Family Name: Lauraceae

Introduction

Sassafras is such a fragrant tree that its easy to see how the Native Americans noticed it. Bump into it, and you can smell its wonderful fragrance. The Native Americans saw this plant as being generally building to the constitution and transmitted that knowledge to the colonials. Its ability to stimulate health made it one of the first items of commerce in the colonial day….thousands of pounds were shipped to England.

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Notes from the Eclectic Physicians

Notes from the Eclectic Physicians

1854; King J; (Materia Medica) – LAURUS SASSAFRAS
Adaptogenic Uses: Sassafras officinalis (Nutt.)

(Formerly Laurus sassafras)

Lauraceae

Part Used: Leaf/bark

Chemical Constituents: Significant phytochemicals include alkaloids, boldine, elemicin, phellandrene, safrene, safrole, tannin, and thujone. (7)

Pharmacy
Tincture of the root by percolation. (2)

History
Sassafras officinale can be found growing from Maine to Florida and well into the Middle West of the United States . It was well known to the Native Americans (Iroquois, Onondaga, Seneca, and Meskwaki) who used it both as a condiment, beverage, and medicine. The Native American considered the drug tonic, diuretic, laxative, and used it in constipation, indigestion, dyspepsia, colds, debility, venereal disease, rheumatism, and post partum weakness.

The pleasant drug became popular with the Colonials soon after their arrival to the New World . In 1574 it is mentioned in Spanish literature as a treatment for malaria and as a general panacea. In Virginia in the 1590′s the drug was considered a cure all, likened to Guaiacum, and was said to cure many diseases. In 1612, Captain John Smith mentioned it was an item of commerce and that it was sent to Europe and traded in the spice and drug markets. Raffinesque, writing in 1830, indicates the drug was used domestically as a stimulant, sudorific, menagogue, antispasmodic, depurative, vulnerary, and resolvent useful in rheumatism, secondary syphilis, cutaneous disease, typhoid fever, fevers, dropsy, scurvy, and cachexia. (8)

The drug was official in the early editions of U.S. Pharmacopoeia. The 1820–1828 editions mention the bark of the root. Beginning with the 1830 edition, both the bark and the pith of the stem are official and remained official until 1900. In 1910 the pith was dropped and the official drug was exclusively the root. (6)

General
Syphilitic affections, secondary syphilis manifesting in skin disease, chronic rheumatism, tuberculosis, chronic cutaneous eruptions, scorbutic and venereal diseases, acute exanthemata needing to form eruptions, febrile disease, malaria.

Digestive
Disorders of the digestive tract, inflammation or irritation of the stomach or bowels.

Genito-urinary
Disorders of the urinary tract, gonorrhoea, and gleet.

Musculoskeletal
Internally and externally in painful swellings, sprains, bruises, rheumatism, chronic rheumatism.

Nervous
Application in acute opthalmia, acute conjunctivitis.

Respiratory
Disorders of the respiratory tract.

Skin
Topically in gangrene, wounds threatening gangrene, indolent and gangrenous ulcers, contused, sloughing or gangrenous parts, parts threatening mortification, Rhus poisoning.

The drug from Selye’s perspective

State of Resistance
The drug was used to raise resistance to acute exanthemata, acute opthalmia, acute conjunctivitis, syphilis, rheumatism, chronic rheumatism, tuberculosis, scorbutic disease, febrile disease, malaria, and gonorrhoea.

State of Exhaustion
The drug was used when resistance failed and State of Exhaustion set in. Signs and symptoms of that state treated with the drug included temperature abnormalities, skin disease, gastric irritation/dyspepsia, gangrene, failures in wound healing, indolent ulcers, mucous membrane abnormalities, joint abnormalities, and wasting.

Adaptation energy
From Selye’s perspective, the drug was used to augment the GAS, which suggests it increases adaptation energy. Evidence to this effect includes the following. The drug was used to increase resistance to infectious disease and autoimmune disease. It was used to stabilise patients having entered into State of Exhaustion . Lastly, it was used to stimulate healing in non-healing wounds and ulcers.
Brekhman’s adaptogen criterion

An adaptogen should be innocuous and cause minimal disorders in the physiological functions of an organism.

