Spiritus Glandium Quercus

NAT. ORD.--Cupuliferae.



COMMON NAME--European or English oak.



PREPARATION.--The spirit is destilled from the tincture prepared by

macerating the acorn kernals from the Quercus robur, in five times their

weight of dilute alcohol.



(The following, from Rademacher, is quoted and translated

by Dr. J. C. Burnett in his Diseases of the Spleen).



I b came acquainted with this remedy in a wonderful way. Many years ago

(I do not remember the exact time) a working carpenter, who had

previously lived at Crefeld, came to seek my advice for his bellyache,

which was of long standing. According to his own statement, he had long

been under Sanitary Councillor Schneider in Crefeld, who was not able to

help him, and so sent him to Professor Guenther in Duisberg. Ten journeys

thither were likewise in vain.



I tried my usual remedies for seemingly such cases, but to no good; and

as I noticed he was a good cabinetmaker, and dabbled a bit in

upholstery, I told him it would be a good plan if he were to hire

himself out to a country squire as joiner, thinking that the food of the

servants' hall would suit his sick stomach better than the beans, black

bread, and potatoes of the master carpenter. The good fellow followed my

advice, and lived with a squire for many years; and I heard nothing more

about him. Finally, he married the parlormaid, and settled here in this

town as a joiner. One day when visiting his sick wife I remembered the

old story of his bellyache, and wanted to know how it then was. "All

right," said he, "I have not had it for years." It seems that a local

surgeon, being one day at the squire's, told him to get some acorns, and

scrape them with a knife, and then put the scrapings into brandy and

leave them to draw for a day, and then to drink a small glass of this

spirit several times a day. He did as he was advised, and was forthwith

relieved, and very soon entirely freed from his old trouble.



From what I knew of the surgeon, I was very sure he could not give me

any intelligent reason for his prescription. I should only have heard

that acorn scrapings in brandy were good for the bellyache, or, at the

most, I may have ascertained from what doctor, or peasant, or old wife

he had got the tip.



But this would have done me but poor service; and as I had in the

meantime become much more cunning, I questioned the joiner himself

afresh as to the kind of his old pain, particularly as to the part of

the belly where the pain was last felt when he had had a bad attack.

He was in no doubt about it, but at once pointed to the part of the

belly nearest the left hypochondrium. So I very shrewdly suspected that

the abdominal pains were really owing to a primary affection of the

spleen, in which notion I was strengthened by remembering that the best

pain-killing hepatic and enteric remedies had done him no good.



To get as soon as possible to the bottom of the thing, I set about

preparing a tincture of acorns, and gave a teaspoonful five times a day

in water to an old brandy drunkard, who was sick unto death, and of whom

I knew that he had suffered from the spleen for a very long time, the

spleen being from time to time painful. He had likewise ascites, and his

legs were dropsical as far as the knees. It occurred to me that if the

acorn tincture were to act curatively on the spleen the consensual

kidney affection and its dependent dropsy would mend. I soon saw that I

had reckoned rightly. The urinary secretion was at once augmented, but

the patient complained that each time after taking the medicine he felt

a constriction of the chest. I ascribed this to the astringent matter of

the acorns, and thinking the really curative principle thereof would

most likely be volatile I caused the tincture to be distilled. This

acorn spirit caused no further constriction, and the urinary secretion

was still more markedly increased, the tension in the praecordia became

less and less, and this hopelessly incurable drunkard got quite well,

much to the surprise of all who knew him, and, honestly speaking, much

to my own surprise also.



Having thus put the spirit of acorns to such a severe test, and that in

a case that I already knew so well, in which it was impossible to make a

mistake as to the primary affection, I went further, and used it by

degrees in all sorts of spleen affections, and that not only in painful

ones, but in painless ones, in the evident ones, and in those of a more

problematical kind. Gradually I became convinced that it is a remedy,

the place of which no other can take. More particularly is it of great,

nay, of inestimable value in spleen-dropsy. Later on, I found that the

volatile curative principle of acorns may be still better extracted with

water with the addition of alcohol. [The aqua glandium is thus

prepared:--One pound of peeled and crushed acorns to the pound of

distillate.] Perhaps water alone might extract the healing principle,

but it would not keep thus, and so the cures would be uncertain, not to

mention the fact that such-like decaying medicines are a great trouble

to the chemists. The dose of the spirituous acorn-water (the only

preparation I have used of late years) is half a tablespoonful in water

four times a day. It has not much taste; some would even say it has

none, but the doubter may make a solution of alcohol and water in the

same proportions, and he will soon find that it has quite a taste of its

own.



