American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy

Specific Symptomatology—This agent acts directly upon irritation
in the chest, especially when complicated with irritation of the nerve
centers.
Pain beneath the scapulae extending to the occiput, sharp pain with
soreness above the scapulae, or in the shoulders, especially indicate
Sticta.
As given by Felter and Lloyd in the American Dispensatory, the
indications are as follows: Pain in the shoulders or in the back of the
neck extending to the occiput, soreness or dull pain in the chest, or in
the extrinsic respiratory muscles, which is increased by deep breathing.
Irritation at the base of the brain, or in those organs or parts supplied by
the pneumogastric nerve. Irritative cough; cough persistent and dry, of a
rasping or wheezing character; short, sharp, hacking cough, with quick
darting pains in the chest walls. They also advise it in the treatment of
rheumatism, which involves the muscles and smaller joints. It may be
given in hay fever, where the headache is severe, and in catarrhal
disorders, where there is frontal tension, with sneezing, coryza and
conjunctivitis.
It is given in the exhaustive cough of phthisis, bronchitis, and laryngitis.
It relieves the cough and irritation in these cases and controls hectic
fever, chills and night sweats.
Therapy—In coughs of acute bronchitis, with the indications named, it is
useful; in cough, with wheezing and tightness—asthmatic cough, with
the characteristic quick, sharp pains, it. is indicated. It also influences
directly the post-nasal mucosa.
It is valuable in some forms of catarrh, especially if there is reflex
irritation. It has been used in whooping-cough and in croupal coughs.
Sticta has been suggested in rheumatism where the muscles of the chest
are involved, where there is sharp, quick pain on respiration or where the
muscles of the shoulder are sore and tender, where the muscles of the
neck are involved.
The remedy has been used in scarlet fever to good advantage, but we
have no specific directions for its administration in these cases beyond
those named.
Ellingwood’s American Materia Medica, Therapeutics and Pharmacognosy - Page 413