Common centaury (the medical name is centaury grass or Centaurim heiba) is a one-, two-year-old herbaceous medicinal plant of the gentian family, 10-40 cm in height. The root of the grass is rod, branched to the top, thin and weak, light in color. The stems are tetrahedral, straight, more often solitary, at the top - fork-branched. Leaves - small, whole, oblong, thin. Basal collected in the outlet, obovate, short-rosed; stem - lanceolate, sessile, opposite. In squeezed inflorescences are small bright pink flowers with 5 petals. The fruit is a narrow and oblong cylindrical box with many seeds. When sunlight hits the flowers of the plant, the petals bend in such a way that they look like an asterisk. The plant blooms from June to August (flowering occurs only in sunny places), bears fruit in the period from August to October.
The plant can be found in Ukraine, Central Asia, North America, Europe, in the southern and European parts of Russia, Altai, the Caucasus and Western Siberia.
It grows in sunny meadows, hills, hayfields, forest edges, dry meadows and other open and sunny places.
Procurement for medicinal purposes
For medicinal purposes, the grass of the centaury is collected along with its basal rosettes. Harvested at the beginning of flowering, before the basal leaves turn yellow. The plant is usually cut 5-8 cm from the ground. The grass is laid out on paper with a thin layer or tied into bunches and dried in the air in the shade (under a canopy), in ventilated rooms (in attics) or in special dryers, with a temperature of 40-50 degrees. Grass can be stored for about 2 years.
Chemical composition of centaury
Flavonoids, alkaloids (gentianin), bitter glycosides (erythrocentaurin, amarogentin, gentsiopikrin, erythaurin), xanthones, essential oil, resins, sterols, mucus, oleanolic and ascorbic acids, tannins were found in the grass of the plant . In addition, carbohydrates (glucose, fructose, sucrose), vitamins, micro and macro elements (iron, tin, sulfur, etc.) are also contained.
Centaury: properties and applications
The medicinal plant centaury, the use of which is approved by traditional, and traditional medicine, and homeopathy, is very valuable and is an effective remedy for many ailments.
Preparations of centaury have antiseptic, anti-inflammatory, choleretic, mild laxative, hemostatic, analgesic, hepatoprotective and wound healing effects.
The bitterness found in the grass improves the digestion process, stimulates appetite, and increases the production of gastric juice. Therefore, often centaury is used as part of increasing appetite and gastric herbal supplements.
Due to the content of gentianin, centaury is also used as an anthelmintic. In addition, the grass has a tonic and restorative effect on a weakened body, which is very important in the postoperative period. In addition, centaury preparations have antipyretic and anesthetic (analgesic) effects.
Indications for the use of centaury are such diseases: overwork, nervous exhaustion, anorexia, diseases of the gallbladder or liver, flatulence, chronic enterocolitis, stomach and intestinal cramps, poor appetite, some gynecological diseases, migraine, anemia, sinusitis, skin diseases.
Centaury, the use of which in folk medicine is not uncommon, is used in the form of decoctions and infusions in all the above cases, and is also effectively used for neurosis, diabetes mellitus, flu, malaria, kidney and heart diseases, heartburn, edema, liver disorders, epilepsy, pulmonary tuberculosis, intestinal atony, gastritis (anacid or hypoacid), worms.
External application of centaury is justified, for example, for long non-healing wounds, rashes, gout, eczema, leg ulcers, boils.
Successfully use centaury for the treatment of alcoholism (including binge) and separately, and as part of the fees.
And fresh grass juice is used externally for diseases of the ears in the form of drops, and inside - for diseases of the stomach, liver, gall bladder.
And centaury found use as a remedy for food allergies in children.
Centaury Recipes
The methods of application of the plant are different - tinctures, infusions, tea, oil, juice, decoctions (inside), externally - rubbing and compresses.
1. Anthelmintic decoction. To do this, take in equal parts the grass of centaury and bitter wormwood, mix. Next, a tablespoon of the resulting mixture is poured 250 g of boiling water, put on fire for 20 minutes, then the broth is filtered and taken on an empty stomach in the morning and in the evening (half a glass) for a week.
2. For gastritis with high acidity with heartburn, the infusion of collection is effective:
take 2 tables. tablespoons of leaves of the medicinal marshmallow and centaury herbs, pour 600 g of boiling water, 4 hours insist, taken orally before meals 4 times a day, 100 ml.
3. With hyperacid gastritis, heartburn, allergies, flatulence, to infuse digestion, as well as to strengthen the body after serious illnesses, use an infusion of grass. To do this, pour a glass of boiling water 10 g of herb, for 2 hours, insist and filter. Use before meals a tablespoon three times a day.
4. In chronic hepatitis, such an infusion is effective: in 1 liter of boiling water, insist 20 g of raw material, allow to cool and shed. They drink such an infusion warm, 100 grams before meals. The same infusion will help with diabetes and cholecystitis.
5. For the treatment of alcoholism, pour a glass of boiling water over 2 tables. tablespoons of grass, boil for 10 minutes, insist for 2 hours, sow and drink three times a day for a third of a glass. The treatment is 2 months.
For the same problem, centaury is used in a mixture with thyme, three-leafed shift and oregano (in proportions, respectively, 1: 3: 1: 3). Two glasses of boiling water pour 4 tables. tablespoons of this mixture, 10 minutes insist. Take 100 ml three times a day before meals, and the fourth time - before bedtime. Treatment lasts 2-2.5 months. In this case, at the very beginning of treatment, you need to give up alcohol and smoking.
Centaury: contraindications
The use of drugs with centaury grass is contraindicated in patients with stomach and intestinal ulcers. Caution is also necessary for those who have hypersensitivity to this plant.
Exceeding the recommended doses can cause digestive upsets.