of the plant are prescribed for bleeding from small vessels and capillaries of the stomach, intestines, as well as for abundant hemorrhoidal bleeding.

Knotweed herb is sometimes used for diarrhea and enterocolitis in combination with other medicinal plants. In complex collections, this herb is prescribed for patients with chronic colitis, accompanied by erosive and ulcerative lesions of the mucous membrane, as well as in the treatment of hemorrhoids. It is also used as part of a collection of medicinal plants for the preparation of trays for the external treatment of hemorrhoids.

In official medicine, several dosage forms of water pepper are used. These are liquid water pepper extract, water pepper herb infusion, Anestezol antihemorrhoid suppositories.

Water pepper extract liquid

It is a transparent green-brown aromatic liquid with a bitter astringent taste. This extract is prescribed as a hemostatic agent - 30-40 drops three times a day.

Water pepper herb decoction

Water pepper herb

To obtain it, two tablespoons of raw materials (20 g) are placed in an enamel bowl, poured with a glass of hot boiled water (200 ml) and placed in a water bath for 15 minutes.

Then it is cooled at room temperature for 45 minutes, filtered, and the remaining raw material is wrung out. The volume of the resulting infusion is brought to the original (200 ml). Store the infusion in a cool place for no more than two days.

Apply the infusion as a hemostatic agent, one third of a glass three times a day before meals.

Knotweed herb is sold dried in pharmacies, packaged in packs of 50 g.

In places where water pepper grows in environmentally friendly conditions - away from noisy roads and industrial plants - you can harvest it yourself. This is done at the beginning of flowering. It is advisable to dry the stocked grass quickly so that it does not darken. It is better to do this in a dryer at a temperature not exceeding 50 ° C or under a canopy with good ventilation, spreading it out in a thin layer. The stored raw materials can be stored for up to two years.

Suppositories "Anestezol" - perform analgesic (pain relieving), antiseptic (disinfecting), astringent (protective), drying, antihemorrhoidal functions.

Infusion of water pepper herb

For its preparation, one tablespoon of dry raw materials is poured with two glasses of boiling water. Insist 6-7 hours, then filter the liquid. Take one tablespoon three times a day.

In folk medicine, this infusion is taken in half a glass three times a day for various bleeding, diarrhea, stomach ulcer, dropsy, flatulence, malaria.

Contraindications

First of all, water pepper is not recommended for patients with thrombophlebitis, as it has a powerful blood clotting effect. Preparations from water pepper are contraindicated for inflammation of the kidneys and bladder.

Like many other herbal preparations, water pepper is not recommended for pregnancy and lactation.

It is also necessary to comply with the recommended dosage, and before starting treatment, consult your doctor.

E. Valentinov