:fig1:
The medicinal bloodroot is distributed throughout the former USSR. It grows in flood meadows, on cliffs, in bushes, on the banks of marshes and rivers.
Rhizomes with roots up to 20 cm long are used, collected during the wilting period of plants - in September. The smell of medicinal bloodwort has a faint odor, the taste is astringent.
Chemical composition and properties of bloodroot
The useful properties of medicinal bloodroot have been studied by many phytotherapists. Rhizomes contain 12-13%, roots up to 20%, callus (excrescences) - up to 20% of tannins of pyrogallol group. The roots, in addition, contain gallic, ellagic and oxalic acids, pigments, starch, traces of essential oil, gallotanides, calcium oxalic acid, vitamin C, carotene, saponin sanguisorbin, sterols. The leaves contain essential oil and ascorbic acid up to 1.8%.
The properties of bloodroot are used to make medicinal preparations.
The effects and uses of bloodroot
The use of bloodroot is recommended for various kinds of somatic diseases. Rhizomes with roots have astringent, styptic, hemostatic, anti-inflammatory, bactericidal and antiestocidal properties.
Experimental studies have shown that the properties of bloodwort allow to make an extract from the roots of the plant, which when used locally has anti-inflammatory and vasoconstrictive properties, and when used internally inhibits intestinal peristalsis. In experiments on nutrient media, the antiseptic effect of the extract against Escherichia coli and less pronounced against E. coli, paratyphoid and dysentery bacilli was established.
The use of bloodworm in the form of decoction and liquid extract is recommended for gastrointestinal diseases: enterocolitis, intoxication and gastrogenic diarrhea, as a styptic for gastric, intestinal, uterine and renal bleeding, with trichomonad colpitis, stomatitis and gingivitis in the form of gargles. It is applied externally in the form of an extract.
Extract from roots and rhizomes is included in the State Pharmacopoeia of the USSR in 1961.
In Bulgaria, rhizomes of bloodroot are recommended as a styptic. The properties of bloodroot are recommended for heavy menstruation, gastrointestinal, pulmonary and other hemorrhages, dysentery and for inflammation of the veins of the legs.
In the folk medicine of the former USSR, Poland, France, China recommended the use of bloodworm in the form of decoctions for the treatment of headaches, sore throat and various bleeding, as an astringent, especially with hemoptysis in patients with pulmonary tuberculosis, heavy menstruation, diarrhea and as an external for healing wounds.
In Chinese folk medicine decoction of leaves is used as an astringent, analgesic and styptic, in hemorrhoidal, uterine, intestinal, pulmonary bleeding, bloody vomiting, in polymenorrhea.
We use the above-ground part of bloodwort as an astringent, anti-inflammatory, bactericidal, antiestocidal and styptic in dysentery and ulcerative colitis..
