BUCKWHEAT LAXATIVE (zoster, blackberry)
Shrub with prickly branches up to 4 m high. Leaves are opposite, petiolate, simple, entire, serrate along the edge. Flowers. four-membered, dark green, in leaf axils; on some specimens only female, on others – male flowers. The fruits are drupes with 4-5 seeds. Blooms in May-June. The fruits ripen in September-October.
The laxative buckthorn (zhoster) grows together with the breaking buckthorn, traditionally as an undergrowth in the forest zone of Russia. Distributed in all forest-steppe regions of the South-East.
Medicinal raw materials are fruits collected without stalks and dried first in the shade, and then in drying ovens.
In folk medicine, medicinal raw materials are fruits, thin branches and bark. As an unacceptable impurity, buckthorn fruits can be found, which differ in that they do not shine and contain 2 plano-convex bones (less often 1 or 3) with a cartilaginous beak-shaped outgrowth.
Finished raw materials (fruits) are black-purple in color, odorless, bittersweet taste. Storage period 2 years.
Mature fruits contain anthraglucosides (within 0.76%), which cleave rhamnoemodin and other hydroxymethyl anthraquinones; dyes and sugar.
Anthraglucosides and their cleavage products (mainly emodin) irritate the walls in the large intestine, moderately intensifying its undulating and pendulum movements.
Joster fruits are used as a mild laxative for chronic constipation. The action begins 8-10 hours after administration.
In folk medicine, the fruits of the laxative buckthorn are used for the same purpose as in scientific medicine, in addition, a decoction of the branches for stomach ulcers inside and outwardly as a wound healing. A decoction of the bark is used for catarrh of the stomach, low acidity of the stomach, a decoction of fruits with the addition of whey, oil and soda is used as a laxative, the fruits are insisted on vodka and rubbed with rheumatism; the fruits are used as a laxative, the bark – from the mat; compresses are made from a decoction of branches on wounds. There is an opinion among the people that joster berries have a regulating effect on the intestines, they are added to antidiarrheal agents.
Application
Zoster is prescribed in the form of infusions and decoctions prepared at the rate of 1 tbsp. a spoonful of dry fruits in a glass of boiling water. The fruits poured with boiling water are insisted for 8 hours, filtered and taken half a glass at night (laxative).
Decoction: 20 g per 200 ml, boil for 20 minutes, take half a glass at night.
Joster is also part of a laxative tea.
Fruit infusion is not recommended for children.