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WARNING: All medicines, drugs, plants, chemicals or medicial precedures below are for historical reference only. Many of these treatments are now known to be harmful and possibly fatal. Do not consume any plant, chemical, drug or otherwise without first consulting a licensed physician that practices medine in the appropriate field.

Felter's Materia Medica on Nux Vomica

IGNATIA
   The seed of Strychnos Ignatia, Lindley (Nat. Ord. Loganiaceae). Philippine Islands. Dose, 1 to 2 grains. Common Name: St. Ignatius Bean. Principal Constituents.—Strychnine and brucine, the former predominating; and igasuric acid. Preparation.—Specific Medicine Ignatia. 1/20 to 5 drops. ( Usual method of administration: Rx Specific Medicine Ignatia, 5-15 drops; Water, 4 fluidounces. Mix. Sig.: One teaspoonful every 1 to 3 hours.) Specific Indications.—Atony and nervous debility; (see also below.) Action and Therapy.—Ignatia acts very much like nux vomica and may be used in conditions similar to those benefited by it. As it contains a considerable amount of brucine, it is thought to have a distinctive field in medicine. The specific guide for ignatia is atony and nervous debility. From the views of those who believe it superior to and even different in action from nux vomica we have outlined the following conditions in which it is said to be effective: General nervous atony; disposition to grieve; congestive headache; deep-seated, dull, dragging pain in the loins and back, or right hypochondrium; hysterical, choreic, epileptoid, or hypochondriacal manifestations arising from general nervous and muscular debility; muscular twitchings, particularly of the face and eyelids; dullness of the special senses, particularly asthenopia, and of hearing; wandering pelvic pains; sexual frigidity; dysmenorrhea, with colic-like pain and heaviness of the womb; coldness of the extremities, with burning of the soles of the feet. It will be observed that many of these symptomatic guides are derived from homeopathy. Observing the indications applicable it is believed useful in atonic dyspepsia, gastralgia, sick headache, disorders of the female reproductive organs, and nervous depression with pain. Though the composition of ignatia is similar to that of nux vomica, there may be a different molecular constitution in the two drugs, accounting for the varying shades of therapeutic activity ascribed to the two medicines.1

NUX VOMICA
   The dry, ripe seeds of Strychnos Nux vomica, Linné (Nat. Ord. Loganiacae). According to the U. S. P. it should contain at least 2.5 per cent of nux vomica alkaloids. India, along the Coromandel Coast, Ceylon, and other parts of the East Indies. Dose, 1/20 to 2 grains. Common Names: Poison Nut, Dog Button, Quaker Buttons. Principal Constituents.-The powerfully poisonous alkaloids strychnine (C21H22O2N2) and brucine (C23H26N2O4) in union with igasuric acid. Loganin, a glucoside, is inert. Preparations.—1. Specific Medicine Nux Vomica. Dose, 1/30 to 5 drops. (Usual form of administration: Rx Specific Medicine Nux Vomica, 5-15 drops; Water, enough for 4 fluidounces. Mix. Sig.: One teaspoonful every 1 to 3 hours.) 2. Tinctura Nucis Vomicae, Tincture of Nux Vomica. Dose, 1 to 15 minims. Specific Indications.—Atonic states; tongue pallid and expressionless, uncoated, or with a yellowish pasty coat; yellowness of conjunctivae; yellow or sallow countenance, and yellowish or sallow line around the mouth; fullness and dull pain in the right hypochondrium; pain in the right shoulder, with colicky pain, pointing toward the umbilicus; menstrual colic; constipation; diarrhoea of atony; functional forms of paralysis. Action.—In small doses strychnine (and nux vomica) has but little apparent effect other than that of a powerful bitter and general tonic. Larger doses greatly stimulate and still further heighten bodily tone. Full medicinal doses increase reflex action, quicken the rate of respiration, and enlarge the capacity of the lungs, augment the force, rate, and volume of the pulse, raise arterial pressure, give increased sharpness to sight, hearing, and smell, and cause general irritation and excitement. It acts directly upon the heart-muscle and its ganglia, stimulating them, but its lethal doses depress. The arterial rise is due to vaso-motor stimulation. It is one of the most powerful of respiratory stimulants, acting