The Eclectics considered the drug to be innocuous. (1–6) Contemporary literature is contentious about the safety of the drug. However, Foster and Duke make this statement about the drug. “Safrole (found in oil of sassafras) reportedly carcinogenic. Banned by FDA. Yet the safrole in a 12 ounce can of old fashioned root beer is not as carcinogenic as the alcohol found in a can of beer.” (9)

Actions
Aromatic stimulant, alterative, diaphoretic, diuretic, stimulant, astringent, tonic.

The action of an adaptogen should be non-specific i.e. it should increase resistance to adverse influences of a wide range of factors of physical, chemical, and biological nature.

Clinically, the drug was used to raise resistance to acute and chronic infections and autoimmune disease. (1–6)

Experimentally, compounds found in the drug have been shown to increase resistance to free radical damage and liver damage. (7)

An adaptogen may possess normalising action irrespective of the direction of the foregoing pathological changes.

Clinically, the drug was used to correct the abnormalities associated with State of Exhaustion , including gastric irritation, temperature abnormalities, ulceration of the skin and mucous membrane, and wasting. (1–6)

Experimentally, the drug contains compounds, which increase resistance to platelet stickiness, inflammation, stress, hypertension, fungal infection, oedema, inflammation, temperature abnormalities, water retention, inactive digestive function, pain, and nervousness. (7)

Discussion
The drug exhibits properties consistent with Brekhman’s definition of an adaptogen. It is innocuous; it raises resistance to a wide assortment of biological threats, and normalises abnormal physiological function.

Sassafras is an interesting drug, though it was not all that interesting to the Eclectics. At the time the Eclectics were working Sassafras was an official remedy and was available at every pharmacy. Its uses were well described. It increased resistance to infection and bolstered patients facing constitutional collapse. The drug was common and its uses clear-cut. The Eclectics accepted it at face value and used it regularly.

It may not have stirred any excitement amongst the Eclectics, but it was always listed in the Eclectic literature as an able tonic and alterative. When resistance needed to be raised, the drug was used. When constitutional collapse and the physiological abnormalities associated with that state were manifest, the drug was used. It was seen as mild, agreeable, and effective.
Potential clinical applications

The Eclectics used the drug when State of Exhaustion set in and especially when that state was manifest in the skin. There is experimental data suggesting this was an appropriate use for the drug. The drug may have a role of raising resistance to State of Exhaustion with priminent skin manifestations.

1911: LLOYD
Sassafras is indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, occurring in Florida , Virginia , and as far north as Canada . It is found as far west as Kansas , but is there very scarce. Its occurrence in Brazil is recorded by Piso, 1658 (511). Sassafras was in medicinal use among the natives of Florida long before Ponce de Leon in 1512 set foot on the soil of this peninsula. It is generally stated and believed that the Spaniards in 1538, which is the date of De Soto’s invasion of Florida, were the first Europeans to obtain knowledge of this drug; yet we can find no record of such a discovery in at least two narratives of this expedition that are accessible to us. On the other hand, there seemed to be sufficient evidence of the fact that the Spaniards gained a knowledge of sassafras and its medicinal virtues through the French Huguenot emigrants, who under their unfortunate leaderes, Jean Ribault and Rene Laudonniere, occupied Florida between the years 1562 and 1564.

To the Spanish physician, Nicolaus Monardes (447), of Sevilla, in 1574, is to be credited the first detailed description of sassafras and its healing virtues, his information being gained, however, not from any actual experience in the sassafras lands but from personal consultation with travelers and from the government records at his command (239). From Clusius’ (153) version of Monardes, 1593 (447), it is learned that the drug was imported from Florida into Spain some years previous to 1574, that the Spaniards in Florida, when overtaken by fevers and other diseases consequent to miasma and unwholesome drinking water, were advised by the few remaining Frenchmen to use this drug, which was called by the French sassafras (for reasons unknown to Monardes) and “pavame” by the Indians from whom the French obtained their information. Monardes (in Clusius’ version) adds that sassafras grows in Florida in maritime places, such as are neither too dry nor too moist, being especially plentiful near the harbors of St. Helena and St. Matthews, where they form whole woods, which exhale such a fragrance (not true in the experience of this writer) that the Spaniards who first landed believed the tree to be the same as the cinnamon tree of Ceylon.

