American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

It will quickly overcome the jaundice of childhood and infancy, and
especially sure in the jaundice of the pregnant term. It is an excellent
remedy for malarial conditions with atonicity of the stomach and
intestinal apparatus. It can be given during the chill and fever, and it
assists greatly in the relief of both. The agent may be pushed to the
maximum dose and given with full confidence when indicated, as it is
absolutely certain in its action. It is sometimes best given in infusion.
Dr. Fearn claimed to have early made the discovery of the use of
chionanthus in reducing the quantity of sugar in the urine. Patients with
no appetite, losing flesh, listless, increasingly anemic with a little sugar
in the urine were those to whom he first gave it, ten drops four times a
day. Later he used it in severe cases of diabetes mellitus. Dr. A. P. Hauss,
of New Albany, Ind., has had many years' experience in the observation of
this remedy in the treatment of this disease. He has much confidence in
it.
Dr. Halbert of Nashville confirms this influence.
Probably in those cases in which this remedy is beneficial in diabetes
there is functional disease of the liver.
Whether the remedy would be equally beneficial in cases in which no
liver fault could be diagnosed, might be questionable, and yet Hauss,
says that he has never treated a case of diabetes mellitus along the lines
indicated that has not yielded to this treatment. He prescribes from ten to
fifteen drop doses of chionanthus, four times daily. If no febrile condition
is present or if there is general atonicity, with nervous depression, he
adds from one-half to one drop of nux vomica. He has the patient drink
from one to two pints of hot water each morning, before breakfast, to
which he adds a small teaspoonful of the sulphate of magnesium, or in
preference one-half wine glass of French Lick Pluto water in a pint of hot
water. This treatment, with proper dietary, he claims, has a rapid effect
upon the glycosuria, immediately reducing the specific gravity of the
urine.
The agent is beneficial in chronic splenitis, pancreatic disease and
disease of the other glandular organs; also in the incipient stages of
nephritis. In the line of its symptomatology, it is an exceedingly
satisfactory remedy. It influences the stomach in the process of digestion;
it exerts a beneficial, stimulating effect upon the entire glandular
apparatus.
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 120