Epigea repens

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

{Trailing Arbutus.)

Description. — This plant belongs to the Heath family. It is common to New England. A prostrate or trailing plant, bristly with rusty hairs, with evergreen and reticulate, rounded and heart-shaped alternate leaves, on slender petioles, with rose-colored flowers, in small axillary clusters. It grows in sandy woods, sometimes in rocky soil, especially in the shade of pines. The flowers appear in early spring, even under light snow, and exhale a rich, spicy fragrance.

Officinal Prepakations. — Tincture of the root and leaves.

Analogues. — Uva Ursi, Eupatorium purp., etc.

No provings.

Burning in neck of bladder when urinating.

Tenesmus of the bladder; after urinating.

Increased flow of pale, limpid urine.

° Urine with bloody sediment.

° Urine containing mucus and pus.

• Discharge of small brown particles resembling fine sand.

0 Dysuria, from various causes.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

This beautiful plant, the trailing Arbutus, around which clusters so much poetry and sentiment, has been used for very non-poetic purposes. Medicinally, it is an analogue of Uva ursi, Mitchella, Chimaphila, Cannabis, and others of that class. No provings have been made of it, but it has been used ever since the settlement of this country as a popular remedy in renal calculi , or those conditions supposed to arise from the presence of “gravel.” It has been successful in the removal of dysuria and strangury as well as urinary tenesmus. It seems best adapted to the uric acid calculi. I once used it in a case of that nature; the urine had a bloody, muco-purulent sediment, and there was intense dysuria. After taking the tincture in ten-drop doses, six times a day, a copious deposit of fine brown sand (uric acid crystals) was observed, followed by amelioration of all the urinary troubles.