Cypripedium pubescens

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Lady's Slipper.)

Description. — Root fibrous and branching; stems single, a foot or more high, bearing three or four broad, ovate, rather downy, ribbed leaves, clasping the stem at the base, and one or two large flowers. These consist of two lanceolate, brown-purple sepals, and a pair of somewhat narrow, wavy petals crossing each other at right angles; from the midst of them projects a great yellow pouch or bag, resembling a moccasin, a shoe, or a slipper, as the imagination wills.

Officinal Preparations. — (1) Tincture of the root ; dilutions. (2) Cypripedin; triturations; (Tincture of the whole plant when in bloom, for future provings?)

Analogues. — Ambergris, Coca, Paullinia, Coffea, Thea, Scutellaria, Zinc, Valerian, Bromides. (Rhus?)

Mind and Brain.

Exhilarates the mind and nervous system, {primary.)

A sense of quiet, or mental lassitude, {secondary.)

Talkative, and more disposed to work. {p.)

A sense of weight and oppression on the mind, {s.)

Profound indifference to everything, even to his studies

duties, and the common courtesies of life. Inability to study, think, or listen to lectures. Feeling of intense soreness and irritation of the eyes every

evening about j#t>e o'clock. Slight disposition to drowsiness, {s.)

Slight heaviness, and fullness in the brain, with sleeplessness, (p.)

Irritable; fretful; angry at trifles; hysterical, {p.) ° Disorders of the gray -nerve matter from mental over-exertion, or reflex nervous excitement. {Paine.) "Delirium tremens, mild attacks. {JTale.) ° Mental despondency — in spermatorrhoea. {Pb.)

Sleep.

• Sleeplessness, with desire to talk, or with constant crowding

of pleasant ideas. {lb.)

• Sleeplessness, with restlessness of the body ; twitching of

the limbs. {Ib.)

Generalities.

° Hysterical complaints.

° Chorea, and reflex epilepsy.

° Functional irritation of the brain, especially in very young children, from teething, or intestinal irritation.

0 Incipient cerebral disorder, when the child is sleepless, and laughs and plays in the night.

° Jactitation and trembling in typhoid fevers.

Skin.

It has not been known heretofore that Cypripedium had any specific action on the skin, but a communication from Prof. II. H. Babcock, a scientific botanist of Chicago, would seem to show that its effects are often mistaken for Rhus poisoning. It seems strange, however, that it has not been observed before, especially in school children in

the country, who gather the flowers of the Lady's Slipper daily, during the season of flowering. I have attended Prof. Babcock several times for attacks of what was supposed to he Rhus poisoning. The symptoms were identical with those of Rhus. He says, in his letter to The Pharmacist: — " Working botanists have so often been poisoned by Rhus toxicodendron that many of them have come to regard it as their special bane. In the five seasons commencing with 1868, I was particularly care ful not to touch this poisonous plant, not to pluck i\ specimen growing in its immediate vicinity, nor to re ceive from the hands of another person a freshly-gathered plant, for fear it might have come in contact with Rhus. In spite of these precautions, in the latter part of May or first of June in each year, I was poisoned so severely aa to be confined to my room for several days. In June, 1872, after gathering many specimens of Cypripedium spectabile, I observed that my hands were stained with the purplish secretion of the glandular hairs with which its stem and leaves are densely clothed, and shortly after experienced a peculiar irritation about my eyes. The next day my whole face presented the appearance of a severe case of Rhus poisoning. On reviewing my notes of the previous years, I found that in each season the poisoning had appeared on the day after I had collected Cypripedium spectabile or C. pubescens. In 1873 and 1874, I collected more extensively than ever before, but suspecting that my previous sufferings had been caused by these two species of Cypripedium rather than the Rhus, took no unusual pains to avoid the latter, but refrained from touching either of the former with the bare hand. The result was what I had expected, for I escaped entirely the poisoning that I had begun to regard as inevitable, and am now convinced that upon myself, at least, Cypripedium spectabile and C. pubescens are capable of producing effects similar to those caused by Rhus toxicodendron. Is it not possible that others, also, have wrongly attributed to Rhus the annoyance caused by

these plants hitherto considered inoffensive? A decisive answer, either affirmative or negative, must depend upon the results of future experiment. Who will undertake it?"

In a proving by Dr. Vanderberg, he observed that " every evening, about five o'clock, the eyes became sore," i. e., were affected by sensations of itching, burning, and sore feeling, but without any apparent redness or swelling. This symptom may be corroborative of the above, for if the proving had been continued, the itching, burning, etc., might have extended to the face and body. Perhaps if the proving had been made from a tincture of the whole plant, cutaneous symptoms would have appeared.