| A perennial herb of the horsetail family, known as scouring rush because of its tough, wiry stems which are used for polishing. Stem evergreen, 0.5-1.0 m., simple or slightly branching, swollen between nodes, very rough, with 10-30 even longitudinal furrows, large central cavity. Leaves reduced to sheaths, short, as wide as long, closely set, awl-shaped, teeth 10-30, scariose, after falling leaving a round black projection lined with a ridge provided with protuberant tubercles in two regular rows. Spikes terminal, 8-15 mm. long by 4-6 mm. across, cone-like, ovoid, compact, pointed, bearing spores. North Temperate Zone. The stems, after having been stripped of their sheaths, are ground to a powder for medicinal use. The taste of the drug is bittersweet and astringent. The plant contains silica, starch, a volatile oil and resin, and equisetic (aconitic) acid. Its action is hemostatic and diuretic.120 Used internally as an astringent hemostatic in dysentery, enterorrhagia, hemorrhoidal hemorrhage. Dose, 5-10 gm. Externally, in cataplasm for hemorrhoids and anal fistulae; as ophthalmic lotion in treatment of epiphora, leukoma. |
