Spiritus Glandium Quercus – Pathogénésies de l’an 1900 – Robert Séror

Pathogénésies de l’an 1900

New, Old And Forgotten Remedies

By Edward
Pollock Anshutz

Presented
by Dr Robert Séror

Spiritus Glandium
Quercus

(Dr. Rademacher, Dr. J. C. Burnett)

Natural Order

:
Cupuliferae.

Common Name

:
European or English oak.

Preparation

: The
spirit is distilled from the tincture prepared by macerating the acorn
kernels 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 :

Dr. Johann Gotttfried Rademacher ( 1772-1850)

I became 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 Günther 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
parlor maid, and settled here in this town as a joiner.

One day when visiting his sick wife I remembered the old story of his
belly-ache, 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 belly-ache, 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 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 painkilling 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
precordia 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, diarrhea 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 Care, 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 homeopathic antidote, because
alcoholism is a disease, and as such must be met by specific medication.

Dr. James Compton Burnett (1840-1901)

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 homeopathic 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 lie 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 precordia 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
homeopathic 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 homeopathic antialcoholic.

(It is not fair to quote further from Burnett, but we may add chat in his hook, 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.)

Numérisation, vérification, illustrations,
restructuration et mise en page par le Dr. R. S.