Show 253: Rhododendron and Sumac

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The name down to the clan, the clan to the.

Speaker 2 (01:30):
Hey, y'all, welcome this week's show. Today we'll talk about
probably two medicinal shrubs. They're both very interesting, both very different,
both very misunderstood. I think that would be a good
way to describe them. The first is rhododendron, and rhododendron
is like probably my most iconic plant of the Blue

(01:56):
Ridge Mountains. I mean, we have the rhodendron festival over
in Run Mountains, just like I don't know, ten miles
from my house. People come from all over to see
the road of dendron when they're in bloom. They're absolutely beautiful.
They're also very poisonous. They do have some use in
herbal medicine, but they're not one you want to be

(02:17):
messing around with. And there's a lot of bad information
out there that gets a lot of people herd are
actually killed because they took bad advice from a book.
So I'm going to try to kind of clear that up.
And then the other one is sumac, and people think
sumac's poisonous when it's not not. The ruist species now

(02:42):
poisoned Sumac toxodendron, totally different plant. People get them confused,
and so people are afraid of the plant that is
pretty I don't know, innocuous and reckless. I guess I
would say with plant that's fairly poisonous. So I want
to talk about that a little bit. The rhododendron, they

(03:07):
all have varying levels of toxicity, and they're related to
the azalea. They're related to mountain laurel or lamb kill,
sheep kill. We've talked about that one before. The I guess,
let me think there are eighteen varieties that have been
found used for in herbal medicine. So I mean it's

(03:28):
not one to get too upset about, but you do
want to know what you're dealing with. I mean, like
I said, people come from all over to see the
beautiful rhododentron in my area. I mean most of them
are purple. We also have orange ones also usually called
a mountain laurel, but that's actually a flame azalea. But
we have I don't even know, we have probably a

(03:52):
dozen varieties of rhodendron that grow wild all around me.
And then you're going to swamp your areas. There are
a couple there, like MP rhododendron. But yeah, I mean
they're just gorgeous and the wood is actually very very
good for carving spoons. It was actually called spoon wood
in Europe. Beautiful wood to carve, easy wood to carve,

(04:15):
wonderful shapes, natural bins and curves. I love rhododendron. I
have tons of it in my yard. That's it. That's it.
There are some, you know, old books from like the
sixties and such, written by hippies and everything that recommend
people's smoke rhododendron blossoms not blossom. Sorry, buds, that's a

(04:41):
really really bad idea. That's a really really really bad idea.
One they would have. They have to be picked at
the right time and properly dried. But two, they are poisonous,
and yeah, they may make you a little high, but

(05:02):
they can also make you very dead. More than likely,
they're going to make you throw up and be dizzy. Okay,
but it just depends on how strong the toxin is
in that plant, And you don't know until you've tried it,
and you could be in the hospital and anyway you
look at it, you're going to be really nauseous and

(05:23):
you kind of turn green. See a lot of kids
to do that, you know, high school kids, college kids.
They get hold of that bad information from an old
book and they go out and try it, just like
with Jimson weed, just like with so many things, and
they're lucky if they just get sick. And I'm serious,

(05:43):
it really bothers me that, I mean, so give my
old hometown. There were a couple of bookstores that carried
verbal books. One of them was like two of them,
let me think, okay, with three. Three stores carried herbs.
Was a health food store. Everything very professional and up

(06:04):
to date information in the books, and the books on
the shelf were pretty good. The other two one was
a new age hippie smelled of incense, you know, got
the tinkling chimes and everything when you walk in, and
everybody's got, you know, willowy women in long dresses with

(06:25):
armpit hair. You know the place right, And they had
a lot of really unreliable books on the shelf along
these lines. Now. The third was what we called a
head shop. It was just a pot shop and you know,
smoking supplies and accessories and tight eyed T shirts and
all that kind of thing. And their selection of verbs

(06:46):
was fantastic. Actually they bought locally. But the books were
again incredibly irresponsible. There were so many books in there
in both of those two shops that had information in
their bad advice that would absolutely kill you. And I

(07:06):
don't understand that. I don't know why people keep one.
I mean, you really should have some working experience with
the herbs before you write about them. But I mean,
take this quote from Culpeper. Culpepper or English herb was
eighteen sixty. He's speaking of rhododendron, which he classifies as