through the centric center of respiration, and not only increases the rate and power of breathing, but enlarges the lung capacity. Its action upon the nervous system is chiefly upon the ganglionic cells of the motor tract of the spinal cord, and in poisonous doses causes such profound irritation or excitement as to render them extremely responsive to the slightest stimuli, resulting in tetanic convulsions. Most likely it also feebly stimulates the sensory tracts and slightly increases the power of nerve conduction. Upon the cerebrum it is almost without action, except possibly to stimulate to greater acuity the nerve centers of the special senses. Temperature is scarcely affected by ordinary doses of strychnine. While a portion of strychnine is oxidized in the body, the drug is excreted by the kidneys unchanged and as strychnic acid. Strychnine, brucine, and nux vomica are all extremely energetic poisons, acting as such chiefly by excessive stimulation of the spinal cord and the medulla. Strychnine is the most powerful and quickest, brucine considerably less so, while nux vomica is slower than strychnine, but almost identical in action, and if the quantity be sufficient, equally certain to cause death. The slightest observable effects from small doses of these drugs occasion slight twitching of the muscles of the arms and legs, especially during sleep. This is accompanied by restlessness, some anxiety, quickening of the pulse, and generally slight sweating. Sometimes the action of the bowels is increased, and there is a greater quantity of urine secreted, which is voided with more than ordinary frequency. The sexual passions may be excited. In larger doses, but not large enough to kill, a sense of weakness and heaviness is experienced, with depression of spirits, trembling of the limbs, and a slight rigidity or stiffness upon attempted movement. Inability to maintain the erect position is common, and a light tap upon the ham, given suddenly, will be followed at once by a slight spasm, and the patient will no longer be able to stand. These are toxic and near-lethal effects. Lethal doses bring on the most violent of spasms and death (see below). The long-continued use of strychnine, in excessive amounts, tends to impair the digestive organs, and while small doses favor diuresis, large quantities impair that function by producing spasms of the bladder muscles. Toxicology.—Lethal doses of nux vomica or strychnine produce at first marked uneasiness and restlessness, with more or less of a sense of impending suffocation. Tremors of the whole body are observed. Suddenly there is violent starting of the muscles, and the ensuing convulsions are of such great violence as to throw the patient off the bed, or to a considerable distance. Nearly all the muscles are affected at the same time; the exception being, perhaps, of those of the jaws, which become locked last. The risus sardonicus is present and gives to the countenance a fiendish expression. Opisthotonos to an extreme degree takes place, the body resting upon the head and heels, with the hands clenched and the feet inverted. The convulsion is distinctly tetanic and is followed by a brief period of rest, during which the patient suffers acutely from pain, weariness, and rending of the limbs. He is conscious at all stages of the poisoning except just preceding death. During the intervals of repose from the convulsions there is acute sensibility and dreadful alarm. Upon the renewal of attack the patient may cry out from the violence of the spasmodic grip upon the respiratory organs. The slightest sound, draught of air, or beam of light will at once renew the convulsions. The spasms succeed each other rapidly, death usually taking place after three or four convulsions. Death may occur during the interval from exhaustion, or paralytic asphyxia, or during the vise-like grip upon the respiratory muscles and the heart from cramp asphyxia. The body stiffens after death and this rigidity has been known to persist for months. The smallest doses 1

PIPER METHYSTICUM
