Nuphar luteum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Small-flowered Yellow Pond Lily.)

Botanical Description. — There are three species of the Nuphar in the United States, namely: Nuphar advena, Nuphar kalmiana, and Nuphar sagittsefolia. The first named has large, yellow flowers; the second wa8 once designated, by Smith, Torrey, and Gray, the Nuphar lutea. Smith, a botanist, quoted by Gray, says he has never seen the Nuphar lutea in the United States. Dr. Robbins, in Wood's Botany, thinks the Nuphar kalmiana wholly distinct from the Nuphar lutea or any other species.

Appended to the " proving of Nuphar luteum," * in a note by one of the editors (probably Dr. Marcy or Dr. Metcalf ), we find the following obser. vation :

"This proving is taken from the Journal de la Societe Gallicane, volume III., page 129, by Dr. Pitet, who gives no description of the plant, either botanically or otherwise. * * The species in question is the smallflowered, yellow pond lily, Nuphar luteum — not the large flowered, common yellow lily, Nuphar advena — from which, however, it is said to be difficult to distinguish it. It is quite common in the interior of the State of New York, though less frequently found than the large species. A tincture is made from the whole plant, rhizomes, flowers, leaves, and peduncles."

The identity of this plant with any species growing in the United States, is not as well established as it ought to be; but, under the circumstances, we see no better way than to consider it the same as Nuphar kalmiana, which is described as follows :

"Floating leaves, with base lobes approximate; submerged leaves, mem branous, reniform-cordate, the lobes divaricate, margin waved, apex retuse; sepals five; stigma eight: twelve-rayed, crenate, petiole slender, sub-terete; upper leaves two or three inches long, one and one-half to two and one. half inches wide ; lower leaves, three to four inches in diameter. Flowers in July.

Officinal Preparations. — Tincture of the root; dilutions. Analogues. — Anacardium, Arsenicum, Agnus castus, Baryta, Camphor (?) Conium, Gelseminum, Podophyllum, Rumex.

Head.

Pressive headache in forehead and temples, ceasing in the open air.

Dull, deep, lancinating pains behind the left frontal eminence Painful, bruising, shaking in the brain at every step, when walking.

Painful heaviness in the orbit and at the base of the brain.

Mental.

Excessive moral sensibility.

Great impatience at the slightest contradiction.

Eyes.

Dull pain and sensation of weight in the orbit. Discolored (around the eyes).

Abdomen and Stool.

Soft stool, preceded by colic.

° Diarrhoeic stools, morning and evening, preceded by ooliclike pains. Yellow diarrhoea in the morning.

Smarting and burning pains at the anus, after every stool Stitches, as from needles, in the rectum.

0 Painless morning diarrhoea. — (Dr. Petitt, seven cases, also Drs. Shipman and Barker).

Urine.

Urine deposits a copious reddish sand, which adheres to the vessel.

Generative Organs.

Male. — * Complete absence of sexual desire ; voluptuous

thoughts do not cause erection. Severe lancinations in both testicles, with pains in extremity

of penis.

° Impotency, with involuntary sexual losses — during sleep, at

stool, and when urinating. (Pettit.) 0 Spermatorrhoea, even with erections.

Skin.

Eruption resembling psoriasis, itching violently. (?)

[See Therapeutics of New Remedies.]

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

The root of the yellow Pond-lily has been used in medicine by all nations.

According to Dr. Masters, quoted by Lindley and Moore, the Nuphar lutea is a native of England. He says :

The flowers have a perfume of brandy, hence the names of brandy-bottles, applied in some countries to this plant. The root-stalks, bruised and infused in milk, are said to be destructive to cockroaches, and when burnt to be particularly obnoxious to crickets. The leaves and roots have a somewhat bitter and astringent taste. The flowers are used by the Turks in the preparation of cooling drinks, like the sherbet. The leaf-stalks are traversed by a great number of minute aircells, whose arrangement is the same in both organs. A small variety occurs in the north of Britain, also in Siberia, Canada, etc. It is sometimes considered as a distinct species, under the name of Nuphar minimus. The Nuphar kalmiana does not differ materially from this.

From the last remark it would appear that the last-named is but a variety, if it is not identical with the Nuphar lutea.

Medical History. — The ancient physicians, among them Dioscorides and Pliny, mention the depressing action of this plant on the generative functions. Among the physicians of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries it was placed among their most valuable “ antaphrodisiacs.” No reliable experiments, however, were made or placed on record, in relation to its effects on the human system, until Dr. Pitet, a homoeopathist, made a proving of the plant. This proving was made with the fourth, sixth, seventh, and eighth dilutions. Many of the symptoms elicited are characteristic, and ought to be important. Since the third edition of this work, however, I regret to record that but little clinical experience has appeared to add thereto.

The sphere of action of the Nuphar appears to be upon the intestinal canal, especially the lower portions, the generative^ organs, the cerebral nerve-centres, and perhaps the skin.

