BLOODROOT POWDER
Product No. P02101
Also known as Sanguinaria Canadensis or Puccoon.
Bloodroot is an early spring wildflower from eastern North America that grows in shady areas, and especially woodland. It is also cultivated as a garden plant. Bloodroot belongs to the poppy family and is related to the opium poppy, from which important drugs like opium, heroin, morphine, and codeine are obtained.
The leaves and flowering stem shoot up from the rhizome in early March or April. In the beginning, the leaves are wrapped around the flower bud, but during growth, the flower begins to expand above them as they gradually unfurl. The 8 to 16-inch flowering stems bear a single flower, similar in appearance to a daisy, almost 2 inches in diameter, which can have anything from six to twelve white petals surrounding the many golden stamens.
Bloodroot contains isoquinqline alkaloids, notably sanguinarine (1%), and many others, including berberine. Sanguinarine is a strongly expectorant substance that also has antiseptic and local anaesthetic properties.
The orange-red sap from bloodroot was formerly used by Native Americans as a skin stain for war dances and ceremonial rituals, as well as a fabric dye. However, the properties of this plant the settlers discovered, were more medicinal than decorative. As they learned from the Indians (who used the blood-red juice as a treatment for sore throats and cancer, and an infusion of the rhizome for rheumatism), bloodroot is a powerful herb. Both the powdered rhizome and the juice from bloodroot are extremely caustic, chemically capable of corroding and destroying tissue. Therefore bloodroot came to be prescribed as a cure for surface cancers, fungal growths such as ringworm, and nose polyps. Folk healers also recommended bloodroot as an emetic to induce vomiting, as an expectorant for bronchitis, a laxative, and even as a stimulant for the digestive organs.
The rhizome is the part of the plant used in contemporary herbal medicine, chiefly employed as an expectorant, promoting coughing and the clearing of mucus from the respiratory tract. Bloodroot is prescribed for chronic bronchitis and due to its antispasmodic effects, for asthma and whooping cough. Bloodroot may also be used for sore throats, indigestion, hayfever, hot flushes headaches and migraines, and as a wash or ointment for fungal and viral skin conditions.
The plant contains a powerful alkaloid called sanguinarin, which can cause nausea and vomiting, and burning pain in the stomach. The burning quality of the plant is of most significance in the homeopathic remedy, although it is fatal in large doses.
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