(07:29):
a type of azalea, and technically they are very closely related.
He said that it has a pleasing aromatic smell resembling
that of lemons. Well it doesn't not our American versions.
A cordial of it is strengthening it comfort of the
head and the stomach, removes palpitations of the heart, helps
the vertigo or the giddiness and swimmings of the head,

(07:50):
and is greatly extolled by many as a nervous and
hypochond and hypochondriacal disorders. No mention of all the text
of toxicity. Now, could it be the case that whatever
variety of rhododendron or azalia he was writing about does
not have poisonous qualities maybe, But you know, these plants

(08:14):
I believe are in the Aircacier family. I know several
azalias are now on the surface. What's another aircacia Well,
it's the same family of plants as blueberry, so no
big deal, right, But it also has heaths in it,
and different heaths or heathers I can't remember, but anyway,
it has different members of the family that are extremely toxic.

(08:36):
Some of them have psychoactive properties that can make one
hallucinate and be very dizzy and actually fall into a
coma and die. Some of them are so strong that
the honey made from the flowers by the bees will
make you giddy as they used to call it, and
then induce coma and death. So very fine line between

(09:00):
giddiness and coma and death or convulsions seizures. Yeah, I
mean seriously. And so many of those books, especially the
ones that were like written by I'll tell you a
secret that a lot of people don't know. If you

(09:24):
were around in the seventies, eighties, nineties, or you found
magazines from that era, I did. I collected a lot
of old rolling stones from the sixties and seventies more seventies,
I guess, but you know, they were really fun to read,
and I love you know, there's always a big Deadhead
and Indigenus Joplin and all that. So I would when

(09:45):
I found, like there was antique store that had some
old publications, and I'd grab an old Rolling Stone magazine
and it started that period. In the back there were
all these ads for like books about herbs that would
get you high, or natural herbal products supposedly that were

(10:05):
alternative to illegal drugs, and all kinds of stuff in
the backs of those magazines. And High Times was another
one that was very big on that. What most people
don't know is the owner of the companies that made
those products and wrote those books was Larry Flint of
Penthouse Magazine fame. One of the most disgusting people to

(10:30):
ever walked face the earth. Totally immoral, totally, I don't
even know what you could say about him, and he did.
I think he even had an ownership interest at one
point in maybe High Times or a magazine like that.
It could have been Easy Rider. I mean, you know,
one of those just released, you know, kind of sleazy magazines,

(10:50):
but wasn't necessarily porn, but it wasn't good either. But
he had vitamin companies, so called vitamin and supplement companies,
and they put out not only products that were probably
pretty dangerous. I mean I remember an ad for one
of them called coke snuff. It was supposed to be
an herbal alternative to cocaine, and you would put it

(11:13):
between your cheek and gum like you would chewing tobacco,
or as was implied, snuff it up your nose. And
I think it may have been made of garwana, which
is essentially a super highly caffeinated plant. Could have even
been a beetlenut. Yes, they did sell beetlenut, a very

(11:39):
very strong stimulant. The kind of stuff you see in
gas stations today is really you know, they call the
karadam or kratim type products of the THHC type products
really mild in comparison to what was being sold in
the seventies and eighties or those magazines through companies owned
by Larry Flint, and he made a whole lot of
money off of them. I think they eventually transitioned into

(12:02):
energy drinks. And you remember, like four Loco was not,
as as far as I know, a company he owned,
but they were like alternatives to four loco and it
was called like blackout in the can. I mean, these
were really dangerous kind of stuff. Actually you could have
a heart attack, and it was an all natural product,
and that caused a lot of backlash by the FDA.

(12:23):
It really hurt the herbal the legitimate herbal industry. But
in those two shops, the New Age Shop and the
head Shop, the books were a lot of the publications
by either you know, companies he owned or similar and
they would have advice like you can get high smoking
rhododendron buds, you can get dead smoking rhododendron buds, you know,

(12:46):
or gems and weed or I mean so many things, right,
but they didn't really one they shouldn't have even been
putting the information out there, but they definitely should have
come with a caveat a disclaimer like I'm doing now.
So anyway, moving on to definitely our native rhododendron. The

(13:07):
Cherokee use the flame azilia. Now that's one's often called
mountain laurel, but that's more properly lamb killer sheep's kill.
That's related but different as they would take the twig,
the flame aze that's basically the orange azalea, okay, and

