Eryngium aquaticum

Volume I — Special Symptomatology

(Button Snake Root.)

Description. — This singular looking plant reminds one of an Endogen. The leaves are one or two feet long by half-an-inch to an inch wide, broadly linear, parallel-veined, taper pointed, grass-like, ciliate, with remote, soft spines. The flowers are disposed in a globular head, often over an inch in diameter. It grows in damp places, not in water, and is common on prairies. The root is dark brown, very knotty, rhizoma wrinkled horizontally, fibres of the same color, growing downward. Internally, it is yellowish-white, with an odor somewhat resembling Iris v., and a sweetish, aromatic taste, like Aralia rac, succeeded by a bitterness and a pungency affecting the fauces. Dr. Tully says the taste resembles that of Senega.

Officinal, Preparations. — (1) Tincture of root; dilutions; (2) Triturations of the dried root

Analogues. — Asclepias tuberosa, Copaiva, G elseminum, Hepar Sulphur, Kali bichromicum, Lachesis, Senega, Spongia, Senecio, Sepia.

Mental Sphere. Unable to concentrate his thoughts. Depressed in spirits.

Head.

Vertigo, after dinner.

Dull, heavy pains in the temporal bones.

Dull, dragging pain in the occiput.

Shooting pains in the coronary region.

Frontal headache of a dull, aching character.

Expanding sensation in frontal region, over the eyes, with

dimness of sight. Pain in the occiput, extending into the eyes, and into the

neck, and down between the shoulders. Scalp sore on pressure, and pains on combing the hair.

Eyes.

Irritated by strong light, producing a smarting, burning sensation.

Eyes congested, with heavy aching, and dull expression. Severe pains over left eye, of a tearing, burning character. 0 Violent ophthalmia in a scrofulous patient.

Ears.

Burning, tearing pain, as if they were being torn from the head.

Mouth and Throat. Tongue and fauces very dry, with insipid taste, thick, tenacious, yellowish-colored mucus in the morning. Smarting, burning pain; raw, smarting pain on left side. Sensation as if a lump was in the throat. Can not bear the clothing close around the throat. 0 Chronic laryngitis.

Stomach.

Slight nausea, with drawing, cramping pains.

Hot, burning pains extending up the oesophagus.

Heavy, dragging pain, with a feeling of emptiness.

Nausea and retching, with inclination to stool.

0 Spitting up of bright arterial blood, mixed with black clots,

with burning in the epigastrium, after a blow on the

stomach. {Dr. Gushing.)

Abdomen.

Severe pain in the left groin, passing down into the left testicle.

Severe colic-like pains in small intestines.

Sharp, piercing pains in the bowels, in the morning, with bloated sensation and heaviness in abdomen, and soreness on pressure.

0 Haemorrhoids and prolapsus ani.

Stool.

Dark leaden color, dry and very hard. Tenesmus at stool, with a sensation of cutting. ° Mucous diarrhoea of children.

Urine.

Frequent desire to urinate, after evacuation of the bladder, with continued dripping for a few moments after urinating.

Urine decreased in quantity and darker at night. Urine deposits a white flocculent matter, s. g. 1016. ° Dropsy, of an asthenic character.

Generative Organs. Stinging, burning sensation in the urethra, behind the glanspenis, during urination. Severe pain in left testicle, worse on exercise. 0 Gonorrhoea, with painful erections. 0 Gleet. ° Emissions at night, with erections, with great lassitude and

depression. Depression of the virile force. ° Leucorrhoea.

Larynx.

Smarting in larynx and bronchii; slight dyspnoea. Respirations rather shorter than normal. ° Cough, with sensation of constriction in the throat. ° Laryngeal irritations; short, hacking cough.

Neck.

Rheumatic pains in the posterior portions.

Back and Shoulders. Dull, dragging pains in the lumbar region. Rheumatic pains in the left shoulder.

Volume II — Special Therapeutics

throat and larynx, with constant, irritating cough, and expectoration of tenacious yellow mucus. This confirms Dr. Morgan’s experience reported in my previous volumes.

It ought to prove curative in catarrh of the stomach, a disorder with which its symptoms and genius correspond.

Dr. Cushing reported a case of haematemesis — following a blow on the epigastrium — which he thinks he cured with Eryngium, but I can see no special indications for its use in such cases, and would prefer to rely on Arnica or Sulphuric acid, which experience has found so useful.

Dr. Morgan says he has used it with success in the mucous diarrhoeas of children, which I do not doubt.

He also says : “ In leucorrhoea and gonorrhoea it has a specific influence. It certainly does act on the virile force, suppressing it, as several instances have proved to my satisfaction.”