The illustration given by Monardes of the sassafras tree has been widely copied in the herbals of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries among which we name Dalechamps (1586) (181), Joh. Bauhinus (Braun, 47) (1650) and Piso (1658) (511), the latter giving it the Brazilian synonym “anhuiba.”

Francisco Hernandez (314), another Spanish physician, who travelled through Mexico , between the years 1571 and 1577, speaks of the occurrence of sassafras at Mechuacan in Mexico . His work was translated by Francisco Ximinez, a monk of the convent of San Domingo in Mexico , in 1615.

The latter author is quoted at length on the subject of sassafras by Jean de Laet (368), a noted Dutch geographer (who died in 1649), whose work, “Novus Orbis, etc., 1633,” testifies to the probably French origin of the knowledge of sassafras. Having taken the account given by Laudonniere as his source, he speaks, in Chapter XIV, concerning the land and inhabitants of the part of Florida traversed by the French, and calls attention to the tree as being prominent in the woods and refers to the exquisite odor of its wood and bark. He says that this tree is called “pavanne” by the Indians and “sassafras” by the French.

Soon after the discovery of sassafras the drug was exported to Europe, as before stated, and became at once known in Spain and France . It was well known in Frankfort-on-the-Main as early as 1582, and in Hamburg in 1587, at which time it was (F.A. Fluckiger, Am. Jour. Phar., 1876, p.367) termed lignum pavanum seu floridum, seu xylomarathri (fennel wood). Sailing expeditions to America were undertaken in those times to secure the wood as well as the root. An English merchant, Martin Pring, is recorded by Charles Pickering (510) as having with two small vessels arrived on the American coast in the beginning of June, 1603. The point named is 43 degrees and 44 degrees northern latitude, among a multitude of islands. Following the coast south in search of sassafras he entered a large sound, and on the north side in the latitude 41 degrees and “odde” minutes built a hut and enclosed it with a barricade, where some of the party kept guard while others collected sassafras in the woods. The natives were treated with kindness, and the last of the two vessels departed freighted on the 9th of August.

In connection with the introduction of sassafras root into England , Daniel Hanbury (Proc. Am. Phar. Assoc., 1871, p.491) unearthed the following interesting record contained in the Calendars of State Papers of the Public Record Office:

“Instructions for such thinges as are to be sente from Virginia , 1610.

“(1) Small Sassafras Rootes to be drawen in the winter and dryed and none to be medled with in the somer and yet is worthe 50 and better, p. Tonne,” etc.

But still, the exact botanical origin of sassafras was not known to the writers of the seventeenth century. While they were well acquainted with the peculiar foliage and the other characteristics of the tree, the flowers and the fruit were expressly stated to be unknown to such writers as Clusius (153), (Monardes) (447), 1593, Joh. Bauhinus (47) (1650), and Piso (511) (1658).

Two early statements concerning the fruit may, however, now be recorded.

Caspar Bauhinus (48), who named the sassafras tree “arbor ex Florida ficulneo folio,” in 1623 reports that specimens of the leaves and the fruit of the tree were sent to him by Dr. Doldius, of Nuremberg, and he describes the fruit as oblong, rugose, and attached to very long pedicels.

Likewise Jean de Laet (368), in the index to the chapter on sassafras of his afore-mentioned book, requests the reader to insert in the text that the fruits of this tree were brought to the notice of the author by a person returning from Novo Belgio, and adds that the fruit does not differ much in form from the berries of the laurel, although it is much smaller. It contains a white nut of bitterish taste, divided into two parts.

As we can ascertain, Plukenet (514a), as late as the year 1691, was the first to give an illustration of the berry, which, however, is faulty, because it is void of the acorn-like calyx. The trilobed leaves are also illustrated, and the botanical name affixed toit by Plukenet is “cornus mas odorata, foliis trifido, margine plano, sassafras dicta.”

Catesby (130), true to his task as set forth in the title of his book on the natural history of Virginia, etc., viz.: to correct faulty illustration of plants by preceding authors, gives (in 1731) a good picture of sassafras, including the fruit and flowers.

In the middle and latter part of the eighteenth and the earlier part of the nineteenth century sassafras was studied in its native country by such celebrated travelers as Peter Kalm (350), J. David Schoepf (582), F.A. Michaux (433), and Fred Pursh (528). Peter Kalm’s account especially (350) contains many points of interest.