(13:30):
or small rhododendron if you want to look at it
that way, okay. So they take the twig and boil
it and rub it on the skin for rheumatism, so
good for arthritis, not use internally. The great rhotodendron, which
is the one that everybody comes up the mountain to see,
one of the big beautiful purple flowers, was used in
it as an ingredient in a medicine for muscle soreness

(13:52):
and for shifting pains, and that was a leaf decoction.
They also used the calm, which is the lamb to
kill sheep, kill externally only because the lamb killed sheep.
Skill calmeoladifolia, which we talked abou a few weeks ago,
was used as a poison to commit suicide. So the

(14:16):
Cherokee did not use rhododendron internally. The earliest probably the
earliest American herbal if not the earliest, and one of
the first, was towards an American materia medica, which was
when they started basically combining European herbs with what they
were learning from the natives. They said it States. Before

(14:40):
I take leave of these poisonous plants, I may menation
some others whose properties are but little known. The first
is Rhododendron maximum or Pennsylvania Mountain laurel, and it is
certainly poisonous. It is a species of the same genus
as genus as rhododendron chrysanthemum that's had a name changed,
by the way, which has acquired much reputation as a

(15:02):
cure for chronic rheumatism. Again, we're talking externally nearly allied
to rhododendrous calmea. And I just told you, as he mentions,
it's called sheep kill because it kills sheep or other
animals that grazed on it, and our Indians sometimes use
it a coction of it to destroy themselves. So very

(15:25):
very poisonous, very very poisonous. But that doesn't mean these
plants don't have some legitimate use resources of southern fields
and forests. Rites of Rhododendron maximum grows in the mountains.
This one we have up here, grandifolia, or the big rhododendron,
is basically all it means. It's it has a resin

(15:49):
as a stringent, and the leaves contain tannin, but it
is poisonous and has a narcotic power, although the narcotic
power is doubted by some such as Bigelow, who swallowed
an entire leaf with no bad effects. Take that with
a grain of salt, but it is certainly poisonous. The
brown powder attached to this footstalks possesses a considerable power

(16:12):
as an air ring. And the purple variety variety is
the most beautiful, and he found a bunch of in
South Carolina. Let's see if I get more specific uses
we go. King's medical dispensatory yellow rhododydron contains a stimulant
narcotic principle. It increases the heat of the body, excites thirst,
and produces diaphoreses or an increased discharge of other secretions

(16:37):
and excretions, which are generally followed by a decrease of
action in the arterial system. With some persons, it causes
catharsis and ebriation and delirium. The Siberian variety was apparently
used in medicine at the time for rheumatism and gout.
Now that's probably not very similar to our native varieties.

(17:05):
They do mention It was considered a valuable remedy in Russian, Germany,
sometimes France and England, but not in this country or scarcely.
They said. It possesses the decided control over circulation, acting
like a sedative, slowing the quickened pulse by giving increased
heart power and removing capillary obstruction. So you know, used

(17:30):
by a professional maybe for certain heart conditions or circulatory conditions,
but not for the amateur by any means. Good for
my alagic pain, whether rheumatic or not, especially the facial
and ocular region, appears to be the indication for its use.
It has been employed in acute testicular in a variant

(17:52):
affections as well as chronic basically painful conditions. The dose
should be minute, from a fraction of a drop to
a drop of saturated tincture. Probably our native species would
be as effective. I don't like to take probably for anything,
but of the Siberian variety. Specific indications and uses for

(18:15):
myalgic pain, especially the pain of the pain of the
face and the ocular muscles. Now modern use, we're going
to look at plants for future medicinal use of rose
Bay rhodendron. The poltice leaves are used to relieve arthritic
pain headaches. So again we're talking external poltice leaves, a

(18:36):
decoction of the leaves. It's occasionally employed internally in domestic
treatment of rheumatism. The leaves are taken internally in a
controlled dosage for the treatment of heart ailments. Cautionous advice
see notes on toxicity tox soxicity. There we go, and
undernown hazards. They say the leaves are poisonous, ingestion can

(18:58):
cause convulsions, and the pollen of many, if not all,
species of rhododendron is also toxic, being said to cause
intoxication when eaten in quantity. So I think it's enough
set on rhododendron. Like Mount Laurel lambkill. You know, it

(19:20):
has some limited use and probably always best used externally
and never internally. But it, you know, also give me
a very good excuse to go on a little bit
of rant about a lot of the herb books out
there that are actually written by pretty shady people. And

