ONE of our doctors, some years ago, used to make great play with Ocimum canum. Coming across the drug, the other day, at its source, in Mures Materia Medica, or Provings of the Principal Animal and vegetable Poisons of the Brazilian Empire, we thought it might be interesting and important to draw attention to it, by reproducing his little account, and proving. There is one symptoms which appeals to anyone who has seen much gynaecology work, never found elsewhere, so far as one has seen : P.S.- Wrong !-Kent (Repertory) gives several remedies as helpful in “Prolapse of vagina” : SEPIA, Ferr., Kreos., Lach., Merc., Nux m., Nux, Stram., Sulph., and a few more in low type.
“Feeling of the vagina, so as to issue even from the vulva.” If Ocimum can cause-and remedy-that, it is indeed invaluable. A remedy with specific action on the walls of the vagina ! . . . These cases of prolapse are very trying-to the patient-and to the would-be healer. Supports are not ideal : not even wholesome : encouraging aerobic bacteria, and offensiveness, and what no one seems to realize absorption of toxins : the alternative being operation.
In these days we hear much of focal sepsis and here is focal sepsis with a vengeance. Teeth are sacrificed tonsils appendix gall-bladder and the patient returns for yet more ! A recent patient, on her first appearance, owned up to eight operations, with finally, a malignant condition. But the sepsis that must be absorbable from a vagina in the awful condition one finds often on removing a pessary that has been in some time-Well, one has to experience it in order to even faintly imagine it.].
Ocimum canum : Ocimum Fluminense : Portug : Alfavaca.
Mure first describes this herbaceous plant with an aromatic odour. . . . “We use the leaves.” He days :.
“The ocimum canum is destined to become one of the most important remedial agents in Brazil, where it is used as a specific for diseases of the kidneys, bladder and urethra. Those who wish to devote themselves to our art, had better set about proving this drug”.
Turbid URINE, depositing a white and albuminous sediment.
Burning during micturition.
Urine of a saffron colour.
Thick, purulent urine, with an intolerable smell of musk.
DIARRHOEA, several attacks a day.
Crampy pains in the KIDNEYS.
Renal colic, with violent vomiting every 15 minutes ; one wrings ones hands, and moans and cries all the time.
Red urine with brick-dust sediment after the attack.
Itching at the BREASTS.
Engorgement of the mammary glands.
The tips of the breasts are very painful; the least contact extorts a cry.
Compressive pain in the breast, as is the case with wet-nurses.
DREAMS about being poisoned.
Dreams about her parents, friends, children.
Lancinations in the labia majora.
Swelling of the whole vulva.
Falling of the VAGINA, so as to issue even from the vulva.
Swelling of the inguinal glands.
Heat, swelling and excessive sensibility of the left TESTICLE.
Numbness of the right thigh, for two days.
Clarke (Dictionary) quotes Mure, and gives a few cases, chiefly of renal colic, where Ocimum was curative. He says that in India it is used for diseases of the liver and bilious remittent fevers.