The author’s boyhood was spent in the country, in Kentucky, where sassafras abounds. I do not remember to have smelled the fragrance of sassafras trees, mentioned by these early authorities, unless the trees were broken or bruised. I have passed through great thickets of young and old trees and am sure that the statement that the fragrance is wafted far out to sea is overdrawn, as I observed no odor whatever, and am satisfied that sassafras exhales no aroma. When land in Kentucky is “worked poor” and turned out to rest it is likely to spring up in thickets of sassafras, persimmon, and black locust. I have heard old farmers, in speaking of a farm, say it was “too poor to raise sassafras,” and no greater reflection could be cast on that land. No especial value is put on sassafras wood, it is not sought for fence posts nor is it used to drive away insects of any description.

As a remedy the bark is used in the spring to “thin the blood,” being drunk as a tea. Indeed, I do not dislike it as a beverage, early impressions leading me now to take a package of fresh bark home with me occasionally for a family dish of sassafras tea. This is made exactly as coffee is prepared as a beverage, and is sweetened and used with cream in the same way. The sassafras tea was a very common beverage in my boyhood days may be shown by the following incident: I was traveling up the Ohio River on one of the palatial steamers of other days and the waiter asked a Kentuckian at my side who ordered tea, “what kind of tea” he wanted. “Store tea,” he answered, “I kin git pleanty of sassafras at home.”

It is not customary for sassafras drinkers to keep the root-bark separated from the root, the recently dug roots being shaved as the bark was used. Kentuckians claim that there are two varieties of sassafras, the red sassafras and the white, distinguished only by the bark. The white sassafras is not so aromatic and is bitter to the taste, and they use only the red bark.

In addition to the wood, root and bark, mucilage of the pith is employed in domestic medicine to bath inflamed eyes. I find a complete description of the domestic uses of sassafras in Rafinesque’s Medical Flora, 1830, which for various reasons I feel called upon to reproduce as an ending to this record of sassafras.

Found from Canada to Mexico and Brazil . Roots, bark, leaves, flowers, fragrant and spicy. Flavor and smell peculiar, similar to fennel, a sweetish sub-acrid, residing in a volatile oil heavier than water. The sussafrine, a peculiar mucus unalterable by alcohol, found chiefly in the twigs and pith, thickens water, very mild and lubricating, very useful in opthalmia, dysentry, gravel, catarrh, etc. Wood yellow,hard, durable, soon loses the smell, the roots chiefly exported for use as stimulant, antispasmodic, sudorific, and depurative; the oil now often substituted; both useful in rheumatism, cutaneous diseases, secondry syphilis, typhus fevers, etc. Once used in dropsy. The Indians use a strong decoction to purge and clean the body in the spring; we use instead the tea of the blossoms for a vernal purification of the blood. The powder of the leaves used to make glutinous gombos. Leaves and buds used to flavor some beers and spirits. Also deemed vulnerary and resolvent chewed and applied, or menagogue and corroborant for women in tea; useful in scurvy, cachexy, flatulence, etc. Bowls and cups made of the wood, when fresh, it drives bugs and moths. The bark dyes wood of a fine organge color called “shikih” by Missouri tribes, and smoked like tobacco.

1921: Lloyd
SASSAFRAS (Sassafras)

Official in every editio of U.S.P. The early editions, 1820 and 1828, mention “the bark of the root.” Beginning with 1830, (New York ed.), both the bark and the pith of the stem are official till 1900. The pith is dropped in 1910. The U.S.P., 1910, directs the root bark of Sassafras variifolium.

Sassafras is indigenous to the Western Hemisphere, occurring in Florida, Virginia, and as far north as Canada. It is found as far west as Kansas, but is there very scarce. Its occurrence in Brazil is recorded by Piso, 1658, (511). Sassafras was in medicinal use among the natives of Florida long before Ponce de Leon in 1512 set foot on the soil of that peninsula. It is generally stated and believed that the Spaniards in 1538, which is the date of De Soto’s invasion of Florida, were the first Europeans to obtain knowledge of the drug; yet we can find no record of such a discovery in at least two narratives of this expedition accessible to us. On the other hand, there seems to be sufficient evidence of the fact that the Spaniards gained a knowledge of sassafras and its medicinal virtues through the French Huguenot emigrants, who under their unfortunate leaders, Jean Ribault and Rene Laudonniere, occupied Florida between the years 1562 and 1564.

