Myosotis symphytifolia

Volume I — Appendix

Description. — It belongs to the Myosotis family, and resembles the M. Arvensis somewhat. The plant grows in low, marshy grounds, also in high ground among the trees, and on the hill-sides in rich ground. The stalks grow from one to two feet high, either single or in bushes of from five to six. The leaves are lanceolate, not slim ; distinct median vein ; smaller veins, running out to near the edge of the leaf, and branching from the median alternately, not anastomosing. Both sides of the leaf are hairy. Flowers are small, whitish, or tinged faintly red or blue.

The root is at the largest parts hollow, the pith seemingly having rotted ; the smaller ones are woody and tortuous.

Preparation. — Tincture of the root.

(No Provings.) ° Cough, with purulent expectoration.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

Dr. M. Funk, to whom belongs the credit of discovering and introducing this plant to our Materia Medica, gives it this name, and, for the present, we shall recognize it as a new species of the Myosotis. Dr. Funk writes:

The plant grows in low, marshy grounds, and also on high ground among the trees, and on the hillsides on rich ground. The stalks grow from one to two and a half feet high, either single or in bushes of from five to six.

The leaves are lanceolate, not slim ; distinct median vein ; smaller veins running out to near the edge of the leaf and branching from the median alternately, not anastomosing ; both sides of leaf hairy.

Flowers grow on branching stems at top of stalk in small clusters, are very small, are whitish, or tinged with a faint red or blue shade. (A closer description I cannot give you from the dried specimen in my possession.)

The seeds are perfect globules, and covered with stiff hair, or almost prickles.

The root is at largest parts hollow, the pith seemingly having rotted ; smaller ones woody and tortuous.

Dr. Delamater writes of it in “ American Homoeopathic Observer ” as follows :

I have submitted a specimen to several distinguished botanists, among them Professor Babcock, of this city, who says it evidently belongs to the Myosotis family, and resembles the Arvensis more closely than any other, but the leaves are altogether too large for it ; and he does not want to give an opinion without further investigation.

Professor Hale thinks that it belongs to the Myosotis family, and that it is the Arvensis, the large leaf owing to the rich ground from which it was taken. It may be a hybrid or cross, being changed, as we know many plants are, by locality, and by uniting or marrying (as it were) with some other plants of the same family growing in their near vicinity ; or what I think is more likely, is an example of the well-known fact, that some plants, on changing localities, tend to form new varieties from causes not accounted for as yet.

I will give Dr. Funk’s own report of his discovery and clinical experience :

During the winter of 1871-2 I was (in Evansville) called to a sick boy. On this occasion I saw a few dried roots lying upon the table, and upon my inquiring thereabout, the father of the patient, Mr. Graupner, informed me that he had gathered these roots two years ago in the woods near Evansville. He had learned the use of this really precious remedy many years ago in Germany from an old woman who had saved many human lives thereby, and also his own, after several skilful physicians had given him up and predicted his certain death within twenty-four hours.

He had been suffering over two months with a severe attack of pneumonia ; had been bled, blistered, nauseated, narcotized, purged, and tormented in every possible way. He had coughed and expectorated such immense quantities of mucus and corruption that he was reduced to a skeleton, and was unable to find a minute’s rest either day or night. His parents had then called an old woman, who had the reputation of having cured many such desperate pneumonias and pleurisies by a certain root. She had brought a quantity of this root, which was to be powdered, mixed with honey, and with unsalted butter, to be fried in a pan over the fire. This paste had to be eaten with a spoon. By following these directions, the patient’s cough had within twenty-four hours nearly disappeared, and in a remarkably short time he had fully recovered. He is now a healthy and robust man.

Of course I was anxious to learn the name of this precious root. He called it “ Schwarzwurz ” (black-root), and his description of the plant convinced me, beyond doubt, that it was nothing else but our “ Symphytum officinale/’ of which, however, we knew heretofore nothing more than its value for bone fractures.

After Mr. Graupner’s emigration to Evansville, Indiana, he soon searched the surrounding forests for the “black-root,” and imagined he had found it. He said he would never be without it ; and he had with this American root already cured several just as desperate cases as his own, and many others in the old country. Only about two weeks before he had given to an old lady, suffering

with consequences of badly-treated pleurisy, nearly the whole balance of his supply of “ Schwarzwurz,” and only the few I saw upon the table were left to him. He willingly divided this little balance with me, which, as he suggested, would be by far insufficient for another case ; but as I was convinced in my mind that only a truly homoeopathic remedy could have such wonderful effects, and that such a one would do the same service in small homoeopathic doses, and without the admixture of honey and butter, therefore I prepared this root partly in a decimal and centesimal trituration, and partly with alcohol and water in a tincture. I used this preparation in given cases, in doses of one drop or one grain, and checked thereby several times the most copious mucous expectoration of phthisical patients within twenty-four hours, after Stannum, Ipecac., and many other of the indicated remedies had utterly failed.

