American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

ABIES. Abies canadensis
Synonym—Hemlock spruce.
CONSTITUENTS—
Tannic acid, resin, volatile oil.
Canada pitch, or gum hemlock, is the prepared concrete juice of the
pinus canadensis. The juice exudes from the tree, and is collected by
boiling the bark in water, or boiling the hemlock knots, which are rich in
resin. It is composed of one or more resins, and a minute quantity of
volatile oil. Canada pitch of commerce is in reddish-brown, brittle masses,
of a faint odor, and slight taste.
Oil of hemlock is obtained by distilling the branches with water. It is a
volatile liquid, having a terebinthinate odor and taste.
PREPARATIONS—
Canada Pitch Plaster
Tincture of the fresh hemlock boughs
Tincture of the fresh inner bark.
Specific Medicine Pinus. Dose, from five to sixty minims.
The hemlock spruce produces three medicines; the gum, used in the form
of a plaster as a rubifacient in rheumatism and kindred complaints; the
volatile oil—oil of hemlock—or a tincture of the fresh boughs, used as a
diuretic in diseases of the urinary organs, and wherever a terebinthinate
remedy is indicated; and a tincture of the fresh inner bark, an astringent
with specific properties, used locally, and internally in catarrh.
Therapy—Gastric irritation and vomiting in cholera morbus, leucorrhea,
prolapsus uteri, chronic diarrhea and dysentery, irritation of the urinary
organs, croup, rheumatism, eczema asthenic catarrhal conditions, with
feeble digestion, and pallid mucous membranes, profuse bronchial
secretion.
A tincture from the fresh boughs, or the oil, is a diaphoretic and diuretic,
and may be employed internally, and as a medicated vapor bath in
rheumatism, pleurisy orchitis from mumps, peritonitis, and all
inflammations caused by cold. Internally it may be given in the gastric
irritation of cholera mor. bus, and -in irritation of the urinary organs. The
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 1