I must make mention of two of its peculiar effects. Certain people feel,

as soon as they have taken it, a peculiar sensation in the head, lasting

hardly a minute or two, which they say is like being drunk.



With a few people, particularly with those who have suffered from old

spleen engorgements, diarrhoea sets in after using it for two or three

weeks that makes them feel better. It seldom lasts more than a day, and

is not weakening, but moderate. Hence it is not needful either to stop

the acorn water or to lessen the dose.



I could add many instructive cases of spleen-dropsies and other spleen

affections in which the volatile principle of acorns proved curative,

but as I have so much more to say on other subjects I dare not be too

discursive on this one point; besides, what I have already said will

suffice for common-sense physicians. Still I cannot forbear noticing a

few bagatelles. For instance, I have found that the acute spleen fevers

that occur intercurrently with epidemic liver fevers are best cured with

aqua glandium--at least that is my experience.



Furthermore, I am of opinion that the three splenics of which I have

made mention are curative of three different morbid states of the

spleen, and I know well from my own experience that acorns are indicated

in the most common spleen affections; and, finally, I am not acquainted

with any positive signs whereby those three separate morbid states of

spleen can with certainty be differentiated from one another.



(In a later work, Gout and its Cure, by Burnett, the

remedy is again brought up as follows:)



For some years past I have been acquainted with a remedy that antidotes

the effect of alcohol very prettily, as I will show. I enter upon the

subject in this place, because it deserves to be widely known, and also

because in the treatment of gout, the alcoholism not infrequently bars

the way. The remedy I refer to is the distilled spirit of

acorns--Spiritus glandium quercus. My first account will be found in

my "Diseases of the Spleen," where Spiritus glandium quercus is dealt

with as a spleen medicine. I speak of set purpose of the homoeopathic

antidote, because alcoholism is a disease, and as such must be met by

specific medication.



Some of Rademacher's patients complained to him that while taking his

acorn medicine they felt in their heads somewhat as if they were drunk;

but as Rademacher did not believe in the law of similars--indeed, knew

but little about it--their complaint had no ulterior significance to

him, but still it struck him as worthy of record. "A few, but not many,

of those who take it immediately feel a peculiar sensation in the head,

which they say is like they feel when they are drunk, the sensation

lasting only a minute or two." Now, in the light of the homoeopathic

law, this symptom is eminently suggestive, but whether any one beside

myself has ever noticed this symptom I am not aware. Rademacher had

previously related the following brilliant cure. * * * He says that in

order to get a clear idea of the action of the remedy he caused to be

prepared a tincture of acorns, of which he gave a teaspoonful in water

five times a day to an almost moribund brandy toper, who had long been

suffering from a spleen affection that at times caused him a good deal

of pain, and who, at the time in question, had severe ascites and whose

lower extremities were dropsical up as far as the knees. Our author was

of opinion that the affection was a primary disease of the spleen, and

reasoned that if the tincture of acorns cured the spleen the kidneys

would duly resume work and the ascitic and anasarcous state would

disappear. He soon found he was right; patient at once began to pass

more urine, but he complained that every time he took a dose of the

medicine he got a constriction about the chest, and this Rademacher

ascribed to the astringent quality of the acorns, and to avoid this he

had the tincture of acorns distilled. The administration of this

distilled preparation was not followed by any unpleasant symptom, and

the quantity of urine passed increased still more, the tension on the

praecordia slowly lessened and this inveterate drunkard got quite well,

much to the amazement of everybody, Rademacher included, for he did not

at all expect him to recover.



Now, it must be admitted that a remedy that can cure an old drunkard of

general dropsy and restore him to health deserves closer acquaintance,

and when we first regard it from the pathogenetic side as producing, of

course, contingently, a cephalic state, resembling alcoholic

intoxication, and then from the clinical side as having cured an

abandoned drunkard, it looks very much as if we had a remedy

homoeopathic to alcoholism. I may add that Rademacher nowhere hints

that the Spiritus glandium quercus stands in any relation to

alcoholism; he regards it merely as a spleen medicine, specially

indicated in dropsy due to a primary spleen affection. At first I

regarded it merely in the same light, but when I really gripped the

significance of the pathogenetic symptoms just quoted I thought we might

find in our common acorns a notable homoeopathic anti-alcoholic.



(It is not fair to quote further from Burnett, but we may add that in

his book, Gout and Its Cure, there are given a number of clinical

cases in which the remedy acted brilliantly in those addicted to

tippling, or drinking hard. It is not so much that the remedy extirpates

the habit, but it enables those afflicted to easily control their

appetite and drink "like other people," without that insatiable craving.

The dose is about ten drops in water three to four times a day.)