Oenothera

ŒNOTHERA.

Œnothera biennis, L.

Natural order , Onagraceæ.

Common name , Large evening primrose.

Preparation , Tincture.

Authority.

T. Riker Nute, M.D., U. S. Med. and Surg. Journal, 9, 395; 1 , a woman, aged forty, took a teaspoonful of fluid extract for relief of a wearisome feeling of mental and physical oppression; 2 , same, subsequently took 30 drops.

HEAD

• Light-headed, 1.

STOOL AND URINARY ORGANS

• Pressing desire to evacuate the bowels, and a copious, but apparently consistent and natural stool promptly thrown off, without exciting pain or requiring muscular effort; about three hours later another copious discharge of the bowels, and still another after midnight, 1.
• With the appearance of a warm perspiration upon the surface of every part of my person came an urgent desire to void urine. Passed without seeming effort a large quantity of light-colored, bland, and unirritating urine; about an hour later again passed water freely; again after about two hours had a free discharge of urine; and again at 9 o'clock and after midnight.

GENERALITIES

• At first, the exhilarating effects of the remedy seemed salutary, and promised a speedy removal of these annoying sensations (a wearisome feeling of mental and physical oppression, which, while it continues, quite disqualifies me for both thought and muscular exertion); but in less than half an hour it became painfully evident that I had, in my perhaps morbidly sensitive state of nerve, taken an overdose of it; for, so far from accomplishing the object for which I administered it, it appeared to aggravate every symptom of the functional disturbance I had previously experienced. The feeling of oppression about the brain early gave place to a violent vertigo, which was attended with such a swimming sensation and loss of muscular power as deprived me of the ability to walk, to stand or sit, or even to utter a loud word. There being no one in my chamber, to which I had previously retired, from whom I could obtain aid, and being persuaded that I should ere long fall from my chair headlong upon the floor if I remained where I was, I resolved to make an attempt to reach my bed. By the support of objects in my course, I succeeded in making my way in safety to the foot of the latter, and from there along its side till I had gained a central point thereof, from which I threw myself upon it, a feat which was achieved with no inconsiderable difficulty and danger, in my extremity, of a disastrous fall. There, I remember, I was wellnigh driven mad by a feeling of numbness, attended by a pricking sensation in almost every part of the surface of my body, accompanied by severe rigors and occasional cramps in the muscles of the extremities and abdomen, together with a wringing-twisting pain beneath the umbilicus. I felt that I must be covered over, have some one to rub me and give me a warm drink, or I should surely die; and, after making many ineffectual efforts by my voice, which refused to do my bidding, to attract the attention of some member of the family on the floor below me, I determined on going to them, as best I might, absurd as was the thought. I worked myself off of my bed on to the floor, and upon my hands and knees gradually crawled out of the room and along the hall leading therefrom as far as the head of the stairs, with the intention of sliding feet foremost down the flight, and, in a similar manner, make my way through the hall of the first floor up to the door of the room then occupied by the family, where, in some way, I thought I might, perchance, succeed in making my deplorable condition known to them, and die, if die I must, in their presence. But on reaching the head of the stairs, my courage, though stimulated by a feeling of desperation known only to a person similarly circumstanced, failed me, and, abandoning the formidable, not to say hazardous, undertaking, I turned me about and crept back into the room I had deserted, got hold of the side of my bed, and after a series of desperate efforts, succeeded in lifting myself up, and again toppled over upon it, where I lay half unconscious until the servant chanced to come into the room, and apprised the family of my perilous condition. I had then lost power to raise my eyelids, to lift my head, to move, to think, to speak, and, as it appeared to me, to long exist, so complete was the exhaustion of all the vital forces of my organism; and yet I was conscious, I remember, of a slight mitigation of the cerebral oppression which had for the last two hours held me spellbound, and of a corresponding restoration of the functions of reason and judgment, .