INTRODUCTION
(Dry Dock).
INFORMATION
We prepare a tincture from the root.
We have a proving of Rumex by the late Dr. Joslin. Dr. Richard Hughes, in his Manual of Pharmaco-dynamics, sums up the curative range of this drug in the following concise statement.
“Rumex has an influence on the skin and alimentary mucous membrane, causing in the former an itching which is increased by exposure to cool air, and relieved by warmth (herein contrasting with that of Sulphur), and in the latter a sense of weight at the stomach, and a morning diarrhoea. Its main action, however, is exerted upon the respiratory mucous membrane, and especially that of the larynx; where it diminishes secretion while exalting sensibility. Hence changes in voice and a dry titillating cough. The action hardly goes on to inflammation.
Rumex has cured some cases of gastric and intestinal derangement characterized as above, especially morning diarrhoea. The chief use of Rumex is in laryngo-tracheal cough. The symptoms are those of catarrh, with excessive irritability of the laryngo-tracheal mucous membrane, causing a violent, incessant and fatiguing cough, with little expectoration. Pressure, talking, and especially inspiration of cool air, cause aggravation. There is often a sense of excoriation behind the sternum. I have several times prescribed Rumex in this kind of cough, but quite as often with entire failure though it seemed thoroughly indicated. When it cures it does so with almost magical rapidity. The analogues of Rumex are stated by Dr. Carroll Dunham to be Lachesis, Belladonna, Causticum and Phosphorus. His sketch of the laryngeal symptoms of the five medicine respectively is a model of delicate application and discriminative comparison. I would add to his four analogous a fifth, Spongia.”
Our own experiments with Rumex, and the answers to numerous inquiries which we have made among a number of Western physicians concerning the curative virtues of dry dock in the kind of cough to which it is supposed to be specifically homoeopathic, lead us to believe that these virtues have not only been very much over- rated, but are exceedingly hypothetical, at least in our section of the country.