(19:42):
you know, some of them are just ignorant, some of
them some of them are really really shady, I mean,
and a lot of them, especially that encourage you know,
psychedelic drug use. I mean, gosh, what's the perfect examp? Well?
Carlos Castaneda. Carlos Castaneda's books were wildly popular in the

(20:06):
seventies and eighties, wildly popular. He got people out there
trying paote and ayahusca and mushrooms and who knows what
all else? Right, And it was supposed to be, you know,
this shamanic experience. You were supposed to have enlightenment, you
were supposed to who knows what? All right? He made

(20:30):
it all up. There were all works of fiction that
he presented his fact. He went to the library and
did research on various New Age or pagan religions. A
lot of it kn't remember. Was Tibetan anyway, may Hindu anyway.

(20:51):
A lot of what he came up with was from
Eastern ancient Eastern religions and legends and myths. He then
created a character named Don Juan, a Mexican shaman Indian guy,
and super imposed Asian mythology and pagan traditional belief onto

(21:17):
Mexican Indians who had completely different beliefs and didn't practice
and think at all what he was saying. And a
lot of stuff about aliens and various New Age beliefs
and said that, you know, he had been on this
anthropological journey in Mexico and met this shaman who introduced

(21:39):
him to psilocybin, mushrooms and peyote, and he, you know,
suddenly had was enlightened and had magical powers. Okay, people
bought it, hook line and sinker. They went. People went
down to Mexico looking for Don Juan, who didn't exist.
He then wrote something like that, I don't know, fifteen sequels,
many of them best sellers, knew New York Times bestsellers,

(22:01):
rave reviews. This was the New Age religion that everybody
in the seventies was looking for. All the people going
out following Jim Jones and Charles Manson and a million
other cult leaders were looking for this, you know, earth
based spiritual enlightenment that was supposedly coming from these Mexican Indians.

(22:25):
He made it all up, and he did establish his
own cult, which he had a number of women that
he slept with called witches. He had his cousin of witches.
And he made a fortune as a complete fraud, complete fraud.

(22:46):
And he was eventually found out. And I don't think
he was I think he may have killed himself before
he was prosecuted. I mean, and it's just her memory.
I could be completely wrong on that point. You can
look it up. Carlos Castaneda lie to everybody, and everybody
believed it. And there's another guy that basically did the

(23:08):
same thing. You wrote a book called like Wizard of
the Upper Amazon or something all about aya Husca. I mean,
and I'm not even sure if I pronouncing that right.
You know, I wouldn't touch the stuff if somebody paid me.
It's all fiction. Now. There are you know, in different
native tribes of the desert Southwest and going down into

(23:32):
the jungles of the Amazon, there are certain traditions of
using certain plants, but that's not what they were writing about.
What they were writing about was the most sensational stuff
they could come up with to defraud people. And those
books are still in publication, in circulation. If you go

(23:55):
into one of those stores, they're not there anymore. But
if you went into the little New Age shop or
hippie shop, the head shop downtown Boom on King Street
that was there in the nineties, yeah, they had all
on right there on the shelf, and people believe in
every word of them. And thinking, you know, they're going
to take some plant and have some magic vision. And

(24:18):
usually a lot of them ended up either in the
hospital or dead or like a friend two friends of mine,
three friends of mine went out on a trip and
never came back. One of them had such extreme disassociation.

(24:38):
When you say someone doesn't know there but from a
hole in the ground, that was literally him. After his
last experience, he will be in under a nurse's care,
under doctor's care, for the rest of his life. He's
essentially a vegetative and he was a brilliant, sensitive, interesting person.

(25:04):
And those books are so dangerous, They are so dangerous.
Another one just with totally paranoid schizophrenic. He's been in
and out of hospitals in jail ever since. Another one.
I'm probably dead from the last time I heard. I mean, yeah,

(25:27):
he probably very much. His parents were hippies, he was
raised in a commune. I mean, he had been smoking
pot since he was like five years old. And one
of my very best friends in school. I mean, honestly,
we just had a great time, and he was but
he was always messed up. He was always on something,

(25:50):
and a lot of times he would be like, you know,
butane gas or spray paint. I mean, he was huffing fumes.
He was killing his brain cells, and he just faded
away into a very sad, pathetic drug addict. And he's

(26:17):
probably dead because I mean he was sleeping on the streets.
I mean, he never graduated high school. Yeah, it was bad,
it was really bad. And that was before the fentanyl epidemic.
So I really really wish somebody in those publishing companies,