To the Spanish physician, Nicolaus Monardes (447) of Sevilla, in 1574, is to be credited the first detailed description of sassafras and its healing virtues, his information being gained, however, not from actual experience in the sassafras lands, but from personal consultation with travelers and from the government records at his command. (239). From Clusius’ (153) version of Monardes, 1593, it is learned that the drug was imported from Florida into Spain some years previous to 1574, that the Spaniards in Florida, when overtaken by fevers and other diseases consequent to miasma and unwholesome drinking water, were advised by the few remaining Frenchmen to use this drug, called by the French sassafras, (for reasons unknown to Monardes), and “pavame” by the Indians from whom the French obtained their information. Monardes (in Clusius’ version) adds that sassafras grows in Florida in “maritime places,” such as are neither too dry nor too moist. It is especially plentiful near the harbors of St. Helena and St. Matthews, forming whole woods, which exhale such a fragrance (not true in the experience of this writer), that the Spaniards who first landed believed the tree to be the same as the cinnamon tree of Ceylon.

The illustration of the sassafras tree given by Monardes has been widely copied in the herbals of the 16th and 17th centuries, among which we name Dalechamps (1586), (181), Joh. Bauhinus (Bauhin, 47) (1650), and Piso (1658) (511), the latter giving it the Brazilian synonym “anhuiba.”

Francisco Hernandez (314), another Spanish physician, who traveled through Mexico between 1571 and 1577, speaks of the occurrence of sassafras at Mechuacan in Mexico. His work was translated by Francisco Ximinez, a monk of the convent of San Domingo in Mexico, in 1615.

The latter author is quoted at length on the subject of sassafras by Jean de Laet (368), a noted Dutch geographer, whose work, “Novus Orbis, etc., 1633,” testifies to the probably French origin of the knowledge of sassafras. Having taken the account given by Laudonniere as his source, he speaks, in Chapter XIV, concerning the land and inhabitants of the part of Florida traversed by the French, and calls attention to the tree as being prominent in the woods, and refers to the exquisite odor of its wood and bark. He says that this tree is called “pavame” by the Indians, and “sassafras” by the French.

Professor Fluckiger remarks (Pharmacognosie des Pflanzenreich, 3d ed., Berlin, 1891), that he was unable to find the passage alluded to in Laudonniere’s own report of 1586, and diligent search on our part in a verbatim reprint of this work of 1853 also failed to produce the passage. The term “esquine” occurring therein might have been the passage referred to, but it hardly stands for sassafras, for it is stated (pp. 6 and 76) that it is a twining vine, good against pocks (la verole). On page 133 a root is mentioned from which Indians produce flour to make bread, and on page 155 it is stated that the colonists in a period of distress used the wood of this “esquine” to make flour and bread, which precludes sassafras from being the tree referred to. However, it is further stated (page 10) that in councils of war and peace the native king gathers around him the priests and the eldest of the tribe, and that they drink from the same vessel a decoction quite hot, called by them “casine,” made from the leaves of a certain tree. This might refer to sassafras, for the further statement is made that this potion has the effect of causing abundant sweats.

It must, in our opinion, with due deference to preceding authorities, be mere conjecture as to whether any of their descriptions answer to sassafras.

De laet credits Ximenez with the statement that sassafras wood has the property of rendering sea water potable, as experienced by Zimenez on a voyage from Florida to Vera Cruz in 1605.

Soon after the discovery of sassafras the drug was exported to Europe, and became at once known in Spain and France. It was well known in Frankfort-on-the-Main as early as 1582, and in Hamburg in 1587, at which time it was termed lignum pavanum seu floridum, seu xylomarathri (fennel-wood) (Fluckiger, Am. Journ. Phar., 1876). Sailing expeditions to America were undertaken in those times to secure the wood as well as the root. An Enlish merchant, Martin Pring, is recorded by Charles Pickering (510) as having with two small vessels arrived on the American coast in the beginning of June, 1603. The point named is 43 degrees long. and 44 degrees north lat., among a multitude of islands. Following the coast south in search of sassafras, he entered a large sound, and on the north side in the latitude 41 degrees and “odde” minutes built a hut and enclosed it with a barricade, where some of the party kept guard, while others collected sassafras in the woods. The natives were treated with kindness, and the last of the two vessels departed, freighted, on the 9th of August.

