HIGHER PEPPER (water pepper, ducop)
Annual herbaceous plant 30-60 cm tall. Stems often reddish, erect, branched. Leaves oblong-lanceolate, narrowed at both ends, wavy along the edge; stipules fused into a membranous bell – the vagina. The flowers are small, greenish-pink, collected in narrow sparse racemes. The fruits are black nuts, flat on one side and convex on the other side. Blooms from July to September.
It grows along the banks of small reservoirs, rivers and streams, in damp meadows and swampy places.
Medicinal raw material is a herb collected during flowering; plants are cut at a height of 10-15 cm from the ground, dried in the shade, in the open air or in dryers.
Storage period 2 years. It is stored in a dry place in compliance with the rules for storing poisonous plants.
When collecting water pepper, it is necessary to distinguish it from other types of mountaineers that often grow together – the mountaineer amphibian and the mountaineer rough, which differ from water pepper in dense spike-shaped inflorescences, pink, white or light green flowers. The main difference between water pepper and other types of mountaineer is the burning taste of the leaves (pepper).
The herb contains flavonol derivatives: rhamnosine, isorhamnetype, rutin, quercetin, hyperoside, quercetin, kaempferol, polygenterin glycoside, tannins, essential oil, formic, valeric and acetic acids, phytosatherin.
Highlander pepper has a good hemostatic effect, it reduces vascular permeability, increases blood clotting, tones the muscles of the uterus, and has a calming effect on the nervous system.
Currently, water pepper is used as a hemostatic agent for heavy menstruation and hemorrhoidal bleeding in the form of decoctions and liquid extract. Included in the antihemorrhoidal mixtures “Anestezol”.
In folk medicine, products from the mountaineer pepper are used as a softening agent in the form of cataplasm (poultice) for pustular skin diseases, as an analgesic for liver disease, for rinsing, as well as a sedative for nervous diseases, stomach ulcers, malaria.
Freshly crushed leaves of the mountaineer pepper replace the mustard plaster, they are applied, for example, to the back of the head with a runny nose or headache as a distraction; for toothache, rinses are done, diluting the juice from the leaves in a ratio of 1:10, fresh juice is poured into the wounds.
Application
Tincture 25%: on alcohol – 1-20 drops, on vodka – 30-40 drops three to four times every day (hemostatic).
Decoction: 15 g per 200 ml, 1 tbsp. spoon 3 times every day before meals for diseases of the kidneys and bladder.
Extract: decoction (15 g per 200 ml), condensed to half; use one teaspoon 3 times every day.