[Ulrich Meyer]
Oak - medicinal agent for allergic and dermatological conditions (Die Eiche
– Heilmittel für allergische und dermatologische Erkrankungen).
Der Merkurstab 2005; 58: 358-64.
Abstract
The young bark (Cortex Quercus) from the
species Quercus robur (common oak) and Quercus petraea (sessile oak) contains
large amounts of tannins.
Decocts of the bark and preparations made from
it, like ointments and suppositories are traditionally used for
inflammatory-pruritic skin diseases, eczema and haemorrhoids.
For the specifically anthroposophical
preparation Calcium Quercus, oak bark is reduced to ashes, the ash is washed
with water to obtain pure calcium oxide (CaO).
It combines with the carbon dioxide of the air
to form calcium carbonate (CaCO).
The oak bark decoct is potentised to the 6th
decimal using the saturated solution of calcium carbonate prepared from the
ash. The preparation Calcium Quercus is available
in 1 and 10 ml ampoules as well as coated
pillules. The 10 ml ampoules are for the control of acute allergic reactions.
The 1 ml ampoules and the coated pillules are suitable
for the continuation of the acute treatment and
for chronic conditions. The also used in the paediatric therapy.
Allergy emerge from this barely differentiated
relationship of plant and animal pursue diametrically opposite paths in their
development toward perfection. Thus plants attain
their final glory in the tree, enduring and
rigid, while the animal does so in man by achieving the highest degree of
mobility and freedom.”
The tree is thus a high point in plant
evolution - we do with good reason speak of it bearing a “crown”.
The two closely related species of oak used in
pharmacy, Quercus robur (common or pedunculate oak) and Quercus petraea
(durmast or sessile oak), belong to the Fagaceae (beech family).
Together with the birch family and others they
are members of the order Fagales (beech-like trees), the native woodland trees
of Central Europe.
Below we will consider how the oak deals with
the mineral world, develops its life as a plant, is occupied by many animals
and finally also used by human beings.
Once the plant has germinated, the tremendous
roots rapidly penetrate the soil to a great depth. The tap root is said to go
down as deep as the crown extends skywards. Lightning often strikes oaks,
probably because of the connection with ground water.
Pliny (23/24 – 79 AD) claimed in his reports on
German lands to have observed a particularly striking fact: “Oaks are growing
with great vigour on the banks. Washed away
by floods or blown down by gales they take vast
islands with them in their enormous root systems, and thus balanced float along
under the rigging of their mighty branches, often causing terror in our ships
when driven, as though by purpose, against their foreparts when lying at anchor
at night.
Knowing no other means, the ships would then start
a maritime battle against trees.”
Oaks thrive on lime and avoid very acid soils.
They do not deplete the soil at all but tend to improve it, with other plants
benefiting from this in mixed oak woodland.
Oaks do, however, need a certain quality and
maturity of soil before they’ll grow; they are not pioneering trees like birch,
for example. After the Ice Age, oak followed birch,
always in danger of being displaced both above
and below ground by fast-growing beeches.
The genus Quercus certainly likes warmth (cork
oaks = Quercus suber) growing in the Mediterranean region. Sensitivity to frost
limits the northward spread of the two species used in pharmacy [robur (=
Stieleiche) and petraea (= Wintereiche)].
The trunk soon branches in a way that the main
shoot is not always easily identified. Under special circumstances the stem may
split at ground level; two trees thus developed over centuries in the case of
the Ravens Oak in Erle near Dorsten, Germany, estimated to be 1,500 years old.
The lateral branches of the tree often take a sharp turn, like a knee, and then
regain secondary uprightness.
They seem rigid, resisting the wind - “he’s
like an oak”, as the popular saying goes. Oak has always been seen as a male
tree (robur = robust, mighty), and related to Mars.
Oak leaves were awarded for victory, as well as
the laurel of antiquity. The war-like aspect also shows through in Pliny’s
description above. Oak was and continues to be used as a symbol of government
power and was frequently misused by NS fascists for their emblems.
Oak leaves are coarsely lobed, their tips
looking flattened. They often curl slightly inwards in the margins. It is very
dark under an oak. New leaves appear relatively late in the year, but the
foliage persists for longer than with many other trees. Some leaves often
remain throughout winter on branches in the inner crown.
Quercus robur and Quercus petraea can be
distinguished, among other things, by their leaves and fruit - robur has
Oak is wind-pollinated and produces vast
amounts of pollen, though - compared to birch - the pollen hardly plays a role
as an allergen.
After pollination, heavy fruits develop from
the inconspicuous flowers. They hit the ground with a thud in autumn and
provide food for deer, squirrels, dormice, mice, pigs and jays.