In connection with the introduction of sassafras root, we present the following interesting record from the Calendars of State Papers of the Public Record Office, unearthed by Daniel Hanbury (Proc. Am. Phar. Assoc., 1871, p. 491):

“Instructions for suche thinges as are to be sente from Virginia, 1610.

“(1). Small Sassafras Roots to be drawn in the winter and dryed and none to be medled with in the somer and yt is worthe 50 and better, p. Tonne.”

And yet, the exact botanical origin of sassafras was unknown to the writers of the 17th century. While they were well acquainted with the peculiar foliage and the other characteristics of the tree, the flowers and fruit were expressly stated to be unknown to such writers as Clusius (153), Monardes (447), 1593, Joh. Bauhinus (47), 1650, and Piso (511), 1658.

Two early statements concerning the fruit may, however, now be recorded:

Casper Bauhinus (48), who named the sassafras tree “arbor ex Florida ficulneo folio,” in 1623, reports that specimens of the leaves and the fruit were sent to him by Dr. Doldius, of Nuremburg. He describes the fruit as oblong, rugose, and attached to very long pedicels.

Likewise, Jean de Laet (368), in the index to his chapter on sassafras, requests the reader to insert in the text that the fruits of this tree were brought to the notice of the author by a person returning from Novo Belgio, and adds that the fruit does not differ much in form from the berries of the laurel, although it is much smaller. It contains a white nut of bitterish taste, divided into two parts.

As far as we can ascertain, Plukenet (514a), as lat as 1691, was the first to give an illustration of the berry, which, however, is faulty, because it is void of the acorn-like calyx. The trilobed leaves are also illustrated, and the botanical name affixed to it by Plukenet is “cornus mas odorata, foliis trifido, margine plano , sassafras dicta.”

Catesby (130), true to hsi task as set forth in the title of his book on the natural history of Virginia, etc., “to correct faulty illustrations of plants by preceding authors,” gives, 1731, a good picture of sassafras, including the fruit and flowers.

In the middle and later part of the 18th and the earlier part of the 19th century, sassafras was studied in its native country by such celebrated travelers as Peter Kalm (350), J. David Schoepf (582), F. A. Michaux (433), and Fred. Pursh (528). Peter Kalm’s account, especially, contains many points of interest.

Regarding the botanical nomenclature of sassafras, Linnaeus in 1737 assigned it to the genus laurus, upon the examination of a specimen of the flower which proved to be clearly distinct from the genus cornus, to which Plukenet had assigned it. In 1758 he gave it the name Laurus Sassafras. The botanical name subsequently underwent the following changes:

“Laurus variifolia, Salisbury .

“Sassafras officinale, Nees v. Esenbeck and Endlicher, 1831.

“Sassafras Sassafras, Karsten, 1880-1882.

“Sassafras variifolium ( Salisbury ), O. Kuntze, adopted in the U. S. Pharmacopeia, 1890.”

The boyhood of the author of this study of drugs was spent in the country (in Kentucky ), where sassafras abounds. He records as follows:

“I do not remember to have smelled the fragrance of sassafras trees, mentioned by the early authorities, unless the trees were broken or bruised. I have at all seasons passed through thickets of trees, young and old, and am sure that the statement that the fragrance is wafted far out to sea is overdrawn, as I observed no odor whatever, and am satisfied that unbroken sassafras exhales no aroma. When land in Kentucky has been ‘worked poor,’ and turned out to rest, it is likely to spring up in thickets of sassafras, persimmon, and black locust. I have heard old farmers, in speaking of a farm, say it was ‘too poor to raise sassafras,’ and no greater reflection could be cast on that land. No special value is put on sassafras wood; it is not sought for fence posts, nor is it used to drive away insects of any description.

