Sumbul

Nervous palpitations with a sense of faintness, sighing, and a lump-in-the-throat (globus) feeling

Amenorrhea or scanty menses in a nervous, easily fatigued woman with cold extremities

Overview. Ferula sumbul, more properly known today as Ferula moschata, is a tall umbelliferous plant native to the mountains of Central Asia, particularly Turkestan and the Pamir-Alai region. Its thick, musk-scented root was traded historically as an aromatic and a cheaper substitute for animal musk, and it entered Western herbal medicine in the mid nineteenth century. Eclectic physicians in the United States adopted it as a nervine and antispasmodic, valuing its musky, warming character for nervous and hysterical states in women.

Clinical Notes. Sumbul root was reached for by Eclectic physicians much as valerian is used today, but with a reputation for being gentler on the stomach and better tolerated by patients who found valerian's odor or bitterness disagreeable.

Action and Therapy. Sumbul is a stimulating tonic to the nervous system, and for that purpose is employed chiefly with associated nervines, in asthenia and nervous depression. It is particularly adapted to neurasthenia and nervous exhaustion of anemic or chlorotic women to allay nervous unrest and impart tone. Many physicians employ it as a nervetonic and reconstructive in convalescence from prolonged illness.

Therapy. This remedy is a pure, stimulating nerve tonic. It seems to invigorate the nutritive functions of the system. It has been recommended during the progress of low fevers , where the nervous system is greatly debilitated, as in typhus, typhoid and typho-pneumonia.