The leaves have long been well known in Europe and in the East as a tan and dye, and the fruit as a medicine; the latter is described by Theophrastus and Dioscorides under the name of ῥοῦς as the fruit of a plant used for tanning,* Pliny calls them Rhus, and Scribonius Largus mentions them as an ingredient in astringent medicines.† Abu Hanifeh in his “Book of Plants” says that Sumák has bunches of small, intensely red berries, and that it does not grow in any part of the land of the Arabs except Syria. Aitchison informs us that it is cultivated in orchards in Khorasan. The author of the Kámus says “the fruit excites the appetite, stops chronic diarrhœa, and an infusion of it is useful in scurvy (سلاق) and for ophthalmia. It does not appear to be used by the Hindus. The tree is well described in the Makhzan-el-Adwiya by Mir Mohammad Husain, who says that the fruit is cold and dry, astringent, and tonic, that it checks bilious vomiting and diarrhœa, hæmoptysis, hæmatemesis, diuresis and leucorrhœa, strengthens the gums, and is useful as an astringent in conjunctivitis. Alone or mixed with charcoal it is applied to sores, suppurating piles, &c. A kind of liquid extract is made by boiling down the leaves and fruit, which is used as an astringent: poultices of the leaves are recommended as an application to the abdomen in the diarrhœa of children. He also mentions the gum and the russet-coloured down of the fruit as having powerfully astringent properties. Ainslie notices the use of the leaf and fruit in India by the Mahometans as a styptic, astringent and tonic; also their former use in France as an astringent in dysentery, in doses of 24 grains.
* Theophr H. P. iii., 18. Diosc. I., 128. † Plin. 24. 54, Scrib. Comp. 111 and 142.