INTRODUCTION
(Queen’s Root).
COMPARE WITH
Cubebs, Copaiva, Iodide of Potassium, Mercurius,
Sanguinaria, Spongia.
INFORMATION
We use a tincture prepared from the fresh root. We likewise make a decoction of the root, and obtain from it a resinoid Stillingia. An oil of Stillingia is likewise sold in the shops.
We have a short but very suggestive proving of this drug by Dr. A.B. Nichols, from which we learn that this drug exerts a specific action upon the urethra, and likewise causes a very marked irritation of the throat, tickling of the fauces with oppression and darting pains through the chest, cough which was at times very severe, and such catarrhal symptoms as frontal headache, soreness of the larynx, colicky pains. These effects of the drug show that if physicians of other schools have employed this drug in gonorrhoea, and have cured this disease with it, the probability is, that these cures were effected by virtue of the homoeopathicity of the drug-action to the natural malady.
This drug has likewise been used with apparent advantage in scrofulous affections of the bones. Professor Hale, in his New Remedies, mentions a case of cure of enlargement of the tibia, and enlargements in various other parts of the body resembling nodes, upon the olecranon process, upon the head, and one in particular upon the forehead, of the size of an egg. The patient was little girl. An infusion of Stillingia root was used, four drachms of the fresh root to one pound of water, simmered till one-third was dissipated. This quantity was drunk in the twenty- four hours in such doses as not to nauseate the stomach in any degree. After having continued the medicine for several months she was so much improved as to be able to move about with the aid of a stick, have the free use of her limbs, and the swellings, particularly those on the forehead, considerably reduced.
It seems all but certain that this case was not a case of unmixed scrofula; most likely the scrofulous and syphilitic taints were mixed up together in this case. The Iodide of Mercury and the Hydriodate of Potash ought to have rendered good service in this case.
Our provings likewise show that in catarrhal irritation of the eyes, and of the laryngo-tracheal mucous membrane, with soreness, cough, oppression,., this drug will act beneficially.
TAMARACK [].
INFORMATION
The gum of Tamarack has been found effectual in dropsy, especially that of pregnant females. Dr. Chamberlain has treated with it four cases successfully. We give it in teaspoonful doses. He has also found a decoction of the leaves useful. It usually relieves in three or four days by causing profuse urination.
