Rhus glabra

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Common Sumach.)

Botanical Description. — Rhus glabrum (or smooth sumach), is a shrub from six to fifteen feet high, consisting of many straggling, glabrous branches, covered with a pale, gray bark, having often a reddish tint.

The leaves are alternate, odd-pinnate, and consisting of from six to fifteen leaflets, about three inches long and one-fourth as wide, lanceolate, acuminate, acutely serrate, shining and green above, whitish beneath, sessile, except sometimes the terminal odd one ; during the fall they become red.

The flowers are greenish-red, and arranged in terminal, thyrsoid, dense panicles. Calyx of three sepals united at base ; petals five; stamens five; inserted into the edge or between the lobes of a flattened disk in the bottom of the calyx; styles three; stigmas capitate.

Fruit, a small red drupe, hanging in clusters, and when ripe covered with a crimson down, which is extremely sour to the taste, owing to the presence of malic acid in combination with lime.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the bark or leaves; dilutions.

[A tincture of the berries should be proven. (Hale. )]

Analogues. — Acidum gallicum, Acidxtm tannicum, Alnus, Baptisia, Borax, China, Geranium, Galium, Hamamelis, Hydrastis, Myrica.

Mental Sphere.

Weakness of memory, with much indifference to surrounding objects.

Head.

Dull, aching pain in the frontal and upper portion of the head! Fullness and pain in the top of the head.

° Occipital headache, usually of a rheumatic character. (Dr. Lilienthal says he has verified, over and over again, the recommendation of Dr. Burdick, as to its use in occipital: headache. He cures with the 1st, the 200th and 1,000th;. and says, " It differs materially in its symptoms from; Silicia and Gelseminum") Nose.

Hemorrhage from the left nostril. Bloody scabs in the left nostril. ° Epistaxis.

Mouth and Throat.

• Hemorrhage from the mouth.

• On waking, clots of blood are expelled from the throat.

• Small ulcers in the mouth.

"Nursing sore mouth; aphthous stomatitis.

° Sea-scurvy, and scorbutic affections generally.

Stomach and Abdomen. Distressing pain in the stomach, worse by eating or drinking. Tenderness on pressure in the umbilical region. Sharp, cutting pains in the abdomen. ° Diarrhoea. ° Dysentery. ° Bleeding piles. 0 Diarrhoea, with spongy gums, vitiated appetite and swollen abdomen.

Respiratory Organs.

0 Chronic hoarseness, with asthmatic troubles. {Hale.) ° "Heaves" — in horses. (A popular domestic remedy.)

Urinary Organs. Scanty, high-colored urine.

Fever.

Skin hot and dry, with thirst. * Profuse night sweats.

Feeling of coldness, while there is an actual increase of heat in the skin.

° Some of the conditions of typhoid fever, diarrhoea, scurvy, etc.

° Hectic fever, with night sweats.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

There are several varieties of this plant, as the R. typhina, staghorn or velvet Sumach, the R. copallina, mountain or dwarf Sumach, and R. aromatica, which possess similar virtues. These must be carefully distinguished from those which possess poisonous properties. The non-poisonous species have their fruit clothed with acid crimson hairs, and their panicles are compound, dense, and terminal. The poisonous varieties have axillary panicles and smooth fruit.

We have but a fragmentary proving of R. glabrum, by Dr. Marshall, of Vermont, which, however, gives us some characteristic symptoms.

I will quote some eclectic authorities, that you may see what they think of this species.

Rafinesque, with his usual dogmatic brevity, remarks :

Roots, antisyphilitic, used in dropsy, and externally in rheumatism. Leaves, good astringent for all fluxes ; gum, similar to Copal, cures toothache when put in hollow teeth. Berries used in dysentery, rheumatism, dyspepsia, sore-throat, putrid fever, haemorrhage, gangrene. Seeds, in powder, used for piles and wounds. The juice cures warts and tetters.

Dr. King says :

Sumach bark is tonic, astringent, antiseptic. The berries refrigerant and diuretic. The bark of the root has been found useful in gonorrhoea, leucorrhoea, diarrhoea, dysentery, hectic fever, and scrofula.

His estimate of its virtues is nearly the same that he would accord to any simple astringent medicine. He does not seem to intimate anything peculiar about its physiological action.