Burying acorns in the ground in autumn and
forgetting them means that the animals also help to spread the tree; its
advances following the Ice Age are said to have been partly due to this. People
have traditionally roasted acorns in ersatz for coffee, and in times of need
even added acorn flour to bread dough. Before potatoes were introduced, farmers
liked to drive their pigs into the woods to fatten them.
The acorn yield thus played a considerable role
in the valuation of a piece of woodland, and it was said that the best hams
“grew” on oaks. Acorns are found only in mature woodlands, for the trees only
bear fruit when more than 50 or 60 years old.
Oaks provide habitat even when dying - the
middle spotted woodpecker is wholly dependent on the rotten trunks.
The affinity between insects and oak is
remarkable.
More than 200 species depend on the tree. Oaks
cope well with oak-moths eating all the leaves, producing numerous new leaves
around St John’s Tide. Processional spinner moths have toxic hairs that may
trigger dermatitis. In the case of the gypsy moth, symbiosis goes so far that
oak tannins (from Quercus rubra) protect it from virus infections. Finally the
kermes insect living on scarlet or grey oak can be used to obtain carmine dye.
The pinnacle of symbiosis is with wasps. These
lay their eggs in oak shoots, leaves or flowers. The tree reacts to the
developing maggot by creating a spherical gall.
Here the oak abandons the archetypal planar
ether principle of plants (“forward or back, the plant is always but leaf”
(Goethe)- and opens up to the sphere’s principle of creating an interior space
under influence of the animal astrality brought in by the insect. In the plant
world, we generally find the creation of an interior space only in fruit -
characteristically the gall is coloured a fruity reddish yellow, which is why
it is also called an ‘oak-apple’. On the one hand the gall is a proliferation,
on the other it shows that the tree is able to set structured limits to the
foreign life.
The kindest of hosts to the animal world, the
oak shows reserve when it comes to certain plants. Broadleaf grown mistletoe
(Viscum album) is extremely rare on oaks. Only 10% of acorns from mistletoe
receptive trees grow into young trees which in their turn are receptive to
mistletoe. Clearly the plant which shuns the earth and “earthy” oak
can only harmonize within limits.
Oak provides excellent wood for parts of a
house subject to mechanical stresses, with at least the door and stairs made of
it to advantage. Oak wood incubated with dry rot (Serpula lacrymans) loses only
1.8% in weight over 18 weeks, compared to 51% lost by beech. Oak is also much
used for railway sleepers, in shipbuilding and for barrels. The special aroma
developed in fluids matured in oak casks is greatly appreciated. Oak wood does
not merely resist water without rotting but in fact tends to get even harder
and more firm under its influence. Oak pianos with excellent sound qualities
are said to have been built from submerged Roman bridges.
Finally there is the use of cork from Quercus
suber. This Mediterranean species develops a bark 10 cm in thickness to protect
it from fire and limit evaporation.
Cork is taken off in a ten-year rhythm and put
to various uses. Cork oaks and the olive have left their mark on cultivated
Mediterranean landscapes as much as orchard trees
of the rose family have in our parts.
Increasing use of plastic and metal stoppers poses a threat to traditional cork
harvesting in Mediterranean regions.
Use of oak in medicine and pharmacy
Oak bark from young branches (smooth bark) and
even more so the galls have a high tannin content
An idea of these may best be gained by making a
concentrated decoction of the bark and rinsing the mouth with it for some time.
Soon the mucous membranes register a furry, possibly a bit numb, and markedly
astringent effect, not “pointed” and “bright” as in the case of lemon, for
instance, but “blunt” and “dark”. It is important not to be misled
by the term “tannic acid”, which is correct in
terms of the chemical structure and was also used by R.S.
Tannins are widely used to this day to prevent
animal skins from rotting and keep them supple, i.e. to make them into leather
(vegetable tanning). Tannins form more or less stable complexes with proteins.
This gives them their anti-inflammatory, astringent, mildly local-anaesthetic
and drying actions on mucous membranes and skins. They stabilize the always
unstable human “boundary surface” which is too permeable in the case of eczema,
for instance, becoming metabolism-like in producing secretions.
Physiologically, skin cells are subject to a process of dying and drying out as
they migrate from the basal to the cornified layer. This alone gives them the
ability to create a boundary, a function performed by the bark in perennial,
woody plants.
Goethe realized that peripheral dying processes
were the condition for life on the inside.
“When we consider this miraculous structure and
become familiar with how it rises upward, we will once more meet an important
principle of structure: life is unable to work at the surface or express its
generative powers there. The whole activity of life requires a covering which
protects it against the raw elements of its environment, be they water or air
or light, a covering which preserves its delicate nature so that it may fulfil
the specific purpose for which it is inwardly destined.
Whether the covering takes the form of bark,
skin, or shell, anything that works in a living way must be covered over. And
thus everything turned toward the external world gradually falls victim to an
early death and decay. The bark of trees, the air and feathers of animals, even
the epidermis of man, are coverings forever being shed, cast off, given over to
non-life.
