Persicaria punctata

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

{Smart-weed.)

Botanical Description. — This plant, sometimes called Water-pepper , is the Polygonum hydropiper of Michaux. It is an annual plant with a smooth stem, branched, often decumbent at base, slender-jointed, swelling above the joints, and of a reddish or greenish-brown color, sprinkled with glandular dots, and from one to two feet in height.

Polygonum punctatum is a well known, intensely acrid plant, found growing in nearly all parts of the United States, in ditches, low ground, among rubbish, and about brooks and water-courses, flowering in August and September. There are many species of Polygonum, which, although possessing similar virtues, yet differ materially in their medical potency. The whole plant is officinal, and has a biting, pungent, acrid taste, and imparts its virtues to alcohol or water. Age renders it inert, and heat impairs its medicinal qualities.

It should be collected and made into a tincture while fresh. The plant has not been analyzed.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the leaves with strong alcohol ; dilutions.

Analogues. — Asarum, Ammonium carb., C aulophyllum, Capsicum, Pulsatilla, Senega, Senecio, Xanthoxylum.

Head.

Pulsative headache, with sensation of fullness. Pain in the forehead and side of the head, extending into the orbits.

Dull headache, with dizziness.

Throbbing of the carotids, with heavy beating of the heart.

Mouth and Throat. Sensation of dryness and scraping in the throat. Tongue feels as if swollen, a burning from its root to the pit of the stomach.

Abundant salivation, thin and watery, with burning in the mouth.

Stomach.

Throbbing, cutting pain in the stomach.

Thirst for water, yet water produces nausea.

Sharp pain under the right scapula, extending into the chest

and to the pit of the stomach, with heavy beating of the

heart and throbbing of the carotids. Burning in stomach, followed by a cold sensation in pit of

stomach.

Abdomen and Stool.

Copious stools, followed by a smarting sensation of the anus.

Cutting pain in lower part of the bowels, with constant urging to stool.

Straining at stool, with a mucus, jelly-like discharge. Inefficient urging to stool, with great quantity of foetid flatulence.

Yellowish-green stools.

• Cutting, lancinating, griping pains, with great rumbling, as

if the whole intestinal contents were in a fluid state and in violent commotion, the movement proceeding from below upwards, producing nausea and disposition to vomit, with liquid faeces, which were discharged with considerable force, with pain in the loins.

0 Cholera morbus and cholera infantum. {Dr. W. JE. Paine.)

0 Dysentery, with burning and smarting in the rectum.

° Tympanitis; flatulent colic.

Rectum and Anus.

• The interior of the anus studded with itching eminences, as

from corrugation without contraction ; a kind of haemorrhoidal tumor. Slight pains in the lower intestines, rectum and anus. ° Hmmorr holds, with itching and burning in the tumors. ° Pruritus ani (used as a wash).

Urinary Organs. Unusual and increased desire to evacuate the bladder.

• Copious discharge of clear, light-colored urine, with rumbling, griping pains in the abdomen, (p.)

• Painful cutting, and feeling of strangulation at the neck of

the bladder while urinating, lasting a long time after, (p.) Urine scanty and red. {s.)

Increased flow of urine, with irritation in neck of bladder and urethra.

Pain in sacrum and bladder not relieved by copious urination.

0 Stranguary. 0 Dysuria.

Generative Organs.

Male. — Pains in left spermatic cord and testicle, with soreness in the testicle; followed by darting pains in right cord and testicle (constant symptom). {Dr. Paine.)

When voiding urine, pain and burning in prostate gland.

Itching about glans penis and orifice of urethra, and constant

desire to urinate. Pulsative pain in prostate gland, extending along the urethra. Female. — Warmth, and a peculiar tingling sensation in the

whole system.

• Aching pains in the hips and loins, and a sensation of weight and tension within the pelvis.

0 Arnenorrhom; many cases, cured by doses of 1 3 of the tincture three times a day. [Eberle.)

° Delaying menses — six or seven days— with distress and pain, cured by five drop doses every four hours. {Dr. Small.) Larnyx and Trachea.

Dry cough, excited by tickling under upper part of the sternum, with dryness in the larynx.

Chest and Heart.

Heavy beating of the heart and carotids, with pain under right scapula.

Sharp, shooting pains in region of the heart, extending through to left shoulder blade.

