It has long been believed that on Ivan’s night, only for an instant, blazing with bright red fire, fern blooms. And the daredevil, who dared to break the "heat-color", is endowed with incredible abilities. Scientists have long debunked a beautiful legend, because of the vast number of species of this plant, not one blooms. Why did our ancestors sacredly believe in the magical power of fern? Is it because they knew about its healing properties?
Male fern or male fennel (Latin name - Dryopteris filix-mas) is a perennial plant growing in the forest zone of the Eurasian and North American continents. It is ubiquitous in Russian forests, forest belts of Altai, the Caucasus, Kuznetsk Alatau and the Far East. The male fern has no elevated stem, and large basal leaves reach a length of 1.2 meters. The male thyroid on the underside of its elongated dark green leaves has round formations - soruses in which spores mature. From the end of June to September, spores get enough sleep, are picked up by air currents and, falling into the soil, give life to new plants. The fern rhizome is powerful, horizontal or ascending, covered with the remains of dead leaf petioles and thin webbed scales. It was the rhizome that has been part of the medicinal collections compiled from time immemorial to get rid of worms.
The male thyroid is poisonous, and preparations from it are also unsafe. In hospitals, filixan is used - a dry extract of male fern, a thick extract of the plant rhizome in capsules and foreign analogues of these drugs. They are used for intestinal cestodoses - a group of helminthic diseases that are caused by tapeworms. The components of the extract are able to paralyze the muscles of the parasites, which leads to their death. When prescribing the dose of the drug, doctors take into account the patient's age, his physical condition, as well as possible contraindications. You can not take these drugs in patients with certain diseases of the heart, blood vessels and digestive organs. Pregnancy, active tuberculosis, exhaustion, anemia are also contraindications to the use of drugs based on the rhizome of the male thyroid.
Everything that traditional medicine includes in its arsenal (medicinal herbs, their fees, all kinds of tinctures, infusions, ointments) should be used with some caution, because not only the male thyroid, but also some other medicinal plants are poisonous. From time immemorial, traditional healers have been using the beneficial properties of male ferns to get rid of parasites, for which the patient is recommended to drink a glass of milk first, and then a glass of wine with several grams of rhizome powder. Using external agents, which include the thyroid, treat veins for thrombophlebitis, rheumatism, various ulcers and convulsive contractions of the leg muscles.
Do not forget that fern is poisonous! Treatment with male thyroid products can be carried out only after consulting a doctor.