“As a remedy, the root bark of sassafras is used in the spring to ‘thin the blood,’ a decoction from this being drunk as a tea. Indeed, I do not dislike this ‘tea’ as a breakfast beverage, early impressions leading me now, occasionally, to procure fresh bark for a family brewing of ‘sassafras tea,’ made after the same manner in which tea is prepared as a beverage, and served in the same way, either clear, or with cream and sugar, according to taste. That sassafras tea was a very common beverage in my boyhood days, is shown by the following incident: – I was traveling up the Ohio River on one of the palatial steamers of other days, (1858). A Kentuckian at my side ordered tea. The waiter asked ‘What kind of tea?’ ‘Store tea,’ he answered. ‘I kin git plenty of sassafrac (colloquial – L.) at home!’”

It is not customary for sassafras drinkers to keep the root-bark separated from the root, the recently dug roots being shaved as the bark was used. Kentuckians claim that there are two varieties of sassafras, the red and the white, distinguished only by the bark. The white sassafras is not so aromatic and is bitter to the taste. In Kentucky , the red bark only is used.

In addition to the wood, root and bark, mucilage of the pith is employed in domestic medicine, for bathing inflamed eyes. A comprehensive description of the domestic uses of sassafras in Rafinesque’s Medical Flora, 1830, is reproduced as a fitting ending to this record of sassafras:

“Found from Canada to Mexico and Brazil. Roots, bark, leaves, flowers, fragrant and spicy. Flavor and smell peculiar, similar to fennel, sweetish sub-acrid, residing in a volatile oil heavier than water. The sassafrine, a peculiar mucus unalterable by alcohol, found chiefly in the twigs and pith, thickens water, very mild and lubricating, very useful in ophthalmia, dysentery, gravel, catarrh, etc. Wood yellow, hard, durable, soon loses the smell, the roots chiefly exported for use as stimulant, antispasmodic, sudorific, and depurative; the oil now often substituted; both useful in rheumatism, cutaneous diseases, secondary syphilis, typhus fevers, etc. Once used in dropsy. The Indians use a strong decoction to purge and clean the body in the spring; we use instead the tea of the blossoms for a vernal purification of the blood. The powder of the leaves used to make glutinous gombos. Leaves and buds used to flavor some beers and spirits. Also deemed vulnerary and resolvent chewed and applied, or menagogue and corroborant for women in tea; useful in scurvy, cachexy, flatulence, etc. Bowls and cups made of the wood; when fresh, it drives bugs and moths. The bark dyes wood of a fine orange color called ‘shikih’ by Missouri tribes, and smoked like tobacco.”

Future Research
• Toxicity of Sassafras officinale. The whole root should be subjected to toxicological study to resolve the debate around its potentially carcinogenic nature.
• Sassafras officinale and its effects on the GAS. The drug should be tested out in the animal model to determine its specific effects on the GAS.
• Sassafras officinale and infection. Clinically, the drug was used raise resistance to acute and chronic infection. Its ability to raise resistance to infections should be examined.
• Sassafras officinale and State of Exhaustion related skin disorders. The drug was used when State of Exhaustion presented itself prominently in the skin. Its role in raising resistance in this circumstance should be examined.

Eco-availability
The drug is abundant in the wild and is readily grown.

References
• King, John. The American Eclectic Dispensatory. Moore , Wilstach, and Keys. Cincinnati . 1854. P. 589.
• Scudder, J. M. Specific Medication and Specific Medicines. Revised. Fifth Edition. Wilstach, Baldwin and Company. Cincinnati . 1874. P. 165.
• Scudder, J. M. The American Eclectic Materia Medica and Therapeutics. Published by the Author. Cincinnati . 1883. P. 212.
• Felter, Harvey Wickes and Lloyd, John Uri. Kings’ American Dispensatory. Volume one and Volume two. Ohio Valley Company. Cincinnati . 1898. P. 1388.
• Lloyd, JU. History of the Vegetable Drugs of the Pharmacopoeia of the United States . Bulletin number 18: pharmacy number 4. 1911. P. 75.
• Lloyd, John Uri. Origin and History of all the Pharmacopoeial Vegetable Drugs, Chemicals and Preparations. Volume 1: Vegetable Drugs. The Caxton Press. Cincinnati . 1921. P. 289.
• Dr. Duke’s Phytochemical and Ethnobotanical Databases. Agricultural Research Service. USDA.
• Erichson-Brown, Charlotte . Medicinal and other uses of Native American Plants. Dover Publications. New York . 1979. P. 103–106.
• Foster, Stephen and Duke, James. Eastern and Central Medicinal Plants. Houghton Mifflin Company. Boston . 1990. P. 278.