(26:38):
major publishing companies, multi billion dollar publishing companies in New
York and San Francisco would be responsible enough to pull
those books from publication. And there's a whole list of them.
And I mean, what do you do They still published
mind kemp. You know, they still put Hitler's garbage out

(27:00):
there to poison minds every day. Why would they care
if people poison their minds with anti Semitic, anti Christian
hatred and socialism as opposed to poisoning their minds and
bodies with drugs. I mean they don't care. They literally
do not care. I mean how much do people care. Well,

(27:22):
let's see, you probably have heard the myth that Christopher
Columbus sailed around the world to prove the world was
round right. You probably heard that myth and you believed
it right. And then he faced all kinds of opposition
from the church and everything who said the world was flat.

(27:43):
That myth in particular didn't appear until I believe it
was almost No, couldn't be in four hundred years, two
hundred years after his death. It was made up by
the same guy who wrote the book about the Headless Horsemen. Yeah,
turns out there was a little controversy. He thought there
was only like four thousand miles between Europe and India,

(28:07):
and if he crossed the ocean, he could get there
in one ocean voyage. Other scholars at the time that
had more backing of you know, universities and different things,
said no, no, it's more like fourteen thousand miles. Your
crew's gonna starve, they're gonna die of thirst before they
get there. That was the only opposition. Nobody said the

(28:29):
world was flat. That was literally made up by the
same guy that came up with Ichabod Crane and the
Headless Horseman. It's been featured in movies on television. It
was in my textbook when I was in elementary school,
and is still apparently in some textbooks. Why because it

(28:51):
fits the myth that people want to promote that you know,
you're Europe, especially Catholic Europe, was ignorant and backwards and
prevented these pioneers of science and exploration from going out
and disproving what they believed. It's not the truth, actually

(29:15):
not in any way, shape or form. Those very universities
where all those scientific discoveries were being made and all
the astronomy and everything were sponsored by the Catholic Church
and by the governments of the time, the kings and queens,
and they were very much interested in scientific discovery. For

(29:37):
one thing. For the kings and queens, that made them
a lot of money when they came up with something new.
I mean, there was a lot of money to be
made and exploration. But still to this day people believed
that Christopher Columbus was trying to prove the world was
round and not flat, and that everybody except him thought
that the world was flat, and they just fall right
off the edge. It was literally made up whole cloth.

(30:02):
And how much how much effort has ever been made
to correct that myth of history, not a bit. People
still profit off of it to this day. Well, you know,
what are you gonna do? I mean, we saw the
RFK hearing just last week when senators who are profiting

(30:26):
off of the pharmaceutical industry to the tune of, you know,
eight hundred thousand here and a million dollars there. We're
just ripping in to Kennedy calling him corrupt and everything
because he dared question. You know, sometimes somebody had better
dare question, or you end up with a lot of
a lot of casualties. And in the case of those

(30:51):
books that I'm talking about, there are a lot of
serious casualties, whether they die or they're just never the
same again. And yeah, bad stuff, real bad stuff. And
when you look at like these days, who's behind a
lot of like the THHC industry and such, it's the

(31:11):
same people who are pumping fentanyl into the streets and
into the country, just under a different different heading. It's
not good. It's not good. But you know, what are
you gonna do? No? I mean, I'm not I'm not
a big proponent of putting people in prison for smoking pot.
That's not my thing. But I'm also not a big

(31:34):
proponent of companies that might be run by the Chinese
Communist Party or somebody like Larry Flint masquerading putting out
false information and propaganda to pedal their probably fairly dangerous products. Anyway,

(31:57):
maybe you know, in my opinion, maybe the FDA should
look into such as that instead of going, you know,
enforcing rules that keep herbalists from saying that echinaesia can
help support your immune system so you don't get a
cold or you get over a cold faster. I mean
to me, that would make sense, right, But you know,

(32:18):
where's the profit in that. Who's gonna put Who's going
to grease the poems of the politicians to make that happen. Well, anyway, Sumac,
the sumac family is well, there's several Okay, let's say
there're twenty five varieties of ruists. That's a sumac family.
That's r h U S. They are commonly used in

(32:42):
herbal medicine. Now there are uh, there's also toxodendron the
sumac that is poison sumac. We want to stay away
from that. There are a few sumacs that people have
allergies to. We want to stay away from that. But
there's some very good sumacs in the family. The shrub

(33:07):
form that I talk about in this book this is
the medicinal shrubs are roomex aromatica as fragrant sumac and
Ruis Mischawe. That's the French botanist Michelle, who did most
of his research literally in my own backyard. I mean
he literally probably slapped in my backyard at some point
in the early eighteen hundreds when he was doing his research.

