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Acorus calamus L. (Acoraceae)

(Syns.: A. angustatus Raf.; A. belangeri Schott; A. casia Bertol.; A. elatus Salisb.; A. flexuosus Raf.; A. odoratus Lam.)

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Handbook of 200 Medicinal Plants

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Abstract

A semiaquatic perennial plant, found in damp marshy places especially at the banks of lakes and streams in India, Myanmar, Iran, South China, Europe, and North America. Arabian physicians identify it as Acoron of the Greeks. Avicenna described the drug under the name of Waj and quoted Galen with regard to its properties, and all the Arabian and Persian physicians reproduced what Dioscorides had written about it. Arabian physicians also agree in identifying it as the Acoron of the Greeks. The rhizomes are considered deobstruent, carminative, brain and nerve tonic, and purgative of phlegmatic humours which are supposed to be the causes of paralysis, dropsy and many other diseases; hence used in cases of convulsions, paralysis, insomnia and numbness. It is also used as an infusion in dyspepsia, flatulence, anorexia, and in atonic and choleric diarrhea of children. It is one of the three most frequently cited drugs in the Chinese classical medical literature over the past 1800 years for the treatment of forgetfulness. Chinese consider it analeptic, expectorant, anti-inflammatory, detoxicant, and anthelmintic, and use it to treat manic-depressive psychosis, epilepsy induced by fear, convulsions, coma due to phlegm, rheumatism, loss of appetite due to fulminant dysentery, and to promote wound healing. The Potawatomis native Indians sniffed the powdered root to treat catarrh; other American natives chewed the root to stop coughs, drank a decoction or inhaled smoke to relieve cold symptoms. Acorin and acoretin are the two bitter principles of the root. Asarone (chemically like muscaline), and β-asarone (chemically like myristicin and Kava alkaloids) are said to be the active hallucinogenic principles. A volatile oil, due to its major constituent β-asarone, is responsible for the drug’s characteristic odor and taste; the exact composition of the oil varies somewhat with the geographical origin of the plant. Ethanol rhizome extract exhibits analgesic, sedative, anticonvulsive, moderately hypotensive and respiratory depressant properties, and demonstrated significant antidepressant effects in animal models. Its hypnosis-potentiating and hypotensive activities reside in the volatile oil.

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    Shahid Akbar

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Akbar, S. (2020). Acorus calamus L. (Acoraceae). In: Handbook of 200 Medicinal Plants. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-16807-0_10

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