Properties and Uses. – sassafras is a warm aromatic stimulant, alterative, diaphoretic, and diuretic. It is generally used in combination with other alteratives whose flavor it improves, in syphilitic affections, chronic rheumatism, scrofula, and many cutaneous eruptions. The mucilage of the pith is used as a local application in acute ophthalmia, and as a demulcent drink in disorders of the chest, bowels, kidneys, and bladder. The oil is used to afford relief in the distressing pain attending menstrual obstructions, and that following parturition, in doses of from five to ten drops, on sugar; also used in diseases of the kidneys and bladder. Externally, as a rubefacient, in painful swellings, sprains, bruises, rheumatism, etc., and is said to check the progress of gangrene. NUX VOMICA:

1874: Scudder
A very good preparation of the Sassafras for office use, it a tincture of the barnk of the root by percolation, using dilute alcohol or whisky. It forms a pleasant vehicle for many remedies, when we desire the gently stimulant and astringent action of the remedy. Tincture of Podophyllum added to it, in the proportion of 3ij. to 3iv.., in teaspoonful doses four times a day, forms an admirable alterative.

In the treatment of secondary syphilis, especially when manifesting itself in disease of the skin, the infusion will be found preferable. In this case I would direct an infusion of Sassafras with a small portion of Podophyllum, 3ss. of the first, grs. x. of the second, to the pint of water, three times a day. It may be associated with the vapor bath, spirit-vapor bath, or sulphur bath in stubborn cases.

1883: Scudder: (alterative)
(The bark of the root of Sassafras Officinale)

Dose – The infusion of decoction may be taken freely.

Therapeutic Action – Sassafras is alterative, diaphoretic, diuretic and stimulant. Taken in the form of a warm infusion, it forms a very agreeable diaphoretic in many diseases; if taken cold, the body being kept cool, it frequently acts as a diuretic. It is much employed as an alterative and diaphoretic in chronic rheumatism, an din scorbutic, venereal, and cutaneous diseases, mostly however, as an adjunct to improve the taste of other remedies. The warm infusion is esteemed very valuable as a diaphoretic in the acute exanthemata, to promote the eruptive process.

The bark converted into a fine powder, an dmade into a poultice, by combining it with ulmus fulva, corn-meal, etc., forms a valuable antiseptic, detergent and topical stimulant, and as such it may be applied to indolent and gangrenous ulcers, contused, sloughing or gangrenous parts, and to parts threatened with mortification.

The medulla or pith of the young shoots, forms a limpid mucilage by maceration with water, and is one of the best local applications, in acute conjunctivitis, with which we are acquainted. The leaves macerated in water, yield a mucilage, which will be found a pleasant and demulcent drink, in febrile diseases, or in any case where there is irritation or inflammation of the stomach or bowels.

1898: Felter and Lloyd – SASSAFRAS (U.S.P.) – SASSAFRAS
Action, Medical Uses, and Dosage- Sassafras is a warm, aromatic stimulant, alterative, diaphoretic, and diuretic. It is generally used in combination with other alteratives, particularly podophyllum, whose flavor it improves, in syphilitic affections, chronic rheumatism, scrofula, and many cutaneous eruptions. Stubborn cases require also the aid of vapor, spirit or sulphur baths. The mucilage of the pith (2 drachms to 1 pint of water) is used as a local application in acute ophthalmia, and is a demulcent drink in disorders of the chest, bowels, kidneys, and bladder. The oil, in doses of from 5 to 10 drops on sugar, is used to afford relief in the distressing pain attending menstrual obstructions, and that following parturition; also used in diseases of the kidneys and bladder. I have also derived some benefit from its internal use in gonorrhoea and obstinate gleet; 5 to 10 drops on sugar, 3 times a day (J. King). Externally, as a rubefacient, in painful swellings, sprains, bruises, rheumatism, etc., and is said to check the progress of gangrene. An infusion of the bark (3j to hot water Oj) administered internally and applied externally is reputed an excellent treatment for rhus poisoning.