American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

subnitrate, or the oxide of bismuth, or with a digestive if the stomach
contains food.
In those cases of atonic dyspepsia, where the entire apparatus, including
the liver, is stagnant and inoperative, one-fourth of a teaspoonful of the
fluid hydrastis or of the colorless hydrastis dissolved in water will restore
a normal condition of the glands and oil the entire mucous membranes.
The agent relieves the chronic constipation of plethora or muscular
inactivity in relaxed, inactive, feeble cases. Its influence is encouraged
by combination with nux vomica. It overcomes hepatic congestion in such
cases and catarrh of the gall ducts. It may be combined with podophyllum,
leptandra or iris.
It is a most superior remedy in the atonic conditions of these organs in
chronic alcoholism., and if combined with large doses of capsicum and
with forced nutrition, will in great part supply the demand for alcoholics
and assist in the cure of the disease. It acts as strychnine does in the
cure, and may be most beneficially given in combination with that agent.
The tonic and nerve strengthening properties of this agent have long
been utilized by the writer in all cases of general debility and nerve
prostration, especially if associated with the conditions of the digestive
and assimilative organs named. It is an admirable restorative tonic. It is
demanded in convalescence from protracted fevers and debilitating
inflammation, and as a general restorative after overwork, in the
condition known as a complete “breaking down.”
The usual manner of prescribing it is to give a grain of hydrastine, two
grains of the bisulphate of quinine, one grain of the carbonate of iron and
one-fourth of a grain of capsicum in a capsule every three hours, after
eating something simple, that the stomach may not be entirely empty.
The improvement is remarked by the patient usually from the first. It is a
simple tonic, but has no superior. In some plainly indicated cases, the
quinine salt may be replaced with one-fourth of a grain of nux vomica.
The influence of the agent is certainly direct upon the central nervous
system, promoting a normal circulation and increasing its nutrition. It
will yet be found applicable in the treatment of cerebral engorgements of
a chronic character, and in the treatment of hyperaemia of those organs,
in the cases in which ergot is used.
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 255