Cucurbita pepo

Volume I — Appendix

[Pumpkin Seed.)

Preparation. — The bruised seed, taken in doses from one to two ounces. 0 Tape-worms. (See " Therapeutics," page 212.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

from the seeds, as well as an infusion of the seeds, has destroyed tsenije.

Various methods of administration have been advised. One authority advises one ounce of the peeled seeds to be taken on an empty stomach, followed in six hours by a dose of Castor oil. Another directs two ounces to be beaten up with sugar into an electuary, or with water into an emulsion, and taken fasting in the morning, the patient having dieted the previous day, and a brisk purge taken some hours after.

My method, and I have expelled a great many with it, is to direct the patient to eat but little of the lightest food all day, take no supper, and on going to bed eat one ounce of the peeled seeds bruised, with milk or cream. In the morning, on waking, take a tablespoonful of Castor oil mixed with half a teaspoonful of pure Sulphuric ether. No breakfast is to be eaten — only a cup of tea or coffee. In two or three hours the oil will operate, expelling the worm.

I have seen them expelled without the use of the oil and Ether, especially in children; but in adults I think they had better be taken.

The Ether undoubtedly plays an important part in the expulsion of the parasite, for it has lately been advised alone, and is said to succeed in expelling tapeworm, in doses of 30 to 60 drops, taken fasting. It is supposed to stupefy the worm, during which condition it drops from its attachment, and is carried along the intestines until it is expelled.

The oil of pumpkin seed is recommended to be takei: in doses of half an ounce, fasting, followed in six hours by another half ounce, mixed with an ounce of Castor oil.

Half the above quantity will be a sufficient dose in the case of children under twelve years.

In this connection I will mention some other remedies for tapeworm which you may be obliged to resort to, for, although the pumpkin seed is the safest and is generally efficient, there are cases where, owing to some idiosyncrasy in the worm (not the patient), the seeds fail to destroy it.

The next best agent is undoubtedly the Oleo-resin of the male fern (Filix mas). The patient should live upon bread and a little

milk for one day, and the following morning take a full dose of patient may eat food, and in the evening a cathartic is to be taken. I would advise the Castor oil and Ether as above. I have somewhere seen, in homoeopathic works on practice, a recommendation to give the attenuations of Filix mas. Such a practice is simply absurd.

Kousso (Brayera) has a high reputation as being. the most efficient remedy against tape-worm. Baehr advises it in preference to any remedy. It causes less pain and inconvenience than any other agent except the pumpkin seed. The powdered flowers in doses of half an ounce, or twenty to forty grains of the resin Koussi n, is prescribed to be taken suspended in water, in the morning. No purgative is necessary, as it causes loose watery passages with but little pain and nausea. The worm is usually expelled dead in the last passages.

Granatum (the bark of the pomegranate), has been used, but it is harsh and unpleasant.

Turpentine is unsafe and even dangerous.

Kameela is sometimes efficient, but inferior in efficacy to the first named.

The rules laid down by Hahnemann, Hartman, Ilering, and others, appear to me, as they do to Baehr, to be superfluous. The tapeworm does not depend for its existence on any dyscrasia of the system, but it is introduced from without with the food, and must be expelled or destroyed, just as we should destroy a snake or any other reptile living in the stomach or intestines.