Part 36

COMMON NAME, European Beech.

PREPARATION.--The Beech Nuts are pounded to a pulp and macerated in five parts by weight of alcohol.

(In volume XIII of the American Observer, Dr. E. W. Berridge, contributes the following concerning the action of Fagus sylvaticus or Beech nuts):

BEECH NUTS. (From Medical Museum--London, 1781--vol. ii., pp. 97, 294.) From a dissertation on hydrophobia, by Christian Frederick Seleg, M. D., of Enbenstoff, in Saxony, printed in Eslong, in 1762.

A boy aged 13 had eaten four days ago a large quantity of beech nuts. I found him in great pain, languid, and terrified with apprehensions of present death. Pulse very unequal, sometimes extremely quick, sometimes languid and intermittent; skin burning violently; mouth flowing with froth and saliva, intolerable thirst, entreating for drink, but as soon as any liquid was brought he seemed to shudder with equal horror, as if he had been eating unripe grapes. Soon after eating the nuts he had been seized with torpor, gloominess and dread of liquids. He had not been bitten by any rabid animal.

Next (5th) day, early in the morning, he was the same, but seemed to talk more in his wildness and perturbation of mind, and his mouth flowed with foam more abundantly; the urine he had voided by night was red and firey, depositing a copious turbid white sediment, resembling an emulsion of beech nuts, subsiding as deep as the breadth of the finger at the bottom of the vessel. A few hours before he died he vomited a porraceous bile, after which he died quietly.

The author in the original work gives a number of fatal cases of spontaneous hydrophobia. This work should be examined.

John Bauhin (Hist. Plants, vol. i, pp. 2, 121) says that the nuts will disorder the head like darnel; hogs grow stupid and drowsy by feeding on them.

Ray (Hist. of Plants, tom. ii, p. 1382) and Mangetus (Biblioth. Pharm., vol. i, p. 910) says the same.

FRAXINUS EXCELSIOR.

NAT. ORD., Oleaceae.

COMMON NAME, European Ash.

PREPARATION.--The fresh leaves are pounded to a pulp and macerated with two parts by weight of alcohol.

(In the Union Medicale, November, 1852, two French physicians detailed several cases of gout and rheumatism treated with Fraxinus excelsior, or ash leaves, one of Rademacher's favorite remedies. Of the two physicians, one of them, Dr. Peyraud, was himself relieved of the gout by this treatment.)

Ash-leaves were highly recommended by Rademacher, and have been quite extensively used in Germany on his suggestion. In the Union Medicale for Nov. 27, 1852, two French physicians, Drs. Pouget and Peyraud, detailed several cases of gout and rheumatism cured by an infusion of ash-leaves in boiling water. Dr. Peyraud himself was one of those relieved.

"In 1842, Dr. Peyraud had his first attack of gout, which was severe, and lasted for twenty-five days. During the three following years the attacks increased in frequency and severity. Having derived little benefit from the remedial means which he had resorted to, he listened to the suggestion of one of his patients, an inhabitant of the department of Dordogne, in France, who advised him to try an infusion of ash-leaves, informing him, at the same time, that his forefathers had been cured by this prescription, and that many of the country people got rid of 'their pains' by employing it. Dr. Peyraud took the infusion of ash-leaves and from 1845 to 1849 had no fit of gout. He then had an attack, which yielded in five days to the infusion of ash-leaves, used under the observation of Dr. Pouget. These circumstances recalled to the recollection of Dr. Pouget a fact which he might otherwise never again have considered. It was this: that when he was a physician at Soreze, in 1824, the peasants of that place had spoken to him of the great power which an infusion of ash-leaves had in driving away pains. He afterwards discovered that it had been used forty years ago as a gout-specific by the peasants of Auvergne.

"A commercial traveller, who had been gouty for twenty years, and had saturated himself with the syrup of Boubee and other vaunted specifics, consulted Dr. Pouget. At this time he was an almost constant prisoner in his room with successive attacks. After eleven days' use of the infusion, he was able to walk two kilometres (one and a quarter English miles); in fifteen days he resumed his journeys, and was able to travel without suffering, by diligence, from Bordeaux to Quimper.

"Several other cases are detailed, some of them acute, and others chronic. Articular rheumatism, in numerous instances, was also benefited by the infusion of ash-leaves."

FUCUS VESICULOSIS.

NAT. ORD., Algae.

COMMON NAMES, Sea-wrack. Bladder-wrack. Sea-kelp.

PREPARATION.--The fresh alga gathered in May or June are pounded to a pulp and macerated in two parts by weight of alcohol.

(The following letter, by Dr. J. Herbert Knapp to the Homoeopathic Recorder, was published in 1896):

After treating many cases of exophthalmic goitre, I have come to the conclusion that I have found a specific for that disease in Fucus vesiculosis (sea-wrack). I might record one case. Mrs. Mary B., aet. 24 years, German, came into my clinic at the Brooklyn E. D. Homoeopathic Dispensary to be treated for swelling of the neck of several years' duration. I gave her the tincture of Fucus ves., thirty drops three times a day. The treatment began December 1, 1895, and patient was discharged cured, on October 2, 1896. Would be pleased to hear from any others who have had any experience with Fucus vesiculosis.

(The foregoing brought out this by Dr. R. N. Foster, of Chicago):

It gives me great pleasure to be able to say a word confirmatory of the remarks made in your December issue by J. Herbert Knapp, M. D., respecting the above named drug.

Twenty years ago, while turning over the pages of that very useful book, "The American Eclectic Dispensatory," by John King, M. D., I chanced to notice the following sentences: "Fucus vesiculosis, sea-wrack, or bladder-wrack,... has a peculiar odor, and a nauseous saline taste.... The charcoal of this plant has long had the reputation of a deobstruent, and been given in goitre and scrofulous swelling."

So far as I now remember, this is the only hint I ever received which led me to try the drug in goitre. At the same time, I do not feel sure of this. Perhaps I had met in some medical journal a statement respecting the relation of this drug to goitre, which fact led me to look it up in the "Eclectic Dispensatory." But if so, I cannot recall the authority. At all events, I was led to try the remedy in a pronounced case of goitre, with such good results that I have never since given any other remedy for that disease, either in the exophthalmic or in the uncomplicated form. And what is more, I have never known it to fail to cure when the patient was under thirty years of age. After that time of life, or about that period, it seems to be no longer efficacious.