(33:29):
He was between there and Morganton, which is just right
down the mountain for me. So Diaz Cordy's mentioned Ruis
in material mettica, and he says the fruit of ruis,
which is was also used for tanning. He says, a
little tree. Yeah, it's like a little tree, it's a shrub.

(33:50):
Let me go into uses. He says. The leez a
stringent and good for the same purpose as acacia. A
decoction dyes the hair black and is suppository for dysentery.
It is a liquid medicine and used as a hip bath.
It can be used as a hip bath, but also

(34:10):
dropped into the ears for running ears. The leaves applies
as a poultice with vinegar or honey, would essentially reduce
the inflammation of the membrane of the eye. Also used
for gangrenous source. The use of the dried leaves boiled
in water to the consistency of honey are as useful
for as many things as lyceum lysium. The fruit does

(34:34):
the same thing being food, Mixing it with meat for
intestinal complaints and dysentery. Applied as a plaster with water.
It prevents inflammation of fractures, helps with skin peeling and
the blueness of wounds bruising. In other words, it cleanses
rough tongues with honey. It prevents excessive discharges called the

(34:54):
whites or lucorehea. It's a vaginal discharge, and cures hemorrhoids. Yeah,
he made well. He used it for swollen gums and
all kinds of stuff. Gerard about fifteen hundreds England says

(35:14):
the leaves of sumac boiled in wine and drunken to
stop the lask and the inordinate inordinate course of women's
sicknesses and all other inordinate issues of blood. So we're
talking sests of minstru bleeding and actually bloody diarrhea as well.
The seed of sumac eaten and sauces with meat stop
with all manner of fluxes in the belly. The bloody flux,

(35:35):
and all other issues, especially the white issues of women.
The game we're back to lu Korea. The decoction of
the leaves maketh the hair black, and it's good for dysentery.
The leaves made into an ointment or plaster with honey
and vinegar. Stay at the spreading nature of gangrain. Interesting.
I don't know if that's true or not. You have
to look into it. The dry leaves sodden in water

(35:57):
until the decoction be as black, and it's thick as honey,
yieldeth forth as certain oiliness, which performeth all the effects
of lyceum. The seed is no less effectual to be
strewed into a powder upon meats which are good for
dysentery or coeliac. Interesting. The seeds pounded mixed with honey

(36:21):
and the powder of oaken coals healeth the hemorrhoids. The
issueth out of the shrub a gum which being put
into the hollow of the teeth, taketh away the pain
Culpeper also wrote of a sumac, he did not specify
which one. He said the seeds dried, reduced to a powder,

(36:42):
taken small doses stop purges and hemorrhages. The young shoots
have a great efficacy in strengthening the stomach and bowels.
They are best given in a strong infusion. The bark
of the root has the same virtues, but in an
inferior degree. Get Up to about nineteen forty, Miss Greeb
began to differentiate. She used the name sumac for smooth

(37:03):
sumac Ruis glabra and sweet sumac rus arematica, but gave
medicinal uses only for smooth sumac. So this is all
for galobra. She says. The bark is tonic, astringent and antiseptic.
The berries refrigerant and diuretics, and they are. They do
have a cooling property. The berries of the edible sumacs

(37:25):
make a nice lemonade type beverage. It's wonderful on a
hot day. A strong decoction or diluted fluid extract affords
an agreeable gargle, especially when combined with potassium chlorate where
tannin drugs are use was in diarrhea. The fluid extract
is an excellent astringent. The bark in decoction syrup has
been found useful in gonorrhea, lucia diarrhea, dysentery, hectic fever,

(37:50):
scrapul of profuse perspiration and debility, combined with the barks
of slippery elm and white pine. The decoction is said
to have been greatly beneficial in syphilis, an injection for prolapse,
uterine ani for euklureea, and wash in many complaints. For
the scald head, that's a skin condition usually of benefits,

(38:12):
I believe, like cradle cap maybe, but I could be
wrong about that. For the scald head it can be
simmered in lard, or the powdered root can be applied
as a poltice to old altars, forming a good antiseptic.
A decoction of the inner bark of the root is
helpful for sore mouth resulting from mercurial salvation not enough

(38:33):
salivation in that case, I think, and for internal use
of free use of the bark will produce catharsis, so
would have a laxis quality if we can put it
that way. The berries may be used in infusion and diabetes, strangery,
bowel complaints, strangers edema essentially skinny urination. Officially, I think

(38:55):
febril diseases, feverish conditions also as a gargleing quinsy and
alterations of the mouth and throat, and is washed for
ringworm tetters, offensive altars, et cetera. The let's see, yeah,
Cherokee use sumac, and that would be our native around here.

