Even the Greek physician Hippocrates used the poisonous lettuce as a remedy. The Roman emperor Augustus is said to be recovered by the healing plant even from a serious illness. The poisonous lettuce was still used in this country as a natural remedy until one hundred years ago.
Occurrence and cultivation of the poisonous lettuce
Poison lettuce (Lactuca virosa) is also called stink lettuce because of its unpleasant odor. Other names of the plant belonging to the composite family (Asteraceae) are wild lettuce and opium lettuce. Poison lettuce is an annual or biennial herbaceous plant that reaches a height of 0.60 to 1.20 meters and has a spindle-shaped root. Its pale reddish overflowing stem contains a milky sap. The plant has blue-green ovate foliage leaves, which are pointedly toothed on the edge and spined in the middle on the underside of the leaf. It grows from a basal leaf rosette. Each of 12 to 16 pale yellow ray florets stand together terminally in a pyramidal panicle. After flowering (July to September), the dark brown fruits of the poisonous lattice scatter their seeds (umbrella flies). The ancient medicinal plant originated in the Mediterranean region and was introduced throughout Europe by the Romans. Even in the middle of the 19th century, there were huge cultivation areas of poisonous lettuce along the Moselle River. It was even exported to North America. Today, the herb grows wild throughout Europe, West Asia and North Africa. Poison lettuce prefers sunny warm sites on dry, nutrient-rich, weakly alkaline soil and stony subsoils. Its foliage leaves have a bitter pungent taste. If you want to use it as a medicinal plant, you should collect its leaves at flowering time and dry them. The milky sap is tapped before flowering for several months and dried in the sun.
Effect and application
Poison lettuce contains bitter substances, organic acids, gums, inulin, flavonoids, one to two percent carbohydrates, 0.25 percent fat, one to two percent proteins, many fibers, Dihydrolactucin, the glycoside lactuside A, lactucin, jacquinelin, lactucopicrin, sesquiterpene lactones, alpha-lactucerol, beta-lactucerol, and in the milky sap of the stem, beta-amyrin, gennanicol, and taraxasterol. The leaves are boiled into tea and extract in dried and crushed form and used orally. The milky juice is dried and taken as well. In addition, the freshly collected leaves can still be crushed and used for mush poultices (external use). Poison lettuce has a psychoactive effect: it has a sedative and even narcotic effect in higher doses. It calms, relieves pain and has a sleep-inducing effect. It also has cough-irritant, astringent, diuretic and antispasmodic properties. The milky juice is extracted like opium and consumed in a drink or enjoyed pure. With it, however, the patient should be especially careful in dosing, as it has a stronger effect than the entire poisonous lettuce plant (no more than 0.1 to 0.5 grams daily). Those who want to make a tea to treat their nervous restlessness or to dehydrate, take one to two teaspoons of the dried and crushed herb and pour it with 250 milliliters of boiling water. After 15 minutes, he strains the tea and drinks three cups of it throughout the day. The dried leaves can also be chewed or smoked in a pipe. They have a pleasant taste and do not cause a scratchy throat. To prepare the extract, 10 to 20 grams of dried herb is simmered with a liter of water for one to two hours at low heat. The thick extract remaining in the pot after the water evaporates can be diluted with lemon juice. If the patient wishes to use poisonous lettuce to relieve his or her symptoms, however, the dosage should be very low:
Only one to two grams of herb daily are absolutely safe. Much higher doses lead to poisoning with symptoms such as sweating, headache, vomiting, dizziness, stomach pressure, drowsiness, increased need for sleep, unsteady gait, itching skin, rapid heartbeat and shortness of breath. Severe overdose can lead to death from heart failure.
Health significance, treatment, and prevention.
Poison lettuce was used as a highly effective sleep and sedative until 100 years ago. Just five grams of herb is enough to be able to use it in such a way.Responsible for the hyperactivity, nervous restlessness and sleep disorders curing properties is mainly the lactoside A. It has an opium-like effect, without having at the same time its addictive potential. In the 18th and 19th centuries, lactic sap was used as a mild analgesic. Lactucin, dihydrolactucin and lactucopicrin actually showed analgesic properties. The milky sap was also used as an anesthetic during surgery before the invention of chloroform. Poison lettuce is also effective as a cough suppressant. Natural medicine used it to treat chronic mucous catarrh, chronic bronchitis, whooping cough, common cough irritation, dry cough and even bronchial asthma. It was used for its draining effects in gout and rheumatism, and for its antispasmodic properties in intestinal colic and colicky menstrual pain. It also helped in disorders of the female menstrual cycle (dysmenorrhea). Porridge poultices with the fresh crushed leaves of the medicinal plant were applied to areas of the skin affected by couperosis and in chronic eye inflammation with impaired vision. Today, poisonous lettuce is prescribed only as a homeopathic remedy because of its uncertain dosage. Lactuca virosa is obtained from the fresh whole plant collected at flowering time and prescribed as mother tincture in D3 and D4 and teep (one to three tablets daily). Therapeutic indications are insomnia and irritable cough.