Dr. E. J. Ehrmann, to whom I communicated my experiences and gave some of the trituration, found the remedy equally effectual in many such cases. I will, however, by no means insist that I have thereby permanently cured cases of phthisis pituitosa of many years’ standing, but I have very materially relieved them, and further experiments must teach us what we can expect from the remedy in such cases.

The following spring I requested Mr. Graupner to show me the place where he gathered the “black-root;” but I saw at once that only the large lanceolate leaves of the plant resembled those of the Symphytum officinale ; but the flowers are entirely different, and resemble those of the “ Vergissmannicht” (Forget-menot, Myosotis palustris) ; they are, however, far smaller and less beautiful in shape and color than that. But the characteristic of the genus Myosotis is unquestionable ; the name of this particular species I have heretofore not ascertained.

I have prepared a tincture of the fresh root, and have hesitated heretofore to introduce the new remedy to the profession, because I wished to try it first in some desperate case, so that I could refer to my own practical experience. This I am now enabled to do.

One case of neglected pneumonia (a young man of about twenty years of age, William King), in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, I cured last winter. The patient was without medical attendance until he was nearly dying from the copious expectoration, which was perfectly relieved within two days by grain doses of the first centesimal trituration of Myosotis.

The other case occurred with me in the beginning of the past month (October). A boy, William Downey, about fifteen years old, whom I had cured of typhus abdominalis by the usual remedies (chiefly Rhus and Bry.), relapsed after going several days to school (probably in consequence of intemperate eating), and lingered nearly three weeks, getting weaker and poorer from day to day ; a very troublesome cough, sometimes dry, sometimes with scanty expectoration, wasted rapidly his life-powers away; profuse day and night sweats hastened the dissolution ; the eyes and cheeks were sunken ; nose pointed and whitish — a fair specimen of facies hippocratica, and for the indication of the last resort — Carbo veg., which, however, proved ineffectual, like all other previously applied remedies. The patient’s mother and sisters were fully prepared for his death ; and more for a hopeless experiment (since the expectoration was not copious) than with the real

hope of success, I administered the Tincture of myosotis, five drops every two hours.

The following morning I was prepared to find him dead. But lo ! what a wonderful change had taken place ! With bright eyes and smiling face he welcomed me ; the cough had nearly abandoned him, appetite had returned, so that I had no need to give a good prognosis — this had given itself! Within four or five days the profuse sweats gradually abandoned him, and within one week recovery was perfect! and I hesitate no longer to recommend this valuable new acquisition to our professional brethren, for which purpose the present meeting of the Indiana Institute of Homoeopathy offers the most appropriate opportunity.

Both Dr. Delamater, my associate, and myself have used it, but not with as brilliant results as Dr. Funk. The only published verification is by Dr. Cushing, in the “American Observer” for 1874, which I give you in full. He says :

Let me say a word for Myosotis in the East. In July, 1873, I was called to see

Miss - , aged about thirty. Found her sick in bed ; said she was tired out

from hard work in a shop ; was emaciated, feverish, sunken cheeks, pale face, glassy eyes, quick pulse, bad cough, profuse expectoration of large grayish lumps, looking much like small oysters ; loud mucous rattling ; gurgling in both lungs ; no appetite, and some diarrhoea.

Father died of consumption ; brothers, sisters, and mother are tall, slim, and feeble-looking. Diagnosis : consumption. Prognosis : death. After two months’ treatment she was able to walk around the streets. During the fall and winter the skin on her face and hands turned dark brown and thick, and looked like fishskin without scales. In February, 1874, the skin had, without external applications, assumed nearly its natural appearance, and she was seized with convulsions, several in twenty -four hours — continuing for several days, very like puerperal convulsions. Another prognosis of death.

After this she improved somewhat, when she became insane, in May, without any apparent cause. She was God — all the God there was. She had died, been in her grave till she stank, then went to the third sphere, and had now returned, etc. Then she took a notion to drown herself ; was quite violent at times, although greatly emaciated and feeble. After two weeks she became quite simple, then was better ; still the same old cough followed her.

I had given a number of remedies, but more of Calcarea phos. than any other remedy. When I received pure Myosotis tincture, I began to give her the first decimal attenuation, at first, night and morning (as she did not like to change the method of taking her medicine), but after two weeks gave it her oftener, and I am happy to say that her cough is better, appetite improving, is gaining flesh, and looking and feeling better.

Another symptom I forgot to mention, — she has been unable to smell or taste anything for five years ; but now, since taking the Myosotis, she can taste and smell quite well. She has not menstruated for two years, and I am waiting for that to return and complete the cure.