Barosma crenulatum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Buchu.)

Botanical Description. — It is a slender, smooth, upright, perrenial shrub, between two and three feet in height, with twiggy, somewhat angular branches, of a brownish purple color, growing in various parts of South America.

Officinal Preparation — Tincture from the leaves, with dilute alcohol.

Analogues. — Copaiva, Chimaphila, Erigeron, Terebinthina, Uva ursi.

[No proving, but its importance demands one; it would doubtless cause, secondarily, all the conditions given below. (Hale.)~\ ° Gastric catarrh, causing chronic dyspepsia. 0 Intestinal catarrh, chronic.

0 Chronic maladies of the urino-genital organs, characterized

by muco -purulent secretions. 0 Chronic inflammation of the pelvis, of the kidneys, and

mucous membranes of the bladder, attended with copious

discharge of mucus. 0 Irritable bladder, from vesical catarrh. 0 Irritable conditions of the urethra, as spasmodic stricture. c Gleet, with profuse discharge.

0 lithiasis, with increased secretion of lithic acid. (Pereira.)

0 Prostatic affections, with abnormal discharge.

0 Incontinence of urine from irritability of neck of bladder.

0 Dropsy; idiopathic anasarca.

0 Leucorrhosa, complicated with vesical diseases.

vesiculge seminales or prostate, produced by excessive venery, or self-polution. (Stille.)

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

It often happens that a drug suffers in reputation from the company it keeps. So with the Buchu. It was taken up by an unprincipled adventurer and its fair fame prostituted to the vilest purposes. Previously it had been quite largely and successfully used by the allopathic school as a remedy in abnormal discharges from the urinary organs.

Its sphere of action seems to include the kidneys and mucous surfaces of the urinary organs principally. It has also a specific action on all mucous membranes, especially when brought in contact with them topically.

We should not reject it because it lacks a proving, or because it has been improperly used.

It is in chronic diseases of the urino-genital organs, when characterized by muco-purulent discharges, that the Buchu seems to act best. I have made some notable cures of such cases when the urinary deposit showed an abundance of epithelium mixed with pus- and mucus-corpuscles.

“Chronic inflammation of the pelvis of the kidneys and mucous membrane of the bladder, with copious discharge of mucus,” is mentioned by several authors as curative by this remedy.

Irritable bladder, with vesical catarrh, or gravel ( Lithic acid calculi ), complicated with spasmodic stricture of the urethra or sphincter, has, in my practice, rapidly disappeared under the use of the Barosma.

Prostatic disorders have been cured by this remedy when the general conditions coincided (compare Populus, Copaiva, and Thuja).

Certain varieties of dropsy have been cured by Buchu, but the cases reported have not been characterized by any peculiar symptoms.

I have cured several cases of vaginal leucorrhoea with this medicine, prescribing it by enema (fl. 5j to 5iv) as well as internally.

Dr. Stille, in his “Materia Medica,” recommends it as a specific for “ undue secretion from the mucous follicles of the urethra, the vesiculse seminales, or prostate, produced by excessive venery or self-pollution.” (I have verified this several times.)

It seems to act best in the lowest dilutions, and in some cases a weak infusion cures with surprising promptness.