Along with other therapeutic applications, The Ayurvedic Pharmacopoeia of India indicates the use of the dried rhizomes as a brain tonic in weak memory, psychoneurosis and epilepsy.
Four types of Calamus are used in herbal medicine: type I—Acorus
calamus L. var. americanus, a diploid American var.; type TI—var. vulgaris L. (var. calamus), a European triploid; type III and type IV—var. augustatus Bess. and var. versus L., subtropical tetraploids.
Beta-asarone is carcinogenic in animals. Volatile oil of types II, III and IV—major constituent is usually betaasarone (isoasarone), up to 96%. Indian calamus oil contains asarone up to 82% and its beta-isomer. In type I, beta-asarone and other phenylpropanoids are absent. It is superior in spasmolytic activity to the other types.
Indian practitioners mostly use A. calamus externally. Shveta Vachaa (Haimavati, equated with Acorus gramineus Scoland. Ex Ait., a diploid, is used internally. Unani physicians use Paris polyphylla Sim. as Khuraasaani Bach.
The essential oil-free alcoholic extract of A. calamus possesses sedative and analgesic properties.
Alpha- asarone p otentiates pentobarbital, accounts for some, but not all, neurodepressive activity. Beta- asarone is reportedly hallucinogenic. (Francis Brinker.)
The ethanolic extract of rhizomes show significant antisecretory and antiulcerogenic activity; also, protective effect against cytodestructive agents, experimentally.
Dosage Rhizome—60—120 mg powder. (API Vol. II.)
Acorus gramineus Soland. ex Ait.
Family Araceae.
Actinodaphne hookeri Meissn. 17
Habitat Native to Japan, occasionally met within Sikkim at an altitude of 1,800 m, in Khasi Hills up to
1,500 m.
Ayurvedic Haimavati (white var. of Vachaa).
Action Antispasmodic (used in abdominal colic). See A. calamus.
Actaea spicata Linn.
Synonym A. acuminata Wall. ex Royle
Family Ran unculaceae.
Habitat Native to Europe; grows in temperate Himalayas from Hazara to Bhutan.
English Baneberry Grapewort. Folk Visha-phale (Kannada).
Action Root—antirheumatic,
