Sim - A medicinal plant that nourishes blood and prevents aging.

According to Oriental medicine, sim fruit has a sweet, astringent taste, neutral properties, and has the effect of promoting blood circulation, stopping bleeding, nourishing blood, and activating the joints. Sim fruit is often used in cases of physical weakness, anemia due to blood loss, anemia due to pregnancy, weakness after illness, nervous breakdown, tinnitus, and spermatorrhea.

In Vietnam, sim is a familiar tree in bare hills, throughout the midland provinces, low mountains, and plains.

Parts used as medicine: leaves, fruits and roots (Folium, Fructus et Radix Rhodomyrti Tomentosae).

Leaves are harvested in summer and used fresh or dried.

Ripe fruit is picked in the fall, washed, drained, steamed, dried, and preserved for use.

Roots are harvested year round, washed to remove dirt and sand, chopped, and dried.

Medicine from blackberry

Blackberry fruit contains a small amount of protein, fat, starch, sugar, red anthocyanin, flavon-glucosides, malvidin-3 glucosides, phenolic compounds, amino acids, and organic acids.

Anthocyanin in blackberry is a natural organic color compound, belonging to the flavonoid group with red color, giving beautiful color, safe, has good biological activities for humans, has the ability to help the body fight cancer, anti-oxidation, anti-ultraviolet, anti-inflammatory, anti-aging.

Blackberry has a sweet, astringent taste, neutral properties, and has the effect of promoting blood circulation, stopping bleeding, nourishing blood, and activating the joints. Often used in cases of physical weakness, anemia due to blood loss, anemia due to pregnancy, weakness after illness, nervous breakdown, tinnitus, and spermatorrhea.

Use 10 - 15g of dried fruit per day, boil in water to drink.

- Blood tonic, kidney tonic, body tonic:

12g dried blackberry, 16g black beans (roasted), 12g ginseng (roasted until fragrant), young mulberry leaves (lightly fried). Cook with 500ml water, reduce to 200ml, divide into 2 doses, drink before meals.

- Pregnant women with anemia, people with weakness after illness:

15 - 20g dried blackberry, wash, cook with 500ml water, reduce to 200ml, divide into 2 doses to drink during the day.

- Women with hemorrhage, hemoptysis:

Dry blackberry fruit is roasted until it has a black residue (like charcoal), ground into fine powder, stored in a jar, tightly sealed for later use.

Drink 12 - 15g each time, with cooled boiled water.

This powder is also used to treat skin wounds.

- Prolapse (rectum protrudes out of the anus):

Fresh blackberry 30 - 60g (dried 10 - 20g), cook with pig stomach, season to taste, eat with meals.

- Dysentery, abdominal cramps, frequent bowel movements, small amount of stool mixed with blood, urge to defecate:

Fresh blackberry 30 - 50g (dried 12 - 20g), wash, boil with water to drink, when drinking, add a little honey.

Wild blackberry

People also process blackberry wine in the following way:

Ripe sim fruit, remove damaged fruit, wash thoroughly, cut off the top, put in a clean jar, marinate with sugar.

For every layer of sim, add a layer of sugar on top. (You can use white sugar or rock sugar powder).

Cover tightly and wait until the sim ferments into wine, then take it out and drink. This water is also called sim honey, it tastes sweet, astringent and has the characteristic aroma of sim.

Or use ripe blackberry fruit, wash thoroughly, drain, puree and ferment with sugar in a certain ratio in an anaerobic environment for 40 - 45 days.

After the product is completely fermented, we will get a pink wine, with a sweet and sour taste like grape wine with an alcohol concentration of about 11.5%.

Blackberry wine helps with digestion, helps you eat well, sleep well, strengthens bones and muscles, prevents aches and pains in the arms and legs, especially in the elderly, and increases the body's resistance.

Medicine from sim leaves

The stem and leaves of the myrtle tree contain many triterpene compounds such as betullin, betulinic acid; taraxerol...

Myrtle leaves also contain many ellagic tannins, when combined with substances from myrtle flowers and myrtle fruit to create a very good medicine to treat hepatitis.

Rhodomyrtone in blackberry leaves acts as an antibiotic, helping to fight against the invasion of bacteria such as escherichia coli and staphylococcus aureus, which are bacteria that cause food poisoning and digestive disorders.

