Salep

SALEP, orchis, the name of a number of plants of the family Orchis: Orchis militaris, Orchis maculata, Orchis morio, Platanthera bifolia, and others. The tubers of Salep (Tubera Salep), which are scalded in boiling water (blanched) and dried tubers of the named plants, have medical applications. Orchises are herbaceous biennial plants distributed throughout Europe, Central Asia, and partly Northern Asia. The tuberous roots of the orchis are collected shortly after the plant finishes flowering, and only fresh ones; last year's ones are not subject to harvesting. Young juicy tuberous roots are cut from the previous year's ones and from the rootlets, and then, having strung a certain number on a thread, they are scalded in boiling water and dried in the sun. Salep tubers have the appearance of oval, egg-shaped, or other shaped pieces, 1-3 cm long, 0.9 to 2 cm thick, brownish or grayish-yellow. The surface is slightly wrinkled, the fracture is horny, almost white, translucent. There is no odor (the fresh tuber has an odor similar to semen), the taste is purely mucilaginous. By taste, Salep tubers are distinguished from similar tubers of the poisonous wolf's bane (aconite), which have a burning taste. Composition of Salep tubers: mucilage (carbohydrate) 35-40%, containing paramannan-hexosan, yielding isomannose upon hydrolysis; Salep mucilage is colored brownish-red by a solution of iodine with potassium iodide; precipitated by alcohol, lead vinegar, but not by lead acetate salt; then starch (in the form of paste, as a result of blanching) - 20-28%, sugar - about 1%, protein - about 5%, ash - up to 2%, fiber, etc. The medicinal value of Salep lies in its mucilage. In case a physician prescribes Decoctum Salep or Mucilago Salep, one prepares not a decoction, but a mucilage in the ratio of 1 part of the tuber to 100 parts of water by extracting the mucilage with water from material crushed to grains with a diameter of 0.2-1 mm. In this case, Salep powder is mixed with a small amount of cold water, allowed to swell, and then the tuber mass is poured over with boiling water. In this way, clumping of the material into lumps that are subsequently difficult for water to penetrate is prevented. The finished Salep mucilage is strained through gauze from large particles. Salep is used as a mucilaginous medicine, mainly in pediatric practice, in mixtures. The use of Salep in folk medicine as an aphrodisiac is based on superstition.

I. Ögergard.