Sanicle

Boggy, slow-draining ulcers or wounds with thin watery discharge, calling for its astringent vulnerary action

Chronic, loose cough with copious thin mucus in a run-down patient whose tissues seem lax and unresponsive

Overview. Sanicula marilandica is a perennial member of the carrot family native to woodland edges and moist meadows across eastern and central North America. The root and aerial parts were used by several Indigenous nations and were carried into nineteenth century American herbal medicine, where physiomedicalist and Eclectic practitioners valued it chiefly as an astringent and alterative for lax, discharging tissue. It is a minor plant in the modern materia medica, largely superseded, but retains historical interest as a tonifying astringent for relaxed conditions of skin, mucosa, and mucous membranes.

Clinical Notes. Sanicle was reached for in the older tradition when tissue seemed toneless and discharging rather than inflamed and hot: a wound that would not close and wept thin fluid, a chronic cough productive of watery mucus, or a leukorrhea that ran on without much irritation.

Properties and Uses. This root is mild in action, diffusibly stimulating and relaxing, leaving a moderately tonic impression. Used in warm infusion, it promotes perspiration and diuresis fairly, and sustains capillary circulation and the nervous peripheries ; and may be used to decided advantage in recent colds, and typhus and other low forms of fever.

Uses. Besides its general use for cleansing purposes, soap (castile) is used inwardly. It is an antacid and gentle laxative; and is employed by softening it to the desired degree with alcohol, (or some essence,) and incorporating with it such articles as rhubarb, leptandrin, apocynin, etc.