(39:18):
He used it for water blisters. Tea us tea of
the roots used by old women to make their milk flow.
For convulsions of people and animals when the brain has
been affected. I don't know what that means. Convulsions of
people an animal when the brain has been affected. I mean,

(39:40):
I guess convulsion may because my high fever or an injury.
I guess it was used for ganorrhea. Tea of the
berries and roots of sumac was used for that red berries,
even for kidney trouble or to stop bed wedding and
children the a stringency again, gargle the berries for tonsilitis

(40:01):
for sores on the arm or mouth during the dog days,
make a cold water infusion of the roots of sumac.
I'm thinking hotspots basically the dog days. I mean, you know,
hot part of what's August. I guess for young children.
Lance the blizzards with a pen, allowing the water to
drain and rub on the tea. All right, Lumbee used sumac,

(40:24):
and I'm not going to try to pronounce it in
their language. The sumac berries were boiled by many lumbey
to make a tea, and the patient was instructed to
drink half a tea cupful three times a day to
aid and bladder discomfort. A tea was made from a
handful of the roots as long as the patient's middle finger,
and that's from the tip of the finger to the

(40:45):
bottom of the palm, placed in two quarts of water,
and boiled until a court was until court remained. Decoction
was used to treat bladder and kidney discomfort. Back to
towards in American materia medica. Let's see if they say
anything we have covered says nothing I have made use
of has effectively removed the disagreeable symptoms. As a lotion

(41:09):
made from sumac, it's good effects are very steadily perceived.
That was troublesome vestigation for troublesome vestigation. Red skin where
the veins are showing an inflammation of the skin. So okay,
see if he's got well, he used mercury in that,

(41:30):
so we can probably skip that. Be best if we
did let's see. You know, I'm gonna skip forward to
the Tomsonians. Okay, Tomsnians sort of inherited the Eclectic school
and says, according to doctor Thompson himself, this appears to
be a new article in medicine, entirely unknown to the

(41:52):
medical faculty, has no mention of it is made by
any author. Well, obviously he didn't read the books. I
just mentioned. The first knowledge that it was good for
a canker was on the Onion River in eighteen oh seven,
attending the dysentery, being in want of something to clear
the stomach and bowels, and that complaint. I found that
the bark leaves and berries answered the purposed extremely well,

(42:14):
and have made use of it ever since. It is
well known and it is not in all parts of
the country. He talks about how it's good for the kidneys,
and the berries are acidic and astringent, and he actually
talks about how to make that berry beverage. Just you
can pour out water to the be berries and just

(42:35):
let them sit, or you can crush them or you
know whatever. Yeah, everything else is just a repeat of
what others have said, which he apparently found on his own.
So Hey, that kind of you know, that's some good
you know, what's the word there? Empirical Evidence Resources of
Southern Foods, Fields and Forests says if the bark of

(42:58):
the root is boiled in equal parts of milk and
water with a little flour, it forms a cataplasm and
will cure burns without leaving a scar. So you could
make a paste essentially and use it for burns. It's good. Huh. Interesting.
It talks about different doctors that we're using it in
the United States at that point for everything we've already

(43:22):
discussed essentially. Yeah, and it's got some really good anecdotes
from doctors saying this is how I use it in
my practice. It goes on for several pages, so I
mis skip ahead to King's Medical Dispensatory eighteen ninety eight
and let's see specific indications. Uses skipping ahead again, it

(43:48):
says not the remedy for active conditions as given by
its introducer, doctor McClanahan. The specific indications are stools, profuse, skin,
cool and sallow, pulse, small and feeble, loss of flesh, admirin,
flabby tongue, pale, trembling, and moist trembling in the lower limbs. Wow,

(44:12):
so I guess that was hm. Yeah, it was used
for chronic bloody flux is what he's talking about, but
not acute dysentery. So yeah, that makes sense of the glabra.
And that was let me see that was which sumac
was at, Oh, fragrant sumac of the smooth sumac, which