   The root of Piper methysticum, Forster (Nat. Ord. Piperaceae). South Sea Islands. Dose, 5 to 60 grains. Common Names: Kava-Kava, Ava, Ava-Pepper Shrub, Intoxicating Long Pepper. Principal Constituents.—Starch (50 per cent), methysticin (C15H14O5), the methyl ester of methysticic acid; kavahin (methylene protocatechuic aldehyde, identical with heliotropin or piperonal); and the chief active principle, an acrid resin (2 per cent) separable into the local anesthetic alpha-resin and the less active beta-resin. Preparation.—Specific Medicine Piper Methysticum. Dose, 5 to 60 drops. Specific Indications.—Irritation, inflammation, or debility of the urinary passages; chronic catarrhal inflammations; vesical irritation and inflammation; vesical atony; painful micturition, strangury, and dysuria; gonorrhea, slow and intractable; gleet; anorexia; gastric atony; pale and edematous tissues, with scanty or irregular flow of urine, and indisposition to exertion; dizziness and despondency; neuralgia, idiopathic or reflex. Action.—Piper Methysticum stimulates the salivary but not the cutaneous glands, and strongly excites the kidneys to watery diuresis, proportionately less solid material being voided in the urine. Upon the stomach it acts much like the stimulant bitters, increasing the appetite, and produces neither diarrhea nor dysentery. The central nervous system is stimulated by it to a species of intoxication, somewhat resembling but differing, however, from that caused by ethylic inebriation. Large doses will cause a drowsy and reserved intoxication, with confused dreams. The taste being agreeable, it is said one easily becomes a proselyte to its seductive qualities. The intoxicating drink prepared from it by the natives of certain Pacific islands induces an intoxication of a reserved drowsy character attended with confused dreams. Its long-continued use by them has caused more or less obscuration of vision and a dry, cracked, scaly and ulcerated skin, and lesions closely allied to leprosy. Therapy.—Piper methysticum, “the intoxicating long pepper”, is not an old medicine, though under the name of kava-kava and closely similar appellations it has been used in the preparation of a disgusting ceremonial drink among certain South Sea Islanders from early times. As a medicine it has the fourfold quality of being stimulant, sialagogue, tonic, and anaesthetic. Its field of action is upon the sensory nerves and mucous tracts of the body, more especially those of the genitourinal and gastro-intestinal tubes. Piper methysticum is an appetizer and tonic to the gastro-intestinal organs, this influence being especially marked when associated with urinary disorders. The patient is pale, the urinary product inconstant in quality; the tissues, especially of feet and legs, are edematous patient is indisposed to exertion, and has the general appearance of one with Bright’s disease, yet there is no albumen nor evidence of any particular disease. Such symptoms clear up quickly under this remedy, and the appetite is quickly restored. Piper methysticum augments digestion and promotes better assimilation. The glandular activity of the digestive tract is increased, natural secretion and excretion favored, constipation is overcome, and hemorrhoids, if present, are reduced. It also exerts a marked curative influence in chronic intestinal catarrh. The best known remedial action of this drug is upon the genito-urinal tract, in which, through presumably decreasing the blood supply by contracting the capillaries, it allays irritation with its consequent pain in urination, difficult micturition, and inflammation with discharges of mucus or muco-pus. Its reputation as a blennostatic in gonorrhea is well sustained, but, as with all remedies, the specific condition must be present for its best results. It relieves in that form of acute gonorrhea which is sluggish, tardy in responding to treatment, and tending toward the establishment of gleet. It is also a good agent in gleet. In the more acute cases it favorably assists the action of gelsemium, belladonna, and macrotys; while if there is marked debility it may be given with nux vomica or strychnine. Piper methysticum increases the power to urinate and, through its anaesthetic qualities, alleviates pain in the bladder and urethra, hence its value in debilitated and irritated conditions of those organs. It thus becomes an effective remedy sometimes in dysuria, painful micturition, strangury, chronic inflammation of the neck of the bladder, acute urethritis, nocturnal enuresis of old and young when due to muscular atony, and old feeble cases of catarrh of the bladder. It is also of some value in acute vaginitis, chronic bronchitis, rheumatism, and dropsy due to renal inefficiency. Piper methysticum is a remedy for neuralgic pain, especially of the branches of the 5th nerve. It sometimes relieves ocular and aural neuralgia, toothache when not due to dental caries, neuralgia of the stomach and intestines, and neuralgic and spasmodic dysmenorrhea. Such reflex neuralgias as abdominal neuroses due to prostatic, urethral, or testicular diseases, or pectoral neuralgia arising reflexly from nervous dyspepsia are cases for the exhibition of Piper methysticum.1