Dr. Pitet, referring to its intestinal symptoms, says :

In the chronological order of the symptoms, those which are seated in the digestive organs do not commence until a number of days after the disturbance had been manifested in the nervous functions. Their seat, so far as can now be judged, is in the lower part of the digestive canal. Thus the pains which accompany or precede the stools are principally seated in the rectum. The

appetite is not at all disturbed, still the strength is not renewed, nutrition languishes, the face becomes pale, the eyes dark-colored. The stools are sometimes soft, generally languid, yellow, most frequent between four and six o’clock p.m. It is indicated in acute or chronic cases of entero-colitis, when the aggravation takes place in the early morning, and generally in cases where there is depression of the virile functions.

Case I. — Having administered a dose of Nuphar 6, for several evenings in succession, to a patient convalescing from typhoid fever, whose feeble state was aggravated by nocturnal emissions, these latter diminished in number from the first day, and gradually disappeared.

Case II. — In another case I gave the drug to a man who for nine years had had involuntary seminal losses during sleep, at stool, and when urinating, with complete erections ; he was pale and languid, and had been treated in vain, for several months, at the Hospital St. Marguerite, by Opium, Quinquina, and the pretended tonics.

The first evening he had violent headache, accompanied by vertigo, as if from intoxication, extending into a part of the night, with soreness, nausea, epigastric pains, and bitter mouth. The next morning general bruised feeling, as if he had been beaten with a club.

There is a connection between these pains and the bruised pains produced by Nuphar in the brain and thorax, which are sensibly aggravated by the shock of every step.

During the following evenings the patient, who was taking the remedy twice a day, experienced heaviness in the head, vertigo, as if from intoxication (similar, he declared, to those he had felt while taking Opium), and bitterness in the mouth. For a month he took the Nuphar at two different times. His paleness diminished, his general weakness disappeared by degrees, and his digestvie functions took a new start. At the same time the pollutions ceased, erections came on, accompanied by a decided propensity for the generative act, and before the thirtieth day of the treatment he was able to satisfy it with success and without fatigue.

Case III. — M. B., aged twenty-eight, had had a morning diarrhoea for three months. He had to rise every morning, towards five o’clock, several times for the purpose of going to stool ; never any colic. Bryonia and Sepia did no good in a fortnight ; the diarrhoea continued of the same character, and the slightest error in diet aggravated it. Nuphar cured it rapidly. — Ibid.

Case IV. — M. Louis B., aged twenty-one, professor of literature, had scarce returned from the country, towards the end of last autumn, when he was taken with a morning diarrhoea, with colic. Between four and six A.M., he had two or three stools, and commonly one in the evening. This state had lasted eight days. After the first dose of Nuphar, taken at night, the diarrhoea ceased.

Case V. — M. L., aged forty-three, musician, had suffered three years from enterocolitis, contracted by excesses at the table, and venery, and domestic troubles. He had exhausted the resources of the old school and of quackery without benefit. When he consulted me, towards the end of last November, he presented the following case : Appetite good, sometimes excessive ; frequent regurgitations of an acrid and corrosive taste ; digestion slow ; colic and rumbling every night ;

awakened several times from five to seven, every morning, to go to stool, which was liquid or soft, yellowish, and either sour or fetid ; the least excess of any kind produced an aggravation of this state, and generally obliged him to remain in bed for a day or two (ordinarily he was enabled to attend to his affairs) ; his sleep was agitated ; heat in the palms of his hands ; frequent pulse ; at times a dull pain in the left renal region, which was sensitive to the touch. From the first doses of Nuphar he derived more benefit than he had previously experienced from any treatment, and in two months he was well. — Ibid.

Case VI. — M. L., a jeweller, aged thirty-three, had had a diarrhoea for a fortnight, which obliged him to get up several times for stool, towards five or six A.M. He had no colic, but experienced burning at the anus, together with general depression. The diarrhoea ceased from the second day. — Ibid.

Case VII. — M. B., aged thirty-seven, a wood-carver, consulted me on the twenty-seventh of last May. He had been sick for three months. His tongue was white, mouth pasty, and his stomach the seat of a painful sensation of weariness ; digestion slow. He had a wind colic, principally early in the morning, with liquid or soft, sour-smelling stool. For several years the virile functions had been badly performed ; he had tolerable frequent pollutions during sleep ; constant itching of the scrotum and perinaeum ; small desire for coitus ; infrequent and feeble erections ; the diarrhoea, colic, digestive troubles, and general weariness were aggravated on the day succeeding sexual connection. I prescribed Nuphar, and eight days after the first consultation, the patient not coming to visit me, one of his friends told me he was better. — Ibid.

Dr. Shipman, of Chicago, says he has used the Nuphar successfully for ten years in painless morning diarrhoea.

Dr. Blaikie, of Edinburgh, in his “Clinical Experience with New Remedies,” writes :

Nuphar was successful in some cases of obstinate diarrhoea, particularly when the attacks come on early in the morning, and were unattended by much pain or griping. The 2d or 3d decimal dilution seems to answer best.

The brain symptoms are peculiar, and you may find it useful in some headaches attending depressed conditions of the generative organs.

One of the provers thought it caused an eruption like psoriasis, but a careful study of the circumstances makes it doubtful.

The root of the small yellow pond lily is the one used, but the larger yellow pond lily is only a variety, and doubtless possesses similar properties.