Dr. Paine says of Rhusin :

This remedy exerts a healthful influence upon the blood and digestive organs. In many cases of obstinate diarrhoea, where the gums are spongy, the tissues soft, appetite vitiated, belly prominent, and other symptoms of a strong scorbutic diathesis, this article has been very beneficial. It is valuable in many cases of cholera infantum. In a case of sea scurvy, of malignant character, I administered ten grains of the 1st trituration with one-half grain Ferri carb., every three hours, each dose being followed by a teaspoonful of lemon syrup. This treatment was followed by prompt relief, and in a short time a permanent cure was effected.

In dysentery, resulting from the presence of zymotic poison, as hospital and camp dysentery, great benefit has resulted from this drug in combination with Gelseminum and Quinine.

In many cases of chronic ulceration of the bowels and disorganization of the tissues, resulting from typhus and typhoid fevers, I have combined Rhusin with Ptelin and Sulphate of potassa, and obtained valuable results.' Externally, this remedy serves as one of the most valuable applications we possess in violent ulcerations and haemorrhoids. Ten grains, triturated in an ounce of Glycerin, forms a valuable ointment. This mixture is quite serviceable in aphthous sore mouth, ulcerations of the throat following scarlatina and diphtheria, and in chancres and syphilitic ulcers.

Dr. Scudder remarks that the decoction is useful in profuse perspiration arising from debility; also that a free use of the bark will produce catharsis.

Dr. Coe defines the properties of Rhusin as tonic, astringent, and antiseptic. He employs it in diarrhoea, dysentery, aphthous and mercurial sore mouth, diabetes, leucorrhoea, gonorrhoea, hectic fever, and scrofula. He says :

Rhusin may justly be classed among the most valuable of the astringent tonics. It exercises a peculiar sanative influence over mucous membranes, and is invaluable in the treatment of many forms of disease affecting those surfaces. Being powerfully antiseptic, it is particularly useful in all cases manifesting a tendency to putrescency. In diarrhoea and dysentery, after the morbid accumulations have been removed by appropriate remedies, and the sthenic symptoms are measurably controlled, the Rhusin will be found of essential service in restraining and toning the action of the bowels. For this purpose it may be given in two-grain doses every two hours.

The remedial value of Rhusin is best displayed in the treatment of aphthous

and mercurial affections of the mucous surfaces. The various forms of stomatitis afford a wide range for its employment.

We know of no more useful agent in the treatment of the distressing sequelae that sometimes follow the use of mercurials. It has been employed with advantage in hectic fever. In scrofula also, particularly those cases involving the mucous surfaces. The Rhusin is an appropriate remedy in the diarrhoea of typhoid fever, and in all cases where a putrescent tendency is manifested.

To the above medical history I will add some observations of my own.

The infusion of the root has a wide popularity among the country people for the cure of diarrhoea and dysentery, especially adynamic dysentery, when the discharges are fetid and bloody. I have known several apparently severe cases cured by this medicine, in the hands of nurses who took the cases from allopathic physicians. I never used it in such cases, being well satisfied with the success of our tried remedies.

The berries have a large popularity as a remedy for chronic hoarseness, wheezing coughs, and laryngeal asthma, so-called.

I once had a patron who was subject to attacks, every spring, of laryngeal cough with dyspnoea and almost complete loss of voice. He always resorted to a tincture of the berries. (The whole panicle was used — he called them “ Sumach-bobs.”)

The farmers are in the habit of placing these “ bobs ” in the mangers, or mixing them with the food of the horses that have the “ heaves.” A confidence in their efficacy in such cases is quite common. As heaves is a kind of asthma, probably from disease of the larynx (or emphysema), it would seem to show that the Sumach had really some specific relation to the pulmonary organs.

The only proving I have obtained is given in Vol. I. It is quite suggestive, and if verified by others will place this medicine in a higher position than it has heretofore occupied.

[The proving of Dr. Marshall, although only fragmentary, is another verification of the principle I have always contended for, namely, that a proving of any drug will show that all the cures made by physicians of other schools, with such drugs, were homoeopathic cures. For example, Dr. Marshall gets “ nigh tsweats,” “ ulcers in the mouth,” “ diarrhoea,” and “ haemorrhages,” and these symptoms are those which eclectics declare the Sumach will cure.]

Dr. Lilienthal reports, somewhere, several cures of very severe occipital headaches with the Rhus glabrum ; this is one of the cases where we get a curative symptom before we do the pathogenetic.

Although this Rhus does not, in the proving, develop any of the peculiar skin symptoms, yet it seems, in this headache and some other of its symptoms, to possess some of the properties which would lead us to consider it as having the same or similar effects on certain of the nerve-centres as the Rhus tox. ; in fact, I think it could not belong to the Anacardiaceae unless it had some effects in common with other plants of the same family.