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 | Mezereon Other Names: Dwarf Bay. Flowering Spurge. Spurge Olive. Spurge Laurel.
Botanical Name: Daphne mezereum
Family: N.O. Thymelaeaceae |
Description: |
The mediaeval name Mezereum is derived from the Persian Mazariyun, a name given to a species of Daphne. The barks of Daphne laureola, or Spurge Laurel, and D. Gnidium are also official in the British Pharmacopceia and United States.
Though a hardy shrub and indigenous to England, D. mezereum is not often found wild. The leaves appear at the ends of the branches after the flowers, and are alternate, lanceolate, entire, 2 to 3 inches long and dark green in colour. The small, purplishpink, four-segmented flowers grow in little clusters, and the bright-red, fleshy, ovoid, bluntly-pointed fruits, about 3/8 inch long, appear close to the stem in July.
There are varieties with yellow fruit and white flowers.
Occasionally the bark is found in commerce in quills, but more often in tough, flexible, thin, long strips, rolled like tape, splitting easily lengthways but difficult to break horizontally. The inner surface is silky, and the thin, outer, corky layer, of a light greenish-brown colour, separates easily in papery fragments.
The unpleasant odour of the fresh bark diminishes with drying, but the taste is intensely burning and acrid, though sweetish at first. The root bark is most active, but inadequate supplies led to the recognition of the stem bark also. |
Habitat: |
| Europe, including Britain, and Siberia. Naturalized in Canada and the United States. |
Constituents: |
| The acridity of the bark is chiefly due to mezeen, a greenish-brown, sternutatory, amorphous resin. Mezereic acid, into which it can be changed, is found in the alcoholic and ethereal extracts, together with a fixed oil, a bitter, crystalline glucoside, daphnin, and a substance like euphorbone. Daphnin can be resolved into daphnetin and sugar by the action of dilute acids. |
Medicinal Usage: |
Stimulant and vesicant. A moist application of the recent bark to the skin will cause redness and blisters in from twenty-four to forty-eight hours. It may be softened in hot vinegar and water and applied as a compress, renewed every twelve hours. It can be used for a mild, perpetual blister.
An ointment was formerly used to induce discharge in indolent ulcers.
The bark is used for snake and other venomous bites, and in Siberia, by veterinary surgeons, for horses' hoofs.
The official compound liniment of mustard includes an ethereal extract, and one of its rare internal uses in England is as an in gredient in compound decoction of sarsaparilla.
Authorities differ as to its value in chronic rheumatism, scrofula, syphilis and skin diseases. A light infusion is said to be good in dropsies, but if too strong may cause vomiting and bloody stools. Thirty berries are used as a purgative by Russian peasants, though French writers regard fifteen as a fatal dose.
In Germany a tincture of the berries is used locally in neuralgia.
Slices of the root may be chewed in toothache, and it is recorded that an obstinate case of difficulty in swallowing, persisting after confinement, was cured by chewing the root constantly and so causing irritation.
The berries have proved fatal to children. |
Ancient Lore: |
MEZEREON SPURGE
DAPHNE MEZEREUM
The whole plant has an exceeding acrid, biting taste and is very corrosive.
A hardy deciduous shrub growing to about four feet (1.2 M) with purplish-red flowers almost the whole length of the branches. A red berry appears in midsummer.
Where to find it: A garden shrub, but also found wild in scrubland and woodland.
Flowering time: Late winter, early spring.
Astrology: It is saturnine.
Medicinal virtues. An ointment prepared from the bark or the berries is applied to foul ill-conditioned ulcers. A decoction is made of one dram
(1. 7 g) of the powdered bark of the root to three pints (1.6 1) of water, boiled down to two pints (1.1 1). This taken during the course of a day for a considerable time has been found efficacious in resolving and dispersing venereal swellings and excrescences. Caution is required in administration and the medicine must only be given to people of robust constitutions and very sparingly even to those. If given in too large a dose, or to a weakly person, it will cause bloody stools and vomiting.
A light infusion is the best mode of giving it. It is good in dropsy and other stubborn disorders.
Modern uses: It is mainly used in homoeopathic form for mental depression. Specially prepared tablets are available only from homoeopathic chemists. It has been used domestically for rheumatism, syphilis and obstinate skin diseases, but severe poisoning has been caused. Only very small doses should be taken, no more than 10 grains (65o mg) of the powdered bark or two or three drops of the fluid extract. A small amount is sometimes incorporated in compound decoction of Sarsaparilla, which is used as a blood purifier. |
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