New coverings are constantly forming beneath
the old, whilst still further down, close to this surface or more deeply
hidden, life brings forth its web of creation.”
Wala produces oak preparations with tannin
content as Quercus-Essence
1. (for compresses and (sitz) baths, e.g. for
anal eczema), Quercus haemorrhoid suppositories
2. and Quercus ointment
3. haemorrhoids but also varicosities and
eczema.
The boundary-setting “signature” might suggest
the use of tannins also for allergic conditions, but so far this has not been
done to any extent in herbal medicine or homoeopathy. It appears, that after
the Second World War tannin (a special form of it) was given by as injection to
treat urticaria and allergic oedema with “good results” in Hungary, the results
largely reminiscent “of the actions of antihistamine preparations”.
Apart from tannins, oak bark contains calcium,
and this will be discussed below.
Pharmacology of calcium
Calcium compounds have been used from 1896 to
treat allergic conditions. The discovery is above all connected with the
introduction of diphtheria serum treatment which would cause exanthemata,
especially in the early years when other proteins were still present. The
English bacteriologist Almroth Wright (1861 - 1947) was the first to treat such
patients with oral doses of calcium chloride.
Cortex Quercus - young, smooth bark = rich in
tannins; old bark = rich in calcium.
Composition
1) Quercus Essence - 100 g contain Quercus
robur/petraea e cortice decoct. LA 10%: 100 g.
2) Each 2-g suppository contains Aesculus
hippocastanum e semine ferm 10 mg; Borago officinalis e foliis ferm 10 mg;
Hamamelis virginiana e foliis ferm 10 mg; Quercus robur/petraea e cortice,
decoct. 2 (= 1x) 200 mg; Silybum marianum e fructibus ferm 10 mg.
3) 100 g contain Borago officinalis e foliis
ferm 0.5 g; Hamamelis virginiana e foliis ferm 0.5 g; Quercus robur/petraea e
cortice, decoct. (= 1x) 20 g.
The treatment was soon also adopted on the
Continent, with the initially small dose getting larger and larger. Intravenous
exhibition was used especially to treat severe allergic reactions (anaphylactic
shock or Quincke’s oedema). Calcium was given intramuscularly in addition to
achieve a certain depot effect and raise blood calcium levels more permanently.
The capillaries were thought to be the point of
attack for calcium, and this led to the term, still in use though not
satisfactory for modern pharmacologists, of a “capillary-sealing” action of
calcium.
It is interesting to note that early users of
calcium would speak of a “distant astringent action”, so that even the
terminology drew a parallel to the astringent quality of tannins. Calcium also
played an important role in the treatment of haemorrhages; certainly a plausible
indication if one considers the central significance of calcium in the
coagulation cascade. Exhibition of calcium in increasingly massive doses led to
signs of irritation with parenteral application, and interest thus focused for
years on the search for calcium compounds that were better tolerated.
One man only, Hugo Schulz (1853 -1932),
professor at Greifswald University (18), also the only German pharmacologist
who openly sympathized with (low-potency)
homoeopathy and even tried to give it a
scientific basis, pleaded for caution, even considering high doses to be
counterproductive. “As I said before, gentlemen, you must use calcium in low
doses if you want to see a deep-reaching effect.” Schulz still had a real
notion of the “boundary-building” action of calcium, and this made him
sceptical about the endeavours to increase the dosage more and more.
“We also meet calcium under quite different
conditions, namely as a kind of protection against tissue irritation,
especially in highly vascularized tissues. As you know from pathology,
chronically inflamed tissues have in themselves the peculiar and highly
interesting tendency to deposit calcium in their walls, often in considerable
amounts.
We also see such calcium deposits elsewhere.
Let me just remind you of the ‘calcification’
of old tubercle nodes, calcium deposits in chronically inflamed lymph glands
and in the walls of old abscesses.
The position of calcium is also very evident in
the process which takes place when Trichinella larvae have reached muscle
tissue and established themselves there. They are said to ‘encapsulate’
themselves. In reality, however, encapsulation is due to a peculiar reflex
action to their presence in muscle tissue.”
Composition of Calcium Quercus
The preparation was developed by Margarethe
Hauschka, MD (1896 – 1980) and her staff, the aim being to make the active
principles of calcium and tannin into a new whole. Oak bark is boiled until the
less easily soluble tannins are part of the solute. Bark is also calcined to
obtain pure calcium oxide (CaO). This combines with carbon dioxide in the air
to calcium carbonate (CaCO3).
The tannin extract is potentized to the 6th
decimal calcium carbonate solution as this is rapidly saturated because of the
low solubility.
The idea for the preparation probably came from
the 5th lecture in Rudolf Steiner’s Agriculture course, where he
spoke of oak bark as one of the six compost preparations.
