An annual plant with a spindle-shaped root, erect stem up to 1 m tall, planted with regular incised-lobed gray leaves; flowers solitary, large, 8-12 cm wide, with a two-leaved falling calyx and a corolla of 4 pale purple or pink petals with dark spots at the base, with numerous stamens and a short pistil with a sessile multi-beam stigma; the fruit is broadly ovate, up to 7 cm long and 2-3 cm wide, a capsule opening with holes under the apical disc, the seeds are numerous, small, bluish-black. Blooms in June-July.
The whole plant contains alkaloids, the main one being morphine; also codeine, papaverine, theba-in, etc.
The medicinal value of the hypnotic poppy is due to the presence of valuable alkaloids (opium) in its milky juice, often used as painkillers, sedatives and hypnotics.
Opium is a milky juice flowing from a still green box (popularly called the “head”), which dries quickly and turns into a thick brownish-brown mass.
Use of opium is recommended only on prescription.
In folk medicine, not only the milky juice of the poppy is used, but also its flowers and seeds.
The greatest attention is paid to flowers, which for medicinal purposes are best collected from wild poppy and self-seeded poppy (see Self-seeded poppy and Oriental poppy). It is necessary to dry the petals in the shade, laying them out in a thin layer so that they do not turn black.
Fresh juice from poppy heads is popularly used for insect bites, babies are given a decoction of immature boxes to sleep well, with insomnia, poultices from heads, also from leaves – as an external pain reliever. When the seeds are crushed and diluted with water, a white, milky liquid is obtained, which is called poppy milk; it is taken orally in large doses (half a glass 3-4 times every day) for hemorrhoids and severe pneumonia. Pounded seeds are mixed with honey and eaten for liver diseases. Poppy seeds are part of the anthelmintic drugs.
Dry petals of poppy flowers, ground into powder, are used for diseases of the stomach (especially with its catarrhs) in the form of a simple decoction, and the petals, ground into powder and boiled in milk or honey, or in the form of vodka tincture – from insomnia, with mental overwork.
A decoction of poppy flowers on honey is useful for increased general sweating. A decoction of poppy flowers – from diarrhea.
Application
A decoction of flowers: 1) in water or milk – 10 g per 200 ml; 1 st. spoon 3 times every day, and with insomnia – half an hour before bedtime; 2) on honey: dilute 1-2 teaspoons of honey in a glass of water, boil 2 teaspoons of powder from poppy flower petals in this solution for 5-10 minutes and consume 1 teaspoon 3 times every day.
Vodka tincture: 10%, 15 drops 3 times every day, with insomnia – half an hour before bedtime.
Powder: 1 pinch (i.e. within 3.g) of powder 3 times daily before meals.