Populus tremuloides

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(American Aspen.)

Botanical Description. — This tree, also known as the White poplar, grows from twenty to fifty feet high, with a diameter of from eight to twelve inches. It is covered with a smooth, greenish-white bark, except on the trunk of very old trees. The leaves are orbicular-cordate, abruptly accuminate, dentate-serrate, smooth on both sides, pubescent at the margins, dark-green, three nerved, from two to two and a half inches long, growing on long, slender, and laterally compressed petioles, which accounts for the continued agitation of the leaves by the slightest breeze. Aments plumed with silken hairs, about two inches long, pendulous, appearing in April, long before the leaves. Scales cut into three or four deep linear divisions, and fringed with long hairs.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the inner bark and leaves with strong alcohol; dilutions; Populin and its triturations.

Analogues. — Arnica, China, Cornus florida, Nux vomica, Pulsatilla, Terebinthina (?) Thuja.

(A Fragmentary proving.) Head.

Fullness about the head, with general nervous excitement.

Gastric.

A warm, pungent sensation in the stomach, followed by a glow

of heat on the entire surface. Nausea and vomiting, and slight purging of bilious matter. Fever, with burning sensation in the stomach. 0 Chronic dyspepsia, from gastric catarrh. {Hale.) ° Impaired digestion, with chronic diarrhoea. {Eclectic.) ° Dyspepsia, attended with torpor of the liver, or an unhealthy

bilious secretion. {IT>.) ° As a remedy for indigestion, accompanied with flatulence

and acidity, we know of no single agent more to be relied

upon. {Coe.)

0 An excellent remedy for the dyspeptic symptoms accompanying pregnancy. {Ib.)

° Jaundice. ° Lumbricoid worms. {lb.)

Urinary Organs.

Very copious discharge of urine. * Irritation of the bladder and urethra. 0 Scalding of the urine. (Eclectic.) 0 Suppression and retention of urine.

° Paramount to all the rest (of its virtues) is its property of relieving painful urination, and heat and scalding of the urine, especially when these symptoms occur during pregnancy. (Coe.)

° In diseases of the bladder, urethra and prostate, I have found the greatest benefit from it. In several cases of catarrh of the bladder I have found that two or three grains (of Populin)* four or five times a day, produced a most favorable impression. (Paine.)

° An old gentleman troubled with vesical catarrh and ardor

urince, and chronic enlargement of the prostate, for many

years, got prompt relief from two grains (of Populin),

three times a day, and was cured in four months. (Paifie.)

[I have used the 1st and 3d triturations of Populin in diseases of the prostate, and with good results. (Hale.)]

Genital Organs.

0 Gonorrhoea. ° Gleet, chronic.

° Highly recommended and extensively used in many diseases of the uterus and vagina.

0 Prurigo, from an aphthous condition of the mucous membrane of the vagina and an irritable condition of the lining membrane of the uterus. (?) (Paine.)

0 Leucorrhoea, with ardor urince and great debility.

° Hysteria — depending on debility; useful after the urgent symptoms have been quelled. It tranquilizes the sympathetic disturbance from uterine excitement.

Fever.

0 Intermittent fever. (The bark and leaves both contain a large percentage of Salicine.)

° I have known many obstinate cases of ague cured by an infusion, and the tincture of the bark in whiskey. < Hale.)

° It is one of the most reliable remedies for the relief of night

sweats. {Eclectic.) ° Debility, from exhausting fevers. {Hale.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

As we have no provings of this agent, I will quote the testimony of physicians of other schools relating to its physiological (toxic) action, also their estimate of its medicinal powers and virtues, with such clinical experience as they have gained from its use ; after which I will give my own experience with the remedy in a few abnormal conditions.

Toxical Effects. — Dr. Paine (eclectic) says of his experiments with Populin :

In doses of five to ten grains, in a healthy person, it produces a warm, pungent sensation in the stomach, followed by a glow of heat on the entire surface, and copious discharges of wine, and if the dose is repeated every two hours, until forty or fifty grains are taken, it causes nausea, vomiting, and slight purging of bilious matter, with fierce burning sensation in the stomach, very copious discharges of urine, irritation of the bladder and urethra, with slight f ulness about the head, and general nervous excitement.

Medicinal Effects. — It has been decreed to be tonic and febrifuge, and has been used in intermittent fever with advantage. An infusion has been reputed to be

a valuable remedy in emaciation and debility, lubricoid worms, impaired digestion, chronic diarrhoea, etc. As a diuretic it has been beneficially used in urinary affections, gonorrhoea, gleet, etc. Dose of the powdered bark, one drachm, two or three times a day. (King.)

It is a mild and not an unpleasant bitter, very well adapted to cases of general debility, dyspepsia attended with torpor of the liver, or an unhealthy biliary secretion . Notwithstanding this agent has received no especial attention from

the profession as a medical article, and none at all as an alterant, yet we regard it as a very useful remedy in those shattered and broken-down states of the constitution arising from the use of Mercury, from syphilis, chronic, hepatic and dyspeptic affections, scrofula, etc. It has been used with advantage, it is said, in jaundice, renal obstructions, chronic diarrhoea and dysentery. (Scudder.)

Professor Hollenbach recommends it for gonorrhoea and gleet. Dr. Coe, in his “ Cone. Org. Remedies,” recommends Populin for the following : “ Indigestion, flatulence, worms, hysteria, jaundice, fever, cutaneous diseases, scalding and suppression of urine, nightsweats, etc.” He writes :

As a remedy for indigestion , accompanied with flatulence and acidity, we know of no single agent more to be relied on.