According to Oriental medicine, sim leaves have a sweet, astringent taste, neutral properties, and the effect of relieving pain, stopping bleeding, dispersing heat toxins, eliminating pus, and regenerating tissue. Used to treat headaches, diarrhea, bleeding from external injuries, scabies, foot ulcers, etc. Use 12-16g of dried leaves (25-30g fresh) per day, decoct and drink.

Myrtle leaves are used to make a paste, used to treat burns with very good results. Myrtle leaf paste does not cause pain, quickly relieves pain, prevents the spread of ulcers, cleans and dries the wound and heals quickly.

How to make: 1kg of blackberry leaves, wash, chop, cook with 20 liters of water, cook many times then concentrate into 250g of extract.

Apply several times a day to the burn, usually only takes about 10 - 12 days to see results.

Medicine from sim buds

Blackberry buds contain a lot of tannin, nicotinic acid, flavonic acid, riboflavin...

According to Oriental medicine, sim buds have a sweet, astringent taste, neutral properties, and the effect of stopping bleeding, eliminating heat toxins, reducing pus, and stopping diarrhea. Used to treat diarrhea and dysentery.

Use 8 - 10g per day, decoct and drink.

For external use, boil in concentrated water, use to wash wounds and ulcers.

- Treatment of diarrhea caused by cold:

8 - 10g rose myrtle buds, 8 - 10g fresh ginger (grilled until the outer skin is burnt), 10 - 12g galangal, 10 - 12g lemongrass. Roast all until cooked, cook with 500ml of water, reduce to 200ml, divide into 2 doses to drink before meals.

- Treatment of diarrhea caused by heat:

Blackberry buds 8 - 10g, tea buds 12 - 16g. Wash both ingredients, boil with 500ml of water, reduce to 200ml, divide into 2 doses to drink before meals.

- Treatment of dysentery:

20-30g of blackberry buds, cook with 500ml of water, reduce to 200ml, divide into 2 doses to drink before meals.

Medicine from sim root

Blackberry root has a sweet, slightly sour taste, neutral properties, and the effect of expelling wind, eliminating dampness, activating the joints, astringent, stopping bleeding, and stopping diarrhea. It is often used to treat rheumatism, joint pain, back pain, infectious hepatitis, dysentery, acute gastroenteritis, indigestion, uterine bleeding, and prolapse.

Use 15 - 30g dry per day, decoct and drink.

For external use, roast until burnt, grind into fine powder, mix with sesame oil and apply to treat burns.

- Acute infectious hepatitis:

30g dried sim root, boil with 500ml water, reduce to 200ml, divide into 2 doses to drink after meals. Each course of treatment is 20 days.

If jaundice is severe, add the following medicinal herbs: 15g each of Chinese angelica root, Chinese clematis root, and white flower snake grass, 30g of chicken bone grass, boil with 750ml of water until 300ml remains, divide into 2 doses to drink after meals.

- Rheumatism, aching joints: 60g dried sim root, boil to get the water, mix with a little alcohol to drink.

- Back pain, rheumatism, joint pain: 30g sim root, 10g sedge root, 10g piper lolot leaf, 12g smilax glabra, 12g acanthopanax (or cylindrica), 10g cogon root. Cook with 750 ml, reduce to 200 ml, divide into 2 doses to drink before meals.

Sim leaves, sim buds and sim roots contain a lot of tannins so people with constipation due to heat should not drink them.

In addition to the above-mentioned sim tree, there is also a type of sim called wild sim (three-veined sim, small sim) that grows in secondary forests and on wild hills in the midlands. Wild sim has the scientific name Rhodamnia dumetorum (Poir) Mern. Et Perry. Wild sim fruit is edible, the parts used as medicine are the fruit, leaves, and roots. The effects are the same as the above-mentioned sim species.

One thing to note is that, in addition to being a precious medicinal plant, the sim tree also has the effect of retaining soil and water, preventing erosion and color loss, and is an important vegetation to maintain water resources for highlands. It takes more than ten years for a mature sim tree to grow, so it is best to exploit the sim fruit for use as food and medicine.

The roots of the sim tree should only be used as medicine when absolutely necessary (there is no other medicine). The destruction of the sim tree for its roots is an alarming act and must be stopped promptly.

According to Health and Life