USTILAGO
   A parasitic fungus, Ustilago segetum Bull (Ustilago Maydis), developed on the fruit of Zea Mays, Linné, or Indian Corn (Nat. Ord. Fungi-Ustilagineae). Dose, 1 to 20 grains. Common Names: Corn Smut, Corn Ergot, Corn Brand. Principal Constituents.—An alkaloid ustilagine, trimethylamine, and sclerotic (maizenic) acid (probably not identical with that of ergot). Preparations.—Specific Medicine Ustilago. Dose, 1 to 60 drops. Specific Indications.—Feeble spinal and sympathetic innervation; feeble capillary and venous circulation; impaired circulation of cerebrum, with dizziness and unsteadiness; uterine derangements with excessive flow of blood or other discharges; lax genital tissues, with uterine pain; pain in top of head; uterine inertia; post partum and passive hemorrhages. Action.—This fungus unquestionably possesses power, acting as a spinal excitant and producing convulsions and destroying life either by tetanus or exhaustion. It dilates the pupils. Upon animals it acts as an abortifacient and produces a shedding of hair, hoofs and horns. Its action has been compared to that of ergot and nux vomica combined. Therapy.—Ellingwood is authority for the statement that ustilago is preferable to ergot as a parturient because it produces intermittent (clonic) instead of tonic contractions; and decreases after-pains, conduces to better uterine involution, and controls hemorrhage. Neither, however, is scarcely used by practitioners of the present day for parturient purposes. Scudder advised it to relieve false pains during the latter months of pregnancy, and other unpleasant sensations in the pelvic regions. It is also claimed that it arrests a too prolonged lochial flow by giving tone to the uterine wall. Observing the specific indications noted above, it may sometimes give relief to the disorders arising from masturbation and nocturnal pollutions, much as ergot and belladonna do, and in the ovarian and menstrual derangements, (chiefly of excessive discharges) in women with lax pendulous abdomen, weak and flabby enlarged uterus, and full toneless perineal and vaginal tissues. It is little used, but undoubtedly could be restudied with advantage.1

VIBURNUM PRUNIFOLIUMVIPR2
   The dried bark of the root of Viburnum prunifolium, Linné. The U.S.P. admits the dried bark of this and also of the Viburnum Lentago, Linné, or Wayfarer's Tree (Nat. Ord. Caprifoliaceae). Beautiful shrubs found in thickets of the eastern half of the United States. Dose, 5 to 60 grains. Common Names: (1) Black Haw, Sloe, Sloe-leaved Viburnum, Stag Bush; (2) Wayfarer's Tree, Nanny Berry, Sheep Berry. Principal Constituents.—A brown, bitter resin; greenish-yellow, bitter, viburnin, valeric acid, tannic acid, citrates, malates, oxalates, sulphates, and chlorides of calcium, magnesium potassium, and iron. Preparations.—1. Specific Medicine Black Haw. Dose, 5 to 60 drops. 2. Black Haw Cordial (Howe’s). (Contains Black Haw, Wild Cherry, Aromatics, Brandy and Syrup). Dose, 1/2 to 2 fluidrachms. Specific Indications.-Uterine irritability and hyperaesthesia; uterine colic; threatened abortion; dysmenorrhea, with cramp-like pelvic pain, and scanty flow; severe lumbar and bearing-down pelvic pain; painful contraction of the pelvic tissues; false pains and after-pains; obstinate hiccough. Action and Therapy.