American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

to those cases where debility or a feeble vital power, as in delicate
females and poorly nourished infants, is associated with congestion, as
in atonic neuralgias and spasms occurring during the period of
dentition, and in congestion of the uterus, ovaries, rectum, bowels,
stomach, or bladder in feeble subjects. It is also a remedy for pain from
determination of blood as in headache with throbbing.
An ointment made from the leaves is an efficacious application to all
kinds of ulcers.
A fomentation of the leaves and flowering tops may be applied with good
effect in inflammation of joints, and local pain in the abdomen.
Engorged conditions of the uterus are treated very successfully by four or
five-drop doses every two hours of melilotus.
MENTHA. Mentha piperita
Synonym—Peppermint.
CONSTITUENTS—
Volatile oil, resin, tannin, gum.
PREPARATIONS—
Aqua Menthae Piperitae, Peppermint Water. Dose, ad libitum.
Olium Menthae Piperitae, Oil of Peppermint. This is a volatile oil
prepared from the fresh herb by distillation with steam—a greenishyellow
liquid, having a pungent odor and taste. Dose, from one to fifteen
minims.
Physiological Action—Peppermint is a powerful diffusible stimulant,
carminative, antispasmodic, stomachic, and in the form of the volatile oil
a local anesthetic.
Specific Symptomatology—Flatulent colic, gastrodynia, nausea,
vomiting, spasmodic pain in the bowels, hiccough, palpitation from
indigestion, griping, cholera morbus, cholera infantum, spasmodic
cholera, irritability of the stomach, diarrhea with abdominal pain,
nervous headache, painful gonorrhea.
Therapy—In fevers of an inflammatory character caused by exposure to
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 301