In ancient times, it was called Baomao, which was used to shrink wine and offer sacrifices to the ancestors of heaven and earth. During the Zhou Dynasty, the State of Chu mainly paid tribute to Bao Mao and presented citronella to the Emperor of Zhou.

Scientific name: citronella

Citrate.

English name: Lemongrass

Category: Gramineae

Utilization part: mainly leaves, and leaf sheaths can also be used when extracting essential oil.

Flavor characteristics: Lemon has a strong aroma.

Household: You can put drinking water instead of lemon, that is, ready-made lemonade, and the leaves can be made into great dried flowers, which can continuously emit lemon fragrance.

Citronella is a kind of thatched spice growing in subtropical zone, which naturally contains lemon fragrance and has the effects of clearing stomach, waking up and strengthening yang. There are wild ones near Kunming.

pharmacodynamics

Antiasthmatic effect

For guinea pig bronchospasm caused by histamine spray, intramuscular injection of 2.4ml/kg of volatile oil (cloud sesame oil) in Brassica napus has obvious antagonistic effect, and piperidone isolated from cloud sesame oil has the same or stronger effect at 1.2ml/kg, while piperidone sodium bisulfite has no significant effect. It has obvious direct dilating effect on isolated guinea pig bronchial smooth muscle, sesame oil and piperidone, and the latter is more than 1 times larger than the former and stronger than aminophylline. The effect of sodium thiosulfate and piperidone is weak and unstable.

Cough relieving effect

Sesame oil and piperidone (2.4ml/kg, intramuscular injection) have obvious inhibitory effects on cough reflex induced by electrical stimulation of superior laryngeal nerve in guinea pigs. When the dosage of the latter is halved, the effect is still stronger than that of sesame oil. Piperidone sodium bisulfite has no obvious effect. High dose of sesame oil or piperidone has obvious central inhibitory effect on guinea pigs, and when the latter is used to 2.4ml/kg, the anesthetic effect of pentobarbital sodium can be significantly enhanced. Therefore, whether their antitussive effect selectively inhibits the cough center or because of their general central inhibitory effect is still inconclusive.

Antibiotic action

18 kinds of bacteria, such as Streptococcus A, Streptococcus B, Pneumococcus, Staphylococcus aureus, etc. Isolated from the sputum of elderly patients with chronic tracheitis. Paper method proved that both cloud sesame oil and piperidone had certain antibacterial effect, while sodium bisulfite piperidone had no antibacterial effect. Piperidone has obvious antagonistic effect on allergic bronchospasm induced by egg white protein in guinea pigs. Intramuscular injection of 0.8ml/kg can prevent convulsion, but some guinea pigs still have dyspnea or mild purpura symptoms. If intramuscular injection of 1.2ml/kg can completely protect guinea pigs from any reaction; Piperidone aerosol inhalation for 65438 0 minutes can antagonize the smooth muscle of guinea pig bronchospasm caused by histamine, but does not improve the spasmolytic effect; Perfusion of saturated aqueous solution into isolated guinea pig bronchus has normal or spasmolytic effect, but prolonging inhalation time does not improve spasmolytic effect. Perfusion of its saturated aqueous solution into isolated guinea pig bronchus has obvious dilating effect on normal or spasmodic smooth muscle. The isolated tracheal test of guinea pigs showed that the relaxation effect of piperidone on smooth muscle generally did not block histamine or acetylcholine receptors.