Aspen

A well-known woody plant (tree), often found in forests and in river valleys.

For therapeutic purposes, kidneys, juice, ash, and bark are used in folk medicine.

The kidneys contain the glycoside salicin, essential oil, carotene, vitamin C and other substances.

In the people, the kidneys in the form of an infusion are used for rheumatism, gout and infectious diseases as an antipyretic.

A decoction or tincture is used for fever, diarrhea, dysentery and aches, mostly colds, rinse sick teeth.

The people know the original simple method of external use of aspen juice with table salt for toothache (see below). An ointment is prepared from the kidneys, used for burns and hemorrhoids (bumps are lubricated). The plant contains essential oil, ascorbic, benzoic, malic acids, bitter glycosides, salicin and populin, salicose enzyme, tannins and resinous substances, fat and karatitsin.

The experiment established the bactericidal effect of the product from aspen buds against Staphylococcus aureus, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Flexner’s dysentery bacillus and typhoid fever bacillus. A decoction of the bark has a neurotropic effect. During hydrolysis, salicin is cleaved, releasing saligenite, which has an antipyretic effect.

In Western European medicine, aspen products are prescribed for diseases of the bladder, especially in the elderly, cystitis, urinary incontinence, prostate hypertrophy, disorders of the gastrointestinal tract, rheumatism, gout, hemorrhoids. Outwardly – with burns, ulcers.

In folk medicine, an infusion of the bark is recommended for fever, cough, poor appetite, scurvy, syphilis, and toothache. A decoction or alcohol (usually vodka) tincture of the kidneys is used as an anticonvulsant for “ache” and as a diaphoretic.

 

With rheumatism, sciatica, sciatica, simultaneously with the ingestion of a decoction or infusion of aspen, therapeutic baths from a decoction of a greenish (young) bark are used. Young crushed leaves, scalded with boiling water, are used for poultices for furunculosis, rheumatic, gouty lesions of the joints and hemorrhoidal bumps. Lichen, warts and toothache are lubricated with tree sap.

Application

A decoction of buds, leaves or bark: 1 tbsp. a spoonful of raw materials in a glass of boiling water, boil for an hour, strain and drink 1-2 tbsp. spoons 3 times every day.

Aspen ash from the trunk, mixed with fresh pork fat, is used as an ointment for eczema: the leaves are burned, fumigated with smoke, boils are sprinkled with ash.

Light decoction: 25 g per 200 ml; 1 st. spoon 3 times every day. An original way of treating teeth: they take a freshly cut short log, drill its core, but not completely, pour table salt into the drilled hole and plug it with something (the density of the cork is important), throw the log into the fire and, without letting it burn out to the end, pour from a hole, salt, already saturated with juice. This salt is either directly placed on the aching tooth, or diluted in a ratio of 1:10 for rinsing the mouth.

The ointment is prepared from powdered dried kidneys, sifted through the finest sieve, this powder is mixed with sunflower oil.

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