Fireweed

Bright red bleeding piles with a raw, irritated feel to the rectum

Loose, mucus-laden stool with griping and tenesmus, especially in children

Passive, non-contractile uterine bleeding rather than bleeding with strong cramping

Overview. Erechtites hieracifolius is a fast-growing annual weed of the aster family, common on burned-over or freshly cleared ground across eastern and central North America, which gave rise to its common name fireweed (a name it shares confusingly with the unrelated Chamaenerion/Epilobium fireweed). The aerial herb, and in older practice a distilled essential oil pressed from it, were the parts used. It held a modest place in nineteenth-century American physiomedical and Eclectic practice as an astringent remedy for bleeding and flux, and it is the source of the old folk name pilewort for its use in hemorrhoidal bleeding.

Clinical Notes. Physiomedical and Eclectic writers reached for fireweed mainly as a mild astringent styptic, useful where tissue was relaxed and oozing rather than acutely inflamed: bleeding hemorrhoids, passive uterine hemorrhage, and loose, mucus-streaked diarrhea or dysentery, particularly in children (the old term cholera infantum covers this last use).

Action and Therapy. True oil of fireweed (much that is sold is oil of fleabane) improves the appetite and digestion, stimulates the functions of the gastro-intestinal glands and pancreas, and causes free and full alvine evacuations, rendering it useful in chronic constipation, especially when acid fermentation and flatulence are present.

Properties and Uses. The leaves and flowers are somewhat pungent and disagreeably bitter in taste, leaving behind a mild astringency. They act chiefly upon mucous membranes, to which they are astringent and stimulant tonics.