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Elecampane is herbaceous plants. Elecampane, also called is Horse-heal. It is underpinned widely England, asia as far as Southern Siberia and North-West India. The plant of Elecampane grows in wettish grounds and shadowy places oftener than in the dry and open borders of field and lanes and other waste places, almost in every county in this country. It is a striking and beauteous plant. The upraise stem grows from 4 to 5 feet high, is very stout and deeply furrowed, and near the top, branched. The whole plant is downy.
It produces a fanatical rosette of enormous, ovate, pointed leaves, from 1 to 1 1/2 feet long and 4 inches broad in the middle velvety beneath, with toothed margins an borne on long foot-stalks; in general appearance the leaves are not unlike those of Mullein. Those on the stem become shorter and comparatively broader and are stem-clasping.
The plant is in effloresce from June to August. The flowers are bright yellow, in very large, terminal heads, 3 to 4 inches in diameter, on long stalks, resembling a double sunflower. The plant springs from a perennial rootstock, that is large and delicious, spindleshaped and branching, brown and aromatic, with large, fleshy roots. Broad bracts of the leafy involucre under the head are velvety. It resembles starch in appearance, but varies from it in giving a yellow instead of a blue colour having iodine, in being soluble in boiling water without forming a paste, and in being accumulated unchanged from the hot aqueous solution when it cools
Elecampane is the wealthy source of inulin. Elecampane is a precise for irritating bronchial coughs, especially in children. It may be used wherever there is substantial catarrh formed e.g. in bronchitis or emphysema. Elecampane root has at first a fairly glutinous taste, but by chewing. The root used not only to be candied and eaten as a sweetmeat, but lozenges were made of it. It has been employed in whooping-cough.
It is occassionally employed in the form of a confection for piles, 1 OZ. of powdered root being mixed with 2 OZ. of honey. It has also been highly adviced, both for external use and internal administration in diseases of the skin, an old use of the root that has maintained its reputation for efficacy.
Elecampane is somewhat rubefacient, and has been retained as an liniment in the treatment of sciatica, facial and other neuralgia. Elecampane may also be helpful to patients having cardiovascular disease.
Elecampane is present in capsules, tinctures, and teas. There are also commercial preparations of Ayurvedic medicines which have elecampane as an active ingredient, such as Rasayana and Lipistat. Powdered root extract to make elecampane tea—1/4 teaspoon of powdered root in a cup of hot water up to three times a day is the usual dosage.
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