Leptandra Virginica

While writing on Aurum muriaticum natronatum I mentioned Veronica with which Dr. Baruch followed that remedy in the cure of my own case. After returning home I tried to find the two remedies. Found Aurum muriaticum natronatum in Hering’s Guiding Symptoms, and, although meager, had something to go by in treating other cases, with the result there mentioned. But I could find no Veronica proven unless it was the Leptandra, which is one of the Veronica tribe. So the next time I saw Dr. Baruch I asked him if it was the Leptandra that he gave me, and he said, “No, it was the Veronica Officinalis” (common Speedwell). It is not found in our Materia Medica as yet. There is no doubt the Veronicas and especially the Leptandra are good liver remedies, but aside from the alternate ashy and black stools we have nothing very definite to guide us to their selection. The only two provings made were with the alkaloid, and that in too low preparations to be of much value. I once succeeded with Leptandra in curing, or at least she improved until she was well, a lady very sick with what was called by her former physician typhoid fever. The following indications which I found in Jahr’s Clinical Guide (by Lilienthal, first edition) led to its prescription. Symptoms:—“Great prostration, stupor, heat and dryness of skin, calor mordax or coldness of the extremities, dark, fœtid, tarry, or watery stools mixed with bloody mucus, and a jaundiced skin.” Otherwise I have never seen any marked benefit from this remedy in any case. Still I believe it to be capable, with scientific proving, in potency, of developing great curative powers. If I might, in this short notice, inspire some young physicians to thoroughly prove it I should not have written in vain.