- Carminativo
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Carminativo
Un carminativo es un medicamento o sustancia que favorece la expulsión de los gases del tubo digestivo y con ello disminuyen las flatulencias y cólicos. El efecto se refiere a un efecto antiespasmódico en los músculos estomacales lisos y a un efecto de disminución de la fermentación en la flora intestinal.
Contenido
En la medicina moderna
La medicina moderna utiliza el simeticón (simethicone, en inglés), que en lugar de tener un efecto antiespasmódico, disminuye la tensión superficial en las burbujas de gas.
Herbolaria
Algunas plantas o especias con propiedades carminativas:
- Ajenjo (ajorizo, artemisia amarga o hierba santa)
- Albahaca
- Anís (en semilla)
- Asafétida
- Azafrán
- Cálamus
- Cardamomo
- Cebolla
- Cilantro (coriandro o culantro)
- Comino (alcaravea, alcarahueya, alcaravia, carvia o comino de prado)
- Eneldo
- Epazote
- Hinojo
- Jengibre
- Manzanilla
- Mejorana (mayorana)
- Melisa (citronela o toronjil)
- Menta piperina (piperita, monte yuyo o toronjil de menta)
- Muña (peperina)
- Nuez moscada
- Orégano
- Regaliz
- Romero
- Tomillo
- Yerbabuena (hierbabuena o menta verde)
Referencias literarias
En la novela Crome Yellow del escritor inglés Aldous Huxley aparece un pasaje (en el capítulo 20) en la que el autor describe la palabra “carminativo” con la sorna que caracteriza buena parte de su obra. El personaje Denis explica cuán desafortunado es que algunas palabras no tengan el significado que potencialmente suscita su fonética.[1]
"I was putting forward the notion," Denis went on, "that the effects of love were often similar to the effects of wine, that Eros could intoxicate as well as Bacchus. Love, for example, is essentiallycarminative. It gives one the sense of warmth, the glow.
'And passion carminative as wine...'
was what I wrote. Not only was the line elegantly sonorous; it was also, I flattered myself, very aptly compendiously expressive. Everything was in the word carminative--a detailed, exact foreground, an immense, indefinite hinterland of suggestion.
'And passion carminative as wine...'
I was not ill-pleased. And then suddenly it occurred to me that I had never actually looked up the word in a dictionary. Carminative had grown up with me from the days of the cinnamon bottle. It had always been taken for granted. Carminative: for me the word was as rich in content as some tremendous, elaborate work of art; it was a complete landscape with figures.
'And passion carminative as wine...'
It was the first time I had ever committed the word to writing, and all at once I felt I would like lexicographical authority for it. A small English-German dictionary was all I had at hand. I turned up C, ca, car, carm. There it was: 'Carminative: windtreibend.' Windtreibend!" he repeated. Mr. Scogan laughed. Denis shook his head. "Ah," he said, "for me it was no laughing matter. For me it marked the end of a chapter, the death of something young and precious. There were the years--years of childhood and innocence--when I had believed that carminative meant--well, carminative. And now, before me lies the rest of my life--a day, perhaps, ten years, half a century, when I shall know that carminative means windtreibend.
Aldous Huxley, Crome YellowReferencias
- ↑ En Gutenberg.org se encuentra el texto original en inglés de la novela Crome Yellow, de Aldous Huxley; ver capítulo 20.
Enlaces externos
- MerckMedicus.com (uso de aceites de esencias; en inglés).
- NaturalHealthWizards.com (diccionario de propiedades de las hierbas; archivo pdf; en inglés).
Categorías: Medicina alternativa | Farmacología clínica | Especias
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