Wide – leaved ragwort -senecio platyphyllus dc
Popular names: ram, smokers, life-giving grass, golden grass.
Botanical characteristic. Compositae family. A perennial herbaceous plant with a well-developed thick, longish, creeping rhizome, from which thin roots extend downward. The stems are few, erect, ribbed, branched in inflorescences, up to 1.5 m high. The lower basal leaves are very large, reniform-heart-shaped, long-petiolate; stem – triangular kidney-heart-shaped, with narrow-winged petioles; upper -lanceolate or ovoid, sessile. The flowers are yellow, tubular, four-toothed, collected in small baskets of 10-15 flowers, which form a corymbose panicle at the end of the stem. The fruit is an oblong brown achene with a tuft. Blossoms in July-August, fruits ripen in August-September.
Spreading. It grows mainly along the edges of beech-fir forests, in meadows, clearings, clearings, among shrubs, mainly in the highlands of Transcaucasia, the North Caucasus at an altitude of 1200-2400 m above sea level.
Medicinal raw materials. Rhizome with roots, aerial parts of the plant (grass) are used to obtain platyphyllin and senecifyllin. The roots are harvested in September – October, digging up the plant with shovels, on plantations with a plow, a potato digger, after removing the aerial parts by mowing. After cutting thin roots, it is quickly washed and dried in the open air in the wind or in dryers at a temperature of 50-60 ° C. The grass is cut with a sickle or secateurs during the budding period and at the beginning of flowering, dried under a canopy in a draft. Raw materials are cleaned from foreign impurities. Store 2 years according to list B, as the plant is poisonous.
Chemical composition. All parts of the plant contain the alkaloids platifillin, senecifillin, sarracin, etc. The largest number of platifillin and sarracin was found in the roots and rhizomes (2.2–4%), much less in grass (in leaves 0.49–3.5%, in flowers up to 3%). Platifillin and senecifillin were discovered in ragwort in 1935 by Academician A.P. Orekhov and R.A. Konovalova.
pharmacological properties. Platifillin is used in the treatment of many diseases. Like atropine, it has an M-anticholinergic and antispasmodic effect, but is significantly inferior to atropine in terms of strength and is less toxic. It does not disturb accommodation, does not increase cardiac activity, does not cause dryness in the oral cavity, which distinguishes it favorably from atropine. Platifillin lowers the tone and relieves spasms of the smooth muscles of the bronchi, stomach, intestines, gallbladder, urinary tract. The drug has a positive effect on spasms of blood vessels, dilates the pupil.
Application. In veterinary practice, platyfillin hydrotartrate salt is used as an antidote for poisoning with cholinomimetic drugs, for acute gastric and intestinal spasms, acute gastric dilatation in horses, spastic constipation, circulatory disorders of a spastic nature, renal and hepatic colic. In ophthalmic practice, platifillin is used to dilate the pupil in order to study the bottom of the eye and break adhesions during inflammatory processes. Doses subcutaneously: horses 0.015-0.1, cattle 0.01-0.07, small cattle and pigs 0.01-0.04, dogs 0.002-0.01 g.
Horses
Rp.: Solutionis Platyphyllini hydrotartratis 1% – 5.0 Sterilis!
DS Subcutaneously with spastic phenomena in the intestines.
dog
Rp.: Tabulettis Platyphyllini hvdrotartratis 0.005 Dtd N 6
S. Inside, one tablet 2-3 times every day (with stomach cramps, renal and hepatic colic).
Platifillin is produced in powder, tablets, ampoules of 1 ml of a 0.2% solution. Store according to list A. Included in the tablets of tepafillin, palufin and plavefin.