Peppermint is a spicy-aromatic plant, which was used by man even before our era. There are in our time many kinds of mint, which have different healing properties. Let's consider what are the medicinal properties of mint.
Even in ancient and medieval literature, mint was considered a medicinal plant. It was used to improve digestion, with pain in the head, to remove hiccoughs. And also it was recommended for internal bleeding. In Russia, brewed mint drank with rickets, scrofula, nervous disorders, as well as with heart disease.
Long-leaved mint
The healing properties of long-leaved mint are explained by complex essential oils, which is found in stems, leaves and inflorescences. It is a liquid with a herb-spicy aroma. It contains carvacrol, menthol, linaol, and pulegon. It has long-leaved antiseptic and analgesic properties. Broths from this mint relieve toothaches, pain in the stomach. These broths are used for flu and cold, with cough, and also for disinfection of the throat and mouth. With anemia it is good to add leaves of this mint to salads. Long-leaved mint is recommended for neuralgia.
Peppermint
Peppermint in its composition has an essential oil, in which the main component is menthol. Menthol determines the properties of mint and turns it into a bactericidal plant. Menthol promotes bile secretion, while removing spasms of the bile ducts. Also peppermint contains esters - mentofuran, pinene, jasmason, felandrene and contains tannins.
In peppermint, medicinal properties are very diverse. Leaves of mint of this species have been widely used in folk medicine since time immemorial. They were used for migraines (applied to the forehead), in the treatment of various skin diseases (impregnated with gauze juice was applied to the affected areas on the skin). This kind of mint is used for asthma, flatulence, with nausea, with hepatitis. Peppermint is used to improve digestion. Decoctions of it are taken as a sedative, with various inflammatory processes in the lungs and bronchi, with gynecological diseases, with heart diseases. Peppermint is used for vasodilation, as well as for various pains. Baths with mint added help relieve psychological stress.
Menthol, contained in mint, is used for inhalations, as a fraction of the nose drops. However, for young children, lubrication of the mucous membranes with menthol of the nasopharynx and nose is contraindicated. They stimulate the appetite and increase the secretion of the glands of digestive mint preparations. Weak hypotensive and soothing effect has mint infusion (lowers blood pressure), promotes digestion of fats, removes intestinal colic. These broths help with liver disease.
Spearmint
Mint curly (garden) refers to mints of cultural species. It has a pleasant and delicate taste, without the taste of menthol and combines the taste qualities of other mint plants. Curly mint is grown for the preparation of essential oil, which contains carvone, linalool, pulegon, cineole, limonene. This essential oil is widely used in the pharmaceutical industry. Various useful substances are rich in leaves of curly mint. Decoctions are used in folk medicine. They are used as a sedative, for therapeutic baths, for the removal of various types of pain.
Field Mint
Field mint (horse, dragojub) grows mainly in a wild kind. This is the kind of mint that is most known to the people. In the above part of this mint contains about 2% of essential oil. Essential oil has a bitter taste and a pungent odor. The main part of this oil is terpenes, menthol. The leaves contain substances such as: rutin, carotene, organic acids, tannins. Because of the substances that are contained in this form of mint, it is used in inflammatory processes, with nervous disorders, with headaches, with neuralgia.