(44:32):
is more what we have here. Stomach bark is tonic.
That would be for the digestive system, a stringent and
a septic alternative, decidedly alternative. So it helps kind of
bring your back to general health. The berries are refrigerant
and diuretic. A decoction of the syrup. The bark of
the root has been found valuable in gonorrhea, leucaria, diarrhea, dysentery,

(44:53):
hectic fever, scrophula, and profuse perspiration in debility. Okay, let's
just run through the same stuff again. They also mentioned
Ruis trilobata. They said it was exceedingly valuable medicine for

(45:15):
the treatment of diabetes and excessive discharges from the kidneys
and bladder. Interesting, that's the first we've really found on
that one. You know, run through the glabra again, and
I think we've covered everything on that. Jethrow Claus in
the twenties used ruis glabra medicinal properties, bark and leave

(45:40):
tonic astringent altruria, antiseptic berries, diuretic refrigerant, a minagogue, diaphyretic
and cephalic a minagogumies that brings on menci, so you
would want to keep that in mind. And yeah, tea
of the berries for bowel complaints, diabetes fever. Yeah, interesting,

(46:03):
but you know, mostly repeat plants for future says of
dwarf sumac. This is another one we haven't mentioned. RS.
Coppolina at a Cocua, the roote has been used in
treatment of dysentery. Infusion of the root been used to
the treatment of VD, just as VD. We can figure
that's kind rhea. The poultice of the root has been

(46:25):
applied to sores and skin eruptions. Team made from the
bark has been drunk to stimulate milk floid nursing mothers,
so much like the Columbia used it. I think it
was a little it could of the Cherokee at Coocua,
the bark has been used as a wash for blisters
and for sunburn blisters, so that would probably be what
the Cherokee we're talking about the water blisters. Infusion of
the leaves has been used to cleanse and purify skin eruptions,

(46:48):
berries chew to the treatment of bed wetting and mouse sores.
All right, smooth subac Ruis glabra Native American tribes use
the treat of very idive complaints. We're still a stringent
an aseptic used as a gargle for sore throats. Uh
team made for the roots is appetizer, stringent diuretic and

(47:11):
emetic and infusion use the treatments of cold, sore throat,
painful urination, retention of urine, and dysentery. Okay. Also they
used it in tuberculosis. Infusion of the green or dried branches.
They got stagsworn sumac. We get a lot of that

(47:31):
around here. I'm not seeing anything really different about that. Okay.
I think that's gonna yeah. I think it's going to
wrap up sumac for us. And remember, the edible sumacs
are not to be confused with the poisoned sumac. And

(47:51):
some people may have an aalergy to any kind of sumacs.
You want to be used little care with it, but
generally it's one of the easiest to identify and the
most useful wild edibles in late summer into fall, and
sometimes the berries will even stay into the winter if
the birds don't get them all first. One of my favorites,

(48:12):
absolutely fantastic. A lot of people call them the lemonade
plant because the berries taste like lemonade, so I like
it a lot, actually, and we do have several varieties
that grow in my region in four or five states.
I can probably find most of the varieties that grow
in North America, and probably a few that have been introduced.

(48:32):
Who knows. Anyway, y'all have a great week, and I'll
talk to you next time.

Speaker 3 (48:39):
The information this podcast is non intended to diagnose or
treating any disease or condition. Nothing I say or write
has been evaluated or approved by the FDA.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
I'm not a doctor.

Speaker 3 (48:51):
The US government does not recognize the practice of verbal medicine,
and there is no governing body regulating herbles. Therefore, I'm
really just a guy who says IRBs.

Speaker 2 (49:00):
For any advice.

Speaker 3 (49:01):
I won't even claim that anything I write or say
is accurate or true. I can tell you what earths
have been traditionally used for. I can tell you my
own experience, and if I believe in herb has helped me,
I cannot nor would I.

Speaker 2 (49:12):
Tell you to do the same.

Speaker 3 (49:13):
If you use an herb anyone recommends you are treating yourself,
you take full responsibility for your health. Humans are individuals,
and no two are identical. What works for me may
not work for you. You may have an allergy of
sensitivity and underlying condition that no one else even shares
and you don't even know about. Be careful with your
health by continuing to listen to my podcast or read

(49:36):
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Show 253: Rhododendron and Sumac

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