Spigelia Anthelmia

(Extract the tincture without heat from 50 grains of the entire herb by means of 500 drops of alcohol, shaking the mixture every day.)

This drug, which was first used in the south of the conti- nent of America, as a domestic remedy against worms, became known to our physicians some eighty years ago. Ever since then it has been used to expel lumbrici, and for no other purpose.

The formation of worms in the intestines is merely one symptom of a more fundamental disease which requires to be cured ; otherwise the expulsion of worms will not prevent their reappearance in the bowels. It would be foolish to use such a powerful drug as the Spigelia for the expulsion of worms, unless the fundamental malady is likewise cured. This cure is possible, as I know from several cases where the patient got well without a single worm being passed.

However, physicians were short-sighted enough to persist in considering Spigelia as a drug fit only to expel worms. To employ such an important remedy for no other purpose, which is often accomplished by a little Cina, would be the same as to perform an ordinary piece of work with a most valuable instru- ment. The following symptoms show that the varied and great powers of that plant are destined to accomplish results which are much more important than to expel a few lumbrici.

Considering that Spigelia is generally administered in doses of sixty or seventy grains, it must be confessed that it could not be administered by more unscrupulous or unskilful hands than those of our physicians who content themselves with ad- ministering a drug as the common man was in the habit of giving it, without inquiring into the dynamic relation of the drug to the pathological state of the system ; a relation which can only be discovered by proving the drug upon the healthy or- ganism.

This drug has the peculiarity that the primary efiect of a dose, even when not repeated, increases progressively in the first seven or ten days. The provings ought therefore to be instituted with the greatest care, inasmuch as even sixty, eighty, or a hundred drops of the tincture produce powerful ef- fects in even robust and very healthy persons.

A small portion of a drop of the decillionth potency is sufficient at a dose.

Even a small dose acts four weeks. Owing to this intensity

120 SPIGELIA ANTHELMIA.

of action, it is necessary to select Spigelia with the greatest care, and with the strictest reference to the characteristic symptoms of the case.

The excessive effects of this drug may be neutralized by frequently repeated small doses of Camphor.