Back and Neck. Severe lameness of the muscles of the left side of the neck, extending to the shoulder and rendering movement painful. Extremities.

Burning and tingling in the whole body, more in the legs, feet, and forearms.

Great heat and burning of the feet, continuing one and a half

hours, and then suddenly becoming uncomfortably cold. Darting pains through the extremities and the small joints.

Skin.

A scarlet eruption about three inches wide (like zona), around

the waist, attended with itching, burning, and pain. It acts as a rubefacient, when topically applied.

Fever.

Alternate chills and heat.

Sleep.

Restless sleep, with unpleasant, laborious and fatiguing dreams, and waking unrefreshed.

Generalities.

Slight vertiginous feeling passing over the head, followed in a

short time by a sensation in the arms and legs as of galvanic shocks.

Pulsation and intermitting pains (in shoulders, lumbar

region, hypogastric region, small joints, etc.) The pains move from place to place.

The pains reminded the prover of electrical movement, or the

flashes of aurora borealis. A peculiar sensation of tingling and warmth in the whole

body, even to the fingers and toes. ° Has a great reputation in domestic practice, as a fomentation

in all internal inflammations. ° Sprains, bruises, and lameness therefrom (locally applied). ° Chronic erysipelatous inflammations (as a wash). ° Old and indolent ulcers (as a wash).

° Epilepsy r, " A protracted case of epilepsy cured by the extract." {B. L. Hill.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This species, commonly known as Smart-weed, from its peppery, pungent taste, is quite popular as a domestic remedy in all parts of the United States.

Applied externally, it causes a gentle stimulation of the skin, not as severe as that of Mustard, but enough to produce an erythema of the surface, if applied for a long time.

This action on the skin is taken advantage of in cases of internal pain, cramp, etc., and the application of the leaves of Smartweed, saturated with hot water, is quite generally resorted to in such cases. You will find it difficult to prevent nurses, and your patients generally, especially in the country, from using these applications; and I see no reason why you should oppose their use, nor the use of Mustard, for they often do good and can do no harm, and the idea that they interfere with the action of our medicines, even in the highest potencies, cannot now with reason be urged against them.

We have extended provings of the Polygonum, made by some of the best physicians of our school.

These provings go to show that its sphere of action is on the mucous surfaces, the nervous system, and fibrous tissues.

Perhaps the disorder for which it is most popular is colic. The provings give a very good picture of flatulent colic.

Dr. W. E. Payne says :

That in the only instance where an opportunity was offered for testing the truth of either of the therapeutic indications above deduced from the provings of the Polygonum, there was cutting, lancinating, griping pains, with great rumbling, as if the whole intestinal contents were in a fluid state and in violent commotion ; the movement proceeding from below upwards, producing nausea and disposition to vomit, with liquid faeces, which were discharged with considerable force, together with pain in the loins.

This case, in both its symptomatic and pathologic manifestations, was an exact representation, an exact counterpart of the abdominal affection as it appeared in the above proving. The Polygonum, therefore, was selected as the remedy. Two teaspoonfuls were taken at once, of a mixture of fifteen drops of the tincture to eight ounces of water. A sensation of warmth diffused itself

throughout the abdomen, with immediate diminution of the symptoms, and at the expiration of about an hour the whole disease had disappeared, except soreness on pressure, which gradually passed away.

A fomentation of the leaves, or the application of the tincture to the abdomen, doubtless aids in removing the severe pains of enteralgia.

The provers were all men ; but a large amount of clinical experience has been obtained which seems to prove that it acts somewhat like Pulsatilla in diseases of women.

Drs. Tully, Eberle, Wood, and others, class it among the emmenagogues. Dr. Eberle states that it causes the following symptoms : “ Warmth, and a peculiar tingling sensation throughout the whole system ; in most instances, slight aching pains in the hips and loins ; a sense of weight and tension within the pelvis.” He states that he has used it in about twenty cases of amenorrhoea, and says : “ I can affirm that with no other remedy or mode of treatment have I been so successful as with this. I have seldom found it necessary to continue its use for more than six or seven days before its emmenagogue powers were manifested.” He says that those to whom he has recommended it found it effectual. He used it in the form of a saturated tincture, in doses of a teaspoonful three times a day. The warm infusion is used successfully in domestic practice — a wineglassful every few hours. I have known this simple treatment to prove effectual after all the tried remedies had failed.