ASCLEPIAS SYRIACA

INTRODUCTION

(Milk-weed).

INFORMATION

We prepare a tincture of the fresh root, and triturations of the dried root.

In accordance with Professor Hale’s suggestions we have used this drug with good effect in rheumatic-bilious conditions of the system, brought on by checked perspiration, exposure to draughts of air, getting the feet wet, exchanging heavy for light clothing,. A group of symptoms like the following has guided us in selecting this agent: Slight creeping chills, no marked alteration of the pulse, soreness of the flesh, pains in the limbs, slight nausea, sharp pains through the forehead, dizziness.

DOSE

Eight to ten drops in half a cupful of warm, sweetened water, the whole of it to be swallowed at one dose an hour or two before bed-time, or in tablespoonful doses every hour.

This drug has likewise been recommended and used with good effect in renal and post-scarlatinal dropsy.

Some of its analogues are Boneset, Bryonia, Arsenic, and Dulcamara.

Charles Julius Hempel

Charles Julius Hempel (5 September 1811 Solingen, Prussia - 25 September 1879 Grand Rapids, Michigan) was a German-born translator and homeopathic physician who worked in the United States. While attending medical lectures at the University of New York, where he graduated in 1845, he became associated with several eminent homeopathic practitioners, and soon after his graduation he began to translate some of the more important works relating to homeopathy. He was appointed professor of materia medica and therapeutics in the Hahnemann Medical College of Philadelphia in 1857.