This allusion leads me to refer to a proving of Eryngium maritimum, by J. B. Ivatts, of Dublin, Ireland, found in the “American Observer,” vol. x, p. 164, in which he refers to the medical history and popular beliefs concerning that species. The general reputation of the Sea-holly is that of an aphrodisiac, or an excitant of venereal desires. It is singular that opposite properties are alleged of two species of the same genus. But this is not so strange as giving opposite qualities to the same plant ; which, however, can be explained by the doctrine of primary and secondary effects, and in no other way.

Mr. Ivatts’s provings show a decided similarity in the two species of Eryngium. He got similar laryngeal symptoms and urinary aberrations. To his surprise — knowing the popular reputation of the plant — he got “great insensibility of the glans corona, with absence of all desire for coition for several days ; the power of erection seemed gone.” This shows the double action of the drug. He thinks it the secondary action, which is quite probable. The alleged curative powers, as recorded by old English herbalists, accord with the reputation of our indigenous species among the common people.

King, in his “ Eclectic Dispensatory,” says a few grains of the root, taken several times a day, will cure hemorrhoids and prolapsus ani but we have no clinical confirmation of it.

The two cases of spermatorrhoea recorded in Hill and Hunt’s “ Surgery,” cured by Eryngium, influenced many to use it in that complaint, but the success attending its use was meagre. It may be applicable to some cases, but we have not yet any definite characteristic indications.

I would recommend a trial of it in those cases of gleet which recur after every exposure to cold, and as a result of catarrhal affections.

While this edition is going through the press, Dr. I. J. Whitfield, of Grand Rapids, sent me his experience with Eryngium in renal calculi.

The first case in which I used Eryngium aquat. was in that of a married lady, twenty-eight years of age, a fleshy blonde. She had suffered from renal colic since seven years of age, with intervals of freedom from attacks, though rarely reaching beyond a year at a time, and often for years having them from once in two or three months to one a month ; latterly, for a long time averaging one in three weeks, and at the last every week, so that her life was one of suffering in the extreme.

The most heroic treatment was necessarily resorted to for the relief of pain, such as Chloroform, subcutaneous injections of Morphia, with large doses of Gelseminum, sometimes Atropia instead of Gels.

The difficulty was confined to the left kidney. The attacks usually gave way suddenly, preceded by a gush of water (urine). I had gone over the ground with remedies recommended in such cases during the year this patient was under my treatment. Noticing the statement that Eryngium was particularly useful in affections of mucous membranes, with an apparent affinity to the left side, and my patient’s bladder symptoms corresponding to those given by Hale in the third edition of “ New Remedies,” also covering the abdominal symptoms, I decided to give this remedy. I accordingly gave it in first dilution, teaspoonful doses three times a day. Within three weeks after beginning its use, one very severe attack came on that proved to be the last. My next visit was to look after vesical tenesmus, persistent and severe ; but on my arrival it had suddenly ceased, at the expulsion of a large calculi, about the size of an ordinary hazelnut, irregularly dark and rough. I continued the remedy for several months after this last attack. The cure seems to be complete at this date, some eighteen months.

The second case was under treatment at the same time the lady was, so that as soon as her case terminated I put this case on the same remedy.

My second case was a thickset, fleshy man, about forty years of age, mail agent on railroad. He first came to me suffering from stricture of urethra, at which time I learned that at times he suffered terribly from attacks of what he called bilious colic, so named by his physicians also. He was under my care but a short time for stricture before he fell into the hands of another physician, who treated him for a year or more for the same difficulty without much if any relief. On his

return to me He informed me that his colic attacks were more frequent and more severe, if possible, and that he feared he should die in some of them yet, unless I could do something to cure him. He was now looking very miserable indeed. I entered upon an investigation of his case, and soon became satisfied that his was renal colic also. Although this man had had gonorrhoea, I now mistrusted that his stricture was spasmodic. After a useless treatment of one or two months I put him, as before said, upon the Eryngium, as in the first case. He visited me twice after the first presentation for a renewal of the medicine. If my memory serves me rightly, he never had another attack after beginning the use of the Eryngium. At his last call he considered himself a new man ; never felt better in his life. I am hoping that he will have another attack, so that I may see him again, as he has forgotten to pay the bill.

My third case, an old lady of fifty-five; very fleshy. Hers was an acute attack ; but before seeing her I treated her for cystitis some three weeks, as I supposed, with but little relief from bladder symptoms. Upon making a visit to her house I found unmistakable evidence of gravel. She was suffering from constant tenesmus, vesical, accompanied with a severe pain in the left kidney, with great tenderness over that region, extending down the ureter into the bladder. She was unable to lie down. Eryngium cured her in a -week or ten days. A calculi was expelled, but lost, so that I never saw it. Some ten months have passed and the case remains well.