—Black haw is a remedy of Eclectic development and is praised by practitioners of all schools of medicine for its virtues in disorders of women. It is both tonic and antispasmodic, wellsustaining the time-honored meaning of those terms. While a tonic to the gastrointestinal tract and a good one, black haw is better adapted to atonic states of the female reproductive organs, and as a sedative for spasmodic pain and weakness in diseases of women. As a tonic it acts kindly and is pleasant to take. It causes no constitutional symptoms, such as sometimes come from the use of cinchona, nux vomica, and the more energetic tonics. It is agreeable to the stomach and tends to restrain unhealthy discharges. It allays the nervous unrest so commonly associated with pelvic weakness; and its effect upon cramplike contraction of both the tubular organs and the voluntary musculature of the body is similar to that of cramp bark or Viburnum Opulus. As a uterine sedative and tonic, black haw is used, perhaps, oftener than any other drug. It seems to improve the uterine and ovarian circulation, giving better innervation and more perfect functioning, and evidently promotes pelvic nutrition. In relaxation of pelvic tissues, with more or less congestion, or tendency to undue discharges and passive hemorrhage, it is one of the best of medicines. For painful menstruation, whether due to debility with relaxation, or to engorged tissues with cramp-like pain, the physician will find almost daily use for black haw. Sometimes the menstrual flow is scanty, but more often it is profuse and accompanied by severe bearing down, intermittent and expulsive pains. Few agents give greater relief in such conditions. In cases in which the menses are imperfect in function and pale in quality, and there is an associated cardiac disturbance, usually palpitation; and in some cases of amenorrhea, in anemic girls with pallor and subject to intermittent cramping pain, the action of the drug is very positive. It is equally valuable in chronic uterine inflammation, in subinvolution, in boggy, congested uterus, and for the associated leucorrheal discharges. As a remedy for passive hemorrhage its use will be governed largely by the cause. If due to polypi, fibroid or carcinomatous tumors, but little can be expected from it or any other medicine. But even here, in combination with cinnamon, it sometimes restrains the flow. Such cases are surgical and should be surgically treated. Many a good medicine, like black haw, has been brought into discredit because of its failure to do what a careless or faulty diagnosis has led one to hope for from its exhibition or to attempting physical impossibilities with such medication. Black haw is a good tonic during pregnancy, and through such action proves a fairly good partus praeparator. It is one of the most certain remedies for nocturnal cramping of the muscles of the leg. It does not act so well when due to pregnancy, as that is a pressure condition that can only be relieved by supporting the abdomen or a change of position in reclining. Many practitioners, whose opinions we value and whose experience has been wide, report success with black haw in restraining the expulsion of the product of conception. Our own experience leads us to doubt its reputed value in that condition, but this in no way disparages the statements of others who may have been more successful with it. Rest in bed and quieting agents, I such as Dover's powder, may enable the product to be retained; perhaps black haw may aid. But we have utterly failed in every attempt to prevent miscarriage with the agent where there was any considerable hemorrhage or where enforced and prolonged rest was not insisted upon. If any results are to be expected from it in habitual abortion it must be in cases of functional debility of the reproductive organs, and not in those due to inherited taints or syphilitic infections, or criminal operative interference. We believe, however, that much may be done with black haw to strengthen conditions in cases having had a previous miscarriage, and in uneasy, cramp-like sensations occurring during pregnancy, but with no considerable hemorrhage. It will, however, be of service in controlling the nervous phenomena associated with such threatened accidents and aid psychologically in preventing that which undue nervous agitation might precipitate. It is a good agent for false pains and for ovarian irritation and congestion. Black haw cordial is an ideal sedative for spasmodic dysmenorrhea. Black haw is of very great value in treating those having a craving for alcoholic drinks. The specific medicine black haw, with essence of cinnamon or of cloves, or preferably Howe’s Black Haw Cordial may be given. It relieves the discomfort experienced in the throat and the gnawing distress in the stomach, from which these unfortunates 1


References

1) Felter, Harvey Wickes, 1922, The Eclectic Materia Medica, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, Cincinnati, Ohio.