Caulophyllum thalictroides

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Blue Cohosh, Squaw Boot.) Botanical Description. — This is a perennial smooth herb with matted, knotty rootstalks, sending up in early spring a simple and naked stem, terminated by a raceme or panicle of yellowish-green flowers supported on

pedicels, and a little below, bearing a large compound leaf composed of three ternate leaves, without any common petiole. The whole of the plant is covered with a greenish grey powder when young. Stem smooth, purple when young, one to two and a-half feet high, dividing above into two parts, one ot which, a large divided leaf stalk; the other bears a smaller double ternate leaf at the base. Flowers appear in April and May, while the leaf is yet small. Sepals six, with three small bractlets at the base, egg shaped and oblong. Petals six, thick and gland like, somewhat kidney shaped, and a hooded body, with short claws, much smaller than the sepals, one at the base of each. Pistil enlarged on one side, style short. Stigma minute and one sided : ovary bursting soon after flowering (by the presence of the two erect enlarging seeds), and withering away; the spher. ical seeds remain naked on thin, thick-set seed stalks, looking like berries, the fleshy integument turning blue; albumen of the texture of horns; seeds, one or two about the size of a large pea, erect and globe-shaped, and ripen in the later part of summer, and are said to form an excellent substitute for coffee, when roasted. Fruit, dry, sweet, and insipid. The root, which is the officinal part, is sweetish, bitter, and pungent, and affords a yellowish infusion, and yellow brown tincture. It is yellow inside, brown outside; hard, irregular, knotty, branded with many fibres. Grows all over the United States, in low, moist, rich ground, or on mountains and shady hills, deep woods, or near running streams, or on grounds which have been overflowed with water. An active principle or resinoid is obtained by precipitation from the saturated alcoholic tincture, called Caulophyllin. It is soluble in water, and partly so in alcohol.

Officinal Preparations. — (1), Tincture from the root, with strong alcohol dilutions; (2), triturations of the pulverized root; (3), triturations of Caulophyllin.

Analogues. — Pulsatilla, Cimicifuga, Viburnum, Asarum, Ruta, Senecio, (Secale,) Cannabis ind., Uva-ursi, etc.

Head.

Swimming in the head, a sort of vertigo, with dimness of sight.

Sensation of fullness of the head, with pressure behind the

eyes, and fullness of the temporal arteries. Dullness of the head, with contracted feeling of the skin of the

forehead.

Sensation as if pins stuck in the forehead, with hard headache. By spells a very severe pain in the temples, as if both temples

would be crushed together. ° Rheumatic and neuralgic headaches; or headaches dependent

upon uterine disorder, or spinal irritation.

Eyes.

Dimness of sight.

Pressure behind the eyes; profuse flow of tears.

Mouth. •

Sensation of dryness and heat in the month.

Distress in the fauces that causes frequent inclination to

swallow. Teeth feel sore and elongated Tongue coated white.

° Aphthae of the mouth in pregnant and nursing women.

Stomach. Heat and fullness in the stomach. Great thirst.

Distress in stomach and bowels, with drawing in right hypochondrium. Empty eructations.

Canine hunger, with white-coated tongue.

Frequent gulping up of sour, bitter fluid, with vertigo.

0 Spasms in the stomach, cardialgia, spasmodic vomiting, and

excessive nausea, attending uterine irritation. 0 Dyspepsia, with spasmodic irritation of stomach and bowels.

Abdomen.

Distension of and rumbling in the abdomen, with tenderness. Severe colicky pains every few minutes near the umbilicus. ° Spasmodic and flatulent colic.

° Spasmodic action of the muscular tissues of the intestines, from irritation of the motor nerves, or from rheumatism. Stool.

Constipation; stool every other day. Watery stool, great quantity, but no pain. Soft stool, very white.

Urinary Organs.

Copious emissions of pale or straw-colored urine. Every few minutes sharp, stinging pain in glans penis.

Respiratory Organs. ° Spasmodic affections of the thoracic organs.

Back.

Dull pain in the lumbar region.

Severe drawing pain in the sterno-cloido mastoid that draws the head to the left side.

Upper Extremities.

Elbows and wrists ache.

Constant flying pains in the arms and legs.

• Severe drawing pains in the joints of the arms and legs; also

in wrists and fingers.

• Shutting the hand produces severe cutting pains in the second

joints of all the fingers; they are very stiff. 0 Inflammatory rheumatism of the joints of the hands.

Lower Extremities. Drawing pains in the thighs, knees and legs. Very sharp pains in left knee joint. Ankle and toes of left foot are painful. Knees feel very weak when walking.

All his joints crack frequently when walking and turning. Pain in feet and toes, worse at night.

Generative Organs.

• Sensation as if the uterus was congested, with fullness,

heaviness, and tension in hypogastric region.

• Spasmodic pains in the uterus, and various portions of the

hypogastric region. 0 Suppression of the menses, with spasms of the uterus. ° Dysmenorrhea, spasmodic pains in the uterus. ° Menorrhagia, with threatened abortion; from want of good

contractions after confinement. 0 False pains during pregnancy. ° Prevention of premature labor, almost a specific. ° Deficient labor from rigidity of os uteri. ° Suppressed lochia, with uterine cramps. c Retroversion of the uterus, causing paraplegia. ° Drawing in the groins (uterine ligaments.) 0 Labor-like pains, occurring in any uterine disease. 0 Abortion, with little or no flooding. ° Gonorrhoea (?)

