American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

conduces to rest and sleep, and induces a general sense of improved
well-being. It is an excellent remedy with which to improve the tone and
vigor of the heart after the depressing effects of protracted fevers or
violent acute inflammation, especially of the lungs and bronchi. It is
useful also in the enfeebled heart of phthisis pulmonalis.
It is of much value in rheumatism, especially when the heart is involved.
In rheumatic carditis or pericarditis it serves a double purpose. It
strengthens and improves the tone of the heart, and favors the
elimination of morbific products which cause the inflammation. But few
remedies will act more efficiently. If there is effusion within the
pericardium its influence will be quickly observed.
To sum up the influences of convallaria: It is used to excellent advantage
in the tobacco heart from cigarette smoking; in the bicycle heart from
overstrain; in asthmatic breathing from enfeebled heart, especially in
chronic asthma. It does not, like digitalis, irritate the stomach
unpleasantly. On the contrary, it is of much service in that form of
dyspepsia in which there is extreme torpor of the stomach, with pale,
flabby mucous membranes of the mouth, broad, thick tongue, with a
heavy, dirty white coating. In conditions where the tongue is red and
thin, with elongated papillae, redness of the tip and edges, it is
contraindicated. It is contraindicated also in fatty degeneration of the
heart.
Germain-Sée mentions the following therapeutic indications:
In palpitation resulting from a state of exhaustion of the pneumogastric
nerves—cardiac paresis, the most frequent source of palpitations.
In simple cardiac arrhythmia, with or without hypertrophy of the heart,
with or without lesions of the orifices or valves of the heart.
In mitral constriction, especially when it is accompanied by failure of
compensation on the part of the left auricle and right ventricle, the
contractile force augments visibly under the convallaria, as the
sphygmograph testifies.
In mitral insufficiency, especially where there are pulmonary
congestions, and when, as a consequence, there is dyspnea, with or
without nervous trouble of the respiration.
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 152