In hysteria it is mainly useful as a tonic after the urgent symptoms are quelled. It will be tolerated by the stomach when other tonics are rejected, and tranquillize the sympathetic disturbance arising from uterine excitement. It is for this reason an excellent remedy for the dyspeptic symptoms accompanying pregnancy.

It is one of the most reliable remedies for the relief of nightsweats that it has ever been our good fortune to become acquainted with. We refer its curative action in this instance to its power of restoring and giving vigor to the secreting vessels of the skin.

Suppression and retention of urine are readily relieved with the Populin .

Paramount to all the rest is its property of relieving painful micturition, heat and scalding of the urine. Did it possess no other curative value, we should esteem it an indispensable constituent of our Materia Medica. Its value in this respect is most apparent when the symptoms above named occur during pregnancy.

If Dr. Coe had used the Populin uncombined, his statement would be more valuable. It was mixed, however, with Gum myrrh. Such a practice is to be regretted, as it renders doubtful any clinical deduction. It is probable, from the knowledge we have from other sources, that the Populus was the principal agent in the curative process. In the recommendations given for its use

in jaundice, constipation, and dyspepsia, Dr. Coe combines it with Leptandrin, Podophyllin, etc., which robs his recommendations of much of their reliability. Notwithstanding Dr. Paine (eclectic) found it to cause great irritation of the bladder and urethra (see toxical effects), he remarks :

In diseases of the bladder, urethra, and prostate, I have found the greatest benefit from this article. In several most inveterate cases of catarrh of the bladder, I have found that two or three grains, administered four or five times a day, produced a most favorable impression. In the case of an old gentleman who had been troubled with this affection, together with ardor urince and chronic enlargement of the prostate for many years, and who was not able to obtain benefit from any of the ordinary remedies, relief was promptly given by the use of two grains of Populin three times a day. (The medicine was continued four or five months.)

The same writer says :

I have used the Populin with great success in chronic gleet. In several cases, when all other remedies had failed, I have succeeded in entirely removing the disease by the use of this drug for several consecutive weeks.

Dr. Paine tries to avoid the evident deduction favorable to homoeopathy by explaining that the Populin “acts as a tonic to the bladder, urethra, etc.”

According to Dr. Paine (eclectic) the Populus has been “ highly recommended and extensively used in many chronic diseases of the uterus and vagina, especially in 'prurigo , with aphthous condition of the mucous membrane of the vagina, and an irritable condition of the lining membrane of the uterus.”

Its irritant action on the urinary organs would render it very probable that the Populus would cause the above-mentioned conditions in the generative organs of women.

The Populus has not been used by practitioners of the homoeopathic school — at least such experience has not come to my knowledge.

I have observed many apparent cures of debility from prostrating fever, dyspepsia, hysteria, etc., in domestic practice, and am confident that it is a medicine capable of becoming a polychrest of wide range. Its analogues are theoretically given (Vol. I), and I

believe its pathogenesis, when obtained, will sustain my idea of its sphere of action, which seems to include the digestive organs, the urinary and genital apparatus, and indirectly the sympathetic nervous system.

I have prescribed it, in a few instances, for symptoms similar to those mentioned by Paine in his record of its physiological effects. In one instance of dysuria, due probably to debility, its curative action was quite satisfactory.

Many physicians complain that our Materia Medica is already overloaded with remedies, and some are hasty enough to declare that they could throw them all away and practice successfully with a dozen. I cannot comprehend the cynicism or conceit which prompts such a remark. One’s knowledge of the myriad forms of disease must be very limited if he will entertain such absurd opinions.

In my “ Characteristics of New Remedies” I made mention of the eclectic clinical use of this remedy in diseases of the prostate gland, in which vesical tenesmus was the prominent symptom.

Since that was written I have had many opportunities of verifying the value of that clinical observation. I have not confined my prescriptions to cases of prostatic diseases alone, but to all cases where this one distressing symptom was prominent.

In three cases of extensive disease of the bladder and prostate, where the urine was scanty and contained a large proportion of blood and pus, and the tenesmus was exceedingly painful, the Populus in doses of five drops of the 1* dil., every three hours, relieved in a very short time. It had no curative effect on the structural lesion, but made the patients more comfortable. In several cases where the tenesmus occurred in women, and the symptom was due to reflex irritation, the 2X dil. afforded prompt relief.

In three cases of inflammation of the neck of the bladder in women, it removed the inflammation after Cannabis and Cantharis had caused but little improvement.

A lady who had been under my care for metritis, accompanied by vaginismus and cystitis, was discharged, apparently cured ; but a

ride in the cars all day brought back some of the symptoms of weight, pressure, and aching in the pelvis, and, worst of all, vesical tenesmus, with frequent desire to urinate. I sent by mail some pellets saturated with Populus 3X, of which she was to take six every three hours. In a few days she reported that all the symptoms disappeared in two days after taking the remedy. This sensation, called vesical tenesmus , seems to depend on a spasmodic contraction of the muscular fibres of the bladder, more especially those near the neck. In large doses Populus causes “ ardor urines, irritation of the bladder and urethra, with copious discharge of urine.”

In the cases cured by me there was little pain during urination, but as soon as the last drops were voided, or a little before, a severe cramplike pain set in just behind and above the pubes ; this pain often lasted ten or fifteen minutes.

I believe the Populus to be a medicine well worth an extensive trial, both by provings and clinical use, for only by both combined can we attain to the largest knowledge of a drug.