Red Root

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King's American Dispensatory.

 

by Harvey Wickes Felter, M.D., and John Uri Lloyd, Phr. M., Ph. D.:

 

 

 

 

Lachnanthes.—Lachnanthes.

 

The whole plant Lachnanthes tinctoria, Elliott.

 

Nat. Ord.—Haemodoraceae.

 

Common Names: Red root, Spirit weed.

 

Botanical Source.—This is a perennial plant, introduced into

practice by the Homoeopaths. It has a red fibrous root, and an erect

stem, strict, 18 to 24 inches high, clothed with white wool above.

The leaves are mostly radical, fleshy, equitant, sword-shaped, 3 to 4

inches wide, and nearly as high as the stem; the cauline leaves

remote and bract-like. The corymb is terminal, close, 15 to

30-flowered; the flowers densely clothed with white wool outside,

glabrous and yellow within. Perianth woolly outside, 6-parted down

to the adherent ovary. Calyx lobes exterior, of 3 linear sepals, as

long as the 3 lance-oblong petals. Stamens 3, opposite the sepals;

filaments long, exserted; anthers linear, bright-yellow. Style

thread-like, exserted, declined; stigma minutely 2-lobed. Capsule

globular, truncated, 3-celled, many-seeded; seeds few on each

fleshy placenta, flat and rounded, fixed by the middle (W.—G.).

 

History.—This plant is a native of the United States, growing in

sandy swamps and along borders of ponds, near the Atlantic coast,

from Rhode Island to Florida, flowering in July. The root has been

used for dyeing purposes, and, according to Dr. Byron, has been

used among the Florida Indians to produce a brilliancy of the eye, a

flushed and swollen face, a bold appearance, and eloquent

speaking; after these peculiar stimulating effects pass off, the

person becomes stupid and very irritable. The method of employing

it is to make the whole plant into a saturated tincture.

 

Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage.—Large doses of lachnanthes

produce dilatation of the pupils, impaired vision, dizziness, and

other unpleasant symptoms, somewhat similar to those produced

by belladonna. Lachnanthes has been more particularly

recommended in pneumonia, nervous and typhus fevers, some

diseases of the brain, in the delirium of fever, in morbid conditions

of the brain and nervous system, especially when in these several

maladies redness of the cheeks and brilliancy of the eyes are

accompanying symptoms. It has also been efficient in rheumatic

wry neck, hoarseness, laryngeal cough, tinnitus aurium, and in

nervous headache. A fluid drachm of the tincture added to 4 fluid

ounces of water, and administered in fluid drachm doses, every 3 or

4 hours, is the proper method of administering it.