Hemlock: contraindications or total prohibition?

Today, when the fashion for herbal medicine has burst with renewed vigor, many folk healers incorporate the hemlock plant into their potions. Contraindications, which they "forget" to warn their patients, often negatively affect the health of gullible people. On many pseudo-medical websites of the Internet one can find recommendations on the use of this poisonous plant for the preparation of sedative tinctures, preparations for alleviating asthma, eliminating nocturnal pollutions, dysmenorrhea, renal colic. On the pages devoted to homeopathy, they say about the beneficial effect of plants with cough, fibromas, cystitis and dozens of other diseases. Many recommend the use of hemlock for the treatment of cancer. Contraindications on these sites are not indicated. But in vain. The use of this plant for the manufacture of medicines in the territory of our country is officially prohibited by the Ministry of Health. For the reason that both the roots, leaves, and stems of the plant are deadly poisonous. This was known even in ancient Greece, where for official executions the juice of the hemlock plant was used. Side effects from the "treatment" of these plants are listed in pharmacological reference books. They show that even the minimal doses of this "medicine" can lead to the most terrible consequences, among which

• Nausea, progressive salivation, dizziness;
• Oppression of respiratory function, convulsions, stopping breathing;
• Paralysis, suffocation.

This is not a complete list of the consequences that can occur if you use inside the tincture, which includes the grass of hemlock. Treatment with external agents is less dangerous, but we must remember that even the ingestion of the juice of this plant on the skin causes a serious burn.

In animal husbandry, cases of mass poisoning of livestock by "stinky grass" or Conium maculatum (L.) are known - this is how they call the hemlock in another way.

Perhaps, among the herbs that grow in Russia, there is no other one that would cause so many disputes. Even respectable scientists still break their spears, trying to prove their truth.

Some of them argue that to strengthen immunity, defeat cancerous tumors, get rid of many diseases caused by reduced resistance of the body to negative influences can be done with the help of hemlock grass. Contraindications, according to the representatives of this opinion, are not complete, if you correctly choose the dosage of the medicine, which includes this potion.

Their opponents categorically state that even if there is some benefit from the use of this plant, the risk of a lethal outcome outweighs its positive qualities. Therefore, before introducing the plant into the composition of drugs, you need to think many times.

The third group of scientists completely rejects previous opinions about the use of hemlock grass. Contraindications, they insist, do not exist, because the plant is deadly poisonous and to use or use it in any form is also deadly.

Boligolov, which has several species, is distributed around the world. In other countries it is better known as Kuniyun, tsikuta, milestones, shavkaran, bit. There are hemlock spotted and marsh.

This biennial plant is especially dangerous not only in finished preparations. Young rosettes of cicadas are very reminiscent of parsley, so if a plant appears in the garden, it is easily confused with the popular grass in the culinary. A dose of only 1 gram is enough to get a lethal poisoning.

Of course, any person has the right to choose a doctor or healer. But before to be treated by fashionable means, it is necessary to reflect repeatedly about, whether it is necessary to risk the health, trusting sorcerers? Or it is worth checking out the medical manuals and taking note of the opinion of official medicine, which prohibits the use of deadly hemlock grass.