Origin

This consists of the leaves of Ruta graveolens, or common rue, an undershrub, two or three feet high, indigenous in the South of Europe, but now generally cultivated in gardens.

Properties

Rue has a disagreeable odour, which is strongest when it is rubbed or bruised. its taste is warm, bitter, and acrid. Water and alcohol extract its virtues, which reside chiefly in a volatile oil, separable by distillation with water, and sometimes used.

Effects on the System

Rue is locally somewhat acrid, and in its effects on the system moderately stimulant, with a disposition to act on most of the secretions, and a special affinity for the uterus. it appears also to have some influence on the nervous system, analogous to that of the nervous stimulants. in very large quantities, it acts as an acrid and narcotic poison; producing vomiting, purging, violent abdominal pains, tenesmus, bloody stools, severe strangury, fever, giddiness, confused sight, delirium, involuntary muscular movements, and somnolency, and, with these narcotic symptoms, a small, slow, and feeble pulse, with coolness of the skin, and great debility. These symptoms continue for several days. One instance of fatal result is on record. (See U. S. Dispensatory.) The cases of poisoning have generally followed the use of the medicine, taken with the view of producing abortion, which often occurs. The local effects of rue on the stomach and bowels are probably owing to its direct action on the mucous membrane; those upon the circulation, uterus, urinary organs, and nervous system, to the absorption of its volatile oil.

Therapeutic Application

Rue is often used in domestic practice as an emmenagogue, and with some success. it is especially adapted to cases in which the nervous system is at the same time disordered, as in hysteria with amenorrhoea. it is also used as a nervous stimulant in the colicky affections of children, especially when attended with convulsions. in these cases, it may be administered advantageously by injection. it has been employed as an anthelmintic, and locally as a rubefacient.

Like Savine, and sometimes along with it, rue is used by some practitioners for the suppression of uterine hemorrhage, which it may be supposed to effect by producing contraction, in a relaxed state of the organ.

The medicine may be given in the form of powder, infusion, or volatile oil. The dose of the powder is from fifteen to thirty grains; of an infusion, made in the proportion of an ounce to the pint, one or two fluidounces; of the volatile oil, from two to five drops.

The remaining substances belonging to this section may, with propriety, from their more doubtful character, be considered in a subordinate position.