° Intermittent uterine contractions. (Secale causes continuous.)

Menses too soon, (three days.)

Relaxation of the os uteri.

Profuse secretion of mucus from the vagina.

Increases the natural pains of labor.

Male. — Stinging pains in glans penis.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This is one of a class of remedies whose virtues seem to have been well known to the aborigines of this country. They called it “squaw-root/’ by which name it is known to the common people. Early pioneers, lay as well as professional, all bear witness to the high estimate placed on it by the Indians for the relief of the sufferings and weaknesses of the women of that race. It has another name, “ blue cohosh,” the origin of which I have not been able to ascertain.

Its sphere of action, as near as can at present be stated, is not extensive, but confined to the small muscles and joints, the muscular tissues of the generative organs, and possibly the motor nerves and mucous membranes.

The provings made do not throw much light on its general powers. Its clinical uses afford us almost all the data upon which we base our knowledge.

Its most prominent value seems to be its power of causing intermittent contractions of the gravid uterus, and possibly of the unimpregnated. In this it differs from Ergot, which causes, or tends to cause, 'persistent contractions. The remedies which most resemble it in this respect are Viburnum, Cannabis indica, and Cimicifuga. It has become very popular with a portion of our school, for the following conditions :

(1.) Deficient labor pains: (a) When they do not appear with sufficient vigor and regularity, at full term, and during labor.

(6) When the pains have disappeared from exhaustion, (c) When they are too severe and too painful, or are spasmodic.

In the two first instances it should be given in doses varying from one- fourth grain of the Caulophylh’w, crude, to a grain of the 1* or 2X, frequently repeated ; but in the last instance, to which condition it is primarily homceopathic, the dose should be from the 3d to the 6th, or higher.

I mention the active principle, because it seems to possess the desired powers of the medicine in a pleasanter form than the tincture, which, in its crude state, is quite irritating to the fauces. But the tincture can be used in about the same proportions, if necessary, substituting ten drops for each grain of Caulophyllin.

The same directions will answer for the dose in other conditions in which it is specific, namely :

(2.) Spasmodic dysmenorrhoea, when the flow is natural in quantity and quality. This distressing condition is often cured by Caulophyllin, but to be successful the medicine must be given several times daily during the week or two preceding the menses, as well as during the painful period.

(3.) Spasmodic after-pains , in which it is indispensable.

(4.) Spasmodic pains in the uterus, broad ligaments, etc., occurring at any time, from a cold, rheumatism, during pregnancy (false pains) ; also general as well as local spasms, from the suppression of the menses or lochia.

As might be expected from its powers, which I have just enumerated, it is a powerful agent for the prevention of premature labor and of miscarriage, provided the premonitions are pains of a spasmodic character.

The aborigines and earlier settlers claimed for it the power of preventing tedious and painful labors. This testimony has been substantiated by many prominent and trustworthy physicians of the eclectic school, as well as of the homoeopathic. A few of our school have denied it such power, but the weight of the evidence is against them. Dr. A. E. Small is sure, from the observation of many years, that it actually prevents the unusual sufferings which many women undergo. He also testifies to the singular fact that many women who have taken it for such purposes have overrun their time to the extent, in some cases, of ten or twelve days.

The cases referred to, however, all had very easy labors and a good recovery.

My experience has been so uniform and conclusive on this point, that I do not hesitate to assert that it prevents not only a too painful labor, but it prevents those premature labors which are so common among the weakly women of this age.

You must not expect it to prevent painful labors (dystocia) in women who become advanced in life before they bear children, or in whom there exists any deformity of the pelvic cavity. Such cases are mechanical obstacles to easy, natural labors, Caulophyllum removes only abnormal functional causes.

The method of giving it in such cases is to prescribe a few grains of the 2* or 3X trit., or a few drops of the 0 or 1* dil., three times a day, for the last two weeks previous to the expiration of the term. If, however, a premature labor is feared at the seventh or eighth month, it should be taken during the two weeks preceding those periods.

Caulophyllum has been recommended for rigid os uteri, but I believe the rigidity is overcome, not from any specific power on the circular muscles of the os, but from its general action on the uterus. Gelseminum and Belladonna are better for this condition.

If uterine displacements are attended by periodic, spasmodic pains, Caulophyllum will form a valuable auxiliary to Sepia, Lilium, Nux, or Belladonna.

In my second edition of “New Remedies” was recorded a case of paraplegia from retroversion, which the Caulophyllum was supposed to have cured. We need further confirmation, however, before we accept it as a remedy for such condition.

It seems to be homoeopathic to rheumatism of the short muscles and small joints of the extremities, and a few cases of that character have been reported.

It is said to be indicated when spasmodic pains occur in the stomach, intestines, and other organs, in sympathy with the same kind of pains in the uterus. There is no particular reason why they should always be in sympathy with that organ in order to render this remedy curative.