Mayapple

Mayapple: what was it used for?

Bigelow ranked the root among the surest and most active of native cathartics, answering the purposes of jalap, aloes, and rhubarb, twenty grains of the fine powder being commonly enough, and he had it from Professor Barton that the leaves were poisonous and the whole plant somewhat narcotic; the Shakers of Lebanon prepared an esteemed extract. Millspaugh calls it “one of the principal remedies used by the American aborigines,” valued for its cathartic action, and names the resin podophyllin, first used by Professor John King in 1835, that went into the cathartic pills of a century. The ripe fruit, Bigelow’s “wild lemons,” was eaten with impunity, though Millspaugh saw catharsis follow indulgence in it and knew of fatal results from the spring foliage taken as a potherb. In Britain it entered the Pharmacopoeia in 1864.

Mayapple: what does modern science say?

Podophyllotoxin, the crystalline principle, is the parent of the topoisomerase inhibitors used against cancer, and the resin is still applied to genital warts; both are poisons. In 1979 a young woman treated for warts with three to eight millilitres of the resin returned in a coma twenty hours later with the marrow, the liver, and the nervous system all injured, and six months afterward still had neurological sequelae; in 1982 a man who swallowed ten grams of podophyllum showed no symptoms for ten hours and then lost his reflexes, fell into coma with a marked lactic acidosis, and died at thirty-nine hours despite haemoperfusion.

Mayapple: what did the older authorities say?

Jacob Bigelow

“We have hardly any native plant which answers better the common purposes of jalap, aloes and rhubarb, and which is more safe and mild in its operation.” The root should be given in substance in fine powder, twenty grains; it is dug in the cold season, autumn and winter, when the virtue of perennials is gathered in the root, though he doubted the difference was as great as commonly supposed. The fruit “is acid and agreeable to the taste of many persons. It is sometimes called wild lemons, and is eaten with impunity.”

Charles F. Millspaugh

The apples when fully ripe “are gathered, especially by children, who seem to relish their sweet, mawkish taste,” and are sold in markets, “though catharsis often follows indulgence in them, and, to susceptible persons, it is often quite severe.” The odour of the flowers is nauseous. “The foliage and stems, when appearing in spring, have been used for a potherb, and in some cases with fatal results.” Podophyllin is prepared by exhausting the root with alcohol and pouring the syrupy percolate into cold water; the yield is about eighty-four pounds to the ton, highest in April.

Mrs. M. Grieve

The American Mandrake: “a medicine of most extensive service; its greatest power lies in its action upon the liver and bowels.” In large doses it produces nausea and vomiting, “and even inflammation of the stomach and intestines, which has been known to prove fatal.” The leaves and roots are poisonous; the fruit is edible, sweet though slightly acid. The drug was well known to the North American Indians as an emetic and vermifuge.