He stressed that the calcium must remain in the
sphere of life to have healing properties. One could “not do anything with
ordinary calcium carbonate”. The source he gave
for this “living calcium” was oak bark. This
does, in fact, contain calcium oxalate crystals which appear as large clusters
under the light microscope. Steiner also touched on
the Goethean concept of the incipient death
process in the bark. “In particular the bark of oak trees is a kind of
intermediate product between vegetation and living soil,
wholly in the style of my description of the
relationship of living soil quality to earth or soil.
With regard to the properties shown by calcium,
the calcium structure found in oak bark is the most ideal.” The skull of a
domestic animal was to be used for making the compost preparation. With the
other preparations, Steiner gave explicit directions concerning the choice of
animal (e. g. red deer bladder for the yarrow preparation, clearly
not easily obtainable), here he simply said
that it was “more or less immaterial which of our domestic animals”. Evidently
it is the “skull principle” which matters, i. e. exoskeleton as a solid
container.
The skull filled with oak bark must then be
buried in soil heavily soaked in rainwater for the winter. R. S. added that one
might “add vegetable matter that would cause vegetable sludge to be present
throughout”. The transition from living to dead matter characteristic of oak
bark is thus recreated around the buried skull. The “composting”
and hence partial mineralization of oak bark is
in pharmacy copied and enhanced in the calcination process. If one lives for some
time with the idea of a skull overwintering
in damp, “sludgy” soil, the counter image of
the allergic patient who “flows apart” under the many sensory stimuli summer
provides.
Calcium Quercus is available in ampoules à 1
and 10 ml (Calcium Quercus inject) 4 and pilules 5.
Wholly in accord with experience gained in
conventional calcium treatment, the 10 ml ampoules in particular prove
effective in controlling acute allergic reactions.
Positive results have also been seen with
non-allergic pruritus (in pregnancy). Efficacy is so good that patients
tolerate even frequent injections well. Calcium Quercus is
also used to treat acute hayfever episodes
where Citrus/Cydonia or Gencydo® on their own do not meet the case.
The action of the 10-ml ampoules can be
objectively demonstrated against placebo on histamine wheals even under
double-blind conditions.
The 1-ml ampoules and pilules are above all
suitable for continuing on after acute treatment and for more chronic
evolutions. The pilules are also widely used in paediatric practice.
More recently, Calcium Quercus ampoules have
been used for inhalation by asthma patients, possibly also Composition
4) Calcium Quercus solution for injection. 1 ml
contains Quercus robur/petraea e cortice cum calcio carbonico solution = 6x
(produced from Quercus robur/petraea e cortice, by potentizing 5x
with saturated aqueous solution of Calcium
carbonicum e cinere Quercus) 1/10 ml.
2) 10 g contain Quercus robur/petraea e cortice
cum calcio carbonico solution = 6x, 1 g. combined with other preparations such
as Levico D3 (3x).
This merits further attention (against the
background of current antiinflammatory basic treatment for asthma in
conventional medicine. It needs to be systematically developed, as does the
whole of
inhalation treatment using anthroposophical
medicines.
A relatively new use is also for restless legs
syndrome.
This indication, first found on a purely
empirical basis at the Paracelsus Hospital in Richterswil (Switzerland) has
since been confirmed by others.
The use of Calcium Quercus 10-ml ampoules for
haemorrhages needs further clarification, with aspects of differential
treatment (as alternative to or supplemented with Stibium metallicum prep. D6)
established.
It is interesting to note that the styptic action
of calcium was at the latest established by the end of the 19th
century, whilst the discovery of the antiallergic action by Wright came 100
years later.
Apart from the “outer” occasion of serum
exhibition, there is no doubt also a deeper reason. It seems that allergies
began to be a real problem around the turn of that century. Today’s German
association
for allergies and asthma was established on
Heligoland as a “hayfever association” in 1997.
In 1902, Charles Richet (1850 – 1935) and Paul
Portier (1866 – 1962) coined the term “anaphylaxis”. The Viennese paediatrician
Clemens von Pirquet (1874 – 1929) introduced the term “allergy”
in 1906, having interpreted the serum disease
as an antigen-antibody reaction the year before. Finally Henry Dale (1875 –
1968) and Patrick Laidlaw (1881 – 1940) at Wellcome Laboratories in Britain
established the pharmacology of histamine and
the similarity between histamine-induced and anaphylactic shock in 1910 (26).
Reading what Rudolf Steiner had to say on the composition of
Citrus/Cydonia (= Gencydo®) in the 1920s one
may gain the impression that hayfever in this massive form was a ‘new’
syndrome. The term hay-“fever” created at the time indicates that at the time,
the
inflammatory aspect was more marked than in today’s
neurasthenic variants of the condition.